Long time residents of South Florida will remember back in the 1970s when John Katzenbach was the top crime reporter for the Miami Herald. In 1982 he published his first book about a serial killer’s murderous crime spree in Miami called In the Heat of the Summer, on which the 1985 film The Mean Season is based. Mr. Katzenbach was one of my favorite reporters in those days, and I used to pore over the Miami Herald every morning in search of one of his articles.
According to Wikipedia, the term mean season refers to “a pattern of weather that occurs in Florida during the late summer months. Hot mornings with sticky weather lead into violent thunderstorms that blow in from the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico in the afternoon. However, the rain doesn’t alleviate the heat and only makes things hotter that evening. This cycle repeats every day for a month.” Obviously, all of us here in South Florida are as we speak in the grips of The Mean Season.
It is an unfortunate concurrence that The Mean Season also coincides with The Budget Season. Every year at this time, the North Miami Beach City Manager, Council, residents and employees all have to contend with the hot temperatures, combined with even hotter tempers, as we engage in heated debates about the city’s finances. Municipalities all around the country are also having budget discussions, but with the exception of Texas and southern Arizona, the rest of the country is entering the pleasant fall season with moderate temperatures. We here in South Florida won’t get a break from the heat until maybe early October. If we’re lucky. The good news is that we’ll eventually recover from The Mean Season. The fallout from this particular Budget Season I fear is going to haunt us for a very, very long time.
Here’s the thing. Aside from the incredible incompetence of the former North Miami Beach mayor and city manager, Myron Rosner and Kelvin Baker, respectively, who destroyed whatever chance the city had of riding out the economic storm, we are now dealing with a severe budgetary deficit, zero reserves, a $70,000,000.00 pension debt, a downgrade of our utility’s credit rating, and 116 police officers who insist that everything’s fine. I’d say The Mean Season is a veritable walk in the park compared to this year’s Budget Season.
An article in today’s Miami Herald, With YouTube video and city mailings, Hollywood residents are learning about upcoming pension referendum (http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/28/2376781/with-youtube-video-and-city-mailings.html#ixzz1WS4LneER), details an upcoming City of Hollywood referendum scheduled for September 13, 2011. At that time, the residents will vote on whether or not to reform that city’s employee pensions. While the city is barred from outright campaigning for votes, the police, fire and employees’ unions are out in full force to fight any pension reform whatsoever.
In what I’m sure he thought was an ingeniously devised platform, the Fire Union President Dan Martinez stated, “Our plan is to explain all the mismanagement that has been going on.’’
Wow! Really? DUH!
The article further states that Martinez added “that if the city had been more “fiscally responsible,’’ it would not be in the position it is in now.”
Wow! Really? Gee, you’re a freaking genius, Martinez! Did you stay up all night figuring that one out?
Apparently, there was mismanagement and a lack of fiscal responsibility on behalf of the council and/or city manager of Hollywood. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this is an epidemic problem in municipalities all over the country. Hopefully, the voting citizens of Hollywood are smart enough, or at least smarter than that non-rocket scientist Martinez, to see that regardless of who caused the problem, the time to fix it is NOW!
I’m just curious…If Martinez is called to the scene of a fire, does he stand there and try to figure out who started the blaze, or if the cause was arson or accident? OR DOES HE PUT OUT THE FREAKING FIRE? One would hope that he’s smart enough to grab a hose and get to work, and worry about the investigation after the last embers have been doused. One would hope.
Hollywood’s Police Union President Jeff Marano wants to abolish the city’s Community Redevelopment Agencies (CRA) because he claims that, “They are hoarding money.” While I am no fan of CRAs, and I personally agree they should all be abolished, as the article states, “…those dollars are earmarked for only a specific area. So — by state law — the money can only pay for projects within the CRA boundaries.” The article claims there are “millions in the CRA” in Hollywood that could be used to solve it’s budget problems.
I don’t know the structure of Hollywood’s CRA, but here in North Miami Beach, for example, we collect the taxes from the CRA district and then turn it over to the CRA Fund (#104). In addition, the county also gives our CRA funding. According to the CRA budget proposal for the 2011/2012 fiscal year, the CRA will be getting from our general fund the taxes expected to be collected in the amount of $643,857.00, and the CRA will receive from the county the amount of $415,310.00. Should we abolish our own CRA, the city would get back its share of $643,857.00, and the county would get back its contribution of $415,310.00. As you can see, this would hardly solve our budget shortfall of approximately $8 million. It may or may not be advantageous for Hollywood to abolish its CRA, but with a $38 million deficit, it doesn’t sound very promising.
