Talk of seceding from the City is heating up again. Grovites are fed up with the way the village is being run and the last straw was the vote in favor of the Grove Bay project on the waterfront, if this had been just a Coconut Grove vote, the project would have been voted down, but when the City went out soliciting votes from Little Havana, Belle Meade, Morningside and other areas, that was the final act of treason from our City.
The bar closing times, the dis on the Village Council, the basic state that the Grove is in theses days are all negative effects from the City and of course the crime and lack of police presence is a major factor. I get emails daily from people crying over what is going on in this village. The rezoning of properties to turn the village into an office center is another strike. It all would not have happened if we were our own City and called our own shots.
Grovite Grant Sheehan, sent out this informative email over the weekend. He has a mandate for the new Village Council.
Grant says:
"I would like to welcome the new Village Council members and give you your first assignment. As you know after the last attempt to incorporate the city commission allowed the Grove to establish our own elected Village Council so that we would have some say in the future of the Grove. Well you can see how well that has worked! They gave us a Village Counsel and immediately neutered them, no public forum (meetings in City Hall), no funding, no voice and no vote! They, the city, have continually moved in several different directions opposite of what, it appears, the majority of the Grove wants for its community. The last letter that Commissioner Marc Sarnoff sent supporting Grove Harbor should have been considered a slap in the face, by our elected Grove Commissioner, to every Grove resident. He made it very clear that he did not care what we, Grove residents, thought and that all the residents of the city would decide the future of the Grove!"
Grant did a feasibility study between Coconut Grove and Pinecrest, relating to millage rates and population, and according to him, we mirror each other. Of course, Pinecrest became its own city after incorporating itself away from the County, we have to deal with being part of the City of Miami. We were once our own city, but we were stolen in 1925 by the City. Long grudge ever since.
Here are the points that Grant makes:
Benefit “Home Rule”
Specific benefits will vary according to the state or province, but incorporation typically provides advantages in many areas, including the collection of taxes, powers to establish police and fire departments, avoiding annexation to adjacent municipalities and a hyper-local form of government likely to be more in tune with the needs of area residents.
Here are some steps to get the ball rolling.
1. Check with the secretary of state to determine the subtle details required to incorporate as a city. You must find out the minimum population needed and how many registered voters you need to pass the petition.
2. Survey the Grove to ensure you have the minimum population required to incorporate as a city.
3. Propose a feasibility study (see attached sample). Appoint a neutral party to conduct the study in order to determine if incorporating will be fiscally sound. You must have a petition signed by a certain amount of property owners or registered voters in the area that approve the feasibility study.
4. Hold a public hearing to discuss the feasibility study and the possibility of incorporation. If the feasibility study shows that it would be beneficial for the city to incorporate, hold hearings to discuss the matter with the residents.
5. Petition for incorporation. The petition must be signed by a certain amount of property owners or registered voters depending on the state law. If the petition passes, the voters must elect city officials to govern the new city.
6. File the articles of incorporation with the secretary of state. If the petition for incorporation passes and after city officials are elected, the mayor of the new city must file articles of incorporation to formally incorporate the city. The secretary of state can provide the forms.
It will not be an easy task because being part of a city requires us to request to leave the city, which I am sure, will require some legal action if they won’t let us go, then become part of the county and then request to separate from them. All of this would have to take place almost simultaneously and cost a few bucks but look what you will be part of by being the “Founding Fathers” of the “Village of Coconut Grove”. By the way we were our own city till Miami annexed us back in 1925.
I think the time has come (again) to make this happen. The city used to rely on our tax base but now with Wynwood and Midtown and the success and build up of Brickell, lots of taxes are coming in from elsewhere.
And for those of you who want all the fast speed progress and desecration of the Grove, please don't bother leaving nasty comments here, why don't you move instead to the burgeoning areas of the county where you'll be happy, destroying the last vestiges of sanity in Coconut Grove is not the answer for the majority of Grovites, that's why we moved here to stop the insanity.
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