Tag Archives: Marc Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park

Marc D. Sarnoff ► Everything Old Is New Again

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I’ve managed (mainly) to avoid writing about [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, except as it related to Trolleygate.

However, that doesn’t mean Sarnoff was totally off my radar. While I’ve been busy writing about things which interest me far more than a term-limited local politician, I still kept one eye on him, amazed at the crap he gets away with in plain sight. Therefore, I can’t help but wonder what he’s getting away with behind the scenes. Lately that has had a habit of sneaking out, mostly because he’s having trouble keeping his lies straight. You can’t tell one community group one thing and another community group the opposite and not expect them to compare notes. That’s why in so many recent off the record conversations the sentiment was expressed, “No one with the Sarnoff name will ever be elected to office again.”

Granted I was the one saying it, but only because I truly believe it.

I started researching this post, in a desultory manner, when the notice above came in through my electronic transom. “Oh!” I thought. “I really need to go to this to see if [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff says anything stupid or incriminating.”

I hadn’t forgotten how he used $200,000 of Astor Development’s money to bribe the folks at Ambrister Field to oppose the folks fighting to keep Sarnoff from shoving a polluting diesel trolley bus garage into their neighbourhood, contrary to zoning ordinances. I fantasized that Astor Development would be there to help Sarnoff cut the ribbon.  [At the time Armbrister Field was thought to be contaminated due to being right next door to Old Smokey, the incinerator.]

LONG STORY SHORT: In the end, after multiple lawsuits, the bus garage that got built BECAUSE of meddling by [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff will never be used as a bus garage. Now the dickering is over what adaptive use it can be converted to for the benefit of the neighbourhood and how much money Astor Development wants to get rid of this white elephant [pun intended]. The last figure I heard, that people are still laughing at, was $4,000,000.

ANOTHER LONG STORY SHORT: Sarnoff didn’t say anything stupid or incriminating at the Armbrister Field ribbon cutting and — amazingly — he didn’t even try to grab credit for all the renovations. While it amused me he pulled a muscle in the first inning of the Police vs Politicians softball game, it wasn’t enough to sustain a whole post. So I never wrote it up.

Even before the Armbrister Field ribbon cutting I had been thinking of Sarnoff because his name kept cropping up in the media on the issue of Soilgate. I joined a Facebook community group called Friends of Merrie Christmas Park, formed by Ken Russell who lives across the street from the park. Russell was blithely unaware he was living across the street from a toxic park until the park was suddenly closed. He was unaware a remediation plan had been put into effect until the bulldozers arrived. After he delved deeper into the city’s plan for
the toxic soil remediation, and found it wanting, Russell started to organize his neighbours.

Merrie Christmas Park is one of the Miami Parks — most of them in Coconut Grove — closed due to the discovery of toxic soil. The toxic soil comes from ash from Old Smokey, which was used as fill in the earliest days of Miami.

Are these parks merely the tip of the toxic iceberg?

Courtesy John Dolson

The dirty secret that almost nobody is talking about — concentrating on just the parks instead — is that toxic landfill from Old Smokey is scattered all over Miami.

Most of South Florida is built on fill of one sort or another. Keep in mind, just 100 years ago this entire region was little more than a swamp. Slowly, as infrastructure was added in the form of roads, railways, and bridges, vast swaths of land in between was still waterlogged. Digging the canals that crisscross South Florida helped drain the swamp and it also provided the earliest fill to build upon. However, it was never enough. Back in the day Old Smokey was simply giving it away. The du Ponts used approximately 100,000 tons of it to build their estate on St. Gaudens Road. 

What seems to have bothered Friends of Merrie Christmas Park most was the lack of public notification. Notification might have allowed them to have input into any eventual remediation plan. Or, at the very least, an understanding of the stakes before [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff cut all his backroom deals. Yet, as much as this fight is about toxic soil, it is also about property values. The decisions that Sarnoff shoved through city hall without public input forced Miami-Dade County to declare every home within a 1/4 mile radius a Brownfield site. No one knows for sure, but it’s estimated that having one’s home declared a Brownfield site devalues a property by 10% to 20%.

Once Sarnoff caught wind the Friends of Merrie Christmas Park was going to hold a neighbourhood meeting, he sprung into action!!! First he scheduled a Dog and Pony Show at Miami City Hall and then he crashed the neighbourhood meeting in Merrie Christmas Park to obfuscate. Watch:


Video courtesy Al Crespo of The Crespogram Report
IRONY ALERT: It was the earlier lawsuit against
Sarnoff’s previous fiasco, Trolleygate, that uncovered a 2-year old memo
indicating Miami was already aware of poisoned parks, but buried the
results. [Pun intended.] This led to the testing of all the parks, which led to the
closure of 6 of them for remediation. The biggest parallel between Soilgate and Trolleygate is how all of those decisions were made in backrooms, without proper neighbourhood notifications.

In Trolleygate that led to all those lawsuits, which cost the city of Miami a bundle to defend. That was taxpayer money wasted by Marc D. Sarnoff, who was protecting the interests of an out-of-town developer building an out-of-town diesel bus garage, over the interests of his own constituents.

No lawsuits have been filed in Soilgate . . . yet, but it seems inevitable. And, every dollar spent on lawsuits can be blamed on [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff making decisions in backrooms, as opposed to under the light of Florida Sunshine Laws.

