"City likes to suck blood out if it's host; the Grove"
In other words, people from other communities with their own uniqueness will have as much say as the citizens of the Grove on this community issue. Now, I know that the City of Miami being the parasite that it is, likes to suck the blood of its host, Coconut Grove; blood being taxes. However, enough is enough.
A person mentioned in a recent letter to the editor the phrase "taxation without representation." Clearly the RFP Committee did not represent the Grove in terms of members. One response to this is to declare the process as "not valid." This could take place through a protest, organizing a campaign to vote against it in the elections, or voting with our money. In other words, our final "trump card" would be to choose not to eat or drink at the new restaurant in order to protest the Committee's decision and actions. While the Committee and City have a certain amount of power to choose which restaurant will rent the marina property, we as consumers could decide to not associate with the restaurant and shun it. This would be "voting with our money and our feet" which are the only votes we have that count. This strategy could be carried out by using some type of community awareness campaign.
Joshua Stevens
Coconut Grove
posted by Tom Falco at 11:11 AM
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12 Comments:
Our elected officials are surely succeeding in their daily effort to destroy Coconut Grove. What for? $. Secession is not the answer, the most connected and corrupt people would get elected and we would be back to square one. Making them accountable and responsible personally through prosecution is the answer.
Anonymous,
Your comment is somewhat accurate. Yes, there is a risk that connected and corrupt people will be elected and that risk will always be there no matter what. However, secession is the "trump card." First, by us threatening to secede with a certain amount of citizens supporting us will cause the City of Miami to freak out. Just Google the keywords "Coconut Grove" "secession" "vote" and "1990s". We will find newspaper articles in South Florida stating that City "Officials" were concerned that a large portion of Miami's tax dollars would be lost and it would disrupt the entire city. In other words, if a portion of the citizens just threatening secession it would freak-out the establishment politicians and maybe they would stop acting like such parasites as they do now.
Also, you make my arguement of accountability. If there was only the City of Coconut Grove, those politicians would be accountable to us and us only; not Little Havana, Brickell, and Midtown. The City of Miami is so large with thousands of government workers, bureaucrats, politicians, and agencies it is very difficult for the average citizen to keep up with it all. However, if we only had to keep up with the City of Coconut Grove, there would be less politicians, bureaucrats, and agencies. In other words, it would make it easier for us to tell who is screwing us and who isn't. It would also make it easier for us to resist, protest and rebel against the Grove's nonsense rather than having to deal with Miami's massive nonsense.
Secession means that we can decide what occurs in Center Grove or with Scotty's rather than some distant citizen in Little Havana deciding what should happen in Center Grove.
-Josh Stevens
Don't know what the right solution is for non-representative elected officials and their actions, but legal recourse may be the only solution, maybe.
Too bad about the Scotty's debacle, but, honestly, Coconut Grove lost its mojo years ago. I live in Gables but used to go to the Grove every week. Now, I don't even go for festivals. In between the closed stores, homogenized storefronts and awful parking, it is no longer pleasant.
What the Grove needs if a reboot. An art district would be great, so would dedicating some of the storefronts to arts, pedestrian streets would be awesome...
And all our government officials (can't call them leaders) can think about is to take out Monty's?
I don't know why the idea of secession keeps coming up, but the law is that the Grove cannot secede without the consent of a majority of voters, citywide. How does one propose to achieve that while insulting the residents of the rest of the city?
And frankly, I'm not sure I would want to be ruled by the clique of busybodies who would be likely to assume power in a separate City of Coconut Grove. Better to stick with the devil we know.
Btw, am I the only person in the Grove who is offended by the thinly veiled racism expressed in Mr. Stevens' letter?
Brant, I do not propose insulting the residents of Miami to secede. Diplomacy would have to be used and a public awareness campaign is needed to enlighten the city's residents about secession.
