Year In Review 2008

City officials discussed plans to cancel the yearly Fourth of July celebration for good at the April 8 commission meeting, a year after they decided not to hold the event in 2007 because of renovations to the Biltmore golf course where the event his held. Despite assuring the public that the event would be back this year, budget shortfalls and concerns about the damage which could be done to the course appear to have doomed it to past tense.

           

Faced with mounting public pressure over the questionable use of city P(urchasing) cards, City Manager David Brown said the city would bring in its Budget Audit Advisory Board to review purchases made with the city credit cards. Brown said the budget board would perform a similar role to that it was charged with when overtime was crippling the city budget several years ago. Later in the month, officials announced that they would cut the number from 81 to 59, more than a 27 percent reduction.

           

The managers of the Country Club of Coral Gables held a special meeting of club members on April 23 to address rumors about the impending closing of the club. Later in the month, on April 30, the club closed leaving a host of unanswered questions about the future of the city-owned building, the fate of members that have already paid dues and events and banquets that were previously scheduled to take place.

           

A bio-hazardous radiation testing device was temporarily lost in the City of Coral Gables when it fell off a truck in the 100 block of San Lorenzo Avenue on April 17. It later returned to its owner on April 22, according to a police statement.

           

The beleaguered Coral Gables Building and Zoning Department finally got a new director, as City Manager David Brown announced April 18 that former assistant director Ed Weller would be taking over control of the department. Weller was installed for a six-month interim period after which the city manager would decide if the move was to be made permanent.

           

Coral Gables Commissioners broke a decade long trend against road closures when they cleared the way for two such closures in a ritzy Coral Gables neighborhood in the south part of the city at their April 29 meeting.

 

MAY: If there was ever any question as to the importance of the University of Miami to the City of Coral Gables, it was likely be dissipated with the release of an economic report which claims that the university has a $1.23 billion in total economic impact for the city.

           

In a stunning reversal, Coral Gables Commissioners voted 3-2 to allow a citywide referendum on term limits in April 2009 – in the process opening the door for wholesale changes to the makeup of the commission.

           

City Commissioners brazenly admitted that they would do their best to keep UM students from voting in an upcoming city election which will determine the whether elected officials will be subject to term limits.

           

The Coral Gables Museum received its largest donation to date when local businessman Robert Fewell agreed to give $2 million to the fledgling museum to help construct a new gallery. Fewell, a Gables resident whose business offices are just across the street from the impending museum, has long been a benefactor of the museum and other city causes and his latest donation was announced at a fundraising event on May 3.

           

Buoyed by wave of support from members of the Riviera Neighborhood Association (RNA) and a recommendation by city staff, the Coral Gables Planning and Zoning Board voted against giving its blessing to a large condominium project known as the Gables Waterway project just south of S. Dixie Highway in between South Alhambra Circle and Caballero Boulevard at its May 14 meeting.

           

The proliferation of guard houses and gated communities in south Coral Gables continues as the City Commission cleared the way for another guard house – in the city’s southern most neighborhood – to be constructed at its May 13 meeting.

           

Former members of the Country Club of Coral Gables met in one of the ballrooms of currently closed club on May 26 to decide whether to move forward with plans to start up a temporary entity which would open up club operations until a permanent group is brought in to run things in the future or whether to concentrate member efforts on lobbying the city on its request for proposals (rfp) to find a new operator.

 

JUNE: Figures released early in the month showed that after five years in a row of double-digit growth, the Coral Gables municipal tax base is estimated to have contracted 1.3 percent due to declining property values and Amendment One tax relief approved by voters on Jan. 29. According to the county property appraiser, initial estimates are that the city’s total assessed property value is $13.08 billion, compared with $13.25 billion last year.

           

Turns out purposefully holding a city election on term limits in April 2009 instead of November this year in an attempt to limit the amount of University of Miami students who will participate in the referendum was not such a good idea after all as commissioners apologized to student leaders for the attempt at disenfranchisement at their June 3 meeting.

           

The City of Coral Gables took the first step toward changing the nature of its long-standing country club — which actually predates the city as it was built in 1924  — when City Commissioners approved the release of a request for proposals (rfp) which opens the door for a host of different uses for the once exclusive club at its June 3 meeting.

           

Coral Gables continued to be a mark for bank robbers as another two incidents were reported at city banks on June 2 and 9. 

