Colonial / Fairway Estates

Since March 14, 2020, there has been a very unusual outbreak of crime in the residential area close to the west side of the Palmetto Golf Course. This includes at least four auto thefts, a home burglary, two car burglaries, and a case of vandalism.

Residents should be on special alert and call the police immediately if you see suspicious persons or activities. If you see a crime IN PROGRESS, call 9-1-1. For all other reporting, call 305-4-POLICE (305-476-5423).

Vehicle burglary and theft can be discouraged by keeping your vehicles locked at all times. DO NOT leave anything of value in your vehicle, particularly not in plain sight.

Whatever you do, make CERTAIN if you are a victim of a crime that you report it to the police. If you do not report a crime, as far as Miami-Dade County is concerned it did not occur. The quality of police patrols and crime prevention activities is highly dependent on getting accurate incident information.

Crime activity in your area can be monitored on your computer or phone by linking to https://www.crimemapping.com/

Colonial CRIME WATCH

fehacw@gmail.com

On the afternoon of Wednesday, November 6, we discovered a large plastic bag at the edge of the roadway in the 11300 block of SW 168th Street. In the bag were about 350 pieces of mail stolen out of mailboxes; about one third was addressed to 25 homes in the area near where the bag was found, and the rest to addresses in Homestead and Cutler Ridge.

This matter was duly reported to the so called U.S. Postal Inspection Service and to the Miami-Dade Police on Thursday morning November 7. Subsequently, the matter was reported to both enforcement agencies by other citizens.

To date, no one has had a meaningful response from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service   (1-877-876-2455 ). Accordingly, since there were many important pieces of mail including, tax notices, bills, medical information, etc., we endeavored ourselves to deliver the local pieces to the appropriate mailboxes from which they were stolen. We were  unable , however, to deliver/return the 200+ pieces from Homestead or Cutler Ridge. Finally, we were able to turn this stolen mail over to the local Post Office at Quail Roost.

During our investigation, we have uncovered situations where mail was opened and checks, credit cards, etc. removed therefrom. We also located a resident who videoed theft of U.S. mail from their mailbox and their front porch—including close-ups of the thief and his automobile which had apparently been following closely behind a U.S. mail truck to watch its package delivery. After the porch theft, the subject almost ran down the mailman with his auto as the resident chased him down the street. NO ONE in the Postal Service seems the least bit interested in any of this.

After some time, we did receive a brief response from the Metro-Dade Police Department (MDPD). We hope they will publish a formal statement making clear our current understanding of the matter, but we will relate it here. Theft of U.S. mail letters/packages from mailboxes or property is a federal crime. Tampering with or vandalizing mailboxes is a federal crime. Accordingly, the police have limited powers in these matters. Local police are only authorized to
do the following:

(1) If you actually see mail being stolen, or vandalism/tampering in progress, you should call 9-1-1 and report a “crime in progress.” The MDPD will respond and attempt to apprehend the vandals/thieves. If they are successful in witnessing and apprehension, they may detain the perpetrators until they can be turned over to federal authorities. They have no further responsibility.

(2) If you suffer theft of a package or mail item addressed to you in the U.S. Mail that has value to it, you may request (at 305-4-POLICE) that the MDPD pay you a visit and write a report of the incident. They will record the particulars of the theft and give you a numbered report “case card” that you can use for theft verification for insurance purposes. Because the crime is federal, however, they may possibly report it to federal authorities, but they cannot really investigate your theft. You must report the crime yourself to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

If you suffer theft of a package/letter delivered by a commercial entity, however, (e.g., UPS, FEDEX, DHL, Amazon Prime, etc.), the rules are different. Such a theft is a state crime, and the local police have full authority to act on it just like if someone stole your auto or your lawn mower. If you see the theft in progress, call 9-1-1 and report “crime in progress.” Note for them that you believe the deliverer is not the U.S. Mail Service. If the crime has already occurred and you have suffered a loss, report it at 305-4-POLICE. MDPD will respond as soon as they can, write you a report, and, if feasible, fully investigate the crime that caused your loss.

