We all chose to live here for two main reasons. One is that we like the feel of the Village, and the other is that home prices are more modest than they are in some other "nice" communities, like Miami Shores. Let's assume we like both features, but that we want to continue to see ourselves as "better" than some other communities, like North Miami. For many years, we have had signs warning drivers not even to think about speeding. So let's also assume we have always liked to think of ourselves, and to be thought of by others, as a particularly orderly place where we would like, and expect, to have low crime. Let's imagine we still feel that way: we like very low crime, and we're willing to extend ourselves to keep it that way. Finally, let's assume that we can best meet our goals if we have control over ourselves, so therefore, we want to continue to exist as an independent municipality.
What, then, does Biscayne Park need? What can it use? What keeps us at the level we want? What makes us better, but within our limitations?
The first thing we need is the means to exist as a separate and independent municipality. The only requirement is that we be able to pay our bills. All we need is to make as much as we spend, or more than we spend. And part of responsible municipal planning is a reserve: money that is not specifically earmarked for anything, but is available to attend to unplanned, though loosely predictable, problems. It's no more complicated than that, and we'll talk more about it in another post.
We're a physical community, and a community of neighbors. We like it that way. Our physical characteristics, for better and for worse, are small streets, relatively closely set houses, lots of medians (unusual for communities), and a historic log cabin. A train track borders us. We're also more or less 100% residential. We could have distinguished ourselves by having power lines buried, but two Commissions ago chose not to pursue that.
My assumption is that we're largely content with our physical characteristics. At least we've learned to live with them. There has been talk of the advantage that would be conferred by having a more defined pedestrian way, but frankly, there's little we can do about it. Arthur Griffing did not install sidewalks, and he didn't leave us room to add them. To try to do that, we would spend a huge amount of money, and we would lose either homeowners' swales on one edge of the pavement, or medians on the other. No one wants to do either. The alternative forwarded by some is to paint pedestrian/bicyclist paths in the streets we have, but the streets are so narrow that there is no practical way to do it. Try walking down the street, and note what you do when a car is coming. Now imagine there was a path painted along one edge of the street. The street isn't any wider. When a car comes, wouldn't you do the same thing if there were lines as you do when there aren't? You don't have a choice. So for those of us who walk, we're careful, and we know the rules.
What has happened to our medians is that over time, they have deteriorated. They have been plagued by a failure to organize plantings, leading to mismatched trees, and the "understory" is now poorly kept grass, weeds, and in some places expanses of dirt. We have planted some new trees in the past 5-6 years, and fortunately, Parks and Parkways has seen to it that there is a plan and a theme, at least to the extent we can try to develop medians on the strength of donated trees. Better than nothing, though. What we need now is a real understory. We need a coherent and appealing system of low trees, shrubs, and ground cover that will complete the medians, to make them look nice, to create a more dramatic punctuation in the layout of the neighborhood, and to prevent the simple problem of people driving over them to make U-turns. Yes, your neighbors do that. Or your guests do. Or you do. Please don't.
Our administrative center, including the log cabin and the police headquarters, is distinctly inadequate. There isn't enough space, and what we have is in disrepair. We spent some money to stop roof leaks a few years ago. We also found out how the rats were getting in, so we plugged holes (literally), but we need a more extensive renovation. The police function used to be in the log cabin, but there wasn't enough room for its growing needs, so now we use a trailer next to the log cabin for part of the police function. All of this needs to be reunified, and we need a structure more usable than a trailer, for which, by the way, we pay rent. Money down the drain. We need to do for our hotel de ville what we did for public works. We need the kind of personal statement we made when we erected our entry sign.
Our streets are certainly passable, but some have cracks and most have edges that are falling away in chunks. We need to look ahead to repaving and bolstering of the edges. This, by the way, also creates for us the possibility to widen the streets, maybe only a few inches on each side, but enough to make walking safer and more comfortable.
