Ken Russell arrives for his swearing in as a Commissioner

Going in, everyone knew the September 29th Miami Commission meeting was going to be a raucous affair.

District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell had earlier called for the firing of the city lawyer. He contends that she withheld emails he had requested to make a decision. For her part, the City Lawyer Victoria Mendez, says it was just an oversight.

Whatever happened between them was long beside the point. By the time the Commission met there was only one issue: whether the city attorney should be fired because that’s what Commissioner Ken Russell had asked for.

At first the Commissioners tussled over whether there would be any public comment whatsoever, despite the overflow crowd, which had come to comment.

IRONY ALERT!!! Whether the public was allowed to speak required a legal opinion. All eyes turned to the city lawyer, Victoria Mendez, who was sitting on the dais. Obviously, she couldn’t give an opinion about whether people should be allowed to trash her and her reputation. Consequently, she had to recuse herself and the opinion was given by one of her staff. Why was Mendez even up there?

BTW: The legal opinion was that if there is to be action taken — like a vote — the public has the right to speak. If, however, it was only to be a discussion among the Commissioners, there is no obligation to hear from the constituents. The Commissioners voted to open up the floor to public comments.

After the public got to weigh in for about 2 hours — for Mendez, against Mendez — Russell restated his case for Mendez’s removal and responded to everything he had heard. He also alleged a dark conspiracy to smear him and his staff over this issue, saying his office had been hit with multiple Public Records Requests looking for documents and texts from Russell and his entire staff to be used against them.

Russell also reacted angrily to one person who I thought would have been his ally, muckraking radio host Grant Stern. Stern was also calling for the firing of Mendez and during the public comments made the most persuasive case. However, earlier Stern had to be admonished personally by the Chair near the beginning of the meeting when he loudly — and editorially — coughed from the public gallery.

When Russell admonished Stern, I was surprised. But, Russell alleged the one time he met privately with him — and, ironically, Victoria Mendez — Stern was so rude that everyone felt the need to apologize to Mendez.

Apparently, people had been trying to make hay from the fact that Russell was receiving emails from Stern. He acknowledged that, but said that anyone can write to a Commissioner and people should not make too much of it.

Russell finally made his motion at to remove the city attorney. And then there was a long pause waiting for someone to second his motion. No one did. Game over.

Win or lose, Commissioner Russell had agreed to an interview with the Not Now Silly Newsroom after the vote. This is the first 10 minutes of our free-wheeling discussion:

Q: Icarus flew too close to the sun. Now what?

A: Oh. You want to talk about today—
 
Q: Partially.
 
A: There’s so many things. There’s that. There’s your public records request with Armbrister—
 
Q: We’ll get there. *
 
A: And, we lost the Trolley garage.
 
Q: We’ll get there. *

A: You do need some time with me. I may need to go to the bathroom.

Q: I’ve got more topics than you got time.
 
A: I’ve got ‘em too, trust me.
 
Q: My impression is that you’ve set back the cause of reform.
 
A: Oh! Interesting. Okay.
 
Q: What’s that expression, “When you shoot for the King, you better make sure that you get the job done”?
 
A: I disagree. The only way I could have shored that vote up and had it in my pocket walking into that meeting was to have broken “sunshine” [laws] and I knew that if I did this—specifically because I’m fighting about a public records issue and what is right, and about transparency — I had to do it the right way. 

So, with 100% sincerity, not one Commissioner up there saw that coming. The City Manager didn’t know about it. The only one who knew about it was Vickie [Victoria Mendez] because I had the courtesy to talk to her before hand.
 
As far as flying too close to the sun: We’ve been doing that since we got in Day One. 

You were probably the first interview that I had when I sat down with you behind the church and talked. We talked about plans and goals and dreams and ideas. And, it’s been 9, 10 months now and we’ve done a lot. I’m really encouraged by what we’ve accomplished. We’ve taken on some big goals and tamed them. We’ve gotten a lot of reform done. We’ve gotten a lot of change done.
 
You can’t win everything, but it doesn’t mean you don’t go for it. 

Before I pulled the trigger on this, I knew this was going to be a tough battle. I knew nobody wanted to fire her. I knew that this re-plat issue—such a small issue in the minds of the other Commissioners because none of their districts need to go to a warrant for a re-plat. Only my district.