Those concerned with U.S. Postal theft would do everyone a great service by calling the so called U.S. Postal Inspection Service at 1-877-876-2455 and your local Congress person and demanding to know how they plan to better protect us (and their mailmen) against this rampant thievery.

It should be noted that the U.S. Postal Inspection Service does provide useful information on how to protect yourself against mail/package theft at their website: https://www.uspis.gov/tips-prevention/mail-theft/

For further protection you may want to consider using Informed Delivery® by USPS®. Digitally preview your mail and manage your packages scheduled to arrive soon! Informed Delivery allows you to view greyscale images of the exterior, address side of letter-sized mail pieces and track packages in one convenient location.*

Many of you know that we have been lobbying for infrastructure improvements here in the Colonial Drive / Fairway Estates Community for three years. Initially, these included painting center and road edge lines on our main streets, and then, as various installation projects (gas and sewer) seriously degraded the surfaces of those streets, we have been asking for complete resurfacing. In most cases, that resurfacing has not taken place in decades. Streets on our remedy list involved main arteries: SW 160 Street (Colonial Drive), SW 102nd Avenue, SW 99th Avenue, SW 109th Avenue, SW 101st Avenue, SW 104th Avenue, and SW 168th Street.

Now, unexpectedly, we have been given a gift: all the streets north, and west of Colonial Drive Park have suddenly received a beautiful new topping of asphalt. The streets include SW 106th Avenue (from Fairway Heights Boulevard to SW 156th Terrace), SW 156th Terrace (from SW 106th Avenue to SW 108th Court), SW 108th Court (from SW 156th Terrace to SW 158th Street), and SW 158th Street (from SW 108th Court to SW 109th Avenue).

Those streets would have not been on our primary “wish list,” but certainly they would have been on a secondary list. The resurfacing of roads in the proximity of the park adds to its practical and aesthetic value. The park is special to us. Our civic association contributed over $500,000 in grant money, gifts, and sweat equity in park restoration and improvement in the decade following Hurricane Andrew. The road condition at the extreme northeast corner of the park (intersection of SW 106th Avenue & SW 156th Terrace) was probably the worst in the whole community– many decades of extensive pothole repairs .

We thank our County Commissioner Dennis Moss for his sponsorship and support of the park-proximity street resurfacing: Roadway Resurfacing Contract – Project #20180253.

The sewer project on 9800-9900 blocks of SW 168th Street, and 16300-16800 blocks of SW 99th Avenue has to be the worst conducted and administered public project we have  seen here in 25 years. The attached photo shows a red barricade that was placed by a citizen whose vehicle nearly went off the road due to hitting deep pothole at 25 mph.

Five blocks of main artery SW 99th Avenue have for weeks been ravaged by a poorly filled trench marked with only sporadic, badly placed warning cones. Even at normal speeds, this roadway is in such terrible condition that it should be **CLOSED**. Speeders are regularly ripping down this travesty at 40-50 mph, and someone is going to get killed!

About a block or so of what passes for final repaving is now finally evident on SW 168 Street and on 16700 block of SW 99th Avenue, but it is simply not going to be acceptable; the whole five blocks of SW 99th Avenue will need to be completely resurfaced.

If this nonsense is what our community is going to have to endure to be entitled to overdue sewer work, FORGET IT; keep the sewers the way they were and leave us the hell alone!

Our FAKE PRESIDENT owes an apology to thousands of scientists and workers involved in the earth sciences– an apology for developing his very own spurious Hurricane Dorian weather forecast and unnecessarily panicking and inconveniencing citizens and public agencies in Alabama. All he had to simply say on Day 1 was that “I made a mistake and I’m sorry,” and none of this divisive contention would ever have happened.

It’s high time that at least a few folks in our laughable Congress stand up to this vile, corrupt imbecile Donald J. Trump. He is clearly unfit for public office of any kind and is in fact a dangerous person who should be taken out of the Oval Office TODAY for this “Sharpie-gate” incident alone.

I suppose maybe I’m taking all this too seriously, but I guess it’s kind of personal.

