Too many cooks spoil the broth

Do you know how many County Commissioners there are for the 1946 square miles that it covers (larger than Rhode Island and Delaware)? There are 13 County Commissioners.

Do you know how many City Commissioners there are for the City of Miami, which is 55.27 square miles in size? There are 5 City Commissioners.

Now do you know how many members are on the Coconut Grove BID Board? That's the Business Improvement District, which basically covers 4 blocks. That's 4 major blocks in the Center Grove -- Grand Avenue, Main Highway, McFarlane Road and Commodore Plaza. The answer is 19. There are 19 members on the BID board who call the shots around our 4 little business blocks.

And those 19 people, who I like, each and every one of them, does nothing for the village. Nothing. The board consists of landlords who own and rent out property and of course business owners. And yet, the Center Grove is almost a ghost town these days. Empty store fronts line the streets while these 19 board members do who knows what. David Collins, BID director resigned last week, so that office will probably flounder for awhile now.

Their solution to the empty store fronts is to redo the brick sidewalks and take out large bunch of trees in the project. They think, they actually think that redoing the sidewalks will have the rest of the county (and a large group of tourists) flocking to our streets to spend money. They don't see that we need businesses to draw people.

We need someone that can go out and bring business into the Grove, you know, a recruiter of some type. Johnny Rockets is next to go, above you can see them taking the sign down at FYE at CocoWalk, so add music and movies to the list of things that we cannot purchase in the Grove.

Anne Taylor Loft left, two of the art galleries are gone, Hooters, The Burgundy Room, the Beer Garden and Sushi Place, also a shoe store at CocoWalk closed shop in the middle of the night and ran. And the BID board is worried about sidewalks and trees.

While the 19 board members are falling all over themselves with delusions of grandeur at the BID meetings (some are not even business owners, they are neighbors or people that don't even live in the Grove) the Grove is going to hell. The few board members who spoke their own minds were dumped by the board -- which is not elected, but appointed. And so it is basically a puppet board that does the bidding (no pun intended) of a few. The poor, shameless, lame bidding.

And if they think that by tearing up the sidewalks for years on end will help business, I think they are wrong. I think that that is going to be the nail in the coffin because when the place is all torn up and dusty, people will not be able to get to the few open businesses that are operating. That will be the end of it all.

You would think that people who have a financial interest in the village would care. They don't.