So, I knew I was going to have trouble for this, but I knew that documents were withheld from me by my own attorney. And there’s no way I can turn a blind eye to that. There’s no way I cam slap her on the wrist, or say “Don’t do it next time”. To me there is no way a client/attorney privilege can survive without trust. And, that was broken. And, it wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a knee-jerk to a momentary thing. We had been trying to get information on this case for months and months and months.
 
So I knew, win, lose or draw, I had to bring it to my commissioners and see where they stood. Would they stand with me and agree that that was enough. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of the other pressures that get involved in these situations, caused a lot of distraction.
 
And so, I didn’t prevail. But, what did prevail, and the other conversations that the other Commissioners had after I lost the vote were about reform and the change and the specifics to this case. Everything from not allowing the buiding permit on a T-plat until everything’s right. About forcing the [city] attorney’s office to have an official LSR opinion, instead of being able to weigh in willy nilly when any developer wants them to.
 
They [city attorney’s office] should never have been able to have had an opinion on this case. The fact that they did was because they were requested by an outsider. They don’t work for the outsider; they work for the city. If the city had asked for an opinion, “Oh, we’re not sure about how we’re interpreting our code” the city attorney can help us. That would have been the appropriate time [for the city attorney to get involved]. That never happened. So that was a change that was suggested.
 
More changes are going to be suggested. So, I don’t look at it as a step back for reform. I think I’s just the start.
 
Q: Do you think that following the vote the city attorney has been put on a shorter leash, or do you think it’s business as usual?
 
A: I think if I ever ask for documents in the future, I will get them. And, I think that is a big change that will happen.
 
Q: This all came out of Battersea. But, even the documents I got from this office the other day, of the 13 properties that you identified that may have been illegally split. It turns out that those were all NCD-3 [Neighborhood Construction District; properties in South Grove], when you know my concern is NCD-2 … 

A: [In unison] The NCD-2 [of the West Grove]. Right. Right.
 
Q: I am also one of those people who think that Battersea [in South Grove] got far more attention than it should have when you’ve got people on Grand Avenue that are suffering. And, not just a little bit. That’s probably one of the worst ghettos in Miami. How do you reassure the people of Coconut Grove now — West Grove — that you’re on it, when all this attention was for Battersea?
 
A: Of course. You absolutely have to have respect and heart for when you hear [name redacted] come to City Commission and say “Why are you all worried about this when we’re going through this?” And, she’s not wrong. She’s absolutely right.
 
Q: But she was off topic today.
 
A: It will always be off topic because we’re going to be talking about something that’s not that and nothing is as important as that to her. And, she’s not wrong. We’re going to be talking about, yannow, picking up dog poop or something, and that’s not as important as someone getting evicted. We’re going to be talking about the color of houses and that’s not as important.
 
So she can literally come to every meeting and scream that same mantra and she would not be wrong because they are not getting enough attention. It’s not getting fixed.
 
It’s not fair to say that we can’t do any other business until those things are attended to because Battersea came and Battersea had to be attended to.
 
But, guess what? Grand Avenue has come and we are attending to that too. I have knocked on every single door of every potential evicted resident on Grand Avenue. So to say that there’s no attention being paid, is actually incorrect. The lawsuit was filed [against an owner who has not maintained the property, leaving residents living among cockroaches, mold and mildew, and raw sewage backing up] at my request to force the owner, the slumlord, to bring those into code or to help everybody with relocation. That was not a simple thing, but when I realized that that wasn’t enough, at first I went, “We are doing a lot” but then I realized that if the result is not there, then it’s not enough. If I haven’t either saved their home, or found them a new home, it’s not enough. And, the buildings are still coming down. And, it’s not enough.
 
So she’s not wrong. I can’t fault her for being as angry as she is.
 
Q: All the people who stood up [to speak] today — the West Grove people who got up to talk they were all basically saying “We’re being ignored.” How do you reassure them they’re not being ignored? Their perception is different.
 
A: Yes. I don’t know how I should better communicate the actions that we are taking in the West Grove. A lot of the initiatives, like the purchase of the Trolley garage and gifting it back to the community; thematic and historic designation of all the wood frame homes that would then find funding to renovate them, which can then convert them into affordable housing; these are all goals that I have. They’re not overnight goals, but they’re happening. You can see the list of projects that we have intended that are on those Post-it notes on the wall. Those are the legislative things that we’re trying to accomplish. So, there’s a lot on the plate.
 
