In the comments from two posts ago ("Doesn't Know the Word Catercorner? Sheesh!"), Commissioner Art Gonzalez was making a point about waning enforcement on 6th Avenue. Presumably, he was connecting the problem about which all of us complain -- an increasing frequency of car accidents on that avenue -- to the apparent fact that we're not enforcing the speed limit on that avenue as we did in the past.
Art had seemingly finally gotten the statistics he said he had long been requesting, and he showed us dramatically decreasing enforcement, at least as illustrated by a dramatically decreasing rate of speeding tickets written. As I said, the vast majority of speeding tickets in BP have always been written on 6th Avenue, but there were vastly fewer of them in the past eight years, according to the statistics Art reprinted.
Art began with 2013, when there was an average of 15 tickets per day written in the Village, crashing (excuse the pun) in 2014 to an average of only five tickets a day, and ending in 2016 and thereafter with an average of only two tickets per day written.
We had a few other changes during those years, especially starting in 2013. We got a new manager, we got a new Commission (it was elected at the end of 2013), we got new Village entry signs, and those old "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs were removed. I'm not sure I know this for a fact, but I have an impression that the "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs were posted where the newer entry signs are now. So, it's as if we replaced one kind of "welcome" with another. We replaced a stern and forbidding "welcome" with a friendly one.
I was elected to the Commission at the end of 2013, and my term ended at the end of 2016. Because we switched from running our own Village-only elections to piggy-backing onto the general election, all Commission terms were extended for one year. So my term, which would have been two years, was three years. Other Commissioners' four year terms became five year terms. Just that one time, to reset us to the general election schedule.
So, just as enforcement was declining dramatically, and, according to BrambleWitch (and others, I think), accidents were increasing dramatically, I was there, in a position of some authority. It's true no one brought to my attention the dramatic increase in the frequency of accidents on 6th Avenue, and I didn't know about the dramatic decrease in the frequency of tickets being written there, but I suppose I could have asked for these public records, as Art Gonzalez did. I wouldn't have known to be looking for anything, but I could just have been blindly curious.
We had not long before all this erected the fancier welcome sign on the corner of 6th Avenue and 113th St, and that was a nice change for us. We began a very major restoration project at the log cabin, and erection of the new administration building next door. We outsourced sanitation. We chose and installed the other welcome signs. It was not conspicuous to me that we essentially replaced the "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs with the newer signs.
What was less conspicuous (more subtle) was that we might also have replaced a caution, or a warning, with a pretty picture.
So, I apologize for having failed to recognize what was happening on 6th Avenue, especially if, as it appears, it was happening "on my watch." I don't know if we were all distracted by other projects, or if the people who knew best -- the Village residents who live on 6th Avenue, especially at the corner of 119th St -- were either not clearly enough communicating what was happening, or simply not being heard, or just not being responded-to. There were five Commissioners at a time, a manager, a police chief, and several police officers. And a collection of increasingly apprehensive and imperiled Village residents living on that Avenue, near that corner. Someone should have picked this up. We didn't. We failed. I didn't pick it up. I failed.
I'm sorry. But we get it now. The drastic proposal appears not to be realistic. But if all we did was patrol, and enforce, as we used to, and add back the "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs, it seems there's every reason to expect a good, satisfying, and reassuring result. So I hope the current Commission and management correct the mistakes of the past eight years. We'll all appreciate it if they do.
Fred the only reason I asked for those stats is because when we first moved here I heard about the
ReplyDelete"don't even think about speeding" that this community was once upon a time known for. What I saw didn't match the quote. I quickly realized that what may have been a reality at some point was no longer happening. As you know we live on Griffing and what I saw was akin to a one lane I95 so what happened? I heard every excuse under the sun, here are just a few. It costs us O/T to send officers to court, we make little to no revenue from the actual tickets, we want to be a more friendly, inviting community etc, etc. All this was and is total BS. Its not about any of those things, its about living in a safe community where laws are enforced period.
Art,
DeleteI completely agree with you. We used to write a lot of tickets, mostly on 6th Avenue, and we had those "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs, for a reason. We've always had a problem here. I suspect many municipalities do. We handled it our way. Others handle it other ways. I grew up on Miami Beach, at the top of Pinetree Drive. Pinetree Drive, La Gorce Drive, and Alton Road all had their dangers. Pinetree and La Gorce now have both speed bumps and rotaries. Alton has a tightly controlled speed limit. 10th Avenue in Miami Shores also now has rotaries. Everyone has the same problem, and it's just a matter of what we do about it.