           

Former Director Margaret Pass, former Assistant Director Dennis Smith and former Code Enforcement Officer Michael Kattou — all who were either fired or resigned amidst turmoil from the Building and Zoning Department in 2007 — were back on city grounds to attend an arbitration for Kattou.

           

It became clear that the Country Club of Coral Gables would remain closed for at least the rest of the summer, and probably much longer, as plans to open the club on a temporary basis were scratched by a group of former members.

 

JULY: Still struggling to cope with state mandated property tax cuts put in place a year ago, the City of Coral Gables released a $144,433,579 2008/2009 budget estimate on July 1 that included an overall reduction of 10 employees – from 875 this year to 865 in the upcoming budget year. The estimate represented a $5 million increase from the current year, or 3.5 percent jump.

           

The much ballyhooed first ever high rise building implosion in Coral Gables became the subject of national blooper reels as demolition experts miscalculated the strength of the building at 2801 Ponce de Leon Boulevard during the first detonation June 28 and were forced to go with a second detonation the following day to finish the job.

           

A workshop originally convened for City Commissioners to begin planning for an eventual successor to troubled City Manager David Brown made little concrete gains even if its top administrator’s days were clearly numbered.

           

One of the primary east/west commutes through Coral Gables was on the verge of getting significantly smoother in the summer as the city and Miami-Dade County finally ironed out the details regarding the construction of a roundabout at the troublesome three-way intersection of Coral Way, Segovia Street and North Greenway Drive (at the eastern edge of the Granada Golf Course).

           

The management company which runs the publicly owned Biltmore Hotel won a small victory in its plans to build a large residential project on the current site of the hotel’s surface parking lot when the Coral Gables Commission granted three approvals to allow the hotel to move forward in the process for approval at its July 15 meeting.      One of the resolutions passed also puts off payment of over half a million dollars in required city fees the hotel has to pay until, and only if, the hotel received ultimate approval from the commission.

           

A recommendation to go with the current towing vendor in Coral Gables by City Manager David Brown, and upheld by the Coral Gables Commission on July 15, meant the city would save some money on city and police tows in the next two years while residents and visitors would see as much as a 60 percent increase on private tows.

           

The inevitable opposition to a massive luxury residential project proposed for the west side of the Biltmore Hotel property (currently a surface parking lot) took the first steps toward organizing July 29 when a homeowner who lives next to the historic hotel hosted a community meeting and rallied support to stop the project in its tracks. About 50 residents attended the meeting.

 

AUGUST: The future of what was once the Country Club of Coral Gables came to rest with one Canadian company whose proposal to operate the city-owned facility was the sole certified proposal accepted by the city by the deadline on its request for proposals (rfp).

           

The Liberty Entertainment Group proposal was one of two submitted to the city by the end of July but the only one that was certified.

           

A decision by the new proposed management team of the Country Club of Coral Gables not to include Burger Bob’s (aka Granada Snack Shack) in their plans, meant that the greasy spoon would be around for at least a number of more years.

           

Commissioner Wayne “Chip” Withers defended the behavior, including the illegal falsification of city records, of City Manager David Brown earlier in the year because of the media scrutiny, especially by Gazette Columnist George Volsky, that the city manager suffered through.

           

A struggling economy translated into an increase in crimes reported mid-way through the year. Coral Gables police statistics released showed that total crimes in the city were up in the first six months of the year for the third straight year, with this year’s increases just short of 10 percent from at the same point last year.

           

A study published in the summer by researchers at the University of South Florida College of Public Health on traffic light cameras likely dampened the mood surrounding the use of the increasingly popular cameras when it found that they did not discourage traffic violations and may actually increase accidents. Gables police believed the study’s finding were be flawed.

           

Coral Gables Police Chief Michael Hammerschmidt, 58, died in the early morning Aug. 20, after close to a yearlong battle with lung cancer. Hammerschmidt, who took over the reigns of the city police department in 2004, announced that he had an terminal cancer on Oct. 30, 2007, but chose to stay on as the city’s top cop even while undergoing chemotherapy.

           

At the Aug. 26 Coral Gables Commission meeting, no commissioner said a word about City Manager David Brown’s guilty plea to a Miami-Dade Circuit Court earlier in the month. The meeting was the first since the Brown admitted his guilt.

 

SEPTEMBER: Word that Miami-Dade Commissioners were backing off a move to hold a county-wide referendum that could have led to the abolishment of all city fire departments – including the Coral Gables Fire Department – did little to mollify City Commissioners who were still wary of a power and money grab.

