WOA has learned that certified letters went out last weekend to members of the North East Municipal Advisory Committee (the "MAC") advising them that the committee had been suspended. For the sake of accuracy, an image of the actual letter follows.
The "thank you for your service" makes it sound like more than temporary, but since the push to incorporate areas such as "west aventura" comes from the County, and on the County's terms (see discussion of Conceptual Agreement), it is hard to imagine Mr. Fernandez won't attempt to get things moving again ASAP.
The letter sheds light on the
real reason for the abrupt cancellation of the July 25 meeting discussed in the last post - the county was misleading in citing a "conflict" as the reason for cancellation, unless by "conflict" they mean that the existence of the MAC is in conflict with the county attorney, who finds something sufficiently flawed to have brought the entire effort to a screeching halt.
You can view the ordinance creating the MAC (and other information about the committee) at:
http://www.miamidade.gov/incorporationandannexation/northeast-dade.asp
The ordinance creating the NE MAC is dated April 13, 2004. So one interpretation of why the MAC was suspended may be simply that the ordinance was not properly written to "resuscitate" the 2004/5 MAC
in 2015; it was already way past its "best before date." Or the ordinance may be flawed in Section 2, where the study boundaries are inadequately defined (they say the northern boundary of the study area is NE 215th Street, and not "Broward County Line" as it should).
It will be interesting to see if the "flaws" with the ordinance relate to its composition. As noted in the March 4 post (which you can read
here), the County is evolving in its ideas of what a MAC should be, including that it be diverse in both ideology (having members both "pro" and "anti" incorporation), and geography (having members who represent all areas of the study area, not just Highland Lakes/Sky Lake, with nobody from Ojus or the condos).
So, what is the effect of the MAC suspension? Well, at the very least, the MAC is on "pause", and every month of suspension will mean another month added to the February 2015 deadline for the MAC to conclude it's study. The letter says the ordinance may be fixed "
possibly by the end of the year", which implies a delay of
AT LEAST 4 months. The earliest that "west aventura" citizens would be able to vote on incorporation of a new city would therefore approach the
end of 2015, and maybe much later.
So, can the "NO to incorporation" signs come down now? If not, expect to be looking at them for a very, very long time.