IRONY ALERT II: A Marc D. Sarnoff Dog and Pony Show should be trade-marked and patented. They all follow the same pattern. First Sarnoff ignores his constituents, making backroom deals without benefit of Florida’s Sunshine Laws. Once the taxpayers and his constituents have learned they were sold down the river, they start to agitate. If they agitate loud enough, Sarnoff spends taxpayer money to create a Dog and Pony Show and then calls a public meeting to sell the neighbours on the plan that’s already a fait accompli.

In other words: The Dog and Pony Show is the public meeting that MORE PROPERLY should have taken place before any decisions were made so that the stakeholders — the neighbours — the community — the taxpayers — his own constituents — understand the issues. However, Marc D. Sarnoff prefers people are kept in the dark until it’s too late.

As Miami New Times writer David Villano tells us in his groundbreaking story City Quietly Labels Toxic Parks “Brownfield Sites,” Limiting Neighborhood Input In Cleanup:

Ken Russell of the Friends of Merrie Christmas Park, is outraged that he and other nearby residents were not notified of the proposal to re-label the park as a Brownfield — a move he believes could greatly impact property values.

“It’s hard to believe they didn’t make an effort to tell anybody,” he says.

[…]

City officials say an ad publicizing the hearing was placed in three local publications — the Miami Times, the Daily Business Review, and Diario Las Americas.

You might be forgiven if you don’t understand this notice. In
fact, it’s what [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D.
Sarnoff was hoping. Image swiped from The Crespogram Report

How could the city say it notified the residents when no resident remembers being notified?  Al Crespo of The Crespogram Report, shows how this hocus pocus was performed. In a story called The Miami City Commission Will Always Try To Screw You In July, he reports the city did this by deliberately NOT naming the parks, just listing the various addresses:

Skimming through the agenda, or skimming through the notices published in the Public Notice section of Miami Times, The Daily Business Review and Diario Las Americas, one’s eyes could easily have slid over a bland notice listing a handful of addresses.

Further proof that this was intentionally done so as to minimize the ability of the residents living close to these parks to speak at the Public Hearing, was the failure of the City to post notices around these Park properties, thereby minimizing the possibility that the residents would find out and attend the Public Hearing.

A dollar to a donut says that all of this can be attributed to decisions and instructions issued by Commissioner Sarnoff to Assistant City Manager Alice Bravo.

Why Sarnoff?  First, because 4 of the 6 parks included in this agenda item are in his District, and secondly because he, along with Alice Bravo, his ever present sock puppet on all of these kinds of issues have been at the center of all issues and schemes dealing with how the city dealt with the discovery, testing and now with the clean up of the contamination in these parks.

Sarnoff again!!! He keeps turning up like a bad penny.

IRONY ALERT III:  The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog
Park, also known as Blanche Park, was also found to contain toxic soil.
This is ironic because Sarnoff not only lives across the street from the
park, but the park had been renovated SEVERAL times prior to the toxicity becoming known. One of those previous renovations was to take 2/3rd of the
park away from CHILDREN and letting it go to the dogs, literally, by turning it into a dog park.
Sarnoff has no children, but he does have dogs. And, he managed to ram a
dog park through across the street from his house, before anyone knew
what happened, children be damned.

IRONY ALERT IV: The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park is the only park closed because of toxic soil that has ALREADY been remediated and reopened. How about that? I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with the fact that [allegedly] corrupt Marc D. Sarnoff lives across the street.

However, and this is DAMNED important, it was closed, remediated, and reopened SEVERAL TIMES!!! What was wrong with the first remediation? What was wrong with the second remediation? What did all those children — and, okay, dogs, too — ingest in the various times the park was open before and between various remediations?

TRYING TO MAKE A VERY LONG STORY SHORT: What’s happened at Merrie Christmas Park since the latest Sarnoff Dog and Pony Show is almost a repeat of previous Sarnoff Comedy Capers. First he tries to set one neighbour off against another, by blaming the activists (who hired a lawyer to make sure their rights are not further abrogated by the meddling of Sarnoff) for the project being stalled. Once he saw which way the toxic wind was blowing, Sarnoff agreed to remove ALL the toxic soil, but only if the nearby residents would kick in a portion of the clean-up costs.

I need to repeat that because it’s so outrageous:

Marc D. Sarnoff thinks the residents should help pay the cost of removing the toxic soil that the City of Miami put in the park in the first place. 

Once the idea that residents pay for their own remediation was rightfully laughed at by all intelligent people, Sarnoff still got his way. In the end, an angel ponied up the private costs of removing the toxic soil. All that is know about this anonymous donor so far is that it is a male, he lives in Coral Gables, which is just on the other side of Le Jeune Road from Merrie Christmas Park, and has fond memories of playing in the park as a child.

However, the remediation appears to be stalled, despite several promises by Sarnoff that it would be cleaned up by now.

And, that’s just one park. 

There were 15 people at this meeting. Two were reporters. One
was a rep from the Coconut Grove Village Council. At least 2
live in other neighbourhoods.That leaves 11 concerned citizens.

SKIP AHEAD TO LAST SATURDAY: One of my sources sent me a notice of a Douglas Park Meeting on Clean-up and Re-Opening. Because the issues are virtually the same as those at Merrie Christmas Park, I thought I’d attend.

This meeting provided good news and bad news for [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff. First the good news: It was poorly attended. It was so poorly attended, Sarnoff didn’t even bother showing up, like he had the better-attended Merrie Christmas Park Meeting. The bad news? One of those that showed up was lawyer Michelle Niemeyer.

