While alarms are sounding about reduced services and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez threatens to lay off up to 700 employees — including 250 police officers — to balance the $4.4 billion county operating budget, our commissioners will consider spending close to $100 million just today on everything from engineering to janitorial services to concerts to personal trainers. Can […]
Miami-Dade County commissioners will consider another sweetheart deal Tuesday to lease nearly four acres with a 38,000-square-foot building and a surface parking lot included — for $1 a year. This time, the land grab is not for a millionaire sports team owner. It is the City of Miami Police Department, which wants to use the property at 1701 NW 30th Ave. […]
UPDATED: Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and most of his family will not feel the pain that he wants to inflict on the rest of us in the county if and when he cuts 255 officers from the Miami-Dade Police Department. Gimenez lives on the edge of Coconut Grove, across the street from Coral Gables, at […]
You gotta give it to Daniella Levine Cava, the Democratic Party darling running in the non-partisan county commission race against incumbent Lynda Bell: She knows a good campaign issue when she sees one. And she jumped on it quick. The last meeting of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Tarnished Boy” Gimenez‘s blue ribbon task force for the […]
Problems in the procurement process at Miami-Dade County are becoming a persistent plague. We’ve had bid protests over the pizza place at Miami International Airport, the water and sewer contract, the code enforcement court deferment services, where commissioners actually asked for what amounts to a “do-over.” Commissioner Audrey Edmonson said she expects an issue in the […]
It’s that time of year again when the top county official will tell his constituency and the leaders of his realm how the municipality that is Miami-Dade is standing, what great things he’s done this past year and where he’s going if they’ll let him. Expect a lot of the same words and tired phrases […]
As I watched the Miami-Dade Commission meeting Wednesday, it sort of struck Ladra that while “we haven’t recovered completely” from the economic downturn, as Mayor Carlos Gimenez and our commissioners love to say, our county is certainly doing its part to help by being a great and avid consumer. County commissioners spent more than $60 […]
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez doesn’t only have his much-talked about five deputy mayors who, combined, make more than $1 million a year. He’s also got 12 aides, six secretaries, three assistants, three media people and one senior advisor who I think is now his chief of staff. Oh, and two student interns. No wonder Gimenez has […]
There has been much misinformation and downright hysteria about the 5% “group health care contribution” that Miami-Dade employees want to stop giving as per their contract. But very little in the way of basic truth. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Not So Golden Boy” Gimenez doesn’t want us to understand the whole picture. That’s why he goes […]
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez was painted as a liar last week at the impasse hearing. And commissioners who are likely to revisit this matter after he vetoes their 8-5 decision last week to restore the employee’s 5 % group healthcare contribution — not a pay raise, as he’s been cynically calling it on Spanish-language […]