South Florida Corruption

November 28, 2006 Leave a comment

South Florida is the public corruption capital of the country, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Between 1996 and 2005, a record-setting 576 people were convicted of federal corruption charges in the district that extends from Key West to Sebastian, according to the agency’s most recent annual report.That’s far more than the 402 convicted during the same 10 years in Washington, D.C. or the 453 convicted in Chicago, where political machines have been rolling for decades.

New York City, another hotbed of government scandal, didn’t even come close. A mere 374 people were convicted of public corruption charges during the last decade, the report shows.

This reported by Palmbeachpost.com

Filed under Florida

Coral Gables Annual Report

November 2, 2006 Leave a comment

Coral Gables commissioner: Annual report `a royal waste’

One of the City Commissioners, Mr. Ralph Cabrera, opposes the publication of the Annual Report of the City of Coral Gables.

”I thought the funds could be better used someplace else, like traffic calming or sidewalk repairs,” Cabrera said. “This is a royal waste of money.”

It is very unusual that the term “annual report” of a company or city would be applied to a document that does not include information on the financial management of the city and an auditor’s report. Many modern cities are making a special effort to supply city financial data to the citizens, and in this case, the City Commission and City Manager have missed an opportunity to increase citizen participation and knowledge of where taxes are going.

Filed under Coral Gables, Government

A Strong Mayor-County Manager Government for Miami-Dade

November 2, 2006 Leave a comment

Alvarez’s plan for strong mayor clears a roadblock

Alvarez has argued for a strong-mayor form of government since he took office in 2004, saying it would make him more accountable to the public and rein in corruption. The proposal would give the county mayor the authority to hire and fire department heads and the county manager, and more control over the awarding of substantial county contracts.

There is no doubt that the County Commissioner-County Manager form of government needs to be changed in Miami-Dade. Miami-Dade County is the largest city that has this system in the U.S. and it is a system that has lost favor with local and city governments. By far the dominant system of small local government organization in the U.S. is the Council-City Manager system in which the City Manager is given wide authority to appoint and manager the city under supervision of the Council and Mayor. Moving to a strong mayor is more the model of large cities. One danger of the Alvarez proposal is that the County Manager will not have the authority to select the department heads, which continues a model of excessive politicization of management in this county.

Filed under Miami-Dade County

MIA: Cost Overruns or Mismanagement?

October 27, 2006 Leave a comment

MiamiHerald.com | 10/27/2006 | Expansion costs at MIA rise by $1 billion

Construction cost overruns at MIA, and in this case the nontrivial amount of $1 billion (how much affordable housing could have been financed in Miami for this amount of money), are always attributed by management and contractors to external factors outside of their control.

The main culprit is escalating costs for materials and labor at the North Terminal, to be used by American Airlines and its alliance partners. The terminal, which will be completed in 2010, will now cost $2.66 billion, up from $1.94 billion, airport projections presented to the county’s Regional Transportation Committee show.

What experience tells us is that the main culprit is the mismanagement of the project and the delays in the construction. If the project had been executed as planned, its construction would have been more advanced than it is now and thus the cost overruns would have been less or not ocurred at all. How much better would MIA have been it were run like a private business like many airports are being run in the developed world.

Filed under Miami-Dade County

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