Niemeyer is the lawyer who has been advising and working with the Friends of Merrie Christmas Park. She’s managed to help them understand and negotiate the extremely complicated thicket of Miami, Miami-Date, Florida and U.S. environmental laws that go into effect once a neighbourhood has been designated a Brownfield site.

According to Niemeyer, the entire process for designating the 6 neighbourhoods around the toxic parks Brownfield sites was flawed from the get-go. The Brownfield designation was slapped on these neighbourhoods without the proper notification, no matter how many publications in which the city claims it was published. There are supposed to be public meetings before any decisions made and none were held.

Another concern expressed at the Douglas Park meeting was one I hadn’t heard before. Folks are not much happier with the artificial turf and rubber mulch the city proposes to use to cap, but not remove, the toxic soil. More and more communities are waking up to the dangers of artificial turf. The Poughkeepsie Journal is just one paper around the country reporting Fake Turf Poses Health Risk: 

Four of the constituent chemicals in these “tire crumbs” (or “tire mulch”) as they are called — arsenic, benzene, cadmium and nickel — are deemed carcinogens by the International Agency for Cancer Research. Others have been linked to skin, eye and respiratory irritation, kidney and liver problems, allergic reactions, nervous systems disorders and developmental delays.

While the risk came to light recently when a University of Washington women’s soccer coach began to think it might be more than a coincidence that two of her goalies were stricken with cancer, researchers have known about such potential links for years. A 2007 report by the Connecticut-based Environment & Human Health Inc. looked at several scientific studies and found definitive connections between various health problems and exposure to synthetic turf.

Environment & Human Health Inc. also reported that kids on playfields are likely to face similar risks as line workers in the rubber fabrication and reclamation industries, where they say health reports show the presence of multiple volatile organic hydrocarbons and other toxic elements in the air. “Studies at tire reclamation sites report leaching of similar sets of chemicals into the ground water,” says the group.

Yet, the city of Miami, is gung-ho on the use of artificial turf, such as they used for Armbrister Field.

When I went to the Armbrister Field Ribbon Cutting, I took note that the BRAND NEW artificial, rubberized cap over the children’s playground was already flaking. I was able to pick pieces of it up. Some of the small pieces are brightly coloured. I could easily see toddlers picking them up and putting them in their mouths, which is how toddlers sample their world.

HERE’S THE PUNCHLINE: Just as people were leaving the Douglas Park meeting someone passed out the flier at right, which looks almost exactly like the flier that called for a meeting on the toxic soil at Merrie Christmas Park.

Someone said, “Oh look. Sarnoff is holding another Dog and Pony Show.”

Someone else replied, “I hope he saved his script from the last one.”

And, this time, neither of those someones was me.

An Open Letter To Miami Media

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The White Elephant completed and awaiting the end of lawsuits
I sent a variation of this letter to a local reporter. Because I worked on it for so long, and because every word I write is deserving of immortality, I am reprinting it here as an open letter in an amended form. Ahem. Testing . . . one . . . two . . . three . . . Ahem.

Dear Miami Media At Large:

Have I got a story for you. It’s a great story, one you can sink your teeth into and make your investigatory bones. It’s about waste and corruption within the City of Miami. I’d love to do it myself, but I’m just a little guy with a blog, yannow? I don’t have the resources you do, Miami Media, and I’ve been chasing this story for a year. 


I was alerted to Trolleygate right around this time last year, so I wrote “An Introduction to Trolleygate.” That’s when I really started
investigating this story. From the very beginning I
said the siting of the bus garage was, straight up, Institutional
Racism. It was not dissimilar to the racism that allowed West Grove to be gifted with Old Smokey all those decades ago. Therefore, it was heartening when
the USDOT agreed with me, which is the thrust of a recent Miami Herald article “How fed dollars for trolleys in Miami-Dade, local cities spurred civil rights investigation.” 

The article is correct, as far as it goes. However, it’s missing the entire point, as far as I’m concerned. It never asks:

“How did West Grove get stuck with
this white elephant in the first place?”

The deal between Astor Development and Coral Gables aside, there appears to have been a concerted effort within the City of Miami to get Astor’s dealie done with as little public input and awareness as possible. One of my off-the-record sources, an architect who has attended dozens of development meetings in several cities, tells me they’ve never seen a project approved so quickly in Miami. “A hot knife through butter” was the way it was described. Why? How? These are questions worth exploring, Miami Media.

From the very beginning of this project [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff seemed to be interested in making this happen on the QT, with as little muss and fuss as possible. Why? He allegedly helped Astor Development pit one West Grove community group off against another, which culminated in a huge lump sum of money ($250,000, apparently) being proffered by Astor Development for soil remediation of Armbrister Field. According to Miami Herald reporting, those people who were offered the money felt it was a bribe to get their approval for the maintenance garage, but considered it better than nothing if the garage was going to be built anyway. Why was Astor Development suddenly so magnanimous? How did Astor think to offer money to the community group in the first place? Who brokered this soil remediation deal with the community? Was Sarnoff a party to these negotiations? More questions you may wish to explore, Miami Media.

REMEMBER: This was before word broke that there was toxic soil all over Miami. What did Sarnoff know about toxic soil and when did he know it?

While those are all questions that need answers, Miami Media, there is one bigger question that might answer everything:

“Who is responsible for ignoring The Smoking
Gun email in the Miami Development Office?”

