It’s budget time in cities around Miami-Dade County.  Like all the other municipalities in South Florida, the City of Opa-locka has to deal with decreasing revenues, increasing operating costs, and creative ways to scare up the cash to fill budget holes.  The Miami Herald just published an article, Opa-locka fail to agree on closing budget deficit, which stated, “The budget is in the red by $2.57 million and failed the first reading by a vote of 3-2. Voting to approve the budget were Mayor Myra Taylor and Commissioner Luis Santiago; voting against it were Vice Mayor Joseph Kelley and commissioners Timothy Holmes and Dorothy Johnson”

Although not mentioned in the article by name, we all know that the city manager of “The Great City of Opa-locka, Florida”  is none other than North Miami Beach’s own former-former-FIRED Kelvin Baker, who, according to the city’s website is responsible for the oversight of the departments of the Budget, Human Resources, Office of Community Services, Public Works, Building and Licenses, and the Police Department.

I shudder at the possibilities.

Anyone doubting that Opa-locka is in good hands has good reason to be concerned.  Baker’s special method of city mismanagement has been well documented on this blog since the fall of 2010.  In fact, he was the catalyst for its creation when he unsuccessfully redefined the words “terminate for cause” to mean “fire for being black.”  He even summoned the collective power of the NAACP to help rewrite the employee handbook, to no avail.  He was fired “for cause” anyway by the same racially diverse council that should never have hired him in the first place.

In any event, Kelvin Baker ended up in Opa-locka, a city so blatantly corrupt that it makes North Miami look tame.  In fact, Baker’s Police Department had to resort to hiring North Miami’s rejects to replace the cops even Opa-locka couldn’t keep out of trouble.

Needless to say, Baker now has to contend with a loser of a budget to balance, and only five commissioners to bamboozle as opposed to seven NMB council members.  Unfortunately for him, three out of those five rejected the budget on the first reading, with only Mayor Taylor and Commissioner Santiago approving.  How humiliating!  Apparently, not all of the Opa-locka commissioners are as stupid as Baker had hoped.

In order to try to fill the gap, the commission proposed raising the city’s millage from $9.10 to $9.30, which will only “bring the city $173,094 more in property tax money” due to the fact that property values have dropped 5.6 percent in the last year.  “Commissioners voted 3-0 to give the increased rate preliminary approval. Santiago and Johnson had not yet arrived for that vote.”

I’m not going to even ask the obvious question of why two out of five commissioners couldn’t bother to be on time to vote on such an important issue.  Apparently, being fashionably late to one’s own budget meeting is all the rage these days (see Village of Biscayne Park).

As the city manager of “The Great City of Opa-locka, Florida,” Kelvin Baker will have his hands full trying to make ends meet in the upcoming fiscal year.  Then again, Opa-locka does have its own community redevelopment agency (CRA) and a “water and sewer fund” from which to transfer funds.  Considering the sleight of hand he pulled by “balancing” North Miami Beach’s budget with our own water department’s revenue, he’s had plenty of practice with a much larger change purse. I’m sure he’ll pull something out of his bag of tricks in the nick of time.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”