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Showing posts with label City of Miami. Show all posts
Showing posts with label City of Miami. Show all posts

Thursday, December 5, 2019

In Miami, An Unspeakable Tragedy in a Time of Thanksgiving - South Florida suffers a grievous loss. The news about the death of young and idealistic Alejandra Agreda literally broke my heart Saturday night. @VirginTrainsMIA

In Miami, An Unspeakable Tragedy in a Time of Thanksgiving - South Florida suffers a grievous loss. The news about the death of young and idealistic Alejandra Agreda literally broke my heart Saturday night. @VirginTrainsMIA

 So now South Florida leans forward towards a 2020 that will begin with one less concerned, committed civic activist here that's ready, eager and able to make a positive difference on behalf of others in a part of America that's known for its shallowness and selfishness.



I heard from Alejandra/Bryan regularly via Twitter and received dozens and dozens of followups and DMs several times a month. Sometimes, when she was particularly vexed or exorcised about something in particular, I'd receive several of them in one day.

It's fair to say that nobody in South Florida Liked & Retweeted my tweets and blog posts more than Alejandra did, even my non-transit and non-public policy related ones.
But I think at the heart of all of her her questions, to me and to others she tweeted to and emailed,  was a curiosity on her part to understand something fundamental about South Florida.
Something that reminded me of myself when I was that age, namely, her asking me very good and pointed questions abt why SO many things in South Florida -especially regarding public transit- seem SO... perpetually counter-intuitive.

Why was it that even relatively simple things seem to take 3-4 times longer to do here in South Florida than usually seemed to be the case in most other cities in the U.S. and overseas?
Right, besides the usual issues involving corruption, incompetency, and a serious lack of necessary public/govt. oversight!

Once I finally figured out that Ale really was still just a high school student, I told her that I myself had wondered why such a high percentage of South Florida elected officials over the years weren't so much problem-solvers but rather buck-passers and problem-creators.
That I'd wondered that same thing ever since I worked so hard for so long on the Jimmy Carter and Lawton Chiles campaigns in Miami-Dade and South Florida in 1976.

 Yes, back when I was a precocious, well-read sophomore at North Miami Beach Senior High that the professional campaign staff from Washington, D.C. and the Atlanta national campaign HQ always said looked and acted like I was already in college.  Which pleased me to no end., of course.
Combined with the tons of coffee -and a never-ending supply of boxes of peanuts- that positive feedback was more than enough positivity to keep me deal with much of the drudgery in thoise pre-PC, pre-Internet days working over 7 hours a day after schol at Carter-Mondale HQ in North Miami Beach on N.E. 167th Street & NE 6th Avenue, directly behind the iconic Krispy Kreme doughnuts site there that everyone knew and depended upon, including me.

I was honest with Ale and told her I'd met lots of prominent local South Florida pols from working on the campaign and especially doing highly-visible work as part of Walter Mondale's advance team on his hectic South Florida visits from the airport to a million places in 2-3 days.
The truth was that many people whom I'd really expected to like and admire, and had from afar, via Tv or newspaper or magazine articles were, up close, unfortunately, nothing less than... truly appalling people. And dumber than rocks.
Not unlike today in South Florida, unfortunately.

She'd ask me if it'd always been that way, since she knew from what I wrote online that I knew a LOT of insider dope and had a great memory for what things were REALLY like in 1970's and '80's in South Florida, as opposed to how many in the current South South Florida news media recall it publicly. Revisionism.

She was particularly interested in how Metrorail was sold to the Dade public as a ballot issue, compared to its resulting inadequate reality for most of county, esp NE and NW Miami-dade, since she knew I'd written a lot about it and had commented on it at many places online.
Simply put, promises made, promises broken...

Alejandra's Dad Freddy's tweets, which Billy (Corben) linked to at the top, made me cry so very more than I have in quite some time. Really.

Her Dad, Freddy, sent out a very sad and upsetting note out late Saturday night, at bottom, to 
some people in South Florida involved in public policy, politics, govt. and media announcing 
that his only child, Bryan/Alejandra had committed suicide last Tuesday, and had jumped in front 
of one of the Metrorail cars she loved riding in and writing about -and criticizing.
Probably one they'd ridden in dozens and dozens of times.

The news really hit me and I cried much more than I was expecting to, as I read Freddy's note about how Bryan/Alejandra had been bullied and mistreated, which I guess I should've expected, especially
in a place as Hispanic as where we are.

And what really hits you so hard is that the last two tweets she sent right before she jumped - "i could use a hug right now"


and "bon voyage"




Wow! Me being me, a very empathetic ENFP, those tweets hit me like a ton of bricks!

Apparently Ale's father was, eventually, okay with the idea of a "transition," or, at least had reconciled himself to it, but because Ale was 17, well, obviously, there's lots of things involved that could not be done legally right now.