But that is one of the top—that is one of the top because I know that West Grove is disappearing onn a daily basis and residents are moving out on a daily basis. 

*  Our conversation lasted another 25 minutes. Unfortunately my recorder malfunctioned and the rest of the conversation was lost. It was a wide-ranging discussion that included my records request [Read: An Open Reply To Miami’s Public Records Department and Another Open Email To Miami’s Public Records Department]; the Trolley garage that Russell thought he had purchased on behalf of the city, but found out this week a private owner scooped it out from under him; and Grant Stern. All lost.

TO: Jones, Isiaa <IJones@miami.gov>
SUBJECT: Frustration Over PRR 16-452: FOIA Request
DATE: September 28, 2016

CC: Melendez, Eleazar <ElMelendez@miamigov.com>; Russell, Ken (Commissioner) <krussell@miamigov.com>; Mendez, Victoria  <VMendez@miamigov.com>; Hannon, Todd <thannon@miamigov.com>; The Loyal Readers of the Not Now Silly Newsroom; Various Facebook Groups and Pages of my choosing

Monday morning I sent an email which stated I’d be at Miami City Hall on Tuesday to inspect the files you said would be waiting for me. In that email I asked 2 questions, basically: Whether the fee for the emails I requested was still on the table and how much it costs to photocopy per page.

I never got a response to that email, so I didn’t know when I arrived on Tuesday morning whether my 24 hours notice was sufficient. Luckily, when I arrived, I was expected.

There were 2 boxes of material for me to look through, but only a small portion of the total answered any of my search criteria. The rest was just all the city files that arrived in those boxes from the former-Commissioner’s office.

While some of it was quite interesting — and I wish I had the budget to photocopy that entire 2 inch thick Reid Welch file — and while some of it matched my search criteria, none of it is what I asked for.

I am not sure what instructions Mr. Hannon received, but this is exactly what I asked for, from my original email to Commissioner Russell:

I would like to receive any email [from the former District 2 Commissioners office] that references the following keywords:

And, I’m still waiting.

To be perfectly honest, I was requesting the email FIRST in case it gave me new information to add to a RECORDS search. You see, my RECORDS search would have come later, based upon what the emails revealed.

I drove down to Miami from Sunrise yesterday hoping to do all of this on one trip. No one in the Clerk’s office knew a thing about the email I was supposed to examine. Aside from the gas wasted, I spent more than 3.5 hours on the road  [Yeah, it shocked me too. The roads were bad yesterday.]

Thinking about my time and gas makes me wonder how many keystrokes it took your IT guy to come up with a cost of $100.31. How many minutes from an IT guy am I paying for? What is the basic rate?

One good piece of news: I now know that you charge 15 cents per photocopy, because I got a few made out of those boxes. That’s Kinko pricing.  

Meanwhile, I’d like to draw your attention to the penultimate paragraph of a letter Commissioner Ken Russell sent to the Miami Herald, published yesterday:

Our decision on Thursday morning is not an easy one, but it is very simple. Our attorney withheld public records, and I have lost my trust in her. This cannot be denied, and it’s enough to call for her removal. What’s at stake, however, is much greater. The commission has this opportunity to tell the public that we prioritize transparency and accountability — that we don’t agree that friends in high places should be able to circumvent our public process.

I’m still waiting for transparency. None of this should be as hard as it has been.

I have chosen to make this a public reply to an email recently received from the City of Miami’s Public Records Department.

TO: Jones, Isiaa <IJones@miami.gov>
SUBJECT: PRR 16-452: FOIA Request
DATE: September 16, 2016

CC: Melendez, Eleazar <ElMelendez@miamigov.com>; Russell, Ken (Commissioner) <krussell@miamigov.com>; Mendez, Victoria  <VMendez@miamigov.com>; Hannon, Todd <thannon@miamigov.com>; The Loyal Readers of the Not Now Silly Newsroom; Various Facebook Groups and Pages of my choosing

Hello and thank you for your prompt attention to my FOIA request, which I first sent to the office of the District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell. You’ve summed up my keyword search criteria correctly.

