The post office meeting today
Martin Zilber (Village Council), Liliana Dones (Village Council), Miami Postmaster Jesus Galvez (standing), Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Comm. Marc Sarnoff, Gary Hecht (Village Council), Pierre Sands, Pres. of Village West and arborist (standing), David Collins (Village Council, BIC).This morning all the post office employees were rushed out of the facility, lest Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Comm. Marc Sarnoff see them.
In fact, only two employees remained with some huge menacing guard keeping an eye out. After the tour of the facility, all newly cleaned and washed to impress the Congresswoman and others, all parties concerned adjourned to the glass house on McFarlane Road for the highly anticipated pow wow.
Many post office employees told me they felt shut out and treated poorly and while they were glad the place was finally fixed up inside (the last time they say was years ago when biker Lance Armstrong passed through town for a USPS promotion) they would have liked to be part of the conversation.
Anyway, everyone at the glass house meeting had lots to say. The post office people of course have this arrogance about them, they are all nice people, but too military and government for my taste. But they saw this was a serious matter and the amount of people who showed up proved this. The community should be proud of themselves for coming out in such large numbers.
Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen acted as moderator and did an excellent job. She allowed people to speak and put a stop to people who over-spoke, including the post office people who included Miami's Postmaster Jesus Galvez and Martin Petrey, post office manager of design and construction for the southeast, out of Georgia.
Mr. Petrey (above standing) insisted the massacred trees could not be saved and that an arborist hired by the post office told them this. Experts at the meeting said this was not so and the arborist obviously has no knowledge of trees. Because many things could have been done, including moving them.
Mr. Petrey also stated that the City of Miami has held up the job from proceeding because of permit issues involving new entrance "curb cuts" and other things. While this is true, this seems like putting the cart before the horse. All this time there could have been trees and a usable parking lot while they waited for permits and now that the permits have been issued, destruction of the parking lot (not the trees) could have begun.
But finally permits have now been issued and plans have been drawn which are available to the public. Comm. Sarnoff says he will make them available to anyone.
One thing that concerns me is that the post office was ready to finally commence work on July 14, giving it sixty days, finishing hopefully, some time in September. But now as a formality, the Village Council would like the post office folks to give a presentation at their July 19 meeting. So this puts the job back five days already, and hopefully no one at the Village Council meeting, especially a resident, throws a wrench in the works, by stopping progress because they find a problem with the plans.
One good thing is that the post office will have the blighted parking lot closed off with a screen and they will start cleaning the lot this coming week.
As for rumors: The post office never considered putting a multi-structure garage on the site. The City (the Business Improvement Committee in particular) actually approached the federal government and asked them to do a study on the feasibility. I'm not quite sure why we wasted $40,000 to $50,000 of tax-payer dollars on land that doesn't even belong to the city (the post office owns the land) but by most accounts, the study will find that there is no need for the parking garage and more retail space at this time. So that is lots of money down the drain. The Miami Parking Authority paid for the study.
More on the plans, trees, etc. tomorrow.
In fact, only two employees remained with some huge menacing guard keeping an eye out. After the tour of the facility, all newly cleaned and washed to impress the Congresswoman and others, all parties concerned adjourned to the glass house on McFarlane Road for the highly anticipated pow wow.
Many post office employees told me they felt shut out and treated poorly and while they were glad the place was finally fixed up inside (the last time they say was years ago when biker Lance Armstrong passed through town for a USPS promotion) they would have liked to be part of the conversation.
Anyway, everyone at the glass house meeting had lots to say. The post office people of course have this arrogance about them, they are all nice people, but too military and government for my taste. But they saw this was a serious matter and the amount of people who showed up proved this. The community should be proud of themselves for coming out in such large numbers.
Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen acted as moderator and did an excellent job. She allowed people to speak and put a stop to people who over-spoke, including the post office people who included Miami's Postmaster Jesus Galvez and Martin Petrey, post office manager of design and construction for the southeast, out of Georgia.
Mr. Petrey (above standing) insisted the massacred trees could not be saved and that an arborist hired by the post office told them this. Experts at the meeting said this was not so and the arborist obviously has no knowledge of trees. Because many things could have been done, including moving them.Mr. Petrey also stated that the City of Miami has held up the job from proceeding because of permit issues involving new entrance "curb cuts" and other things. While this is true, this seems like putting the cart before the horse. All this time there could have been trees and a usable parking lot while they waited for permits and now that the permits have been issued, destruction of the parking lot (not the trees) could have begun.
But finally permits have now been issued and plans have been drawn which are available to the public. Comm. Sarnoff says he will make them available to anyone.
One thing that concerns me is that the post office was ready to finally commence work on July 14, giving it sixty days, finishing hopefully, some time in September. But now as a formality, the Village Council would like the post office folks to give a presentation at their July 19 meeting. So this puts the job back five days already, and hopefully no one at the Village Council meeting, especially a resident, throws a wrench in the works, by stopping progress because they find a problem with the plans.
One good thing is that the post office will have the blighted parking lot closed off with a screen and they will start cleaning the lot this coming week.
As for rumors: The post office never considered putting a multi-structure garage on the site. The City (the Business Improvement Committee in particular) actually approached the federal government and asked them to do a study on the feasibility. I'm not quite sure why we wasted $40,000 to $50,000 of tax-payer dollars on land that doesn't even belong to the city (the post office owns the land) but by most accounts, the study will find that there is no need for the parking garage and more retail space at this time. So that is lots of money down the drain. The Miami Parking Authority paid for the study.
More on the plans, trees, etc. tomorrow.
posted by Tom Falco at 3:00 PM
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1 Comments:
I don't understand how the post office could be held up by the city of miami because of permits. Does the federal government really need permits from miami to do things on federal property related to curbs? Or does the federal government need permits to make curb changes that are not on federal property but a necessity to carry out plans on adjacent federal property? On a later post, you said to remember that the federal govt. is under no obligation to do any of this, meaning the meetings. Why are they under an obligation to get permits then from city of miami?
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