One Year Report Card

Don't make any mistake.  This time last year, North Bay Village was in grave danger of complete failure.  Eight years of scandals, incompetence and misrule had left us with a slender thread of a functioning government.  Hundreds of thousands had been paid out as hush money to fired employees and the village was adrift with a village manager not even employed by the village, no police chief and a scandal prone Village attorney.

When Brent Latham, Marvin Wilmoth and Julianna Strout took their places on the dais, they faced a staff actively working against them while the level of chaos was much higher than any reasonable person would even have predicted.   

In the past, I have written about the peculiar tendency of the new administration not to publicize the many changes they have accomplished since those dark days.  Well, finally, there's a list and it's a good one.  

The 2019 North Bay Village Report Card.  

• Grants:  $11 million and counting in grants compared to the previous year of $0
• Dog Park:  On track for completion in  January 2020.  
• FreeBee:  The Island Hopper was replaced by On Demand Ride service to anywhere in the Village, Collins Avenue in Miami Beach and Biscayne/79th St.  
• Downtown  Express:  Starting December 3, North Bay Village will be running two or three daily FREE nonstops to the Omni Transportation Center where you can transfer to the People Mover. 
• Cost to The Village for Both Services:  Number to follow but less than the cost of the Island Hopper. 
• Community Events:  Over 20 community events so far this year including the Mayor's Restaurant of the Month, Commissioner Strout's Women's Initiative Panel Discussions, planned Bike Rides, NBVPD Movie Nights, Halloween Spooktacular, Winter Wonderland and others.  
• Community Policing:  Carlos Noriega was rehired and promptly reinvigorated Crime Watch, expanded PAL to include ALL North Bay Village kids, not just the ones in school at Miami Beach, put cops back on the street, reinstated the bike patrols and opened our police department back up.  
• NBV100:  The Strategic Planning is ongoing and includes all aspects of Village development now and in the next 25 years.  Of special note is that North Bay Village is not only addressing resiliency but taking the lead.  
• Unprecedented Cooperation with State and Federal Elected Officials:  State Rep Michael Griece, State Senator Jason Pizzo and Congresswoman Donna Shalala have been engaging actively with North Bay Village elected officials and they are bringing home the benefits to us.  Compare and contrast to 2018 when we received $0 in shared funding from the state and less from the feds.   

The three useful members of our commission, Latham, Wilmoth and Strout are working hard to direct the village to doing the right things, and with the staff of Village Manager Ralph Rosado, Chief Noriega, and others doing things the right way, the results have been dramatic.  

There's a lot more to come, and many more arguments to be had and they will be had,  

The hard work is paying off.  

I'd give them an "A" with room for improvement in communications, financial planning and responsiveness.   

What's your grade?

Kevin Vericker

November 23, 2019

Throwing NBV Transit Users Under the Bus

 

Did You See The Part About The L Bus No Longer Running to South Beach?

If you watched Tuesday night's express commission meeting, you probably missed the portion about the commission approving a plan to eliminate L bus service to South Beach.

Don't feel bad.

The commissioners missed it too. 

It was buried in the "Consent Agenda", the part of the agenda for items so obvious that they don't merit discussion.

Except this one did.  The discussion was held at the Resident Services Advisory Board meeting on November 3 for a half hour.   While the Board was drowned in numbers about how many more employment opportunities this would open to North Bay Village residents, it also came out that the plan called for the elimination of the bus route to South Beach, a route that is used by North Bay Villagers working in South Beach and by a surprising number  of Miami Beach High School students, who are often at school later or earlier than the usual transit options because of extracurricular activities.   You know, poor people and young people.  And the occasional eccentric blogger who'd rather not park. 

The L bus has long been major transit line for North Bay Village and we'd lose it.

The Resident Services Board voted clearly to only recommend the model proposed if it included an amendment to ensure the L bus continued to serve through South Beach. 

Yet the Village Staff not only did not include this recommendation in the resolution, they buried the whole mess in the Consent Agenda. 

This effort by the Better Bus Project is clearly a way to get around how the 1/2 cent tax Miami-Dade residents imposed on ourselves was squandered.  You might remember the train routes planned?  The high speed bus lanes?  We paid for them but the money never made it to the streets. 

