Developer still working on gambling permits for Florida City By Patricia Borns pborns@MiamiHerald.com Florida City leaders plan to extend indefinitely a deadline for a developer to get state gambling permits before building a jai-alai fronton and casino on U.S. 1. A majority of the city commissioners said Tuesday night that they would support an ordinance rezoning two parcels totaling 23 acres belonging to Ft. Myers Real Estate Holdings LLC. In 2011, the company’s principal , David Romanik, proposed the project to the city, and commissioners later agreed — contingent on the company getting state gambling permits. The ordinance, which is expected to be on the commission’s May 7 agenda, would be the second extension given to the developer due to difficulties in obtaining the necessary permits to allow gaming on the site. Mayor Otis T. Wallace said that while the state’s recent ban on Internet cafe gambling might appear discouraging, he suggested the outlook for casino gambling might be more positive. “It was a lesser category that was eliminated altogether. I support the extension to see what the state does finally,” he said. Romanik’s concept plan for the Florida City property, which is on U.S. 1 next to the Florida Keys Outlet Center, included a jai-alai fronton, eventual quarter horse racetrack, poker card rooms and slot machines, targeted to the estimated 2 million visitors per year who come through Florida City en route to the Everglades and Florida Keys. In July 2012, the city agreed to rezone the parcel, from Planned Unit Development to Commercial Recreation, conditioned on obtaining the necessary gaming permit(s) within six months. Jai-alai frontons and horse tracks often attract only small crowds, but they enable the owners to install slot machines and card tables that can be more profitable. “I know what the statutes say, and we’re entitled to the jai-alai permit,” said Romanik, whose permit denial by the state Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering is on appeal. The proposed Florida City zoning ordinance would extend the commercial entertainment land use for the property indefinitely, requiring only an approved site plan, a development agreement with the city, and the state gaming permit for building to proceed. Industry watchers expect Florida gaming legislation to resume in about a year, after a study of gaming’s economic impacts has been conducted by Spectrum Gaming Group to better guide law makers’ decisions. “I’m very optimistic,” said Romanik , who attended the University of Florida’s law school with the mayor’s wife, Greer Wallace. “There will be millions of dollars for the city to harvest if this happens. It could mean up to 500 to 600 jobs,” Romanik’s original projection had been for 280 jobs, indicating his expectation that permitting, when it resumes, will be heavily leveraged on real or advertised economic benefits to the state and local community. Although many of the city’s unemployed will need additional training and occupational licenses to fill most permanent casino jobs, still, jobs of any kind and number would be welcomed in the town where Miami-Dade County estimates unemployment at 15 percent. “I’ve been to a lot of little towns like Florida City, and this mayor did a great job bringing in those big-box stores. That sold me right there,” Romanik said. Citing his track record of six wins to no losses in Florida’s First District Court of Appeal for the past five years, Romanik said the hurdles for obtaining the gaming permit are political rather than legal. “At least the mayor will know it’s not for lack of trying,” he said. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/28/3366551/developer-still-working-on-gambling.html#storylink=cpy
Sunday, 28 April 2013
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Monday, 15 April 2013
By Barbara Liston ORLANDO, Florida | Sun Apr 14, 2013 1:50pm EDT (Reuters) - South Florida is fighting a growing infestation of one of the world's most destructive invasive species: the giant African land snail, which can grow as big as a rat and gnaw through stucco and plaster. More than 1,000 of the mollusks are being caught each week in Miami-Dade and 117,000 in total since the first snail was spotted by a homeowner in September 2011, said Denise Feiber, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Residents will soon likely begin encountering them more often, crunching them underfoot as the snails emerge from underground hibernation at the start of the state's rainy season in just seven weeks, Feiber said. The snails attack "over 500 known species of plants ... pretty much anything that's in their path and green," Feiber said. In some Caribbean countries, such as Barbados, which are overrun with the creatures, the snails' shells blow out tires on