FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

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Showing posts with label MiamiTodayNews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MiamiTodayNews. Show all posts

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Importance of public engagement & transparency in South Florida govt. policy: After DECADES of #SoFL sports fans & taxpayers getting the shaft, City of Miami Comm. Ken Russell demands MORE reform, transparency and oversight over #SoFL's crony-laden sports Establishment: Is #Broward next? Let's hope so for taxpayers' wallets and sports fans' best long-term interests, after YEARS of Broward Commission caving-in to powerful special interests -read Florida Panthers!
















Importance of public engagement & transparency in South Florida govt. policy: After DECADES of #SoFL sports fans & taxpayers getting the shaft, City of Miami Comm. Ken Russell demands MORE reform, transparency and oversight over #SoFL's crony-laden sports Establishment: Is #Broward next? Let's hope so for taxpayers' wallets and sports fans' best long-term interests, after YEARS of Broward Commission caving-in to powerful special interests -read Florida Panthers!; A reminder of what has come before...

Miami Today News
Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority losing power
Written by John Charles Robbins on February 16, 2016
Miami city commissioners have begun altering the powers of the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority, building in more oversight.
What some see as a shakeup of the 11-member authority comes on the heels of a delayed and prolonged review of a lease of prime city-owned waterfront property to a private company.
The authority leased property on the southwest corner of Watson Island as part of a plan to revive a seaplane base and heliport.

 Read the rest of the article at;
http://www.miamitodaynews.com/2016/02/16/miami-sports-exhibition-authority-losing-power/

 Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority
http://egov.ci.miami.fl.us/Legistarweb/Attachments/64346.pdf

After years of my writing/blogging/tweeting countless fact-filled emails/blog posts/tweets and attending innumerable public meetings throughout South Florida about the latest efforts by the owners and lobbyists of the Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers and Florida/Miami Marlins to improve THEIR bottom line directly via taxpayer funds or hotel tax revenue, it's great to see someone like new City of Miami District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell pushing back against the entrenched and well-heeled sports establishment that for DECADES has seen South Florida taxpayers as an obstacle to be manipulated and overcome, not a legitimate stakeholder whose interests demand respect -and first priority.





















My first Dolphin game at the Orange Bowl came in Dec. 1970, aged 9, a 45-3 win over Buffalo that propelled them into their first ever playoff appearance.
I attended 99% of every home game -preseason, regular season and playoff after that until leaving for Indiana University in August of 1979.
My first season as a Dolphins season ticket holder, at the Orange Bowl, was... the Perfect Season of 1972.





Before going to my first U-M game at the Orange Bowl in 1972, a friend's father often would bring me home an extra 'Canes game program. That's how I came to have the Alabama at U-M game program from Nov. 16, 1968, which was the first nationally-televised college football night game in color. (A 14-6 loss to the Crimson Tide.) 

 My first U-M football game at the Orange Bowl was in 1972, age 11, against Tulane in the infamous "Fifth Down" game. In order to drum up support and attendance for the U-M at the Orange Bowl, that game had a promotion whereby South Florida kids who were school safety patrols could get in for free IF they wore their sash. 
I did, driven to the game by a U-M alum who happened to be the librarian where I then went to school, Fulford Elementary, in North Miami Beach. 
Clearly they knew that it was better to let kids in for free, knowing their parents would give them money to buy food and souvenirs, perhaps even become a fan and want to return for future games. 

 The ballgame made an interesting impression on the New York Times, resulting in this gem from the "View of Sport" column of Oct, 14, 1990, labeled 'Fifth Down or Not, It's Over When It's Over.' -"
In 1972, aided by a fifth-down officiating gift in the last moments of the game, Miami of Florida defeated Tulane, 24-21. The country and the world was a much different place that fall because The New York Times took time and space to editorialize on the subject. ''Is it right for sportsmen, particularly young athletes, to be penalized or deprived of the goals for which they earnestly competed because responsible officials make mistakes? The ideal of true sportsmanship would be better served if Miami forfeited last week's game.' 

 I hardly needs to tell you that this was YET another New York Times editoral that was completely ignored!

 After that first ballgame against Tulane, as l often did for Dolphin games if my father wasn't going, I'd get dropped off at the Levitz parking lot near the 836 & I-95 Cloverleaf in NMB, and catch a Dade County Park & Ride bus, going straight to the Orange Bowl. Onboard, I'd get next to the window and listen to WIOD's pre-game show on my Radio Shack transistor radio. 
A few times, I was just about the only person onboard besides the bus driver, which was alright by me. 