Also, could you please enlighten me as to how my letter-to-the editor was racist in any way? I regret that you somehow think that the discussion of secession is "thinly-veiled racism." If you are going to make such an assertion, could you please provide evidence? It seems as though we have had some type of miscommunication.
Consider the fact that the Grove tried to secede twice in the 1990s. Miami annexed the Grove in the early 20th century and I am proposing a way to "un-annex" from the City of Miami. Just as individuals have unique and different characteristics, so do communities which are made up of individuals.
In other words if it's okay for Miami to annex the Grove since it was bigger and wanted to keep getting bigger, why stop there? Let's allow it to annex Tampa and then Orlando. However, individulas from Orlando and Tampa would obviously not appreciate being dominated and annexed by Mimai. The City of Miami would now tell people in Tampa and Orlando what to do even though these are different regions, people, and cultures. Now residents in Tampa and Orlando would have to drive to Miami to protest their new "city government," have less accountability from their government since it's spread further out, and have to deal with more bureaucracy and regulations from a the City of Miami that's several hours away from them.
I hope this brief analysis will allow you to understand the point I am making. I'm using this example to show you the lunacy of annexing more government domination. Which means more government corruption, aggression and power to dominate over.
Btw, I am sure why racism is on your mind, but fortunately it's not on my mind.
Remember how well the Grove did when it banded together to fight Home Depot. The final verdict was helping someone with self-serving goals get elected to the city council and getting stuck with a scaled own Hone Deport that does not seem to be avoided by anyone in the Grove . Scotty’s is somewhat of an iconic location but the food and service are terrible. I agree a change is needed but why fight for something that sucks. In this case the devil unknown probably can’t be as bad as the devil known
Mr. Stevens:
First, your "legal analysis" of the issue of secession, such as it is, makes no sense at all. If you're serious about it, then address the legal and political reality that the Grove will have to persuade a majority of the entire city to agree.
Your denial of racism is, if you will excuse me, unconvincing. Let's be serious - anti-Hispanic sentiment is rampant in the Grove, and is frequently expressed in veiled terms such as how "those people in Little Havana" are too different from us to understand our issues, our values. We all know what's being said, although few have the honesty to call it what it is.
In your letter, you propose cutting off the rest of the city's voters from having a say on the waterfront development plan. You do so by using the same, coded language that we've all heard, a thousand times or more.
You try to put it in terms of the City of Miami being too big. But, in geographical terms, the city isn't all that huge. It's not much bigger than St. Petersburg or Tampa, and smaller than Jacksonville. It's much smaller than Los Angeles.
But you make it clear that geography isn't your real issue, but rather that it's culture. That's fine, you can call it that. But don't try to tell us that it's not racism. It is.
Brant, I'm glad you replied to my comment as we may seek the truth to this arguement together. First, we have to have terms clearly defined. Historically the term racist means that a person views one race as being superior to another race. I've never mentioned anything about racial superiority. In your last comment you stated "anti-Hispanic sentiment" in regards to me citing the Little Havana community as part of my arguement. However, you may have not noticed my examples of Midtown and Brickell in the previous article. Once again though, if racism is on your mind and you're focused on it, there doesn't appear to be anything I can do that will change this. Also, the anti-Hispanic sentiment you speak of, I am not aware of it. I actually just moved to the Grove recently and have found almost everyone to be friendly, including Hispanics. I haven't noticed any anti-Hispanic sentiment in the Grove, but maybe I haven't been here long enough. I think the more we communicate with each other and get other people to communicate about topics that are serious, unlike "Dancing with the Star," we can potentially have a Second Renissance or Intellectual Revolution. Therefore, I will try to engage people who reply with comments so we can seek the truth, not non-sensically debating to "win an arguement." A sensical arguement seeks the truth, after all, no one has a monopoly on knowledge; everyone has a little bit of knowledge to share though.