You are completely right about the "BS" excuses not to enforce. Have Mario restructure the budget, to accommodate officers who have to go to court. Raise taxes. We have a job to do, and we have to get it done.
I would certainly prefer to be friendly and inviting, instead of harsh and threatening. But it doesn't have to be one extreme or the other. Have Mario put back the signs, and let's increase enforcement to let our residents and visitors know we mean it. There's nothing unfriendly about being limited to driving 30 MPH on 6th Avenue. And we, especially the people who live exactly there, need this. 30 MPH wasn't even our idea. It's not an effort to be punitive or unfriendly. It's a safety measure. It's a state law. All we have to do is enforce it.
I apologized for having fallen down on that part of the job from 2013 to 2016. If I were a Commissioner today, I'd do different. But I'm not. You are. And so are four other Village residents. So I apologize to you, too. But you have to do what needs to be done, and what maybe I failed to do. And I and many of us will thank you if you do it.
Fred
By the way, Art, we can have the best of both worlds, ticket-wise. If we write a lot of tickets, and our officers never go to court, the driver will have to deal with getting pulled over and ticketed, will either just pay the ticket or go to court, if the latter will waste the day and maybe pay some ticket clinic, and will very quickly learn it's way more trouble than it's worth to speed through BP on 6th Avenue, which only lasts about 1/2 mile anyway. It takes vastly less time to go 30 on 6th Avenue for 1/2 mile than it does to deal with the ticket.
DeleteFred
So, you got me. Out of my self imposed silence. I am going to say it now, DO NOT CONFUSE MY RETICENT DEMEANOR WITH WEAKNESS.
ReplyDeleteI was speaking up during those years, only I was speaking up to the wrong people. I found out about the FDOT proposal in 2017. I started speaking up to Krishan (stupidly thinking that he would pass that information along), also to Harvey Bilt, who was responsible for this fiasco and has permanently made my life worse, and a couple of others. My big mistake was thinking that I could speak personally to these people and it would become known as an issue.
I was told that FDOT insisted that the "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs had to come down. What a load of BS these people were feeding me and for some reason I decided to believe them. I am not usually like that.
Now I am sick and tired of all of the BS about it and trying to just live my life without having to constantly harp and bitch about it. I am tired of being ignored, mansplained, disregarded, and marginalized. I don't want to have to fight constantly just to try to retain some manor of safety in my own front yard.
BrambleWitch,
DeleteI hope and trust that your husband, or anyone who knows you well, would testify that you are by no means weak.
You're not the only person who got suckered into thinking Krishan would be more effective, and more assertive, than he was. But he quickly figured out who was boss, and he kept out of the line of fire.
If I had to guess, which is all it is now, I would suspect that it was our then manager, Heidi Siegel, who favored the different "tone" in greeting people who entered the Village. And if that's right, then it's also fair to say that no one agitated over the removal of the "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs. No one demanded to have them back. But still, I think the signs were really only a graphic warning of something that should have been going on anyway, and clearly, according to the stats Art reprinted" wasn't: enforcement. FDOT never cared about those signs, and they never would. And more important, FDOT would never tell us to lighten up on enforcement. We shouldn't. We made a mistake. A lot of people, most certainly including people like you, and HoGo, and others of your neighbors, and a lot of drivers of now wrecked cars, are paying for that mistake. So we need Art and Mac, and any of the others, if there's anything inside them besides stale air, to let Mario know we need changes made.
Fred
BrambleWitch I could not agree more! I have begun the discussion, stay tuned.
ReplyDeleteArt,
DeleteI don't mean to challenge you, but I checked the agenda for this coming Tuesday's Commission meeting. There is nothing on it about this matter. The last agenda I could find on the Village's website was from August. I don't know where September and October are. So I don't know if there was ever any public discussion. Unless you mean the discussion you have "begun" was not in a Commission meeting.
Fred
Fred I have begun asking questions. Once I have some answers I will decide how best to proceed. This has always been a hot topic for me even before I was elected so its important to me that this is addressed.
ReplyDeleteThus it is added from Chester Morris, who's been around here plenty long enough to know:
ReplyDeleteI agree 100% with Fred. Just stop the cars. Talk to them and make sure they understand that we don’t want speeders in Biscayne Park. Doc
I told Fred to put this on his blog.
Tell Doc that I hear him.
ReplyDeleteThis evening I asked the manager to get with our Chief and come back to the Commission next month with a short and long term plan to address 6th avenue traffic. I am not looking for Band-Aids but am looking for long term solutions, stay tuned.