However, while some may feel the fee to acquire these emails small, as a citizen blogger with a budget of $0 and zero cents, I simply cannot — will not — pay this cost. If I were, say, the Miami Herald, I could easily afford this. Unfortunately these are topics that never much interested the Miami Herald. So, it’s left to a citizen-journalist-blogger like me to ask these inconvenient questions.

I have been writing about Trolleygate and Soilgate as separate issues from their beginnings. However, recently it began to appear as if there is a connection between these two stories. Hence, my records request.

Tangentially, there was a time in this country when anyone could wander down to the local City Hall and ask to take a look at a file. Now one must pay the costs of retrieval, from an expensive and complicated system the city set up, because that’s the only option. While I understand how that makes sense fiscally, costs like this run counter to the Florida Sunshine laws. The information should be free.

Additionally, in your email you state:

The process to create the storage media will take approximately 4 business days after receiving the approval and payment. The costs includes [sic] searches for Civilian mailboxes. Police mailboxes are not included. If the request is related to a law matter case or may include any other exempted emails then a review of the results may be required before being released and this may add more delivery time and cost.

That means there will almost assuredly be additional, hidden, costs because at least one of these matters was the subject of extensive litigation, which the city of Miami eventually lost. This cost the City of Miami and the city attorney’s office a hefty legal bill that has yet to be tallied. [Hey! That might make another good Public Records Request, but one thing at a time.]

IRONY ALERT: As was in all the local newspapers, the current District 2 Commissioner, Ken Russell, requested the firing of the City of Miami attorney because he says his office no longer has any faith in her. And, why is that? Because when his office asked her office to produce emails, some were not forthcoming.

Yet, due to city protocol, here’s how Eleazar Melendez, Chief of Staff at the Commissioner’s office, was forced to reply to my FOIA request:

I am passing your email to the city attorney’s office, as we discussed, in order to fully and legally comply with this public records request. They will perform a full and exhaustive search for the terms requested and, as we discussed, might ask for a payment in order to cover resources being dedicated to performing the search.

The City of Miami attorney the District 2 Commissioner wants fired replied:

Will handle. Thx.
Victoria Méndez, City Attorney

Kafka lives!!!

Consequently, and for the reasons listed above, I am CCing the current District 2 Commissioner to see whether he is interested in discovering what kind of strange deals were made by his predecessor to:

1). Get Armbrister Field AstroTurfed over so quickly, especially considering other parks were being closed due to toxic soil [Read: Marc D. Sarnoff ► Everything Old Is New Again];

2). Get a relative clean bill of health for Armbrister Field while he was closing other parks that had toxic soil, even though parts of Armbrister Field was recently closed due to toxic soil [Read: Armbrister Field Contaminated After All! Was There An AstroTurf Cover Up?];

3). Appear to act as political lobbyist and fixer when he intermediated between Astor Development and a community group to offer $200,000 to remediate Armbrister Field with AstroTurf in order so that they drop their objection to the Trolley maintenance garage being built on Douglas Avenue [Read: Is Marc D. Sarnoff Corrupt Or The Most Corrupt Miami Politician?];

4). Subtly threaten his constituents to withdraw his approval supporting local community initiatives if they refuse to drop their objections to the Trolley maintenance garage [Read: The Trolleygate Dog And Pony Show];

5). Possibly helped the developer find a way around a City of Miami’s Planning and Zoning e-mail that flagged the Trolley maintenance garage as non-conforming [Read: BLOCKBUSTER!!! The Trolleygate Smoking Gun Surfaces];

6). Totally ignore the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in order to force a non-conforming Trolley maintenance garage onto Douglas Avenue [Read: Trolleygate Violates 1964 Civil Rights Act ► Not Now Silly Vindicated];

7). So quickly close 6 parks and begin remediation plans without any consultation with the ratepayers, who also happened to also be his own constituents in some cases;

8). Illegally apply (then remove, then deny he ever had ever done so in the first place) a Brownfield Field Site designation in the neighbourhoods surrounding these parks deemed toxic [Read: When Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff Lied To My Face].

That is why I am making a formal request to the current District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell to request these documents on behalf of the citizens of West Grove, who have been fighting systemic racism for many decades.

It has always been my contention that many of the decisions that affected West Grove made by the previous office-holder appear to have been a modern day extension of the systemic racism that has plagued the West Grove – and, to make a larger point, the entire country – over the last century. [Read: Modern Day Colonialism and Trolleygate] There is no way a Trolley maintenance garage would have ever been sited near Shipping and Virginia and it’s instructive to note that Blanche Park, across the street from the previous office-holder, was the first park closed due to toxic soil and remediated (and remediated more than once, for that matter).