Thankfully, our budget hole isn’t nearly the size of Hollywood’s. We don’t have nearly as many residents in North Miami Beach, either. Luckily, we don’t have our own fire department union to deal with since we are served by Miami-Dade County’s fire department. At least we don’t have to deal with yet another union breathing down our necks with its hand out.
But, we still have an enormous deficit by our city’s standards and the time has come to stop the bleeding and plug the damn hole. Our Mayor, Council and City Manager have an extremely difficult job to do in the next month. I don’t see any of them blaming their predecessors for the problem or saying “if the city had been more fiscally responsible” we wouldn’t be in this mess. What they’ve been doing, day in and day out, is trying to find a solution to the problem that a majority of them didn’t create. They are, however, charged with fixing the mess.
The cops can point all the fingers they want at the amorphous “city” and pretend there’s no problem, but the fact remains that our financial situation is the equivalent of a Code One fire – hotter than even The Mean Season. It’s time to gear up, grab the hose and put it out!
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
Contract negotiations tomorrow at 9am at 4th floor of city hall. Everyone here critical of this police budget should attend. Let’s avoid the bashing and criticism of nmbpd and come see for yourself. Because it seems those most critical add nothing to help solve this situation.
The NMBPD is bashing its own self.
I am fed up with greed. It melted Wall St. and will soon help to outsource many jobs from many municipalities including ours. The unions are a dollar short, a day late. Probably have not learnt anything from the private sector unions which helped to outsource many American jobs overseas.
NMB cannot afford to pay sergeants $100,000.00 salaries and cops $76,000.00 or allocate 52% of our budget to the PD. I see underhand business in the pensions as well. Shell games continue to be played by the finance dept. They shuffled money around, but we should demand the list of pensioners and how much they get. I am sure quite a percentage goes to ghost cops (who do not exist). We should have the entire list of all city workers who are pensioners and we may see we pay those who do not exist as well.
Do remember it was not rogues who stole from the taxpayers. It was guys who dressed in Armani suits who robbed us. The $2.2 million and the $64,000.00 heist are two examples.
Contract negotiations are going on. Where is everyone, the only one here is lobe.
Wish I could be there but I’m at work. My boss just got back from a long vacation and I’m mad busy. I hope the negotiations are going well.
The article further states that Martinez added “that if the city had been more “fiscally responsible,’’ it would not be in the position it is in now.”
Steph, Martinez’s comment is right on the money. If there hadn’t been so much mis-management in prior years, the City Commissioners and City Managers wouldn’t have given so many benefits and perks and high salaries away to the police and fireme thus making them among the highest paid public employees in the Southern U.S. I hope Martinez “educates” the residents about how much the cops and firemen are making so they can make an informed decision. Maybe just not the one they wanted.
I really like the part of how the cops think the city should abolish its capital improvement CRA program that provides improvements to city infrastructure for the benefit of the residents so the cops and firemen can have it available to pay their bloated salaries and pensions.
Likewise, you can’t pin all the mismanagement in NMB on just the Baker and Rosner Show. There were entire Council’s before them that helped dig the hole our city is now in. When citizen activists attempted to curb in the run-away spending, they were demonized by the very people in office that were passing notes between themselves and the city attorney to give themselves lifetime benefits at the expense of the residnets.
Bob, I didn’t say Martinez wasn’t correct! There obviously was mismanagement. I don’t know Hollywood’s history, but I do know that whenever government is in charge of our tax dollars there will be mismanagement. It’s pretty much a given that politicians think nothing of writing checks with other people’s money. As you noted, past NMB administrations were also very generous with our money. The main reason I bring up Rosner and Baker specifically is because when Baker was hired in August, 2008 and Rosner elected as mayor in Mayor, 2009, that’s when the city’s and the utility’s reserves started dwindling, which is what led to the Fitch downgrade. No coincidence there. Baker’s budget was ridiculous, as Kazan had noted many times. We now find out that he was using reserves to prop up an imaginary budget. (The previous manager, Keven Klopp tried to cut spending, including his own voluntary salary reduction, and promptly got himself canned.) I don’t remember if Baker’s 2009 budget was unanimously passed, but I can tell you that Beth Spiegel and Barbara Kramer were brand new to the council that year. If they voted for the 2009 budget it was because they believed Baker knew what he was doing. They had no reason to believe otherwise. By the time the 2010 budget was presented, and Baker went postal at a budget workshop, I know that Kramer voted against it, but it passed anyway. The rationale that the rest of the council used to vote for that budget was that the city would be subjected to a heavy penalty from the state if it didn’t pass a budget. I don’t believe for one moment that many of them up there who voted for it knew it was based on pure fiction, although I am convinced a couple of them had absolutely no clue whatsoever. With this new mayor, new councilwoman Martel, and at least two or three of the others who have since been enlightened, I am hoping that budget shenanigans are now a thing of the past. The way they are picking apart the finances of the city, line by line, gives me hope that we are on the right path.