Now the "Better Bus Project" is cheerily creating a false choice between increased coverage or increased ridership with virtually impenetrable numbers.

Among the groups that are not buying into it are the NAACP and the County Commission so they are selling their results in shows at the municipal level. 

That either option proposed by the Better Bus Project will make transit demonstrably less useful for North Bay Villagers should have been the commission's concern. 

Nevertheless the staff failed to include the requested condition made by resident volunteers who advise the commission on the matters in the resolution. 

So the Commission dutifully voted to eliminate the L bus without understanding the implications to North Bay Villagers, not to mention the residents of Little River and other Miami neighborhoods who depend on this route to get to work and recreation. 

For an explanation of the "Better Bus" project, see today's Miami Herald.  For my money, the best quote is County Commissioner Dennis Moss “You can’t grow ridership if you’ve got no rides.”

The fault is not just the village staff's.  Any one of the five commissioners could have pulled the item for discussion.  None did.   After a full year, a very full year, they should have enough experience to know that when an item is controversial, it is no longer suited for the consent agenda.   In fact, they should eliminate the consent agenda.  It's too often abused and if the item is that obvious, it won't kill them to take an extra 2 minutes to consider it. 

There Is Good Transit News For North Bay Village

FreeBee is replacing our Island Hopper for local trips.  A free to use, on demand app that will take you anwhere in the Village from 10 AM to 7 PM, Monday through Friday with a plan to expand to Saturdays and will take you to either Collins and 71st or Biscayne and 79th was introduced this month to ... no fanfare.  

But it's an awesome service and a major improvement over our seldom used Island Hopper.  Why the Village has not advertised the heck out of this is beyond me.   

And there's more.   

Commissioner Jose Alvarez

The Island Hopper starting December 3rd will now run express to the Omni Transit Center 3 times during the morning rush hour and 3 times back.  Watch carefully for the schedule since the Village is not good at communicating things but this will be a free service that will make direct public transit to downtown possible.  

This the result of months of hard work by the village staff and several of the commissioners.   

Now it gets weird.  Remember Commissioner Jose Alvarez?  Mary Kramer's Husband?  Who has been on the dais for three years and who to my knowledge has never offered a single piece of legislation or sponsored anything?   Well, he was as surprised as everyone else when it was announced that this initiative was somehow his idea and he got to announce the new service (well read it from a card.)  

I mean, seriously, what is up with that?    

The Meeting Itself

A few months ago, the village staff decided that the what the commissioners needed less of was hearing from the residents and so they took the historically inadequate 3 minutes granted to residents during Good & Welfare, now less elegantly called Open Forum to 2 minutes and the commission without questioning it, adopted the procedure.   

Public comment is only allowed for 2 minutes as well.   

It was clear from the 6 people who spoke that this was inadequate and the mayor at least seemed frustrated at the change, which nobody could remember when it was made.   But the other commissioners made no attempt to change it back by resolution.   So congratulations to the four!  After all, they were elected to do as little as possible and they are at least streamlining that.  

The Four Commissioners

In fact, it is remarkable how little engagement there is from the four commissioners.  While Marvin Wilmoth (who did actual work on the downtown express project) has taken the lead on several resiliency issues, and Julianna Strout has sponsored the legislation to bring CitiBike to the Village, for the most part, they just sit silently, often staring at their phones, questioning little but occasionally complaining that the mayor is doing too much actual work.   Maybe we're better off but it looks bad.  

So We Are Going Backwards?  

No.  We are miles ahead of last year at this time.  No meltdowns from the dais, no underhanded real estate agents paying our village manager off the books, lawyers who pay attention to legal matters, residents involved in the process.   

That bar was pretty low.   Still North Bay Village is making progress.   Now it has to pull together and make progress a shared value.  The management has to promote the village and involve all aspects of the community.  The commission needs to come out of their passive state and start doing what they are supposed to.  Commissioners should not steal the credit for what was not their work. 

The future is bright but it gets a little dimmer every time the petty positioning blocks the light.  

Kevin Vericker

November 15, 2019

The North Bay Village Underground

Burying the Powerlines

Wednesday, October 30, the Village held a full scale meeting with representatives of FPL, ATT and Atlantic Broadband about the long discussed burying of the powerlines in North Bay Village.  