the highway and turn into hurling projectiles from lawnmower blades, while their slime and excrement coat walls and pavement. "It becomes a slick mess," Feiber said. A typical snail can produce about 1,200 eggs a year and the creatures are a particular pest in homes because of their fondness for stucco, devoured for the calcium content they need for their shells. The snails also carry a parasitic rat lungworm that can cause illness in humans, including a form of meningitis, Feiber said, although no such cases have yet been identified in the United States. EXOTIC INVASION The snails' saga is something of a sequel to the Florida horror show of exotic species invasions, including the well-known infestation of giant Burmese pythons, which became established in the Everglades in 2000. There is a long list of destructive non-native species that thrive in the state's moist, subtropical climate. Experts gathered last week in Gainesville, Florida, for a Giant African Land Snail Science Symposium, to seek the best ways to eradicate the mollusks, including use of a stronger bait approved recently by the federal government. Feiber said investigators were trying to trace the snail infestation source. One possibility being examined is a Miami Santeria group, a religion with West African and Caribbean roots, which was found in 2010 to be using the large snails in its rituals, she said. But many exotic species come into the United States unintentionally in freight or tourists' baggage. "If you got a ham sandwich in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, or an orange, and you didn't eat it all and you bring it back into the States and then you discard it, at some point, things can emerge from those products," Feiber said. Authorities are expanding a series of announcements on buses, billboards and in movie theaters urging the public to be on the lookout. The last known Florida invasion of the giant mollusks occurred in 1966, when a boy returning to Miami from a vacation in Hawaii brought back three of them, possibly in his jacket pockets. His grandmother eventually released the snails into her garden where the population grew in seven years to 17,000 snails. The state spent $1 million and 10 years eradicating them. Feiber said many people unfamiliar with the danger viewed the snails as cute pets. "They're huge, they move around, they look like they're looking at you ... communicating with you, and people enjoy them for that," Feiber said. "But they don't realize the devastation they can create if they are released into the environment where they don't have any natural enemies and they thrive." (Editing by David Adams and Peter Cooney) U.S. Oddly Enough Africa
Saturday, 30 March 2013
The Miami-Dade Expressway (MDX) Authority moves ahead with financing a study to turn the South Dade Busway into a Toll Road for those willing and able to pay to get "there" faster. These lanes will have variable prices up to $8.00 depending on congestion and rising with inflation in the future.
Get ready to pay South Dade because the MDX Authority, which is made up of developer friendly sycophants are "in it to win it!" South Dade citizens need to contact MDX and air their concerns in order to stop the tolling of all our roads. South Dade is already burdened with the Turnpike as the only express road out of the area. Many of our citizens are resigned to paying for the Turnpike as US1, even with its recent improvements, is still a local access road with its many traffic lights.
There is opposition to this project in the cities Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, and Cutler Bay. The City of Homestead? Not so much. Actually not a word from City Hall as to their position on this project.
Construction interests are very strong in Homestead and throughout the county. They have no interest in furthering Public Transportation when they can have a steady stream of income from tolls to build more roads. These roads will in-turn facilitate their expansion to the Urban Development Boundary (UDB) and beyond.
If this seems like a machiavellian scenario, you're on point. It's not a coincidence that land developers and construction interests are at the helm of MDX, it's by design.
Below are reference links for the project.
http://getmdxoffthebusway.com
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/29/3313745/mdx-forging-ahead-with-us-1-express.html
http://mdxway.com/img/projects/future_projects/downloads/US-1-Express-1-Project-Fact-Sheet.pdf
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Miami Dade Fire Rescue Ladder #65 by Venetia Groves pull a woman out a sinking car. This happened at the intersection of SW 167th Ave and Palm Drive by Homestead Senior High School.
Thank you MDFR #65 for the good works you perform for our community, Bravo!