I wound up staying up late Saturday night/Sunday morning writing down some thoughts -some of which I've included here- and shared them with a bunch of the same people her Dad sent his original letter to who'd interacted with Alejandra.

So yeah, I've been feeling very down the last few days, not least because this news has also made me rethink of all the things I knew about someone I loved whose suicide attenpt and the ricky road afterwards, not least, because many of her friends turned their backs on her prior to that because they'd told many times that the person she was getting involved in was trouble. And was.
So, what are we left with? A bright and caring 17-year old kid who wanted Miami/South Florida to be better than it was, and who was utter fascinated by public policy and transit... commits suicide.
By jumping in front of a train she probably had ridden in at least once before.

How the hell do you even begin to make sense of that?
I can only imagine how totally devastated Alejandra's family is right now.

No need to respond to this post, I just needed to get this out of my system.

















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Alejandra's Celebration of Life / Memorial service will be held this Saturday (December 7th) at Mapsons Funeral Home, 3500 SW 8th Street, Miami, Florida.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/alejandra-agredo-miami-riders-alliance


 If you consider her ideas and value the huge amount of dedication and time she invested in building her non-profit and writing her application please donate to allow her team to keep working on it. Thank you so much for reading. Her family and those who ride trains and buses will really appreciate it. Thank you.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article237935779.html

https://twitter.com/Kounikishi/status/1200699123013435392?s=20

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2536385439750099&id=100001360044353






— RIP My Little Heart 💔 (@Kounikishi) December 5, 2019

@BillyCorben, @Kounikishi, @RidersMIA, @VirginTrainsMIA, Alejandra Agreda, Billy Corben, Brightline, City of Miami, development, Florida, Metromover, Metrorail, Miami-Dade County, Miami-Dade Metrorail, redevelopment, RidersMIA, SMART Growth, South Florida, teen suicide, transit, Tri-Rail, Twitter, transportation, Virgin Trains
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Tuesday, May 8, 2018

A Rising Tide May Lift All Boats but... the proposed Wave streetcar in downtown Fort Lauderdale is a bad idea that's the wrong plan in the wrong place at the wrong time. But will simply being a bad and impractical idea be enough for the Broward County Commission to actually kill it? The vote comes today at 2:00 PM - Time to hammer the nails in that coffin!

A Rising Tide May Lift All Boats but... the proposed Wave streetcar in downtown Fort Lauderdale is a bad idea that's the wrong plan in the wrong place at the wrong time. But will simply being a bad and impractical idea be enough for the Broward County Commission to actually kill it? The vote comes today at 2:00 PM  
Time to hammer the nails in that coffin!

Broward Beat
Ft Laud Mayor Dean Trantalis Takes Fight Against Streetcar To The County
By Buddy Nevins









I'll be writing something about these articles and what it represents over the next few days, while also finishing up my big long-promised 2018 blog post re Broward County and its longstanding, myriad transportation problems, something that I've been writing off-and-on for many months, while trying NOT to repeat what I've written in any of the DOZENS of fact-filled blog posts I've penned the past ten years about public transportation.
Posts that often caught people's fancy throughout South Florida and caused them to nod in agreement because of both my persuasive writing and institutional knowledge and memory about a lot of transit elements in South Florida that other residents either never knew about, forgot about, or took place before they moved here.
So, actual context for better understanding the current sad and sorry state of affairs.

Like the proposed Miami-Dade Metrorail Purple Line that would've connected NW Miami-Dade to Downtown Miami and the Dadeland South, which is one of the reasons that people in NW Dade voted for Metrorail in the first place -to achieve a sense of connectedness to the rest of Miami, especially its job center, government center and attractions.

To cite but one simple benefit of that Purple Line that was never built, it'd have allowed allowed Miami Dolphins football fans in South Dade as well as notoriously fickle University of Miami students to go to Dolphins and Hurricanes games via the very large University station in Coral Gables. 
No need to drive and pay for parking.   
Just as they could have done for the Marlins baseball team if it the line was up and running years ago the way it should have been, which would've made building a baseball stadium near the football stadium and thereby utilize the same great road connections the area has, including direct access to the Florida Turnpike.

It wouldn’t be the first time Miamians fell victim to a transit bait-and-switch. Miami-Dade voters in 2002 approved a half-penny transit sales tax that was supposed to pay for a massive Metrorail expansion — one new line would jut out west to Florida International University, while another would connect to the Miami Dolphins’ Sun Life Stadium.
As it turned out, county politicians had promised far more than they could ever deliver in order to win voter support. Making matters worse: a 2008 Miami Herald investigation revealed that the county frittered away much of the sales tax money on raises for the politically powerful Transport Workers Union. A wasteful hiring spree, meanwhile, awarded transit jobs to aides or relatives of at least nine local elected officials.
above from: Miami Herald
All aboard! Imaginary Purple Line created to generate interest in mass transit for Miami
By Michael Vasquez
March 08, 2013 07:50 PM
Updated March 08, 2013 09:26 PM
http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article1948039.html

 See also http://www.urbanimpactlab.com/purple-line/


But, of course, those same factual blog posts also earned me a lot of animosity from high-ranking people at local transit organizations -like the Broward MPO among others- for daring to hold a mirror up to their consistently dismal performances given the resources they command and their near-anonymous hold on power.
Trust me, there are few govt/agencies in South Florida who are more used to people telling them how wonderful they were/are than the folks at the Broward MPO.

