Opinion
07-Sep-10
This letter is written in response to the multiple articles that have been written in reference to the pay of Communications Operators of the Coral Gables Police Department. There are a few things that the residents of this fine city are obviously not aware of.
30-Aug-10
The addition of a new zoning category, University Campus Multi-Use Area, is so large that it is troubling.
18-Aug-10
Now is the time to move on pension reform. There will be an Impasse Meeting of the City Commission on Monday, August 23 , beginning at 9 A.M. at Commission Chambers.
03-Aug-10
The city has lent over $14 million for Biltmore improvements (which we are paying while they haven?t) without any security. In the past 10 years the Biltmore management has borrowed an additional $20 million based on the property's profits. Coral Gables needs more facts before any lease renegotiation discussion.
13-Jul-10
I request that until a public disclosure of a completed audit of Biltmore Hotel finances is made, the City not enter into any “Interim Agreement” with the Biltmore Hotel Management.
30-Jun-10
The latest word from the Biltmore Hotel management is they want a delay in paying rent they owe Coral Gables. That ploy worked in 2001, so why not try it again?
03-Jun-10
Experience, education, work and honesty mean nothing if these traits are not backed by huge amounts of funds that invariably tie elected officials to their donors.
Maurice Ferré has my vote for U.S. senate. He’s earned it.
03-May-10
Over the last nine years, since the City Commission presided by Mayor Don Slesnick took over, many unsavory things have happened in and to City Hall.
09-Feb-10
Ironically, Embattled City Attorney Elizabeth Hernandez has acquired an important “ally” who effusively, without apparent twinkle in his eyes, praises her accomplishments. He is Stuart Bornstein, president of Granada LLC, a company that used to manage the Coral Gables Country Club. For Bornstein our city attorney is monochromatically white, professionally nonpareil. “Liz is our best friend, for us an excellent lawyer, and you can quote me on that,” he tells anyone who asks him about Hernandez.
04-Feb-10
The Coral Gables Citizens Political Action Committee is concerned about the marathon discussions the City is having with the operators of the Biltmore Hotel, the failure of the hotel to pay rent, the refusal of the hotel operators to provide financial information when they are seeking rent concessions and resulting loss of revenue.
20-Jan-10
We are now, as a result of term limits swimming in potentially more dangerous waters. What concerns me and that of many others is that we have at the top tier of our local government a majority of elected officials who are now impervious to any checks and balances since they are lame ducks.
19-Jan-10
The other day I was thinking of how much I dislike the media because of its emphasis on the negative of everything. I took a good look at my self and found out that I have been pretty negative about my writings about Coral Gables. I love this city and would only wish it well. It is a wonderful place to live but it could still bear some changes.
12-Jan-10
On Monday, more than 60 prominent local businessmen, lawyers and other professionals filled up the large second floor catering space of the John Martin’s restaurant to listen to City Manager Patrick Salerno, a meeting sponsored by the Coral Gables Ponce de Leon Business Association.
18-Nov-09
The Tuesday meeting of Coral Gables’ city commission was one of the most pitiful since its five members took office in April 2001.
04-Nov-09
It seems like the city is nickling and diming us to death and will continue on into the future. I guess I could go on but I am beating a dead horse and the city will not change, undoubtly they will buy more live horses. When will it end? I think never and the worst is yet to come.
04-Nov-09
A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.
26-Oct-09
On Thursday, Nov. 19 personally I will present to the Court of Miami Dade the Recall Referendum Initiative against the mayor of the county Carlos Alvarez (RRI).
20-Oct-09
There has been much discussion and much misconception about the proposed outdoor dining at the Coral Gables Country Club.
13-Oct-09
The office of Coral Gables City Attorney Elizabeth Hernandez has sunk in deep mire. Its condition has deteriorated so much that some lawyers even use Shakespeare’s phrase: “it has smeared thus and mired in infamy.”
12-Oct-09
The following is intended to help candidates thinking of running for Coral Gables' commissioner or mayor in 2011. It seems a long time away, but anyone with hopes of winning should start now.
07-Oct-09
Except for reporting about disgraced former city manager David Brown, not one of about 500 columns I have written in the past decade for the Coral Gables Gazette has generated so many comments as my latest story about embattled City Attorney Elizabeth Hernandez, titled “City Attorney and the Truth.”
29-Sep-09
I read a lengthy Sept. 17 email (on “public records”) penned by Coral Gables City Attorney Elizabeth Hernandez. She wrote that my recent columns about her were “outright lies…slanderous and outrageous.” She expanded her critique to “defamatory and slanderous statements made by pretend (sic) journalists with minimal understanding of the law.” Then, in self-defense, Hernandez wrote that “while as human beings we will err from time to time, you have always heard me admit the mistakes of the office…” Here's what is wrong with Hernandez email.
25-Sep-09
As long as the entrenched political establishment remains in charge, good government can't happen. Some taxapyers are paying attention to what's going on. But most are oblivious to what's going on, and have been, and that's why things have gotten so bad.
24-Sep-09
Nobody pumped his or her fist late Tuesday night when the City Commission, without approving either the new millage rate or the 2009-2010 Fiscal Year (FY) budget, adjured until next 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 29. The difference between the 5.995 millage rate proposed by Salerno and 5.775 that the Vice Mayor Bill Kerdyk has been promoting and which the commission could conceivably approve next week, is only $2.4 million, which is less than 1.5 percent of the budget’s total.
21-Sep-09
What passes for discourse, compromise and fairness in current American governance more closely resembles the law of a jungle wherein to the victors belong the spoils and the hapless prey are the likes (and dislikes) of the likes of me and thee.
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