 Once at the Orange Bowl, if I didn't already have a ticket, I'd buy a game program for myself and one or two for friends or teachers before heading to the ticket window, since you usually couldn't find a program vendor once inside. I probaly had a friend or my father with me for just under 40% of the U-M games I ever went to, but you have to remember that the team, though blessed with several talented players, like Chuck Foreman and Burgess Owens, was just so-so to average at best, and the games were usually played on Friday nights, so it wasn't exactly high on everyone's list of things to do. Depending upon the opponent, if I was alone, I'd often have entire areas of the Orange Bowl to myself. (Wish I had photos of that now!) 

 For instance, I had a good portion of the East (open) End Zone to myself against Oklahoma in the mid-70's, when the Boomer Schooner and the Schooner Crew went out on the field after an Oklahoma TD, and the Schooner received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from the refs, as would happen years later in an Orangle Bowl Classic game. (Against FSU?) 

 I was there for the wins and losses under Pete Elliott, Carl Selmer & Lou Saban, and the huge on-field fight in '73 when under eventual-national champion Notre Dame (under Ara Parseghian), they called a time-out with less than a minute to go, and already up 37-0. Their rationale? 
To score another TD and impress the AP football writers; final score 44-0. 
Well, they got their wish and beat Alabama 24-23 for the title at the Sugar Bowl. 

 A year later, thanks to my Mom's boss, she and I saw Ara's last game as head coach of the Irish in the Orange Bowl Game from the East End Zone -in front of the Alabama cheerleaders!!!- in an exciting 13-11 Notre Dame win over Alabama and Bear Bryant, a rematch of the '73 national title game. 

 I was also present for the U-M's huge 20-15 win under Pete Elliott against Darrel Royal's Texas Longhorns, the week Sports Illustrated's College Football preview issue came out -september 10, 1973- with Texas on the cover.
I was also present for lots of wins against schools called College of the Pacific, UNLV and Cal-Poly San Luis Obsispo, which I'd then never heard of before.

 Any reader who is new to my blog and wants to see of what I speak the past nine years here, simply do a search in the search box of this blog in the upper left corner for past posts about the ham-handed and duplicitous efforts of the Dolphins, Heat, Marlins and Panthers, esp. Dolphins owner Stephen Ross.
 
And you can also check https://twitter.com/search?q=%40hbbtruth%2C%20marlins&src=typd

Dave 

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Sunday, June 1, 2008

South Florida transit issues and govt. agencies relative usefulness

It's been mentioned more than a few times to Hallandale Beach Blog (South Beach Hoosier) by recipients of his emails, that he ought to strongly consider using parts of those past emails as building blocks to buttress certain public policy points he's tried to make in the past on the blog.

Up 'till now, I've largely resisted the urge, but today, I thought this one might actually be of enough interest to you all to make posting it worthwhile, so that you might learn what I've learned about some Florida government agencies that are part of the planning process governing transit, but which rather than taking a pro-active approach and being an example of good management -aren't.

It's an excerpt of an email to Gabriel over at Transit Miami, one of the most influential blogs in South Florida for a reason, even if I don't necessarily share their political viewpoint on an everyday basis.

But even when I disagree with what they say, there's usually something to be learned.
__________________________________________________
Dear Gabriel:

Started this email last weekend but decided to wait 'till after Memorial Day to send it along.

Earlier this week, I watched the WGN-TV noon newscast and saw their up-close camera shots of the CTA derailment the same day it happened, and also saw how damn impressive the neighborhood Chicago Fire/EMT response was -one minute.

People living in the immediate neighborhood said that in riding the El the day before the accident, the track seemed "loose" in the same exact spot as where the derailment took place. Can't vouch for whether that's a fact or someone saying something provocative to get attention.
(Temps were in the mid-50's, so unlikely a joint/heat expansion problem.)

The top CTA administrators are really angry because this is the third one since April 21st, and it occurred while the CTA is waiting to hear how much money the state legislature in Springfield is going to give the CTA.

Dave
_______________________________________________
Saturday May 30th, 2008

Dear Gabriel:

From my perspective, long story short of this latest Minneapolis Star-Tribune account of policy and process under a legal microscope after a disaster: there but for the grace of God goes the Sunshine State.

I strongly suggest you run a link to this story at your Transit Miami blog so that folks around the state, with an interest in transit and public policy, might be able to read this for themselves and imagine how this'd be handled here.