 Which, of course, explains a lot.
The evidence of their collective failure is all around us in Broward
Their failure to take other groups, agencies and elected officials to task publicly and highlight policies and methods that are counter-productive.

 Instead, the Broward MPO is known largely by a sub-niche of people within the political power structure, and as I've tweeted about a few times over the years, is often NOT mentioned in the Miami Herald or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for years at a time. YEARS.
Despite their stranglehold on policies and seemingly endless resources.
Where's the media oversight and accountability? MIA.

 Though I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one of you reading this today to be criticized 
in public by the head of the Broward MPO after I detailed his and his agency's many failings at a Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting some years ago.
Promises, promises, but where were tangible results that Broward residents, taxpayers and Small Business owners actually wanted? MIA.

Thin-skinned Greg Stuart waited until I could no longer speak before blasting me, then obfuscated instead of simply answering the questions I posed to him because the truth was on my side, not his. As both of us knew at the time.
His aides at the time were not exactly the pick of the litter, either, considering their snide remarks at the time that showed that they were more cronies than transportation experts.

Needless to say, then-Mayor Joy Cooper -since removed from office by Gov. Scott after her arrest for numerous felonies- just chuckled from the dais, completely aware that she could prevent me from refuting what Stuart was saying, but unaware that Stuart was, in fact, making a monkey out of her and the entire Commission.
In short, he took advantage of her great ignorance and was flat-out lying to her -to her face- while he also tried to make an example out of me publicly for daring to challenge him and his band of thin-skinned bureaucrats.   

Per the article, as most of you know, I genuinely do consider Beam Furr a friend and believe he's a real role model for what a diligent, hard-working, well-informed and open-minded South Florida elected official ought to aspire to be.
But I also believe that Buddy is 100% right about what he writes here, especially about SE Broward taxpayers' collective disinterest in ponying up money for a bad idea that's the wrong plan in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 Didn't know until Monday that Broward County would have been responsible for the secretive Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority's share of possible Wave cost over-runs over DDA's agreed-upon share of $3 Million. Why was that? Whose great idea was this?  

See page 4:
I will likely be at that Broward County Comm. meeting today at 2 PM, since it could be must-see viewing in-person, as the transit and transportation industry's contractors and lobbyists have so much "riding on" The Wave, and will be happy to break the bank to turn their people out en masse and try to triangulate every county commissioner, however they can.  

But a county like Broward that's suing the state because they say they want to exert "local control" in their own area re guns, is going to have a hard time arguing the opposite POV here, and urging The Wave go forward in FTL when a majority of the elected FTL City Commission clearly don't want it.

But again, that assumes that logic and reason will plays the deciding role here in making the final decision, and I don't have to remind you where we actually live, now do I?

May 9th 615 PM Update: Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it up to Broward Govt. HQ to see this in person and speak against it because the 2 PM agenda time ended up conflicting with something I had to deal with that I had forgotten about, but I did watch the entire discussion online and was pleasantly surprised that some holdouts, i.e. supporters of The Wave, finally saw the light: #facts

I'm concerned, though, that some people on the Broward County Commission, with the same general facts, would likely have voted for it if it had been in THEIR district. 
Won't name names but it's pretty clear who they area. 
Yes, the Usual Suspects! :-(









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Sunday, February 26, 2017

#Oscars and Film Observations - Miami native and film director Barry Jenkins seeks to make history, but past year's tsunami of critical praise for his Miami-based film #Moonlight makes it clear he'll be a leading Hollywood voice for originality for decades to come; #LaLaLand

#Oscars - At Oscars 2017, Miami native and film director Barry Jenkins seeks to make history, but past year's tsunami of critical praise for his Miami-based film #Moonlight makes it clear he'll be a leading Hollywood "name" and voice for originality for decades to come

 Meanwhile, after months of critical praise for #LaLaLand -my favorite film in MANY years- that netted Damien Chazelle's ode to people dreaming of success in LA's hyper-competitive creative Biz 14 nominations, some people wonder if a backlash has emerged against it, esp. in big categories. 

 But then why would you punish someone for success that comes from it resonating with people all over the world? What's the point of THAT?
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Good advice!





























































A post shared by MOONLIGHT (@moonlightmov) on




A post shared by Barry Jenkins (@bandrybarry) on


A post shared by Barry Jenkins (@bandrybarry) on





































































Lionsgate Movies @LaLaLand La La Land (2016 Movie) Official Trailer – 'Dreamers'
#sublime













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