I spent 12 years of my life getting an education in how to save lives with hurricane forecasting. Mike Garstang, my major professor, and my fellow FSU grad school researchers launched the very first weather data buoy into the Atlantic Ocean off Barbados, W.I. the summer of 1968. Mike almost drowned during the placement. I was responsible for archiving and processing much of the data that came off that buoy. I spent three years (1972-75) at the National Data Buoy Center in Bay St. Louis, MS helping to develop a robust, affordable data buoy that could be deployed all over the deep oceans.

Now, there are many hundreds of data buoys feeding prediction models which furnish hurricane tracking information that, when accurately reported, can help avoid panics and tragedies like those we have suffered right here in Miami-Dade.

Since 2005, I have been engaged in private tropical storm forecasting, “The Weather Insider,” that is presented as a public service on our local civic association website at https://fairwayestateshoa.com/weather-insider/

During the 2017 hurricane season, using the European prediction model, the “Insider” predicted within seven miles, thirty hours in advance, the landfall  of Hurricane Irma.

Robert Holley
B.S., Meteorology
M.S., Physical Oceanography
“The Weather Insider”
Miami, FL

The July 23 edition of the Digital Access version of the Miami Herald features a lead story entitled “Miami-Dade started installing modern streetlights this year. Was that a mistake?”

This story is available to on-line subscribers of the Miami Herald at:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article231737293.html

The story is also available in the  e-Edition of the Herald — See July 28 Neighbors section.

Written by the Herald’s long-time civic affairs reporter Douglas Hanks, the story reviews various aspects of FPL’s efforts to “modernize” the Miami-Dade County’s street lighting. In particular, it features on-the-street interviews with three of the local citizens who last month first lodged complaints against what they consider very serious inadequacies of the new LED light fixtures.

There is also interesting information about successful implementations of LED street and building lighting in Albany, NY; Cleveland, OH; Fresno , CA; and Kansas City, MO.

Perhaps most controversial in the news item, is Miami-Dade Parks & Recreation’s claim that, in the nine districts with new LEDs, their “photometric audit” shows “…the overall square footage being covered by the newly installed LED fixture is greater than its [sodium-vapor] counterpart.” “County administrators insist that [citizen] complaints are based on misconceptions about light and dark, with the sharper LED illumination drawing more attention to coverage gaps that have always existed.”

Those of you who have followed this story may remember that on June 4 and June 18, in response to complaints brought forward by Miami-Dade County Commissioner Dennis Moss, FPL promised that it would suspend installation of LED fixtures pending further study. There is considerable evidence that this promise was not kept. Nevertheless, pending “audit” results, the LED installation suspension was supposed to stay in effect at least until today’s (July 23) County Commission hearing.

Since most of that hearing was taken up by a very contentious incorporation issue, no such “audit” results were ever publicly presented by Miami-Dade Parks & Recreation. There is a rumor that the FPL installation suspension was officially lifted via a quickly approved resolution buried deeply in one of the hearing agenda items, but, at the time of this posting, neither we, nor the Miami Herald, have been able to verify this rumor.

A July 17 edition of the Florida Bulldog website ( www.FloridaBulldog.org ) features a lead story entitled “FP&L switch to energy-saving LED bulbs for Miami-Dade streetlights halted amid resident safety concerns”

Written by staff writer Francisco Alvarado, this watchdog group’s story reviews many of the aspects of the controversy swirling about FPL’s efforts to “modernize” the Miami-Dade County’s street lighting system. The controversy began when on June 4 County Commissioner Dennis Moss mentioned constituent complaints, along with his own reservations, about the new lights— they don’t cast wide-enough light; residents say the LED beams are too concentrated and downward-facing, leaving dark areas (“dark spots”) between light poles. On June 18, Moss claimed that the “dark spots” had facilitated a wild shooting spree near his home. He further criticized FPL for ignoring a June 4 promise it had made to the County Commission to suspend all new LED installations pending further study.

The FloridaBulldog.org story features heretofore unpublished interviews with FPL and Miami-Dade County management, and Robert Holley, Board of Directors & Chairperson – Safety, Security and CRIME WATCH Committee, Colonial /Fairway Estates Civic Association.

