5/22 MAC Meeting Summary: "Conceptual Agreement" for a new city

The NE Municipal Advisory Committee had a rare second monthly meeting last Thursday.  With only 6 of the 11 members attending (Donath, Friedman, Matza, Moss, Morton and Robson), quorum was just met.  The focus of the meeting was the "Conceptual Agreement," which (it was explained at the meeting) is an "ingredient" the county requires of all MACs as part of their process.

Brief review: the MAC was formed by the Miami Dade Board of County Commissioners in 2003/4 to investigate whether in made sense to take the unincorporated area pictured in the first post in this blog (which you can view by clicking here), and make a new city out of it.  After some starts and stops, the NE MAC continues this investigation nearly 10 years after first being established.

The Conceptual Agreement seems to be dictated by the county: it contains several things the county needs to see as prerequisites to approving new cities.  For example: the county wants to ensure it continues to be paid for bond debt, so the Conceptual Agreement makes it clear that residents in the new city will continue to be responsible for their share of bond indebtedness.  It's not entirely clear what, if anything, within the agreement is "negotiable," and this was the source of much of the discussion on May 22nd.

The Conceptual Agreement commences with a discussion of BOUNDARIES.  At the May 1 MAC meeting, there was a discussion of changing the boundaries to exclude the SW condominiums.  It was determined that this was not possible, and that even if it was, the resulting loss of per capita revenues would make incorporation infeasible (the May 1 meeting is discussed here).

Page 2 discusses county SERVICES, basically reiterating county laws which say that a new city has to contract for police services from the county for the first 3 years of its existence, that it has to remain part of the library system, waste collection and fire rescue.  These are the "countywide" services that all cities continue to receive from the County.

Things get interesting on page 3, which begins

"the incorporation of the proposed municipality of the northeast area will have an adverse financial impact on the remainder of the unincorporated municpal service area (UMSA).... [T]he code currently requires new municipalities to mitigate the adverse impact on UMSA.  At the time of incorporation, the Miami-Dade County Code requires that the proposed municipality contribute some amount of its property tax revenues after municipal incorporation to the County into a MSTF, the amount of which shall be determined by the Board."

The above language seems to guarantee a "MITIGATION payment" from the new city (a critical concept that was the subject of an April post you can find here).  If this agreement can be revised to delete this paragraph, or to at the very least specify a reasonable millage rate (not the 1 mill rate that the Planning and Advisory Board planned to levy in 2004, which would equate to around $800,000 per year), it would put the "new city" in a vastly better position with the county.  For this reason, MAC members Friedman and Robson raised the issue of revision, which will be considered by MAC "Conceptual Agreement Committee" (chaired by Richard Golden), and discussed at the next MAC meeting on June 19.

Also on page 3, the Conceptual Agreement discusses ROADS.  Local roads would be conveyed to the new city, but "The County is proposing to keep approximately 18.4 lane miles" which include West Dixie Highway and Ives Dairy Road!  This raised some concerns from the MAC members, who wanted to ensure that the new city would still have the ability to manage, police, and beautify the roads.  MAC member Robson also raised the issue of traffic cameras, noting that if the new city desired a "red light" camera at the intersection of Ives Dairy Road and 24th Avenue (which is often blocked by cars during school crossing hours), this language might prevent the new city from doing so, or at the very least require revenue sharing with the county. 

Alicia Rook (Queen of "no to incorporation"), in a post-meeting e-mail to her minions, wrote of the above discussion on roads:

"Mark Bronson [sic], a MAC member said he would like to put cameras' [sic] all over this new city because it would bring in over a million dollars in revenue (a number he just pulled out of the air), of course all of us in the area would be affected by those cameras' [sic] also."

As recounted above, only one intersection was discussed, not "all over the city", but scare-tactics and hyperbole (unlike spelling and grammar) are particular specialties of Ms. Rook.  Robson did say that ONE camera (at NE 203/24th Ave), to protect children crossing Ives Dairy get to school, might generate a million dollars in fines a year, because drivers at that intersection are so reckless.  The point (completely missed by Rook) was the importance of understanding the implications of the Conceptual Agreement language on roads, or else any revenue generated by red-light cameras could be surrendered to the County.

The rest of the Conceptual Agreement focused on bonds - nothing interesting there (just that residents of a new city would continue to pay on their tax bill their share of bond indebtedness).

Missing from the Conceptual Agreement was the "concept" that a the new city would be formed for the purpose of retaining revenues (it is frequently argued that the purpose of incorporating is to put our tax dollars to work locally, and not have them "donated" to other areas in the county).

Also missing was the concept that taxes in the new city not be increased, and the concept that there would be no "eminent domain" practiced in a new city.  Perhaps neither concept is appropriate for inclusion in the Conceptual Agreement, but if the "no to incorporation" people were paying attention, this might have been a sensible question to ask.  Instead, "NO" co-founder Brian Rook used his Q&A time at the end of the meeting to complain about statements Glenn Gopman had made at a prior meeting (which were true: that the Rooks own 6 or 7 homes in North Miami Beach, and that they have one residence inside the MAC boundaries).

Mr. Rook brought a video camera to record the May 22 meeting, so perhaps he will rewind the tape to review the discussion on roads and traffic cameras, to satisfy himself that nobody on the MAC is proposing that we live in an Orwellian police state.

The next MAC meetings are tentatively scheduled for June 19, July 24 and August 28.  Save the date!

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