Next, to simplify, secession is a revolt against slavery; government slavery that is. The main characteristic of slavery is that you do not have the ability to associate or disassociate with your slave master. That is, if try to stop working in the slave masters fields and declare yourself free, the slave master will beat you into submission. If I work at a restaurant and try to leave and the restaurant manager beats me for trying to quit, the manager would go to jail for assault. Why is that? Because in theory I am supposed to be free and own my body. Only I can own me and no one else can; in other words I can disassociate.
Now, apply it to government. The City of Miami is, in my and other people's opinion, corrupt, violates my personal rights, and taxes and spends too much money. If I declare my freedom from the government and choose to disassociate (aka secede) from it, I should be able to secede if I am free. However, if I am not free and the opposite of freedom is slavery, I cannot disassociate (aka seced). In other words by declaring secession, I am claiming that I am free, not a slave, and that I am the only one who owns my body.
Once again, we have to start from a theortical foundation and work our way up. The next stages would involve the economics of secession, the history of secession, and the sociology of secession. This is what I mean by a community awareness campaign. I am just seeking liberty and freedom for myself and anyone else. It appears that Coconut Grove is ripe for such such a movement.
You can find some information on secession at...
vermontrepublic.org
Thanks for reading
-Josh
Oh, good grief. If you feel that the city has enslaved you, then you should move to another city. Choices abound.
No amount of sophomoric philosophizing will change the fact that the law requires a majority vote of the city in order for a particular neighborhood to de-annex from the city.
You say you're new to the Grove. I take it that means that you're new to the city, itself. Spend enough time here and you'll start to realize that many of the biggest problems are at the county level. So, even if you achieved your pipe-dream, you'd find yourself back where you started.
Brant, more specifically I would say the City is quasi-slavery, because we can secede with a majority vote; however if we don't have a majority vote we cannot own property in the geographic region of the City of Miami and declare ourselves free. You are also correct that choices abound to move to another city. Yet, if we secede from the City of Miami and become the City of Coconut Grove, we will have more choices of cities by creating a new one.
In regards to Miami-Dade county the answer is also the same. We need more counties to choose from so we can have more competition of governments. There are benefits to the competition of governments that are similar to the competition to businesses. For example, if there was only one county in Florida, say Miami-Dade, it could regulate and taxes and not worry about the effects, because Miami-Dade would be a monopoly county. However, if there were several counties for Floridian citizens to choose from, Miami-Dade would have to be competitive in regards to taxes and regulations. If not, its citizens will "vote with their feet" to a different county; causing Miami-Dade to lose its tax revenue and power. This applies to cities, States, and Nations as well.
Yes, I understand that there is a requirement for a majority vote to secede from the city. The only remedy for this, if we wanted to legally secede, would be to educate a majority of Miami residents on the virtues of secession. Once again, Coconut Grove has had a history of potential secession votes. We could also try to enagage secession experts who have been successful with their own secession campaigns to gain insight on generating a successful secession movement.
Another advantage I think I have is that since I am new to the City of Miami (about 1 year) is that I can view things from a "fresh" perspective. For example, your response of "change the fact...majority vote...de-annex." Sure I understand this, but I'm not greatly concerned about that. It'll take some time, but I think with the correct strategy this could occur. It could be the fact that you have lived here longer and have almost given up on any sort of truly alternative approaches, because of all the corruption in Sout Florida. I will admit, it is very corrupt here. Furthermore, I am too optimistic to view secession as a pipe-dream. Secession may not come soon, but I have already started to get the ball rolling. Thanks
-Josh
Anonymous (5:20 pm 6/20 post), I agree with you in a lot of ways. If course these government "officials" are not leaders. They are just legalized mafia bosses. Why would anyone want a mafia boss to "lead" them. Look, we shold count on ourselves and be our own leaders. By all means begin a movement to develop an art district in Coconut Grove and I'll support you in the process. You could start by approaching the Grove Chamber of Commerce. Then get Tom Falco to promote it, to which he probably wouldn't have a problem with it.
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