“I was pleased,” Holley said, “ to do this interview with Mr. Alvarado of the Florida Bulldog group. I pointed out to him that I have a very unique perspective on the street lighting issue in our community. First, I have been actively involved with safety and anti-crime activities here since 1992. I was selected as “CRIME WATCHER of the Year” for all of Miami-Dade County in 1996. I have served on the MDPD, So. District Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) for 27 years. Second, as part of our Association’s civic activities, since 2000, I have often traveled the 55+ miles of streets (with 771 lights) in this community at night detecting out-of-service light poles. As volunteers, we have reported almost 200 of those to FPL in the past six years. Frequently traveling the streets has made me more familiar with good/poor street lighting than perhaps any other person in this area. And, I say unequivocally that I agree with Commissioner Dennis Moss that the new LED lighting presents a definite crime THREAT to our particular community. Simply stated, the new lights may be energy efficient, but they are not SAFETY efficient! Believe me, I know these streets. The new lighting is not of the same quality as what we had with the sodium based lamps.

Giving cover to criminal activity is but one lighting issue. In addition to coping with Miami-Dade’s grossly negligent ability to provide reflective street markings on many of our main streets, now we have limited, badly distorted views of the streets themselves. Are our fading night vision folks just supposed to stay home after dark?

It is really 1984 Orwellian to see a major utility and a large government try to claim that everyone will be “content” with this new lighting after it is all installed. Big problem is when it is “all installed,” then there is nothing else to compare it to. Memory fades quickly, and the purveyors of this implementation are all well aware of that fact..

To combat the before/after perception fallacy, we took the trouble to take before and after photos of lighting in certain areas, and these show a marked difference in the dispersion of street lighting. For those unhappy with the technical merits of the photography, we have publicly challenged FPL/Miami-Dade to install here some old sodium lamps for their own “before” shots, and to replace them with LED lamps for “after” shots to prove to the community that we are getting the same global intensity of street lighting as we had before. We have had no takers from either party, and I think that speaks volumes.”

Catch up with happenings in this evolving saga at:

www.floridabulldog.org/2019/07/fpl-switch-to-energy-saving-led-bulbs-for-miami-dade-streetlights-halted/?

———-

Well, as might have been expected, no one from our community (or any other one) had the time or means to attend June 20th’s downtown County Zoning hearing sham, so we lost another quality of life battle – and it likely would not have made much difference if we had spoken for the allowed two minutes per person, because our Commissioners were not about to listen to the simple argument we would have posed to them in opposition to the proposed two measures— we are already strangling in traffic !

Both issues— approval of a major future expansion of Jackson South Hospital (JSH) and permission to build a 13 acre “wellness center” west of the hospital– were passed with blind spot consideration of the future. The 13 acre matter (on appeal) had already been turned down 5-0, with prejudice, by our local Zoning Board 14, but none of the Commissioners even made mention of that fact.

Instead, the same developer attorney who appeared before the local zoning board on April 4, noted that “all the communities in the area approved of their project.” That is an absolute lie that at least two Commissioners could not have possibly been unaware of, and of course one wonders why local residents’ zoning board members already voted NO NO NO NO NO 5-0. How does that happen if “all the surrounding communities approved of this project?” Our Fairway Estates/Colonial Drive community (3562 residences ) certainly did NOT approve of the project, and we voiced our strenuous objections to it in the April 4 local zoning meeting AND in great detail on  this website.

Let’s not wander from the truth. None of us who raised legitimate objections to these projects object to hospitals or “wellness centers” per se. This writer congratulated the developer’s attorney after the negative vote on April 4, and told him, “ I think this wellness campus is a fine project plan —except for one thing—“ it’s in the wrong place.” Lack of roadway infrastructure has already made future building development, not only locally, but in large parts of the Miami-Dade County, an absolute absurdity. We are faced with the decision of either having a standout medical facility here or not being able to get through traffic to work (or to the hospital) . How ridiculous is that?

On the brighter side, there were well -delivered presentations on Jackson South Hospital by Mr. Carlos Migoya, CEO of Jackson Health System , and Dennis Moss, County Commissioner representing most of our local neighborhood. The former reported on the remarkable recovery/progress, and the future, of the various components of the Jackson Health System, an enterprise that was almost in bankruptcy just a few years ago. Commissioner Moss provided a short history of health facilities in South Dade and explained his long-time, and we feel quite sincere, desire to have a first class medical center right nearby.