Note: The Miami Herald article below has the wrong address as Palm Ave and 167th Street doesn't exist in Homestead or anywhere else in Miami-Dade County.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/18/3293614/firefighters-save-woman-in-sinking.html
Monday, 18 March 2013
Armed Sentinels In Every Homestead School - Not Teachers In the last few months, more than 1100 bills have been introduced, at the state level, in reference to gun control laws. While most federal and state laws deal with the sale and distribution of guns and who can and cannot legally buy or sell them, much attention has been given to school security which sparked a national debate. No gun control law could have prevented the action that took the lives of 20 children and 6 teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Conn. in December. We will never know if an armed officer, a school sentinel, could have saved even one life, but one life would have been worth the investment in enhanced school safety. Most cities and school districts do not reject the concept of armed officers in schools, but claim that the funds are not available to add more security to the already stretch budgets in their jurisdictions. South Dakota has passed a law to arm teachers, which will go into effect on July 1st, 2013. However in a recent poll by CBS, 56% of the respondents said that they would be uncomfortable with armed teachers. This begs the question then, "how do we deter anyone from bringing a weapon into a school?" For years Miami-Dade Public Schools has used School Police in high schools, resource officers and security monitors in middle schools and unarmed security monitors in most elementary schools (not a deterrent for an armed intruder.) At no additional cost to the school system and no new taxes...part-time and certified armed officers ( retired or reserve officers - returning combat veterans (35,000 from Afghanistan) for example working in half-day shifts for the same dollars as unarmed security monitors could fill that void in all elementary schools. With a unanimous vote, The Homestead Education Committee has asked the Homestead City Council for an ordinance to require any new school or satellite in the City to provide a certified armed school sentinel while the children are in attendance, 180 days a year. And, for the new school year beginning July 1st, 2013 all schools in the City should be required to provide this same enhanced safety precaution. Our children's safety is too important to wait for federal, state or county officials to decide on adequate protection... Homestead should act now and set the example.
Monday, 11 March 2013
South Dade u-pick farm can keep growing fruit . Upload and share your own. You can share related videos and photos. Submit: VideoPictures By Barbara Corbellini Duarte bduarte@MiamiHerald.com A South Miami-Dade u-pick strawberry farm can continue growing fruit, the Redland Community Council decided Wednesday. The council unanimusly approved a variance to allow Strawberry Fields of Kendall, at 117th Avenue and 160th Street, to continue farming tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots, cabbage and strawberries in an area zoned industrial. Miami-Dade County rezoned the site from agricultural to industrial in 1984, but the county allowed farming to continue because the agricultural use predated the rezoning. Farming is not normally allowed in industrial zones. Strawberry Fields has occupied the site since the mid-1980s. But around 2005, Strawberry Fields’ landlord decided to build warehouses on the site, said Lynn Chaffin, Strawberry Fields’ owner. Farming ceased for about two years. When those plans fell through in 2008, Chaffin resumed farming on the site. By that point, however, county officials said Strawberry Fields had abandoned its right to farm on the site.To continue farming on the site, which is now surrounded by warehouses, Strawberry Fields needed the variance that the Community Council granted on Wednesday. County staff had recommended that the elected council reject the variance because the farm was not compatible with the surrounding industrial uses. But council members said Strawberry Fields has been a farm for a long time and wasn’t asking for anything new. “That piece has always been there as a u-pick field,” said Curtis Lawrence, the council’s vice chair. “I live a few blocks from there.” But Chaffin argued that the site would likely be vacant if he weren’t farming it. “The benefits to the community and the benefits to the public far outweigh any of the negatives,” Chaffin told the council. “What would this place be if there weren’t any farming on it? Probably an overgrown grass and weeds.” Susan Blake, who lives East of the Turnpike in the same area and shops at the farm, was one of three people who spoke in favor of the farm. “They employ senior citizens. There are a lot of people from the community, North and South, who go there. A lot of local people go there. We don’t have a Farmers’ Market to go to,” she said. “It’s a treasure.” In the early 80s, farms took the majority of the land between 168th Street and 152nd Street. Today, Chaffin’s farm is the only one left. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/10/3274654/south-dade-u-pick-farm-can-keep.html#storylink=cpy
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