Stadium approved

(via....no, this one is ripped off of SFDB, nice pick Rick)
I'm not a Miamian, so I'll let one speak for himself on this:

The most infuriating part of Monday's discussion for me was when Bob Dupay, the president of Major League Baseball, stood up and said if Miami wanted to be considered a major American city then it needed to build the stadium.

Major League Baseball should be ashamed of themselves. They have created and fostered a system whereby communities are extorted for money. If Major League Baseball cared about the communities they serve they should have set up a fund a long time ago to help teams build their own stadiums. And the only reason Major League Baseball doesn't take responsibility for their own construction projects are because elected officials keep doing it for them.

Ouch. The whole article is great and I highly suggest heading over to read it.

Shovel-ready

PBP reports that the Palm Beach County MPO made its decision:

The Palm Beach Metropolitan Planning Organization, a board of city and county leaders who set transportation priorities, voted today to send the final, eight-item list to Tallahassee, estimating the projects would create at least 720 jobs.

The vote clears the way for Florida to begin receiving federal stimulus cash, as Palm Beach County's was the last transportation board in the state to have not already submitted its project list. State transportation officials will review this and other stimulus wish lists from across the state to ensure all projects are eligible before forwarding them to the legislature for final approval. [Emphasis mine]

The article has a line describing each of the eight projects. None of these are transit-oriented.

Understanding the mechanics

I simply cannot overestimate the importance of understanding the mechanics of any particular regulatory or governing structure. It is step one. Step two, understanding the ways that stakeholders may use and/or abuse the system, needs to come after one understands the processes of government.

I like Eye on Miami, but gimleteye does not seem to be clear on how the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) operates when it comes to local decisionmaking.

Herald editorial writer Myriam Marquez says the [DCA] "keeps locals honest". The truth is murkier: local power brokers and their political hirelings, like the unreformable majority of the Miami Dade County Commission, continually shove-off zoning decisions that offend their campaign contributors, allowing the state 'to decide'. Once the public is gamed at the local level, then the blood sport moves to Tallahassee, where powerful lobbyists (we know who they are, and so do you, if your read our blog) strong-arm and otherwise pressure agency staff to do the wrong thing. They put enormous pressure on DCA by getting other agencies, from FDOT to the US Fish and Wildlife Service of the US Army Corps of Engineers , to do their bidding: some government agencies are just very, very cheap dates.

The DCA reviews Comprehensive Plan amednments. The way this works is that the DCA has a copy of the local government's approved Comp Plan. They then look at the State's criteria (FS 163 and FAC 9J-5) for a Comp Plan change alongside the amendment. If they determine that the amendment can be changed per the State's criteria, they then see if the amendment complies with the local government's own Comp Plan. DCA will do this for the land use portion of the amendment, but since amendments have effects on other portions of the Comp Plan other agencies will review sections relevant to their own expertise.

This is how local governments are kept honest...to their own Comp Plans. I am not going to say that gimleteye is wrong about the corruption. I am saying that the DCA is not where the buck stops. It stops with the writers and stewards of the Comp Plans, themselves.

Having said that, my position is that the DCA needs to stay.