The Morning After The Day Before

The Presidential Election is settled and so is our Senate and House race, not that there was much doubt about the House race.  For the last month, I've been quiet because I have been volunteering for the Obama campaign, and this blog is about North Bay Village. 

The results of this election will matter for North Bay Village though and I think in a good way.  

• The biggest threat facing us from the Federal level is the fiscal cliff.   That is the  process known as sequestration which is scheduled to go into place on Jan 2, 2013 whereby the federal appropriations are cut 15% across the board.  Congress put this in place to punish the American people for Congress's own failure to address the budget issues. 
  
  The effects of this on the economy threaten to be massive.  A good deal of the city budget comes from state and federal funding and we have no slack for such a hit. 
  
  The President has stated that it won't happen and I think there will be little will to do this in Congress.  That threat may be behind us. 
  
  
  
• There is likely to be more investment in infrastructure.  We won a fair amount of federal money in the last ARRA go around because we were "shovel ready", that is we had the projects planned and ready to go without federal money, making them very attractive to the federal funders. 
  
  North Bay Village needs to be sure to put the rest of our infrastructure needs - a city hall, a baywalk, transit - together quickly and be first in line if there is a second stimulus. 
  
  
  
• The School Bond issue passed.  There is talk of what to do with Treasure Island Elementary, whether to improve it as is, turn it to a K-12 or other options.  We need to be on top of this. 
  
  

There's a lot more to come - I still haven't seen the results from our charter amendments and several local races are still to be resolved, but overall, we're in a pretty good place in the neighborhood.  

 

Kevin Vericker

November 7, 2013