Is This a Radical View by the Commissioner?–The Commission Should Decide

One option should be to not spend all of the money and not borrow all of the $22 amount proposed.  It is terrible financial management to borrow the money and then decide how to spend it, like a giant slush fund.  This is terrible city management.

Going forward, it will be up to the City Commission — not the manager — to establish priorities for the NRP money. I remain optimistic that the city commission will be pragmatic rather than fanciful in its use of the NRP funds.

via Letter: Gables spending plan bloated with needless projects – Coral Gables – MiamiHerald.com.

City Commissioner–Where’s the Community Participation

The city manager worked on his NRP for one year before he presented it to the City Commission. During that year he chose not to tell city staff, the City Commission, city boards and committees, or anyone else about his “vision” for the city. By working in complete secrecy, he broke an important, longstanding Coral Gables tradition of seeking and embracing input from residents in the formulation of major projects that have citywide implications. Then, in the NRP proposal, he launched a pre-emptive, personal attack on anyone who might dare to criticize or oppose his NRP by characterizing them as “naysayers,” “short-term thinkers,” and “vision killers.” His message was clear: Do not get in my way! The use of such tactics was inappropriate, alienating, and offensive.

via Letter: Gables spending plan bloated with needless projects – Coral Gables – MiamiHerald.com.

Seems Like No Leadership, Just Big Spenders

The city of Coral Gable is replicating a model that we have seen before.   These are the elected officials, politicians starting their next campaign, indifferent voters giving birth to indifferent politicians who have pharaonic dreams about big money and big projects.  They see the future of the city as glamorous spending on capital projects to which they may attach their names, like empty museums of the all-so-brief history of the city.  Renaissance of what–I thought we had a great quality of life already.

Backward budgeting–get the money first and then spend it all on who-knows-what, pitting the citizen groups against each other to see who gets the most.