Alvarez needs Benevolent Association: Recall Moving Ahead

October 25, 2010 Leave a comment

The support of the Dade County Police Benevolent Society (its name itself a flat contradiction in terms) for Mayor Alvarez demonstrates once again the negative influence of public sector labor unions, their disproportionate influence over government and elected officials, their glaring indifference to the well being of the greater number of taxpayers and their arrogance of infallibility.

Alvarez is countering the recall momentum with a long-standing base of support: The Dade County Police Benevolent Association has donated $50,000 to a PAC the mayor formed to mount a defense.

Alvarez formed the PAC, called Citizens For Truth, allowing him to raise unlimited sums of money. According to the latest filings, he has raised $54,650. Nearly all came from the PBA, which held a rally on the mayor’s behalf this weekend.

Alvarez was former director of Miami-Dade Police and earlier this year backed a 13 percent pay hike for county police, which will take effect in installments from September 2010 to September 2011.

via Braman: Signatures collected to put recall to voters – Miami-Dade Breaking News – MiamiHerald.com.

Filed under Employees and Unions, Miami-Dade County

I was struck…

October 25, 2010 Leave a comment

…by comments from a real estate expert on CNBC today (sorry I missed his name).  He stated that 20 percent of all house owners/mortgages are under water and another 33 percent are no more than 10 percentage points away from being under water.  He also stated that this will take “many years” to overcome.

Does the city of Coral Gables imagine that rising property values and new construction will save its property tax budget in the next five years?

Filed under Coral Gables, Economy, Housing

Brutally Honest Evaluation of International Private and Public Assistance to Haiti

October 25, 2010 Leave a comment

This report provides a fundamentally accurate analyses of the failures of private and public international assistance in Haiti.  The recovery of this sad country will take years, if not decades, and external help is missing many of the fundamental keys to effective help.

There is a lot to see in this appraisal and many lessons that have not be learned by those who have tried to help in Haiti over decades.

Read this, but don’t expect to find a pretty picture.

Today, the hospital stands empty, its consulting and operating rooms abandoned, its beds unused, its scanners gathering dust, its two brand new ambulances sitting under tarpaulins in the yard. On April 1, owner Reynold Savain was forced to close CDTI because neither the Haitian nor U.S. governments, nor the United Nations, would agree to help pay his bills.

via Special report: Is aid doing Haiti more harm than good? | Reuters.

Filed under Government, International, Nonprofits

Outsider’s Description of our Political System

October 25, 2010 Leave a comment

An outsider’s description of our political system (from top to bottom) may be hard to swallow and this description also applies to local and state governments.  Take our Miami-Dade government and Coral Gables government as examples of non-functional or partially functioning governments with deep financial and management problems.

A winner-takes-all voting system where both main parties are sustained by corporate financing, the congressional districts are openly gerrymandered and 40% of the upper chamber can block anything, is never going to be a benign vehicle for radical reform. Virtually every enduring progressive development in US politics since the war has been sparked either by massive mobilisations outside of electoral politics that have forced politicians to respond, or through the courts.

via Obama was never going to have the room to effect radical change | Gary Younge | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Filed under Coral Gables, Florida, Miami-Dade County, Politics

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