I wrote about this last September in “BLOCKBUSTER!!! The Trolleygate Smoking Gun Surfaces.” Follow the bouncing ball. To paraphrase my own reporting:

As the wheels were being greased to get this project through Miami City Hall quietly, Dakota Hendon — Miami Building and Zoning Department — noted something VERY inconvenient. The Astor/Coral Gables/West Grove trolley garage project they had been about to approve DID NOT comply with the Miami 21 Plan. Hendon should know. He helped write the Miami 21 plan. To that end he sent an email to Miami Planning Director Francisco Garcia [embedded here] to say this garage would be non-conforming because vehicle maintenance is an industrial use, which was prohibited on Douglas Road. [Not to mention that the Miami 21 Plan specifically prohibits things called “government operated vehicle maintenance facilities” on the Douglas Road corridor.]

At this point the City of Miami paper trail seems to go cold, except for one curious thing. Astor Development resubmitted its application to the City of Miami. This second, replacement, application was virtually identical to the first one, except this new one removed the word “maintenance” from the intended uses of the building.

Let’s be clear. The intended use of the building never changed. It was just a massaging of the wording on the original application once Hendon discovered there was a problem. And, on the basis of this amended application, the project was approved faster than “a hot knife through butter.”

The former Pan Am air clipper terminal has been restored beautifully
to become Miami City Hal. It’s where the alleged corruption now happens.

MORE QUESTIONS: Who told Astor to change its application? When Miami learned the project was non-conforming, why was the project not stopped dead in its trolley tracks? Why did Marc Sarnoff — only after the controversy erupted in the community — mount a Trolleygate Dog and Pony Show in a futile attempt to placate the West Grove community?

Where was the Miami Media at this laughable Town Hall Meeting? It was the kind of presentation that is usually given to taxpayers and stakeholders BEFORE a project is approved — in order to get it approved — not afterwards. Why was Sarnoff so concerned? Why was Sarnoff so involved? Why did Sarnoff spend taxpayers’ dollars to mount the Trolleygate Dog and Pony Show if it was already a done deal that couldn’t be changed? Who shepherded this project through the rough shoals at City Hall (to mix metaphors)? How did it get past goalkeepers Henden and Garcia? How much taxpayer money is now being spent by Coral Gables, Miami, and Miami-Dade to defend these [allegedly] corrupt backroom deals in the various legal forums that have erupted? (Astor pays its own freight, of course, and the West Grove community has been getting its legal services pro bono.) See, Miami Media, this story practically writes itself.

Miami Media, trust me on this one: You really won’t have much work to do in order to lay this entire fiasco at the feet of [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff. You’ll be hailed as a hero, too, because it will come right out of the blue. Sarnoff is rarely mentioned in stories about Trolleygate, despite the fact that he seemed to have his hands in almost every stage of this boondoggle in which Miami doesn’t even receive tax dollars, let alone a fake trolley stop.

Sarnoff’s interest in getting this disaster approved appears to have gone well beyond the basic fact that this polluting garage is in his district. Ask yourself this, Miami Media: If he was truly looking out for the interests of his constituents, Sarnoff could have interpreted every ambiguity in the zoning by-laws in favour of the West Grove community, as opposed to the OUT OF TOWN developer. However, Sarnoff said over and over at the Dog and Pony Show that his hands were tied because the project met all city standards, something we now know is not true.

If Sarnoff was truly looking out for the interests of his constituents, he would not have threatened them at the Dog and Pony Show. It was shocking to hear him casually claim that the West Grove lawsuit not only put in jeopardy the Arbrister Field bribe, but might cause him to withdraw HIS support for a redevelopment project currently in the planning stages for Grand Avenue. It was the most blatant example of Modern Day Colonialism I have ever witnessed. The naked political power dropped casually, as if he could not care less whether these projects go ahead, reminded me of Jim Crow. See, Miami Media? This story is really as old as the hills, if South Florida had any.

The Dog and Pony Show was my first contact with Sarnoff and I saw a bully in action. I’m surprised the Miami Media doesn’t write more about this aspect of his character, before he starts closing down the bridges in Miami.

The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park sculpture, which I have
nicknamed Marc. If Sarnoff had any empathy for children and
families he would not have allowed two-thirds of Blanche Park
to go to the dogs at the expense of a children’s playground.

And, just to put a fine point on this whole dealie: if Marc Sarnoff had any empathy for his constituents in West Grove, he would not have lined the back wall of the Dog and Pony Show with a largest police presence anyone can ever remember at a public meeting in Miami.

Could this be one of the [several] reasons my West Grove sources call him racist? Could this quiet racism be what allowed him to not even think about the residents of West Grove when approving this project, except on how to bamboozle them?

Would Marc D. Sarnoff have approved of this garage at, say, Shipping and Virginia, on the site of The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park, right next to The Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Traffic Circle. Would he have pushed for this in any other residential neighbourhood outside of West Grove? Would it have gone through like “a hot knife through butter”?

So, you see, Miami Media, I think there are a lot of unanswered questions concerning Trolleygate, the least of which concerns the Department of Transportation’s objections concerning the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Which is ironic because Institutional Racism informs the whole project at every level, from the ground up. Ask this basic question, Miami Media, and spread out from here: Why was Astor Development able to find the cheapest land in West Grove?