One thing also stood out: neither of these projects are breaking ground tomorrow at dawn. The hospital expansion is perhaps the furthest away from fruition. If they will just listen and act, this fact offers our County leadership a small margin of time that could be used to at least develop a plan for infrastructure redemption. And that plan must be serious and well thought out—not be based on simplistic ideas like building expensive bridges – bridges effectively to nowhere– over the C-100 Canal.

The subject building projects, for which we simply asked a moratorium—a delay in immediately going forward–both have great merit. We do not oppose the eventual development of a sophisticated local medical center here. That would be silly. What we oppose is putting the cart before the horse—having rapid development without supporting infrastructure. In short , to be blunt, the simple message we have been trying to convey to our leaders is – IT’S THE TRAFFIC, STUPID !

To be clear, what we lost, for the time being, on June 20 is serious consideration by our MDC commissioners of the proposition we stated on May 8, viz. “For now, we will continue to oppose any further building projects or re-zonings on SW 152 St. until such time as Miami-Dade County can guarantee us a traffic solution, fund it, and actually begin to make it happen. We would really like this to be put in the form of a referendum– maybe even county-wide – a complete moratorium on building projects until we catch up with some infrastructure.”

But, if our commissioners, for whatever motive, as they did June 20, continue to wave their arms and say .. “traffic here, on 152 Street, oh well, there are problems all over Miami with traffic” and just continue to plunge ahead with large new building projects, the result will sooner or later be tragic. When we finally suffer complete gridlock, we wonder if any of them will recall or care about what we said here today.

An important local election is coming up next summer, and we should be thinking about a major campaign to replace or reject leadership that continues to have a severe hearing problem. To have a real hope of doing that, all our various civic associations are going to have to band together, understand each other, and work seamlessly together.

The July 2 edition of Miami New Times’  daily newsletter features a lead story entitled “Miami-Dade Commissioners Say New LED Street Lights Could Lead to More Crime”

Written by staff writer Manuel Madrid, the story reviews many of the aspects of the controversy swirling about FPL’s efforts to “modernize” the Miami-Dade County’s street lighting system. The controversy began when on June 4 County Commissioner Dennis Moss mentioned constituent complaints, along with his own reservations about the new lights— they don’t cast wide-enough light; residents say the LED beams are too concentrated and downward-facing, leaving dark areas (“dark spots”) between light poles. On June 18, Moss claimed that the “dark spots” had facilitated a wild shooting spree near his home. He further criticized FPL for ignoring a June 4 promise it had made to the County Commission to suspend all new LED installations pending further study.

Catch up with happenings in this evolving saga at:

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-dade-commissioners-residents-say-fpls-led-street-lights-could-lead-to-more-crime-11209195

Well, we thought we had already heard every possible horror story in the ongoing saga of FPL’s new street light installations– substandard un-vetted equipment, deficient illumination (“dark spots”) between poles, broken FPL promises to suspend installation for further study, etc., etc. BUT WE WERE WRONG!

The latest spin is that many of the newly installed LED’s are burning out… frequent reports heard of LED light failures within a week of installation. Yesterday morning , we received a report of one new light burning out THREE times since it was put up. — accompanied by the complete destruction of the resident’s swale by the huge tires of
multiple repair trucks…

And, then there’s this fabulous information from an FPL manager passed on to one of our staff.. yeah, we expect a lot of the new lights to burn out. Once that happens, the new bulbs we’ll put in will last ten years…

Of course, that begs the questions— why would you ever install new fixtures with bulbs you know to be defective ? How did a “legitimate” government (Miami-Dade County) ever involve itself in this out-of-control scheme to destroy our residential street lighting?

If you have information about the failure of a new LED street light, please pass it on to fehacw@gmail.com … location of light- if known, date of install, date of failure.