Bob, I also wanted to address your comment about the CRA. I have my own opinion about CRAs in general, and it is completely separate and apart from the budget issues we are now facing. The short story has to do with unfair distribution of taxes collected and how they are spent. While it appears that Hollywood has been able to use its CRA to improve infrastructure and make capital improvements as you noted, I have seen almost no positive improvements here in NMB, except for a couple of facade improvements to a few storefronts. So, here we are taking over $600,000 in taxes generated by property within the CRA district that cannot be used anywhere else, and I have not seen any indication that this money is being used to bring more business into our city, which I believe is its intended purpose. In addition, the county contributes money to our CRA, but let’s not forget that the county’s money is also OUR money. In essence the residents of NMB are donating over $600,000 in taxes, on top of over $400,000 of taxes we also pay to the county, and what are we getting for our million plus dollars of tax money? As I said, budget and pension issues aside, I’m not seeing any bang for our buck.
On an interesting note, Myron Rosner liked to take credit for implementing the CRA in NMB. Considering that he’s in the construction business, I’m wondering how much of our tax dollars he was hoping to grab for himself by this venture. I’m just saying.
Let go of the past! We are on our way to a new beginning! What difference does it make what happened in the past. What matters is what WE do with today! Enough is Enough. Wall Street, ghost stories, past Council, managers etc… Let it go!!!!! Support your elected officials and TRUST the process. Stop the madness!!
I am a little confused by Kazan’s most recent email sent out. He talks about how the Interim Chief hasn’t offered to take a pay cut nor has management. But from what I can see reviewing the last budgets there hasn’t been one tier 2 or 3 employee that has received a pay raise in about the last 5 years! The Interim Chief is a 2. In addition EVERY “perk” or benefit has been taken away from 2’s and 3’s. Pull the “conditions of employment” for all 2’s and 3’s and go over them; you’ll discover that there are no benefits with the position other than the salary. So I’m not sure what “sacrifice” Kazan want’s management to make? Take away the benefits? There are none; reduce the salary? No pay raise in about 5 years is a reduction in salary. What else?
I use to hear people like Kazan and others say that management had too many perks; they were overpaid and had huge benefits. So over the years the benefits were slowly whittled away to nothing and no pay raises for several years. Kazan and others accomplished what they wanted and yet Kazan and others still want more; it’s never enough. At what point do people like Kazan and others declare victory? In my opinion you’ve won. I implore people like Kazan and others to do a 119 request for the conditions of employment for all 2’s and 3’s and then report back on just how “lavish” the management “conditions” are.
By the way Steph, you weren’t satisfied with just reporting on NMB; now you’ve brought Hollywood into the picture! Oh boy, I think things might heat up on here now! Just kidding of course. Keep up the good work!
Frank, I am not going to comment on Kazan’s email or the salaries. From the research I’ve been doing, it appears that the police employee salaries on on par with other municipalities of our size and population. It is still my contention that the pension structure is the main problem, and until there is realistic pension reform, other areas of the city will continue to suffer. I am not just talking about the police pensions. I believe the city’s entire pension system needs to be addressed. I was told that the pensions will be renegotiated after the budget is passed because there is not enough time to address both issues and passing a budget is critical. It seems to me this is like putting the cart before the horse, but as I am no financial expert, what do I know, right?
I brought up Hollywood mainly because this city has been in the news and is having problems similar to our own. What I find interesting is that Hollywood is actually addressing its pension problems by having the residents vote on reform. They’re not having the residents vote on passing a budget, which is the council’s responsibility, but apparently they feel that the public has a right to decide on pension reform. Personally, it seems to me that the council is passing the buck by doing this because they don’t want to make the tough decisions necessary. But, I could be wrong and maybe pension reform is an issue for referendum. It will be interesting to see what happens there.
I believe the pensions must be placed on a voter referendum (both here and in Hollywood) because of the way the ordinances are written. I could be wrong.
YeahRight, where do you think everyone is? At work, Jackwagon. Tissue?
I’m back. I was on a hiatus with several Wall Street friends. We all sat around the camp fire telling “ghost stories”. I see that the CM has decided to take the cars on Sept 29. Thank G-D that has been resolved. My car was leaking oil anyway and it was messing up my driveway. Code enforcement kept citing me for a derelect vehicle. The word Beach fell off and people thought I worked for North Miami Police. I keep thinking about the movie Dumb and Dumber. I Love the part where they trade their van for a motor scooter. I can just see NMB Officers coming to work two on a motor scooter and eating june bugs. Classic.
You’re silly and I missed your silliness. Welcome back. 🙂
Some of these people need to get a sense of humor…