Thank Goodness, Great Pizza in the Neighborhood.

At the end of a really obnoxious day (don't even ask), at 7:00, I was coming home to no food.  It occurred to me that someone had mentioned the newest incarnation of "My Pizzeria" at 653 NE 125th Street, and I had an idea whoever it was said it was good.  So I thought I'd give it a try, and myself a break.

The owners are a married couple, Leandro DeVita and Dana Lulic.  Dana was there, and she told me they had owned DeVita at about 70th and Biscayne for 10 years, until they sold it this past January.  They brought their show to My Pizzeria, and they've now been open one month.  They outfit it and create ambiance like it's high class food.  In fact, pizza is not the only dish they serve.  They have about four Italian dishes, and the usual accompaniments.  They don't call the place My Pizzeria, either.  It says that on the outside, but they call themselves Tomato & Basil.  Dana says they specialize in fresh, high quality ingredients.

My thought was to get myself a pizza, then go home to console myself, and eat my pizza there.  Alone.  But the more I stood around waiting, the more I got to talking to Dana, it occurred to me it might be nicer to add a salad to my order, and just eat there.  Dana was very pleased to host me.  I was the only eat-in patron.  She made up the table, brought me a cruet of olive oil, and a flask of water, and I waited.  The salad came soon enough.

I don't know if Caesar salad is worth $10.  My reflex is to say no lettuce salad is worth $10.  But it tasted amazingly good, and it would have been enough to share, except consoling myself meant, among other things, eating the whole thing.  The two slices of very lightly toasted baguette, to which I added the olive oil, were perfect.  So was the cheese, and so were the croutons in the salad.  The dressing was a bit thicker than it needed to be, but it made a great salad.  I have absolutely no complaints.

I ordered the vegetarian pizza.  This is most unusual vegetarian pizza.  The crust is thin, and it was not dry in the center.  But what a taste!  I would love to know what recipe they use for that dough.  The "sauce" is really just plain tomatoes: San Marzano tomatoes.  These people don't fool around.  And if you think you need anything more than great San Marzano tomatoes to make a magnificent-tasting pizza sauce, let me tell you, you don't.  The topping was unbelievably good.  It was fresh spinach, which tasted better than spinach usually does, lots of thin-sliced eggplant, red bell pepper slices, and spectacular thickish slices of garlic.  Wow, what garlic.  Dana started to tell me what was special about the mozzarella cheese, but she stopped.  She acted like she was distracted, but I really thought she didn't want to reveal some secret.  The cheese was not heavy on the pizza, and it tasted perfect.  There's definitely some story about that cheese.

Every night, Monday through Saturday, there is some special offer.  Mondays, it's $4 beer.  Tuesdays, it's $4 champagne for the ladies. Wednesdays, it's half price wine, and Thursdays, it's all you can eat pizza for $15.  I still haven't gotten over the loss of Slices, so I'm there some Thursday soon.  Friday is all you can drink prosecco for $15, and I forgot what Saturday's special offer is.

Mama Jennie's is OK.  So is Steve's.  Mario's is not great.  Tomato & Basil is the place to go if you want great pizza, right here in the neighborhood.  The food is amazing, the ambiance is extremely engaging (each table has a vase of rosemary sprigs, from which Dana cut a small amount for preparation of something), and the proprietor couldn't be more inviting.  And not that it matters, but she's a knockout.  I didn't get to see Leandro.  My guess is he's a knockout, too.

Do yourself a favor.  Don't miss Tomato & Basil.  You'll find it where the sign says My Pizzeria.

Photogs Needed!

Greetings All!

Several months ago when the proposed assessment fee was being discussed, we had a representative from Craig A. Smith come to our monthly meeting (April) to explain the “plan” and to answer some questions.

In short, there were two points that stuck out in my mind. First, that he had little factual data regarding our situation and as such, was somewhat at a loss regarding specific recommendations. Further, he stated and I will paraphrase as best as I can remember, “if you do not have standing water after 12 hours, then you do not have a flooding problem. We live in South Florida, etc.”

With this in mind, I have been waiting to hear from our Staff as to when our existing storm water drains would be cleaned out before reaching out to you regarding this request. This has now been completed.