Frankly, though I've written about transit issues, esp. as they apply to Broward County and the SFECC, as well as the Broward County Charter Review Comm., it just seems a much more natural fit for your blog than mine at South Beach Hoosier or Hallandale Beach Blog.

The insightful Star-Tribune reader comment below about the DFL-friendly law firm being brought in by the MN state legislature to try to undermine NTSB results, sounds 100% plausible to some savvy, politically-connected Dem friends of mine up there, who are rarely wrong about this sort of thing. (As opposed to their sports analysis and predictions!)

Maybe it's just me, playing the role of cynic, but I can totally picture both Dan Gelber and Steve Geller trying pull something like that off here, too, perhaps with Ron L. Book involved for good measure, too.

You know him, he likes to be a 'party' to everything important -sometimes against even himself.
Just something to think about.

(Also, in case you've forgotten, the Republican Nat'l. Convention will be at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul the first week of September, exactly one week after the DNC is held in Denver. Expect a spate of stories on the 35 W bridge come August, right after the Olympics in Beijing.)

As I mentioned to you recently when you gave me a call, in the near future, I'm planning on querying the FDOT Secretary, Stephanie Kopelousos, and find out whether or not she's EVER planning on being somewhere in South Florida where citizens, esp. those with an interest in transit, like you and me, can actually ask her some non-softball questions, rather than the sort of convivial industry forums, govt. official-only chat fests or ASCE events that her agency seems to prefer.

For instance, take a look at what I found when I checked the archives of the Gold Coast Chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers at http://www.itegoldcoast.org/events.html

Curious what you'd find when you go to the link at the bottom, titled, The State of Transportation in Broward County?
I was.

(The URL is http://www.itegoldcoast.org/PDF/ASCE-FES.pdf in case the link is dead when you go to it.)

Answer: An invitation to their New Year's Eve Italian Dinner Party!
On January 12th.

To her credit, in a new and very fair-minded Florida Trend profile of her by Cynthia Barnett, Kopelousos claims that she's anxious to change the way things are done at FDOT, and bring them firmly into the 21st century.

(But the article also points out her weaknesses, the most obvious being her non-engineering background, which, apparently, has always been a predicate for the top FDOT job.)

Those positive qualities notwithstanding, where's the proof that this is resulting in any tangible positive changes for South Florida? http://floridatrend.com/article.asp?aID=49017

While I appreciate that more than most state agencies, FDOT is, necessarily, decentralized, in my opinion, despite her short tenure and clear aptitude for hard work and long hours, given the sheer amount of hard work that's required down here, I think she's got a lot to answer for.

Not least of all, being practically M.I.A. for South Floridians like you and me -and the folks who read our blog posts, here and around the state.

So where's the interaction with taxpayers who aren't engineers and public officials?

(As it happens, I think I actually ran into Kopelousos a few times while I was up in Washington and she was working for the late Rep. Tillie Fowler, whom I always found to be a real straight shooter, just like Rep. Charles Bennett had been earlier for the Jacksonville area when I moved to DC. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/cebennett.htm )

The other day, largely as a result of the foolish actions in Miami regarding the Miami River, and the common sense of the Charles Lewis commentary, If the Miami River is really dead, why do the bridges go up? http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/080522/story-viewpoint.shtml
I decided it was about time I made plans to attend the next meeting of the South Florida Regional Planning Council. http://www.sfrpc.com/

Well, turns out that it's Monday at their Hollywood HQ.
So naturally I was curious if they'd put up an agenda for Monday on their website, since the meeting was Monday, the next day they were open.
Maybe get familiar with any staff reports in pdf., so I can better follow the proceedings while I'm there.

Do I really even have to tell you that when I pulled up the web page that was supposed to have agendas, it was largely blank? (At least, as seen on my computer monitor.)
Or that their website itself, which needs to be red-done if not tweaked, seems like it was put together by not-too-bright ninth-graders?

Call me old-fashioned, Gabriel, but that's really NOT my idea of proper planning.

It's also NOT my idea of wisely spending taxpayer dollars, either.

Trust me, I'll try to make a point of mentioning all these things at the meeting, if I can.
___________________________________________
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/19133569.html
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
MnDOT missed opportunities to note bridge flaws, study finds
By Mike Kaszuba, Star Tribune
May 21, 2008

Reader comments are at:
http://ww2.startribune.com/user_comments/comments.php?d=asset_comments&asset_id=19133569&section=/politics/state
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