I just want to find out what was happening behind the scenes while the constituents were being kept in the dark.

Thank you for your prompt attention to these matters.

Headly Westerfield
Chief Word Wrangler
Not Now Silly Newsroom

More about Trolleygate and Soilgate An Introduction to Trolleygate Is Marc D. Sarnoff Corrupt Or The Most Corrupt Miami Politician? BLOCKBUSTER!!! The Trolleygate Smoking Gun Surfaces An Open Letter To Miami Media Marc D. Sarnoff ► Everything Old Is New Again When Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff Lied To My Face

Back in 2013, when Soilgate was just getting off the ground (pun intended), the big surprise was that Esther Mae Armbrister Park was NOT one of those ordered closed IMMEDIATELY.

That’s because Armbrister Park is immediately adjacent to where Old Smokey had been belching out black and acrid smoke for close to 70 years. Old Smokey is also where the contaminated soil dumped in the Miami parks ordered closed had originally come from.

Despite the relative clean bill of health, the football field at Armbrister Park was immediately remediated by having the topsoil scraped, removed, and the whole thing capped with AstroTurf. Even the children’s playground was capped and covered with a rubberized material, which almost immediately started to flake and disintegrate.

Everybody thought that was the end of that. Until September 7, 2016, that is.

That’s when my phone and text started blowing up. Several of my faithful readers wasted no time to tell me that they heard Armbrister Field was being closed because it was found to be contaminated with toxic soil. However, none of my sources had first-hand knowledge at that moment in time. [Documents started winging their way around the internet a few hours later.]

To get confirmation, I thought I would go straight to District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell. He and I originally met over the issue of toxic soil long before he ever considered running for office. At the time he was locked in battle against the [allegedly] corrupt former-Miami commissioner, Marc D. Sarnoff over the remediation of Merrie Christmas Park. This is the park right across the street from his house. It — and 6 other parks — were suddenly closed without any notification after the soil had been deemed toxic.

The residents living around Merrie Christmas Park hired a lawyer (bankrolled privately) to see the park was remediated to their satisfaction. And, it was. That also led to the removal of the Brown Field Site Designation that had been illegally applied to their neighbourhood.

Tangentially, and no less important, is that the park immediately across the street from [allegedly] corrupt former-Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff was also remediated. In fact, it was the first to be remediated. What’s more is that it’s been remediated twice already.

My point being that it’s bad optics when the park in front of your house is fixed, but there are still entire neighbourhoods waiting nearly 4 years for their parks to reopen.

Ceremonial ground breaking for the remediation of the toxic soil at Douglas Park – July 6, 2016

On July 6th I attended a groundbreaking for the eventual reopening of Douglas Park, a park that is still not renovated after being closed for nearly 4 years.

Back in November of 2014, [allegedly] corrupt former-Miami District 2 Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff was assuring residents round Douglas Park that the city was on top of their toxic soil problem. However, the work did not start until July of this year under the administration of his successor. It’s estimated that it will take 2 years before the park reopens. And, we know how solid these kind of estimates are.

But I digress.

My call to Commissioner Russell’s office seemed to take everyone by surprise. For laughs I decided to go through his main office number. Speaking to the receptionist, I made it clear that I was a reporter, I needed to speak to Chief of Staff Eleazar Melendez, Anthony Balzbre, but more importantly Commissioner Russell, for an ON THE RECORD response. She dutiful took down all the info, said they were all in a meeting, but asked me to hold on.

Within a minute Eleazar was on the phone with me. This was the first he had heard of Armbrister Park being closed and could not confirm. I told him I needed an ON THE RECORD comment and confirmation from his boss. He said he’d get back to me as soon as he learned more. [In the meantime, I was still getting phone calls and info from other sources.]

Less than an hour and a half later Commissioner Russell called me back personally to confirm what I had heard. He knew little more than the park was closing due to elevated levels of arsenic, but promised to keep me up to speed.