           

Richard Naue was named the new chief of police for the City of Coral Gables. Although his appointment was met with widespread support, there were some rumblings about one candidate that was passed over.

           

Those waiting for revelations of city malfeasance and other salacious stories emanating from the former head of the city’s embattled Building and Zoning (B&Z) Department during a trial board convened to rule over her eventual dismissal went home disappointed when the first meeting of the board Sept. 2 turned into little more than a exercise in red tape.

           

The Coral Gables Employee Association (CGEA), a municipal workers’ collective bargaining unit, revealed that it was considering joining the Teamsters to get more punch in contract negotiations.

           

Coral Gables Commissioners approved a $144,433,579 budget with a 5.250 property tax rate – the same as last year – on first reading at the end of a 3-hour plus meeting in the evening of Sept. 9.

           

A budget hearing might be the last place you would think to hear a discussion on policing methods but that is exactly what happened on Sept. 9 when several question and comments by residents propelled commissioners to ask for a review of a controversial squad patrol system currently being used by police before they give ultimate approval to the budget later in the month.

           

City officials announced the likely cutting down of an 88-year old Brazilian Beautyleaf  tree sprung in  the west end of Merrick Park across the street from City Hall. A large branch of the tree fell during the month and experts said that the rest would eventually die.

           

Despite receiving legal advice against permitting a city board member to speak before the City Commission on a matter that board already discussed, Mayor Slesnick allowed the chairman of Board of Adjustment to appear before the City Commission at its Sept. 9 meeting – a move which goes against established procedure in the city and what the commission itself upheld on a previous, controversial, decision.

           

Commissioners heard from representatives of a company proposing to create a joint venture with the city for the state’s first waste to fuel solution plant which would be located within the City Beautiful. The plant, according to company executives, would take solid waste in and convert it into several forms of usable fuel including diesel fuel, kerosene and bunker fuel.

           

Coral Gables Commissioner Ralph Cabrera braved a hostile crowd of Biltmore Hotel area neighborhood residents on Sept. 22 as he took a myriad of questions about a proposed project to build luxury villas on the west side of the hotel property – in the site of what is currently a surface parking lot.

           

A memo and presentation given by high ranking members of the Coral Gables Police Department on the merits of a new patrol system at the Sept. 23 City Commission meeting did little to quell concerns of residents that the system neglects whole neighborhoods in the city.

           

The Coral Gables Commission gave its final approval to a $144 million budget with a 5.250 property tax rate – the same rate as last year – without much consternation from elected officials on Sept. 22, although a few residents did express their displeasure.

           

Most of the pressing issues resulting from the first budget hearing earlier in the month – including a proposed Fire Rescue fee and questions about the affects of a new squad system on the police budget – were answered ahead of the meeting leaving  a void of controversy, at least on the dais.

 

OCTOBER: Despite a bleak economic outlook for most everybody in the city, state and country, the cultural future of Coral Gables continued to move forward in October, as construction work on the art cinema to be housed on the ground floor of the Museum Parking Garage got underway.

           

The scope of deceit and bungling of an ill-conceived cover up, as well as considerable strife within City Hall, became even more apparent through five covert audio recordings of top City of Coral Gables administrators meeting in connection with City Manager David Brown’s falsification of official documents and other issues last spring. The recordings were made public as part of a comprehensive Miami-Dade Police Public Corruptions Investigation Bureau report released Oct. 6.

           

The Coral Gables Trial Board took its first decisive action Oct. 6 when it voted in its fifth and final board member, David Pollack.

           

City officials discovered a box filled with undeposited checks in the closet of embattled employee Olga Garcia – former administrative assistant to Mayor Don Slesnick – in October launched an investigation to find out exactly whose responsibility it was for the checks to be deposited and what led to the mishap.

           

The latest in a long line of antiquated laws still on the books in the City of Coral Gables came to light at the City Commission’s Oct. 14 meeting when city officials stopped a business owner from opening a tattoo shop on SW 8th Street because the city’s Zoning Code still views such a business as a “problematic use.”

           

The Coral Gables Commission unanimously approved an evaluation committee recommendation for the city to begin negotiating with Liberty Events to take over operation of what used to be the Country Club of Coral Gables.

           

The city attorney’s aide Olga Garcia, former administrative assistant of Mayor Don Slesnick and a close friend of City Manager David Brown and, was put on indefinite administrative leave Oct. 17.

           

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