All tagged Local Government
Just what is in the Miami-Dade county budget? More importantly, what's not in the county budget?
How did I spend my Sundays in August and September? Reviewing the Miami-Dade County Budget. I wasn’t alone, and that was a good thing. I’d certainly spoken up in the past for things I’d wanted to see funded, but hadn’t ever really poured through the budget to understand what was funded and what was missing. I have lots of people to thank for helping me dig deeper to understand what's there and what's not. Especially David McDougal & Maggie Fernandez.
If you know who the murderers are, why don’t you arrest them?
In Richmond, CA police identified a mere 25 people causing 70 percent of the city’s violence. When I learned these statistics were similar to ours in Miami, I asked what I thought was a simple question. “If you know who these murderers are, why don’t you just arrest them?” The answer is not so simple. These people often escape arrest and prosecution because witnesses are too fearful to testify. So, no, the police can’t just arrest them even though they’d like to.
If you, like me, care about having the option to create city or county ordinances and regulations that make sense for us locally, you may be interested in reading my letter to the editor in The Miami Herald about the State legislature's attempt to minimize the voices of Miami-Dade residents and of its elected leaders. We know Miami Beach is expensive and needs to set a minimum wage that makes sense for Miami Beach, not one that makes sense for lawmakers in Tallahassee.