Unlike the parks that were found to have toxic soil, Armbrister Field was not contaminated with the same Old Smokey landfill that was spread around all the other parks. While this appears to be a case of “what goes up, must come down” further testing is needed to determine where the toxins came from. Old Smokey belched out smoke and particulate over a wide area for around 70 years. It was carried wherever the prevailing winds blew. That’s why everyone was surprised that Armbrister Field had been given a clean bill of health when all the other parks had closed.

Or had it?

During the Trolleygate fiasco, this reporter wrote about how [allegedly] corrupt former-Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff had been using new AstroTurf at Armbrister Field as a bribe bargaining chip to get the Trolleygate diesel bus garage built. Apparently, [allegedly] corrupt former-Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff convinced Astor Development to cough up $250,000 out of the goodness of its corporate heart to cover Armbrister Field with AstroTurf. However, there appeared to have been strings attached by [allegedly] corrupt former-Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff. He wanted the West Grove ratepayer groups to drop their challenge(s) to Astor Development building what would eventually turn out to be the illegally constructed polluting diesel bus garage on Douglas Avenue in their community.

The Now Now Silly Newsroom has published several stories that called into question Astor’s motives in proffering a $250,000 bribe incentive in the form of a new AstroTurfed football field. In the end, who did pay for the AstroTurf at Armbrister? And, why was the amount $250,000?

In the last 2 days this reporter has had several conversations with officials, both on and off the record. I think I am finally closing in on the quid pro quo. There will definitely be a Part Two to this story as I learn more, ferret out more documents, and as more people go ON THE RECORD. Eventually I hope to answer the following questions:

Since my last visit the house has been cited for a by law infraction.

When I attended the meeting at Plymouth Congregational Church for South Grove residents to complain that developers have been allowed to get away with lot splitting and building Big White Boxes in their exclusive neighbourhood, there was one repeated piece of advice from the Miami officials to the homeowners:

This won’t deter any kids, the homeless, or crackheads.

As I was taking pictures last week I listened to someone on their cell phone reporting the address to City of Miami officials. It had already been reported to the NET office previously, according to my source.

The only thing that’s changed since last week is that Miami inspectors cited the house for a By Law infraction. Additionally, a lock has been placed on the front gate, presumably by the owner because that’s not the kind of thing the city does. However, that fence is 3 feet tall, tops. Any child older than 2 can easily climb over it, which is what the reports are meant to prevent.

Unlocked houses are attractive to kids. When I was taking my pictures last week there were a couple of kids playing in the street right outside the house. I know if I lived in the neighbourhood I’d have been all over this place as a kid.

The house remains unlocked and open to anyone who wants to get inside.

It really does no good to just slap a By Law infraction notice on the house and a bicycle lock on a gate that anyone can climb over. This house needs to be sealed. Children can get seriously hurt in it. There are signs that people have been sleeping in it and it is a potential safe haven for crackheads.

According to the City of Miami property search website this house is owned by LEMANO INVESTMENTS LLC. , a company that owns 19 other properties in Miami, the only place that I’ve bothered to search. The registered agent’s name & address is: MOYAL ACCOUNTING SERVICES INC, 10796 PINES BLVD, SUITE 204, PEMBROKE PINES, FL 33026. The manager of that company is listed as HENRY, FREDERIC, 2550 SOUTH BAYSHORE DRIVE, COCONUT GROVE, FL 33133, a pretty ritzy address, if you ask me. I can’t imagine why they cannot afford to buy a few pieces of wood to seal this house. Maybe somebody from the city should give them a call and ask.

BTW: Along with the notice slapped on the house, the city sends a registered letter to the owner. However, it needs to be asked: How many previous citations have been slapped on this house since I first started taking pics of it 7 years ago?

If the owner won’t do the right thing, the City of Miami needs to show up with some plywood and seal the front and back doors and charge it back to the owner. From my understanding this house has been reported to the City of Miami enough times that the city might find itself legally liable if something terrible were to happen now.

I ended Coconut Grove in Black and White by drawing a stark camparison between West Grove and South Grove:

As South Grove meets with their elected representatives, West Grove is as ignored as ever. As South Grove begins the task of forming a Homeowners Association, West Grove is quietly gentrified without anyone noticing. When will West Grove get the same kind of attention from the City of Miami as South Grove? 

Would this disaster have gone this long in South Grove without the city taking action? Or is “See something; Say something” just an empty slogan — like FAIR & BALANCED — no matter what part of District 2 you live in?

Inquiring minds want — no, need — to know.