Miami 21 goes down with a thud

I am beginning to like the changes I see in City Commissioner Joe Sanchez. His "no" vote yesterday on Miami 21 shows he is not going to follow Manny Diaz's questionable record as mayor. Concrete Manny, as he is known. "Green Mayor" in his dreams.

Fellow commissioner, Tomás Regalado, also voted "no." Both Sanchez and Regalado are running for Miami Mayor. Election day is November 3, 2009.

Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones, who never saw an opportunity to build and develop of course voted yes, and surprisingly, our own district Commissioner Marc Sarnoff voted in favor of the ordinance.

One nice thing to see is that people all voted the way they felt they should vote. Sanchez who usually is on the mayor's side, did his own thing and voted against the mayor's plan. Sarnoff, who is pushing for Regalado as mayor, voted the opposite way than Regalado. There is something good about all of this.

I think this needs to be revisited once Mayor Diaz is out of office. I honestly believe many critics, including myself, are so prejudiced by the Mayor being involved (even if it is his baby), that we are blind to the possibilities.

Many of us do not trust anything the mayor has his hands on. That may be the problem.

I have had problems with local developers and builders in the past, some have come after me in a very vicious manner because of things written in the Grapevine. They don't believe in the First Amendment. They would choose to do anything in the fight for the almighty buck. One almost took me to court in order to have all "anonymous" comments revealed, they didn't like what YOU, the commenters were saying and they personally wanted to go after YOU.

I had to fight that -- almost in court, luckily it did not come to that and all comments remained published, as-is, even though they wanted most of them removed that were not favorable to their side.

These developers have Manny Diaz in their pocket, or so it seems. As far as I am concerned, this may have soured everything in my mind as far as Mayor Manny Diaz is concerned including Miami 21.

BTW -- I have had local bloggers send me nasty emails and messages, too, because of my stance on Miami 21. They too, need to read the First Amendment. I have a good mind to post their nasty letters here. I won't.

Perhaps after the fall elections, with a new mayor in place (one of the people who voted against this current plan), things will be different.

Graphic by Harry Emilio Gottlieb