First a quick history:

• in 2006, following the nearly 2 week blackout caused by Hurricane Wilma, the Village proposed a bond measure to pay for undergrounding the utility wires.   It passed with over 60% of the votes.  
• in 2016, after a decade of no action, the Village again voted by 55% to bury the power lines. 

How Come It Didn't Happen?

In the first discussions in 2006, FPL refused to participate with the Village in forming cost estimates and actively took the stance that burying power lines would lead to more disruption of power not less.   By 2016, FPL had softened a bit but still refused to engage in cost discussions and the second initiative relied on the best estimates.   

Without the cooperation of the major players, FPL, ATT and Atlantic Broadband, the project was not seen as feasible.  

What's Different in 2019?

• FPL has changed their position on buried powerlines and now favors them.
• FEMA approved an $11 million grant to North Bay Village for burying the power lines.

A few things.  Following Irma when most of the damage was because of wind harming the overhead structure, a statewide push to underground utilities came to the forefront and FPL has now worked with the state to bury as many powerlines as feasible.   

For the first time, FPL worked with the Village to create cost estimates and FPL has actually now done this work in several communities around Florida.  The benefits seem clear.   

In addition, we have Mayor Brent Latham leading the city and along with Village Manager Ralph Rosado, they seem to actually be able to execute a plan.   

Then came the news that FEMA had approved an $11 million grant to assist in burying the power lines as part of our adaptability strategy to keep reliable power going during storm events.   

Wednesday's Meeting

In spite of being well advertised and a subject that everyone seems to have an opinion on, the meeting was sparsely attended.  Fewer than 10 residents were actually present to see the presentations and ask questions.   That leaves approximately 8,263 North Bay Villagers who will be surprised when the project starts and who will say "Nobody told me!" when the project starts. 

I'm just going to give the highlights here.  The detail can be seen at the village video link here.  

• Approximate Total Cost to Underground the Village:  $33 million. 
• Grant from FEMA: $11 million
• Net Cost:  $22 million

Annual Tax Increases for a property:  Approximately $95 per $100,000 of property tax valuation.  

Projected Benefits:

• A more reliable utility delivery for electricity, cable and phones
• A more attractive landscape without the powerlines
• A greater ability to diagnose and repair when there are power disruptions.

Possible Impacts:

• Buildings needs to install new breakers and in some cases update their whole electrical systems.  This can run from $2,800 (based on Golden Beach's experience) to $100,000 if your entire electrical system needs to be redone.  There is a $5,000 credit built into the bond.  Any excess will be the homeowner's responsibility.
• Transformer boxes will be placed in front of buildings on a public easement (every other house and building) 
• The streets will be disrupted again and trenches need to be dug on private property.  
• The project will last about 5 years.   

Possible Downsides:

• At least 80% of the property owners have to agree to change their utilities to underground for the project to be feasible.  
• The cost will vary from household to household and if a householder decides not to participate, they will continue to get their electricity from overhead lines which negates the aesthetic benefit.   (Note:  holdouts will be the last to be restored in the event of power failure)
• With the advent of 5 G technology, ATT will have the right to build 38 foot tall towers at about every 500 feet.  This is state law and cannot be overriden by municipalities.  5G has started and will probably be ubiquitous in 10 years or so and if ATT (or others) do not use existing structures such as buildings or streetlights, then just like the rest of Florida, we could once again have poles everywhere.   

One More Consideration:  

FPL has announced plans to underground most of the state anyway.   By playing a waiting game, it's possible but not definite that North Bay Village will be undergrounded without additional local costs to our municipal government.   My view:  that seems a little thin but I mention it because it was brought up.

We Have To Vote Again:

Yep.  Since neither of the two ballot initiatives had reasonable costs on them, the commission needs to review the situation, draft a ballot measure and we have to vote again.   

The most likely outcome will be breaking up the project into three or four projects so that the finance streams can be executed as the project goes forward.   

It will be complicated however the commission decides to frame it and it will probably be on the ballot in the spring 2020 primary elections.   

Kevin Vericker

November 1, 2019