So, there you have it, Miami Media. It’s a story of naked corruption and racism hiding in plain sight. It’s one you’ve pretty well been ignoring for a year. But, I’ve made it easy for you. I’ve wrapped the entire package with a pretty bow just for you. Start pulling at that ribbon, that leads to all these unanswered questions, you might just discover corruption at Miami City Hall. To paraphrase Captain Renault in Casablanca, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that corruption is going on at Miami City Hall.”

So, Miami Media, you may want to do your job and investigate these acute angles surrounding Trolleygate. And, let me remind you, Miami Media, reporters win Pullet Surprises writing about government corruption.

With all my love,
Headly Westerfield
[aka Aunty Em]

Trolleygate Violates 1964 Civil Rights Act ► Not Now Silly Vindicated

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The non-conforming government operated vehicle maintenance
facility appeared virtually finished on a October 16, 2013 visit

Ever since I first began writing about Trolleygate, I have called it an obvious case of Racial Discrimination. Now it appears the United States Department of Transportation, writing the latest jokes in this comedy of errors, agrees with me. All brought to the good people of Miami and Coral Gables by [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff.

Legal troubles over the non-conforming, polluting, government operated vehicle maintenance facility have grow exponentially since the residents of West Grove were first made aware of the project and launched a David vs Goliath legal challenge against the cities of Miami and Coral Gables, not to mention the powerful Astor Development, a company with deep pockets. Had the residents not had a legal team willing to work Pro Bono, they would have never been able to afford to take on this legal battle.

Unfortunately when the residents’ lawsuit came up for a hearing the judge, while sympathetic to the residents’ arguments, ruled not to rule, saying he had no jurisdiction. The residents’ legal team vowed to continue to fight the non-conforming, polluting, government operated vehicle maintenance facility and began to prepare an appeal.

And, it’s a good thing that legal battle continued. Intrepid tree-shaking by the West Grove legal team discovered two very important documents, the first of which is the Smoking Gun email. This internal email was from Dakota Hendon (City of Miami Building and Zoning Department) to Francisco Garcia (City of Miami Planning Director). It stated in unequivocal language that the non-conforming, polluting, government operated vehicle maintenance facility did NOT comply with the Miami 21 Plan, which specifically ruled out things called “government operated vehicle maintenance facilities.”

Rather than say “NO” to a multi-million dollar developer, there was some obvious — if not obviously illegal — jiggery-pokery performed by someone [still to be determined] within the City of Miami government. This person ordered the developer to re-write and re-submit the proposal, but this time leave out the word “maintenance.” The developer did so and the building permit was issued under this second application, even though the only thing that had changed was the wording, not the building’s intent.

However, the West Grove legal team shook out something far more important during its research. It turns out that City of Miami officials had been sitting on a report for years that said the soil at Armbrister Field contained high levels of toxins from Old Smokey, the not-so-affectionate name for the incinerator that belched out carcinogens for nearly 100 years — before it was closed down in 1970. That discovery led to soil testing at all the parks in Miami and, GUESS WHAT?!?! It turns out that toxic ash from this incinerator was used as fill all over Miami, including many of its parks. Expensive remedial action will need to be taken while the parks are closed, ironically including the Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park.

The White Elephant at 3320 South Douglas Road from another angle

NB: Don’t get distracted. Soilgate is merely a side issue to this three-ring circus.

Soon after the West Grove residents had their case tossed out of court, the City of Coral Gables — the city that Racism built — filed its own lawsuit against Astor Development and the City of Miami. The suit alleges, essentially, that it was duped. Coral Gables was to accept transfer of a ‘clean’ government operated vehicle maintenance facility that Astor Trolley, LLC, built in exchange for land on which Astor Development, LLC wants to make gazillions of dollars by building a massive mixed-use development. However, Coral Gables is now concerned that the non-conforming, polluting, government operated vehicle maintenance facility is encumbered in lawsuits and wants a judge to either sever the contract it has with Astor or, in the alternative, rule that the non-conforming, polluting, government operated vehicle maintenance facility actually conforms to the Miami 21 Plan, despite the fact that it doesn’t, smoking gun emails notwithstanding.

Which brings us full-circle to the [alleged] Civil Rights violations. According to a Department of Transportation investigation into Trolleygate instigated by a neighbour’s complaint, the cities of Miami and Coral Gables [allegedly] violated the Civil Rights of the West Grove residents by not ensuring the project complied with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically Title VI. The 13 page letter and memorandum from the Federal Transit Administration reads in part [PDF]:

As you know, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) provides that “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations require that public transportation services be provided in a nondiscriminatory manner. To implement this requirement, DOT regulations and the Federal Transit Administration’s Title VI guidance require that entitles receiving Federal assistance, when determining the site or location of public transportation facilities, may not make site selections with the purpose or effect of excluding persons from, denying them the benefits of, or subjecting them to discrimination with respect to, public transportation services on the grounds of race, color, or national origin.

To ensure compliance with FTA’s Title VI regulatory requirements, entities receiving Federal assistance must conduct a Title VI equity analysis for all public transportation facility siting decisions. This analysis will generally include outreach to persons potentially impacted by the siting of the respective facility, and consideration of the equity impacts of various siting alternatives. When a potentially discriminatory impact is found, the transit agency must revise its plans in order to avoid or mitigate the discriminatory impact. If, upon taking mitigating actions and reanalyzing the proposed site selection, the transit agency determines that minority communities will continue to bear a disparate impact of the proposed site selection, the transit agency may implement the site selection only [emphasis in original] if the agency has a substantial legitimate justification for the site selection and can show that there are no alternatives that would have a less disparate impact on the minority community.

