What happened at the Commission meeting?

The Mercy-Realated (300 Grove Bay project) Commission meeting was confusing. The voting for and against zoning was confusing. It seems like the project may happen, but in this real estate market and with all the law suits to happen, it may never happen.

Basically, three commissioners are selfish and don't care how the neighbors feel or the zoning board every other expert on the subject. I am willing Jorge Perez and The Related Group away. I am willing that this never happens and it ends up in the courts forever.

Comm. Marc Sarnoff was excellent today. He brought up six intelligent points as to why the 300 Grove Bay project should not go through. He fought for the Grove. He grew some balls.

He fought hard and made excellent points and would not be pushed around by the other commissioners and the incompetent City Attorney, who had Comm. Michelle Spence-Jones beat in the lala land department. And that is hard to do.

Sarnoff was excellent in telling the other commissioners to keep out of the Grove's business since he would not butt into their districts and make decisions on things he knows nothing about. Since none of the others have spent time in District 2, they have no rights to make decisions for District 2.

I loved when Comm. Tomas Regalado brought up the subject of reelections and radio commercials. He asked: "What does health care have to do with the current zoning?" It just shows the maliciousness of the Mercy Hospital and Related Group people. They are scaring older folks into thinking this will affect their health care. How sad that they need to go to these tactics.

It appears that none of the older folks fell for this tactic and did not call Regalado's office or Marc Sarnoff's office and ask them to change their vote. It is the other three commissioners who need to get real and change their votes.

Comm. Michelle Spence-Jones rambled on and on as usual. And then decided to screw Marc Sarnoff and vote against his and the Grove's wishes. She actually felt the hospital should whore itself, screw the neighbors and sell the land. She actually felt this was an issue of helping the hospital. What a fool. Guess the land at Baptist hospital is going to be condos next, then South Miami, Cedars and so on. It's a sad day in Miami. The Developers have won.

Comm. Angel Gonzalez has some projects that are stalled in his district for years because of legal fights. So hopefully this will happen here and legal fights will keep the ground from being broken for years.

Comm. Sanchez felt that Related should: Reduce the size of the project by 25% across the board (which concerns me, because this still allows about 300 feet or so in height), have no impact on Vizcaya by being seen from Vizcaya. Sarnoff added his ideas: limit the size, make it a large park area, open a walkway to the water, limit signage, shuttling construction workers to and from the site.

Bottom line: Status quo. Comm. Sarnoff and Regalado were against the zoning changes and project. Comm. Spence-Jones, Sanchez and Gonzalez were for it.

Tomas Regalado is very intelligent and I am always impressed by him.