What we are trying to do is find a couple of residents who are willing to take “before-and-after” time stamped pictures of areas, (close to each) where standing water is perceived to be a problem. Preferably, we want to gather photos spanning a 12 hour interval… or as close to this as possible. This grass root sweat equity approach may provide the data necessary to determine what, and if any real flooding problems exist… and where. Since storm water flooding is not a Village wide issue, this should help to determine and isolate the areas where water remains after a 12 hour period.

So, at this point we have 2 residents that have signed on. A couple more would be helpful and provide a better overall Village wide analysis.  If any of your reading this live close to an area where standing water occurs and would be willing to gather photographic records, your efforts would be appreciated.

Please contact me via email and we can discuss this further.

Thanks in advance,

Milton Hunter

miltonhunter@gmail.com

 

I'm Taking Two Polls. Please "Vote" By Leaving a Comment.

One of my friends who's a Village resident points out that the new building where Village offices will be should not be called the "annex."  It should be called Village Hall.  The other building, the "log cabin," should be called the log cabin.  What we've lapsed into doing until now is calling the log cabin the log cabin or implying that it's Village Hall, and calling the new building the annex.  Your thoughts?

Joe Chao had the idea of rezoning all of 6th Avenue in the Park, so that it could be used for commercial purposes.  Joe teaches martial arts, and his house is sort of on 6th Avenue.  It's actually on Griffing, with just a little piece of Griffing Park between him and 6th Avenue.  If he could, he might like to have a martial arts studio in his home.  When he raised the idea in a comment in this blog, Chuck Ross agreed that it might be an interesting idea to convert 6th Avenue in the Park to the equivalent of NE 2nd Avenue in the Shores.  Of course, we don't have available parking, as they do on 2nd Avenue in the Shores, but again, what would you think of 6th Avenue here being zoned for storefronts or home businesses that could accommodate patrons?

We Failed (Ourselves)

Last night, the Commission had its first meeting to set the TRIM (ad valorem taxation rate).  The meeting was only to set a maximum for the coming year, and in the budgeting and taxation process, which will take about a month more, we can refine and lower from last night's maximum.  But if we come to think we guessed wrong, and the taxation rate should have been higher, we cannot go above whatever we agreed upon last night.

The maximum the Commission could have set last night was 10 mills.  That's $10 of tax per year for every $1000 of value of the property.  But the value is the assessed or taxable value, not the market value, and deductions are taken for homesteaded properties.  A realtor tells me my house has a market value in the mid $400Ks.  My taxable value last year was either $126K or $101K.  The School Board thinks I have a higher taxable value than do the other taxing agencies.

Our millage for last year was 9.7.  The question was what millage would we choose for the coming year.  We can choose any millage we want, as long as it's not higher than 10.

As a frame of reference, considering the taxable values of all taxable properties in the Village, 0.1 mills this year will be worth about $15K to the Village.  If we charged ourselves 0.1 mill more, or 9.8 mills, the Village would get $15K more in ad valorem taxes.  If we charged ourselves 0.1 mill less, or 9.6 mills, the Village would get $15K less.  It's harder to translate this into what property owners would pay, because property values are very different from one property to another, but the average difference 0.1 mill makes to BP property owners is about $15.  A tax of 9.8 mills would add about $15 to the average tax bill of BP property owners.  A tax of 9.6 mills would save the average BP property owner about $15.

That's not to say that the bill would be $15 different than it was last year for the average owner.  Because valuation changes even when the millage doesn't.  The "advantage" of the homestead exemption is that it prevents property taxes for people who rely on their homes to live in from experiencing extremes of tax increase, with changes in property values.  No matter how high and how fast property values increase for homesteaded properties, the taxable value can only increase a maximum of 3%.  But it can increase by that 3%.  So no one can hope that their tax will never go up.  It most certainly can.  If a homeowner is on such a tight budget that he cannot afford to pay more than he does in taxes, then he is an unfit property owner.  He might as well be able to afford to buy food, only on condition that the cost of food never changes.