The entrance and maintenance bays for the fake trolley buses as
viewed from Frow, a quiet residential street, on October 16th

Cutting through the verbiage: Because both the cities of Coral Gables and Miami accept Federal Dollars to run the free fake trolley buses, they both need to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VI. When Astor Development decided to build this in a predominately minority neighbourhood without consultation, it [allegedly] violated the Civil Rights of the struggling neighbourhood. Furthermore, when Coral Gables refused to give the residents of West Coconut Grove a Fake Trolley Stop, it [allegedly] violated their Civil Rights.

However, the comedy doesn’t end there. The first paragraph quoted above starts out “As you know…” It turns out that both Miami and Coral Gables claim that they didn’t know and have never considered Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Oh! Stop!! My!!! Sides!!!! According to Jenny Staletovich of the Miami Herald:

An investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation, triggered by a neighbor’s complaint, found the county failed to ensure the cities followed the law. The cities, in turn, violated the law by not conducting a study during the garage’s “planning stages” to ensure that race did not play a part in determining where it was built or whether the garage would have an “adverse impact” on the West Grove neighborhood, which has long struggled to attract business.

The two municipalities, which say they were unaware of the requirements, also failed to perform public outreach as required by the law, the investigation found.

[…] University of Miami law professor Anthony Alfieri, whose Center for Ethics & Public Service has helped residents fight the garage, said the ruling calls into question whether the governments violated the law in other projects where federal transportation money was used.

“This letter and memorandum raise a significant question about whether the county and these two municipalities have ever been in compliance with Title VI, because apparently they’re not aware of the objectives and have no program in effect,” he said. “Title VI is one of the main provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so this statute is 49 years old. People marched and died because of this.”

If this were really a situation comedy, this would be where the plot complications begin. Miami and Coral Gables have now committed to conducting the FTA study that should have happened long before the building permit was ever issued; just like the Trolleygate Dog and Pony Show was only mounted by [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff after the residents of West Grove discovered he had worked behind their backs to grease the wheels to get this white elephant approved. That’s our sitcom character Sarnoff: Always putting the cart before the horse. Hilarity ensues.

Still not laughing? Maybe the latest finger-pointing from Astor Development will get a chuckle or two out of you. According to the same Miami Herald article:

Astor, however, believes the city should have made sure the Civil Rights Act was followed.

“The city of Coral Gables recently learned that they were subject to the rules and regulations of the FTA, of which the city manager and the city attorney were not aware of in the past,” Astor spokesman Tad Schwartz said.

“Their compliance with the FTA program was not disclosed in any way with our agreement. This wasn’t in our contract.”

Here’s where the comedy ends because: TAXPAYERS’ MONEY!!! Every dollar spent on this project so far has been a monumental waste. When [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff decided to help Astor Development push this project through Miami City Hall, it had the reverse-Midas effect: Everything touched by this project has turned to manure. Astor Development purchased the land and threw up the structure. Astor, Miami and Coral Gables have all hired legal teams for the various lawsuits past, present, and future. This is throwing good money after bad and, except for Astor’s money, the taxpayers are on the hook for it all.

ROLL CREDITS: This comedy of errors has been brought to you by [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, the anti-Midas, who decided a developer’s desire to build once again trumped the interests of his own constituents.

A Century of Coconut Grove Racism ► Soilgate Is Trolleygate Writ Large

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One of hundreds of thousands of Racist internet memes

Follow the bouncing ball: Trolleygate is modern day Racism, pure and simple. Furthermore, the Racism that allowed for Trolleygate is exactly the same Racism that thought West Grove was the perfect place for Old Smokey, an incinerator that belched carcinogenics into the air for 5 decades. Racism — which is a cancer on our body politic — may have led to actual cancer clusters in Coconut Grove. I’m here to prove that thesis. 

Let’s start here: It’s been a truism since the founding of ‘Merka that People of Colour have always gotten the short end of the stick. There is no disputing that. But that’s a thing of the past, according to modern day Racists, because we now have a Black president. We are now living in a post-racial society. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! Right?

For an explanation on the pics used to illustrate this article, please read my essay Racist Memes and Blogging ► Unpacking the Writer

Not even close. While some Racism is less blatant than it has been in previous decades, one can find hundreds of thousands of Racist memes against President Obama, each more disgusting than the next. However, make no mistake: It’s still Racism. Racism doesn’t have degrees. Like being pregnant, a meme can’t be a little bit Racist. It’s either Racism, or it isn’t. The entire story of Coconut Grove depicts a Racism that continues to this very day, culminating in Trolleygate.

West Grove is a quiet residential neighbourhood that has remained predominantly Black since its founding in the late 1880s. It was settled by Bahamians who came up through Key West, at one time Florida’s largest city. The Black Bahamians who settled in Coconut Grove worked for The Peacock Inn and Commodore Ralph Monroe, among the earliest residents. As a nascent tourist trade flourished, more Black folk arrived to do all of the backbreaking work and menial labour that made it all happen.

That West Grove wasn’t razed is due almost entirely to the efforts of one man, Ebeneezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup. E.W.F. Stirrup was one of Florida’s first Black millionaires and, at one time, the largest landholder in Coconut Grove. On some of the land he owned he threw up more than 100 houses with his own hands. These he rented, sold, and bartered to other Bahamians. That’s why, at one time, Coconut Grove once had the highest percentage of Black home ownership in the entire country, making it unique.