There has been talk of whether we should expand lighting in the Village. The controversy is that we imagine increased lighting helps visibility and diminishes crime, but some are concerned that some of our nocturnal animals thrive better with low or absent nighttime lighting. And some studies seem clearly to suggest that increased lighting leads to increased crime, by providing light for criminals who need to see what they're doing. All worth consideration, though.
That train track is almost nothing but trouble. And it will become moreso when the activity on it increases, which it is scheduled to do in the next couple of years. What I think we need is a barrier, a wall, along the expanse of track that borders the Village. Communities in Palm Beach and maybe Broward Counties have placed walls like this at their borders with I-95. The border of Coconut Grove along US 1, shortly after I-95 south ends, features the same thing. Barriers like this diminish noise, improve privacy, and prevent trespassing. We need this along the track. It will improve quality of life for all of us, especially the properties on our eastern border. As life improves over there, property values (and ad valorem taxes) rise, and we wind up with prouder and more ambitious residents. Maybe over time, more and more of those properties switch from duplex to single family, too. All good.
For the record, I do not think we should welcome a school of any kind, and I do not think we should surrender part of the Village proper to a commercial component. Neither of these is why any of us chose to live here. All of our children have schools to attend, and all of us have places to shop. We do not need to create any of that here within the triangle. And for those who fantasize income from a small commercial fixture next to Village Hall, it seems unimaginable to me that such a fixture would generate more than nominal income to the Village. Certainly not enough to make any meaningful impact in our fiscal problems. If anyone thinks seriously that it would, I would love to see the projections, and to know how they were arrived at.
The other feature of this neighborhood is ourselves, the residents, the people. To put this simply, when I moved here in 2005, Commission meetings were packed with audience members, and there were no openings on our Boards. People were interested and engaged. And Commissioners were interested and engaged. And before that, there were resident groups that took an interest in the neighborhood. There was a "homeowners' association," "Smarties," and others. There was fund-raising and bake sales. Not all of these people turned out to be strictly constructive, but they cared about something. This is no longer the case. Now, almost no one comes to Commission meetings, and some Boards can't function, because they don't have enough members to have a quorum. Some Commissioners apparently can't be bothered to appoint residents to Boards, or they themselves can't find anyone who is interested any more. At least one Commissioner has gone on record as saying we should disband some Boards, and condense the rest. I guess it's easier to ignore them that way. The only army of residents now is a rag-tag group of guerrilla malcontents, who want nothing more than to oppose and sabotage. We need to re-engage those among us who still have interest, and stimulate those who still could. We need the Commission to stop suppressing and frustrating residents, and we need meetings to be run efficiently and with direction and purpose. We need to welcome resident input, not deflect, dismiss, or suppress it. And we need Boards filled and enthusiastic. We need to recognize that all of us are the same. Some are Commissioners (temporarily), some are Board members, and some happen not to be either. But we all count. When Boards speak, Commissioners have to listen. And comply. Who could be bothered to sit on a Board, if he or she could predict that the Board's advice would be disregarded by the Commission? We need Commissions that share a basic aim: stabilization and essential improvement of the neighborhood. Doctors might not agree about what intervention is likely to be most effective, but they should all want the patient to get better. Those who take some delight in having patients die, like Jack Kevorkian, go to jail. Although Kevorkian, too, had his followers. It takes all kinds.
We also need to recognize that rules exist for a reason. Our Codes are important to us, and they took a good deal of a number of people's time to craft. Codes are what make the feel and style of a neighborhood. Codes are what make Coral Gables and Miami Shores what they are. They're also what make Hialeah what it is. Codes please and satisfy and reassure and lead to pride. They also demand and frustrate. They are not to be ignored by the residents, and they are most certainly not to be ignored by the Commissioners who are charged, and who pledged, to uphold them. We need not to dumb ourselves down. We need to lift all of us up.
In the next installment, I'll talk about how we can get where we can go.
I want to serve you on the Commission, and I don't mind starting now. Please contact me at fredjonasforcommissioner@gmail.com, or call me at 305-891-5030. "For the Best We Can Be."
What a bunch of disrespectful people at the last commission meeting.
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