ReplyDeleteArt,
DeleteWhen you say "this evening," do you mean during the Commission meeting, or do you mean informally and outside the meeting? If the former, did any other Commissioners echo your concern and request?
I hope there are no more accidents in the next month. If there are, you will recognize the value a Band-Aid would have represented while you were planning the more definitive reconstructive surgery.
No one, even the Village residents who advocate or militate for lane closures, will disagree that we need more and active enforcement on 6th Avenue. And we need it today, considering that we can't start it days, weeks, months, or years ago.
Fred
I asked during the Commission meeting. More enforcement is already happening. I know you understand that this community has historically been reactive and not proactive. Some complaints come in about 6th Ave and boom there we are enforcing and that's great except its not a long term solution. I want to react but I also want a long term plan. We have a lot of smart people on our Police force lets see what they come back with.
ReplyDeleteP.S. At some point the Band-Aid comes off and if you don't treat the wound properly it may get infected.
Art,
DeleteKeep in mind the comment of BrambleWitch, who lives very near the most problematic intersection: "when we had the attitude of 'don't even think about speeding,' this street was a very minor problem." Keep in mind that she has lived where she does for 28 years. Increasing enforcement is not "being reactive" in a mindless and not thoughtful sense. We were doing the right thing. It was working. We made a mistake, and we stopped doing the right thing. We have to correct our mistake. If the BP police and the manager are "smart people," they'll recognize that.
Ruth Ginsburg made a very cogent analogy about removing protections. She said it's like putting away your umbrella during a rainstorm, because you're not getting wet. How wet would you have to get before you put your umbrella back up? Are you waiting for people to get killed at that intersection before you "react?" Preventing problems is what traffic enforcement, and umbrellas, are for. They are shown to work. Use them.
I think you've gone too far with your playing doctor analogy.
Fred
Fred,
ReplyDeleteyou like to argue for arguments sake. I am not disagreeing with enforcement, let me say that again I am not disagreeing with enforcement. The issue is that we focus on something when an issue arises then when things calm down we start loosing focus. Like the media with a new hot story then a few weeks later they move on to the next big story. I want to focus on 6th Ave but I don't want to loose focus in a week a month or a year. I am not sure where exactly is the disconnect here but this how I believe we can address this today, tomorrow and years into the future.
By the way I wasn't playing a Doctor I was playing a Paramedic which I was in my youth.
Art,
DeleteYou don't know me as well as you think you do. Let me tell you how to defeat my argument. Get the stats on accidents on 6th Avenue, and show that they are no worse since we stopped writing tickets than they were when we were much, much more vigilant. Then, you can show that enforcement accomplishes nothing. And you can tell BrambleWitch she was wrong to have thought 6th Avenue used to be a "very minor problem." I'm not looking to argue. I'm looking for a solution, and for what's right and correct.
This has nothing to do with anyone's views of the media. Let's focus on our problem, unless you're arguing we don't have one.
If you find that as enforcement went down, accidents went up, then it will be clear that we do have a problem, and part of it is self-inflicted (because we mistakenly thought we could get away with easing up on enforcement), and we should resume adequate enforcement.
You meant losing and lose, not loosing and loose.
Fred
Thanks Fred for correcting my grammar you're really good at that. Not sure what you or your commission group got accomplished on 6th avenue but to be honest it seems the answer is nothing, or better yet nada, I'm sure you'll correct that as well. I'm not concerned with PR as I have made it crystal clear that I am a one term commissioner what I am concerned with while I'm here is getting shit done! Its clear you don't know me either. Stay tuned you will soon see what Police is working on to address 6th avenue. Hopefully we have some short and long term solutions to 6th avenue. Let me know if I have misspelled anything so I can correct.
ReplyDeleteArt,
DeleteYou missed my point entirely. I didn't say the Commission of which I was a member got anything done on 6th Avenue. I said we failed to get done what needed to be done, as evidenced by your report of diminished enforcement. And if you're devoted to getting shit done, then the shit you need to get done does not need months of being sent out to committees. You need to reinstate the enforcement. Really, Art, this does not, as they say, take a rocket scientist.
No, you did not misspell anything this time. It's not your grammar I'm most interested in correcting here. It's your abdication of the leadership you keep telling us you represent. You've been a Commissioner for a year. This problem has been going on for several years. You yourself have shown us that the Village, and those people who make decisions here, have failed to enforce where enforcement was most needed, and this failure started, according to the information you gave us, in 2014. For how long do you want to keep thinking this over? How many more accidents will it take to move you? Will fatalities get your attention better?
Fred