It’s for that reason and that reason alone that The Powers That Be were unable to dislodge the Black residents of Coconut Grove. Overtown, just up the road and the second Black neighbourhood in Miami, had I-95 rammed through the middle of what had been the Black Shopping and Entertainment district. However, Overtown was mostly renters with absentee landlords, who were happy to cash out on their investments. The same pattern took place in Paradise Valley, in my home town of Detroit, which was leveled for I-75. The same scenario played out all across the country.

It’s not as if the Powers That Be didn’t try to get rid of Black Grove. There were three separate attempts to get rid of the neighbourhood. In 1921 an urban renewal project called The Bright Plan, approved but never realized due to an economic downturn, would have created a golf course on everything west of Main Highway to Douglas and north to Grand Avenue. In 1925 City Fathers tried to get Miami to annex around what was called Coloredtown, instead of including it. Miami decided to annex it all instead, which led to the creation of Coral Gables, the city that Racism built. In the ’50s, long after the rest of the city had indoor plumbing, West Grove still used outhouses. Honey wagons were just a way of life long after every surrounding neighbourhood (read: White neighbourhoods) had an indoor toilet. In the ’50s. The city wanted to raze the entire blighted neighbourhood and start all over, but the high percentage of Black home ownership defeated the proposal. People, who in some cases were now the 2nd or 3rd generation in the same house, refused to sell. They knew better. Where could they go? They would be redlined out of any neighbourhood they wanted to buy into. It was better to stay put and bequeath their homes to their children and their children’s children.

Which is to explain why the neighbourhood has remained predominately Black. That and the fact that White folk tend not to move into Black neighbourhoods. I’ll now let Nick Madigan, writing in yesterday’s New York Times, pick up the story of Old Smokey:

MIAMI — When she was little, Elaine Taylor remembers rushing home whenever Old Smokey fired up. Clouds of ash from the towering trash incinerator would fill the air and settle on the ramshackle houses and the yards of the West Grove neighborhood.

Her mother, who took in laundry, would be whipping sheets and shirts off the clotheslines. Often, the soot would force Elaine and her mother to wash everything again, by hand.

Old Smokey was shut down in 1970, after 45 years of belching ash, but its legacy might be more ominous than mere memories of soiled laundry. Residents of the neighborhood, established by Bahamian immigrants in the 1880s, have become alarmed by recent revelations that soil samples there show contamination from carcinogens like arsenic and heavy metals, including lead, cadmium and barium.

Ash from the old incinerator is being blamed, and residents are asking why none of this came to light sooner.

Something that Madigan leaves out of his story — because it makes a simple story of soil pollution and subsequent coverup far too complicated — is that the coverup was only discovered due to Trolleygate, the story I’ve been following since January. The documents were discovered by the pro bono legal team researching Trolleygate while preparing its case against Miami, Coral Gables, and Astor Development. While that suit was thrown out of court for a lack of jurisdiction, the documents kicked loose during the research are still bearing fruit. Friday I wrote about an email from a City of Miami Zoning and Building Department official who said that Trolleygate did not conform to the Miami 21 Plan. Yet, after some undetermined jiggery-pokery, [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff managed to get the project approved anyway, despite the fact that it screws his owns constituents and rewards a developer in the next town over. But, that’s now a side issue to Soilgate, the discovery of toxic soil throughout Coconut Grove and greater Miami. [Coral Gables is now suing to get out of ever having to use the polluting diesel bus garage.]

The Racism that decided a Black neighbourhood was the perfect place for a polluting diesel bus garage — despite it not being zoned for it — can be seen as a parallel to the decision in the 1920s to build Old Smokey, the incinerator that polluted Miami. Miami needed an incinerator. Why not stick it as far away from the White folk as possible? Stick it in West Grove. Again from the New York Times:

Across the street from Old Smokey’s former site lies Esther Mae Armbrister Park and its playground. Down the block is George Washington Carver Elementary School, a once all-black institution that traces its history to 1899. Former students recall ash blowing in through the school’s open windows.

[University of Miami law] Professor [Anthony V.] Alfieri [of the Environmental Justice Project] said that the construction of Old Smokey “in the middle of a Jim Crow community” in 1925 exemplified the city’s pattern of neglecting the West Grove, an area that has never experienced the prosperity so evident in its neighboring communities. In a 1950 article in Ladies’ Home Journal, Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote that when the city installed a water and sewage system in Coconut Grove, its western neighbor was left out of the project, and for years residents continued to use wells and outhouses.

Old Smokey was shut down in 1970 after many years of neighbourhood protests and a successful legal battle initiated by the White folk of Coral Gables. Yet, 98% White Coral Gables learned nothing from that court battle. When it needed a place to build its polluting diesel bus garage, Astor Development chose West Grove. This is the neighbourhood that’s been given the short end of the stick since it was called Kebo by the original Bahamian settlers almost 130-years ago. Even if you attempted to argue, against all logic, that the developer was unaware it was a Black neighbourhood, the only reason the land was cheap was due to the last century of systemic Racism, that depressed every economic indicator you can name in West Grove, especially when compared to the rest of the 33133 Zip Code, now considered one of the most exclusive in the entire country.