June 25, 2019 —  Nextdoor comment by Djloco79:

“Those two photos are deceiving as the first one has a flash and the second one does not. Secondly, these lights are to light up the street and sidewalk not your home. If you can see, the street is lit much brighter than the first photo.”
—–
Dear Djloco79:
We thank you kindly for your remarks about the new LED street lighting, and we also thank you for your astute observation that the “before” and “after” lighting photos we published yesterday did not accurately depict what we had intended, i.e., to show that illumination from new FPL LED fixtures is decidedly less in certain directions than it was with the previously installed sodium fixtures.

Upon close examination of the cell phone camera which shot the “after” picture, we discovered that the flash had inadvertently been switched off. With the flash properly turned on, the lighting in the “after” photo turns out to be brighter than it was in the no-flash shoot. We apologize for this error made by someone who is still getting familiar with his new smart phone. The phone is very smart; this writer is not!

It has been our wish all along that some responsible, technically qualified media organization would undertake the responsibility of doing comparative photography on this lighting subject, and we are now promised that there will be a newspaper item published on it in the next few days.

We also now challenge FPL to take comparative photography and prove to the public, if it can, that safe, adequate illumination, comparable to what we once had, is really going to be provided to all our neighborhoods.

The correct comparison of before/after pix should look like this:

For certain, the depletion in illumination – before to after– was not as severe as depicted in the two originally posted photos, but significant depletion is still apparent. And, we agree that if you stand right directly under the new light, it may possibly be brighter than the one provided before.

However, when we compared “before” and “after” photos of illumination between light poles 300 feet apart, the “dark spot” phenomena is readily apparent in the “after” photo looking down the street just past the white mailbox on the right:

As to the matter of what illumination should be expected to shine back onto one’s property, that issue seems quite controversial. Some are highly desirous of that lighting being on their property, some not at all. In the past, back shields have been provided for those with the latter wish. We see nothing written down, in records that may go back 50+ years, that would cause one to assume that light thrown onto one’s yard by up-to-now current sodium lights was some sort of a magic, decades-old GIFT that could just be arbitrarily, suddenly withdrawn without any discussion.

And indeed in all of these recent dealings and mailings, what we as residents have been asking for, is just what we believed was already agreed on by all parties on June 4 and June 18 at the Miami-Dade County Commission Meetings – that this street lighting conversion matter is an extremely complex one that requires a lot more discussion, study, and buy-in than has heretofore taken place. That is the reason that we were given to believe that LED installations would be suspended until a plan was formulated/initiated to address as many citizen concerns as possible.

It seems quite obvious, however, that that the “suspension pledge” has been seriously violated, and the violator of same has some real explaining to do!

E-mail to Miami-Dade Commissioners sent 12:27 p.m. 6/25/2019

The below “before” and “after” photos depict what FPL (or their contractors) did to the illumination of my front yard by breaking an LED installation suspension pledge made to the County Commission on June 4, and YESTERDAY installing one of their LED lighting gadgets on the light pole at the end of my driveway. I am lame and this very questionable installation directly affects my safety.

Other available graphic “before” and “after” photography near my home speaks well for my demand that this utility company return to my street and reinstall the two sodium lamp lighting fixtures that they replaced yesterday morning in violation of their June 4 pledge.

If the Commissioners cannot stop these lying folks in a courteous nice way, they need to obtain a court injunction forbidding FPL from any further installations pending further study– violations $1000 per pole. More and more this appears to be the only way that our residents can be assured that their streets will remain well illuminated– safe and crime free.

Robert Holley
Board of Directors
Colonial/Fairway Estates Civic Association
www.FairwayEstatesHOA.com
Member, Citizen Advisory Committee, MDPD So. District

On June 4, in biweekly County Commission Meeting, Miami-Dade Commissioner Dennis Moss received a promise from FPL that it would completely suspend installation of new LED street light fixtures pending study of the efficiency of lighting of some neighborhoods’ streets. According to the Commissioner, the new LED lights, because they point straight down, were leaving huge “dark spots” in illumination of streets near his residence.

Over the past few days, we have received various reports that FPL has *NOT* stopped the installations as agreed. This morning, that was verified because an FPL contractor installed a new LED lighting device right in front of this writer’s home.

