NE MAC meeting March 27 (recap)

Not many blog posts lately due to lack of activity "West of Aventura." 

There were developments in crime and safety, with robbers fleeing police helicopter chase after a home invasion in Oak Forest (s. of 203rd street and West of 24th Ave), and the arrest of a paroled thief who returned to the scene of his former crimes in Highland Oaks: back on the job breaking into unlocked cars.  So lots of development in crime and punishment, not so much on self-determination.

The MAC, which itself only has 2 years to consider the issue of incorporation, cancelled meeting in February because it was expecting ground-breaking progress from the County that would give the MAC direction on several key issues.  As discussed in the prior posts, that direction did not come.

So the MAC found itself, in a way, starting over again, with a discussion of procedure, the boundaries being considered, and its timeline for consideration: not very substantive issues given the age of the MAC.

Timeline: it was confirmed that the NE MAC first met (in its present form) held its first meeting in late February 2013.  The county code Section 20-29(E) provides that the MAC must complete its study within 24 months.  This means the MAC must "wrap it up" in 11 months.  The county representative was asked if incorporation could possibly be on the ballot in the November general election (when people actually vote).  He answered that since it takes the county government about 120 days to set an election, that the vote would likely be no sooner than mid-2015.  One of the most-asked questions about incorporation is "when is the vote", so there's your answer: 2015.

Boundaries:  The county staff were challenged on a statement they had made previously: that the boundaries being considered by the NE MAC could not be changed to exclude the [vocal anti-incorporation] condos in the SW part of the study area.  The challenge was twofold: (i) there is NOT a prohibition against an incorporation that creates an "enclave" (county representative Jorge Fernandez said the opposite at a meeting in 2013), and (ii) there may be no such "enclave" anyway, because the condos would be "attached" to the unincorporated area to the west of I-95.  There was some friction here: Jorge Fernandez didn't want to pursue a change to the boundaries, and some members of the MAC wouldn't be shrugged off so easily (again), so it was decided that the county attorney would be consulted for an opinion on the matter. 

County Meeting Update:  The county representative (Fernandez) glossed over the [disappointing] February 27 meeting of county commissioners, where the "tough" issues on both incorporation and annexation were basically deferred.  The county is going to hire a "consultant" to study the issue and make recommendations (again), and the consultant hasn't even been selected yet, so there is no help on the critical issue of mitigation (below), and likely won't be during the MAC's 2-year lifespan.

Budget Discussion:  Since the county gave no direction on Mitigation, there is a big issue facing the MAC.  Recall that "Mitigation" is the idea that if a "donor community" such as ours incorporates (forms a new city), the County would lose money on the deal, and nobody likes losing money.  So the county has a "poison pill" in the county laws that says 'if a donor community incorporates, we want to keep getting paid.'  See how that might be a little devastating to a new city that had hoped to "keep those tax dollars at work locally and not spent elsewhere in the county?"  Jorge Fernandez suggested that in other recent incorporations (in Miami Lakes, Doral and Palmetto Bay) the law had been enforced loosely, but that's not very comforting coming from a guy who was caught in a lie about the boundaries (see 2 paragraphs up). It was decided that the budget for the "new city" would have to account for mitigation payments to the county, until the county stops dragging its feet and addresses the issue (very unlikely to happen before the MAC wraps up in February 2015).

Mitigation is such a critical issue to incorporation that it deserves it's own post, coming up next.