Introductory comments last night, from non-Commissioner residents, Commissioners, and our Manager all mentioned responsibilities we are not currently meeting.  The millage the Manager proposed was 9.7, the same as it was for the year just ending now.  This proposal has no actual meaning.  It appears to suggest that taxes will be the same as they were last year, but this is not at all true.  With the increase in property values, and some impressive recent sales, at 9.7 mills, we will all be paying a higher tax than we did last year.  To pay the same tax as we did last year, or the average of us did, we would have had to tax ourselves at 8.7 mills.

But here's the problem.  Even at 9.7 mills, there is no provision for meaningful improvement of anything in the Village, and even not all normal and routine maintenance is covered.  If we tax ourselves at 9.7 mills, we collect more money than we did last year, and we still fall behind our normal daily responsibilities.  And again, there is no provision for improvement.

When I ran for office, my slogan was "For the Best We Can Be."  As a Commissioner, I have lived by that motto.  I still do.  It's engraved on a small plaque next to my name plaque on the Commission dais.  I paid extra to get that plaque, because I didn't want it overlooked that that's how I got where I am, and that's my mission for the Village.  The Best We Can Be.

My position last night was simple.  We cannot meet our responsibilities to ourselves as owners of this municipality if we charge ourselves 9.7 mills.  If we charge ourselves 10 mills, we still can't meet our responsibilities to ourselves.  But it's the most the Commission, on its limited authority, can do.  We cannot do all the maintenance we should, and we cannot do any real improvement.

But for last night, at the special Commission meeting, it was the best we could have done to make the Village The Best We Can Be.  The difference between 9.7 mills, which was the Manager's proposal, and 10 mills is not much.  It's only about $45K more to our Village.  And it would cost the average BP property owner about $45 more than he would otherwise pay.  In my case, last year, I paid a total ad valorem tax, to the County, the School Board, and the Village, of $3331.26.  I'm homesteaded, and it will go up 3% this year.  That's another $100.   What I proposed last night would cost me yet another $45.  So my $3331.26 would turn into about $3476.26.

Roxy Ross suggested a millage of 9.8.  She said she was ambitious, too, but not as daredevilish as I was.  David Coviello didn't want to raise the tax rate.  He wanted to keep the millage at 9.7.  Actually, he wished we could lower the tax rate, but he felt that this year was perhaps not the year..  (The tax goes up anyway, with property values and taxable value, so it wasn't clear what Dave thought he was accomplishing.)  Bob Anderson and Barbara Watts simply didn't want to raise the taxes.  Again, as with David Coviello, they seemed to ignore the fact that taxes go up anyway, unless we lower them considerably to the "fall-back" rate of 8.7 mills.  No one proposed doing that, although it wasn't clear why not, since David, Bob, and Barbara all didn't want to increase the tax burden on BP property owners.

We had an interesting investigation of what proportion of the Commission was needed to set a millage at 9.7.  According to a seemingly obscure State regulation, if we raise taxes by more than 10% of what they were in the preceding year (if we taxed ourselves at 9.7, this actually resulted in an ad valorem revenue of 110.89% of what it was last year, so 10.89% increase over last year), then a "supermajority" is needed to pass the new rate.  A supermajority on our Commission is four Commissioners.

I refused to vote for any tax below 10 mills.  Roxy Ross held firm at 9.8.  The other three could not pass 9.7 without either Roxy or me.  But the Manager and the Village attorney re-reviewed the Statute, once it was clear neither Roxy nor I would budge, and they re-interpreted it somehow to mean that a supermajority would not be needed to approve 9.7.  So that's what happened.  Coviello, Anderson, and Watts agreed to 9.7, and Ross and I voted against.

It's too bad it wasn't only Roxy and I who lost.  The whole Village lost.  Our big victory, a savings for the average property owner of either $15 or $45 for the year, deprived the Village of either $15K or $45K, money that could have gone toward things that any of us, and even any of the Commissioners, agreed was important.

Clearly, there was the usual pablum about sharpening pencils and finding the money somewhere else in the budget.  But the problem is that no matter what we do with the budget, and even if we charge ourselves 10 mills, we still fail to do what this municipality should do for itself.

Our "new" millage is truly a pyrrhic victory.