If you see FPL or any electrical contractor installing new street lights near you, we would like to know date, time, location, tag #s (photos would help)– mail to: fehacw@gmail.com

If this company has violated its agreement as seems to be the case, we are going to do our best to seek legal action to shut this down – any lawyers out there?

Those of you who have been following the FPL street lighting saga– the County-wide installation of new LED street light fixtures– would no doubt have been interested in hearing the testimony of County Commissioner Dennis Moss at yesterday’s bi-weekly Commission meeting. [We are working on a set of instructions that would allow a computer user to see/hear the appropriate portion of the 6/18 Commission meeting.]

During a discussion of legislation relating to street light taxing districts, Moss told the story of how a large weekend (6/15) pool party very close to his home was interrupted by gunfire—thirty eight shots fired in all. He said that he had no doubt that this attack by intruders was facilitated by the “dark spots” that have resulted from FPL’s installation of new LED street lighting equipment. They crept through the “dark spots,” he said, to be able to reach the party location.

Based on constituent complaints and his own research in his neighborhood, at the June 4 County Commission Meeting , Moss criticized this new technology— not because it is, for certain, more energy efficient, but because it is not lighting up the streets in an effective and safe way. The new lights are too downward directed and leave large dark spots between adjacent light poles. Discussion by eight of his fellow commissioners then led to a promise by FPL that it would suspend the LED installation program (for 41,000 lights on 33,000 poles) until further study could be conducted.

Continuing his criticism in yesterday’s (June 18) meeting, Commissioner Moss stated that he had information that FPL had *NOT* suspended the installation process as promised on June 4 and wanted to know why. The County person responsible for liaison with FPL replied that the company was in the process of moving their installations “from the south to the north” — to the City of Miami Gardens. The Commission Chairperson seemed rather disturbed by this reply and asked why if we know there is a bad problem in the south, why would we move it north? Don’t you think we need to tell the City of Miami Gardens about the “dark spots?”

Commissioner Moss: 305-245-4420 — DennisMoss@miamidade.gov

Commissioned Cava: 305-375-5218 — District8@miamidade.gov

Other Commissioners’ contact info at : http://www.miamidade.gov/commission/contact-us.asp

Please contact your commissioners (Moss and Cava) and tell them we want NO MORE building developments that will create an even bigger traffic problem on SW 152 Street than we already have. It is totally irresponsible for any commissioner to allow more development to occur along congested highways without, first, addressing the increased gridlock the over-building will create. Roadway and rail infrastructure MUST come BEFORE any more building.

On June 20 (two days from now), the County Commission will be voting on allowing Jackson South Hospital to build a 5-story parking garage and an additional 100 bed hospital wing. This is a companion to a proposal that will allow a private development firm to build a so called “wellness center,” that includes a large number of doctors’ offices, on a 13 acre plot across the canal west of the hospital. (They refuse to tell us how many offices will really be in the “wellness center”). The “wellness center” proposal, by the way, mostly because of traffic issues, was already turned down (unanimous 5-0 vote) by our local Zoning Board 14 on April 4. The June 20 hearing is a developer’s appeal to overturn the already expressed wishes of our local residents!

The above proposals, if approved, along with the construction of the Walmart store out by the Zoo, a 900 unit apartment development near the Walmart, and what appears to be a 300 unit apartment complex (they add new wing every day) already being built at SW 98 Avenue just west of the hospital, will pour thousands of new autos onto SW 152 Street and cause traffic to sit at a complete standstill in the mornings and evenings on this vital traffic artery.

Since both the above hospital-related proposals are zoning issues, commissioners cannot take any specific comments from us in advance of the June 20 meeting. This is why we need to make our arguments more broadly worded (i.e., just simply say, “we don’t want any more new building projects of any kind on SW 152 Street.” ) Those kind of comments can be accepted.

Please e-mail or call your commissioners. Commissioners who are running for office (or plan a future political career) or are running for Mayor should be made aware that we are watching how they vote on these critical issues. Their choices will determine our vote in upcoming elections.

If you have the time and means to get downtown, you may wish to attend the June 20 County Commission hearing on these issues and make your specific feelings known. The schedule, as we currently best know it, is depicted in the hearing notice below