The Supreme Irony: Air pollution — emanating from a fake diesel-powered trolley bus or a giant incinerator — doesn’t abide by the Colour Line, of course. There appears be less pollution the closer one gets to Old Smokey’s former site. As the expression says, “What goes up, must come down.” It seems a lot of Old Smokey’s toxins came down in the Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park. Coincidentally, or not, that’s right across the street from where [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff lives. The New York Times again:

“Everything is testing to be residential standard,” Mr. Sarnoff said, referring to contaminant levels permitted under environmental regulations.

That may not be the final word. A cancer researcher at the University of Miami said that she and several colleagues discovered a cluster of pancreatic cancer cases in the West Grove several years ago.

“That’s the little region that lights up,” said the researcher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the issue. Although she found the discovery “puzzling,” she said she did not pursue it because of a lack of funds. But when she read a newspaper article this year about Old Smokey that said its ash had spewed arsenic and heavy metals into the neighborhood, she said “everything started making sense.”

The researcher noted that no correlation could be established between the cancer cluster and the old incinerator without more research.

Institutional Racism could be the answer as to why so many people in Coconut Grove are now being diagnosed with cancer. Yet, despite this ugly history of sticking the Black neighbourhood with what the White neighbourhood doesn’t want, [allegedly] corrupt Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff, the City of Miami, and Astor Development all still think it’s appropriate for them to have played a shell game in order to get Trolleygate approved.

That’s nothing but Modern Day Racism, pure and simple.

Enjoy some videos of the Marc D. Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park from September 13, 2013, as the soil testing was occurring.




An Update On Sarnoff’s Trolleygate aka Astor’s Trolley Folly

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The view of the diesel bus garage from the closest house, a
mere 100 feet from where the polluting buses will be idling.

These days whenever I visit Coconut Grove I check on the progress of the Coral Gables diesel bus garage. I am always surprised that the building of what will be a polluting bus garage continues unabated. The lawsuit launched by residents of the West Grove demanded for it to be stopped in its tracks — even though these are not really trolley cars and they don’t use tracks. 

Curious that the work continues, I reached out to Ralf Brookes, one of the lawyers who has taken on the case pro bono, for an update. Here’s where the case stands:

The City of Miami filed a motion in the 11th Circuit Court to dismiss the case, arguing that Astor Development, which had not been originally named in the lawsuit, was an indispensable party to the suit.

In the meanwhile, Astor Trolly LLC filed a motion to intervene in the case. Astor Trolley LLC is a new-ish “limited liability company” owned by Astor Development Holdings LLC [which itself seems to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Astor Development Group, LLC], incorporated to isolate Astor Development from any financial fallout of Trolleygate. While it seemed inevitable that Astor would eventually be drawn into this case, I don’t know why it willingly asked to have its head put on the chopping block. No matter. The judge granted that motion on February 26th and has given Astor Trolley LLC until March 18th to file a response to the lawsuit.

And that where it all sits as of today.

However, just about everyone seems to agrees the diesel bus garage will never be used for the purpose for which it was designed and intended. It does not conform to the Miami21 plan, which specifically forbids a “government vehicle maintenance facility” along the South Douglas Road corridor. One wonders why Astor Development wouldn’t just cut its losses and stop building and fighting.

Well (I speculate), it’s probably because Astor Development has too much invested in the project already. It acquired the land, purchased the building materials, has been paying the work crews, and (presumably) already bought all the equipment that will have to installed in the diesel bus government maintenance facility. The losses would be too great to just cut and run. It might be better to be ordered by a court of law to do the right thing, as opposed to doing the right thing in the first place. Then it can turn around and try to sell the structure for a profit.

Since the West Grove lawyers are working pro bono, this is not costing the community a penny. However, it is costing the City of Miami (read: every Miami taxpayer) money to defend Astor’s Trolley Folly. Those costs can be placed squarely at the feet of Commissioner Marc “Doggy” Sarnoff, who rammed through this diesel bus garage project without the normal neighbourhood consultation.

The Marc Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park with the Marc Sarnoff Memorial
Traffic Circle in the lower right. Click here for an interactive map.

Commissioner Marc Sarnoff is used to ramming through projects — which cost the Miami taxpayers big bucks — without the normal neighbourhood consultation. Exhibit A: The Marc Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park [right], across the street from his house. No one seems to know who approved this, but to date this boondoggle has already cost Miami taxpayers $546,065.00. The latest renovation to the Marc Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park came within the last month. Work crews installed astroturf for the dogs because these are privileged dogs, donchaknow, and shitting on grass in their own backyards just won’t do.

Clearly these dogs are more privileged than the children in the community. The bigger crime is how a pocket park created for the enjoyment of children, has gone to the dogs. Prior to Doggygate the length of the children’s playground was approximately 300 feet. Once Marc Sarnoff was done with it the children’s portion of the park was reduced to approximately 100 feet, while the dogs get 200 feet.

See an interactive map of the Marc Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park

Go by the park yourself and you’ll see what I have noted every time I go there: The children’s area is packed tight, with barely any room for kids to run and play: The playground equipment is overcrowded and there are not enough benches for the parents to sit. [While I’ve tried to take pictures that illustrate this, every time I show up with a camera I get the evil eye from parents.] Meanwhile, the Marc Sarnoff Memorial Dog Park always appears underutilized, with a whole lot of room for the dogs to run free.

Luckily for the taxpayers of Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff is term-limited. Unless he runs for mayor he only has to the end of his term to waste taxpayer’s money.

For more on Trolleygate, aka Astor’s Trolley Folly, click here.