Transit Miami

Here’s an excerpt from today’s piece, part 4, referring to the trust’s dealings around MLK Blvd and NW 7th Ave:

“A review of hundreds of records and nearly a dozen interviews shows that the trust’s strategy for this historic street corner hurt the very people it was supposed to help while millions in tax dollars earmarked for small businesses went to botched deals that failed to create promised jobs.”

Obviously, corruption isn’t new to the Miami area. However, the nature of it being a frequently recurring theme is very troubling. If you’ve been following it, you’ll see that it cuts across all races and many ethnicities, so citizens should not childishly point their fingers at any one group. It’s critical, however, that as citizens we don’t become so crusted that we lose sight of the positive projects (i.e. Miami 21 and Miami Streetcar) that will help make Greater Miami a better place.

We must also recognize that the current state of affairs is just not acceptable. Our communities continue to become more and more polarized racially, ethnically, and especially socioeconomically. “Sprawliticians” are using their power in many instances to continue making a buck of our great land, while ensuring Miami is an unsustainable, inequitable, traffic congested mess into perpetuity. We need to keep this in mind when we go to the voting booths, and we need to start asking tough questions about the qualifications of officials (do you have ties to Big Construction or are you for Smart Growth?) and administrators that run our government.