Good Neighbor???

 



Good Neighbor… North Miami? Think again.

 

Yesterday I, along with others had the distinct pleasure of spending most of our day downtown watching our County Government in action. And it was a 3 ring circus.

After sitting through, what seemed like countless hours of an endless stream of people pleading for more money for parks, the zoo, drug rehab centers and too many other groups to remember, we finally had our moment for consideration regarding our Annexation proposal. And it wasn’t pretty.

First, our Mayor was asked to speak on behalf of our proposal. Soon thereafter, the process was interrupted by the County Chair to bring up some delegation from Kenya to speak. Really? What? How was this in any way relevant to our agenda item, again after sitting for hours waiting just for this moment? I don’t know, but the Chair thought this was the proper time to wheel them out. After a time we tried to get back on track and had comments heard from both our Biscayne Park residents and staff. I didn’t keep count, but the majority of our people spoke honestly and openly about our needs and reasoning for annexation. The few who spoke against it, one... after spending all day waiting to be heard, simply bailed out of making any comment other than “yea, I agree with them” (or something to that effect) and the other spoke... outfitted in sandals. Remember I told you it was a circus? But the best was yet to come.

One of the North Miami Commissioners rose up, against the previous vote of BP support from her peers and council of their attorney to wail about the “injustice of it all.” But, wait... there’s more. The attorney (representing one of the commercial buildings) spewed misinformation to include that we were planning (or in the works of as he told it) the erection of an $800K wall adjoining the railroad tracks!! I kid you not. [ASIDE] I assume he conferred with G.R.R. Martin about the erection of such a structure [END ASIDE].



Of course, everyone wanted to get in on the action at this point... to include those who had no ties with either proposed area, but spoke just the same. And of course, there was no fact checking of their comments but hey, it’s a free for all at this point. Blood was in the water... our blood. And the sharks were all coming in to take their bite.

But the Big Tent went up with a bus load (yes, literally a full bus load) of people, decked out in their red anti-annex tee shirts (reportedly from the Advenir at Biscayne Shores property) leveraging the Commissioners with their dog and pony show. Who these people were and where they were picked up off the street remains a mystery.  One of our residents actually asked them what was going on and the answer was “I’m here to save our parks.”  Yup, that makes total sense. Thanks for playing.  And it was also reported, (and photographed) that they were all standing around in a group after the hearing receiving what I assume were their payment vouchers.

So, in this telling Goliath ruled the day and our annexation bid went up in smoke. What’s next remains to be seen.
 

Standing Watch-

Milton Hunter

The Biscayne Parker