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Week of January 24, 2008 |
Charter panel wants future changes to bypass commission By Lou OrtizAs time winds down for Miami-Dade County's Charter Review Task Force, the panel has come up with proposals to reshape the government, from incorporations to more freedom to alter the county's ways through the ballot box. The Task Force will go out of business on Jan. 29 when the panel issues its final report. On Jan. 17, the task force voted on a number of recommendations that it will include in the report to the county commission, which can accept or ignore the proposals. A big issue for the task force is making sure that future charter panels are free to put proposed changes directly before voters, bypassing the commission. The panel passed the initial recommendation on Dec. 12, but it became official last week in a 9-5 vote. To put issues before voters, an affirmative vote by two-thirds of the charter panel would be required. Without that power, task force recommendations would continue to be impeded by elected officials who want to protect their turf or balk at the prospects of their power being diluted, panel members said. "Everything we do has to pass through the county commission," said task force member Murray Greenberg. "All we're doing [through the recommendation] is letting people vote." Mr. Greenberg added that prospective task force members on future panels would shun serving, if they knew their ideas would go nowhere after extended study and discussion. Another major issue for the panel is incorporations, where affluent communities or those with adequate tax bases have broken from the county and formed their own cities and towns. Incorporations reduce county tax revenues, but Miami-Dade is still bound to continue delivering the same level of services to areas too poor to govern themselves. In a 9-5 vote, the charter task force recommended that the commission appoint another panel to come up with plan for countywide incorporation. The plan would require existing pockets of unincorporated areas to join neighboring cities or form ones themselves. "It's a process to give residents a lot of public input," said task force chairman Victor Diaz Jr., in an interview after the panel's meeting. Mr. Diaz said the goal would be to have the incorporation plan ready by 2009 and, if the commission concurs with the blueprint, the matter would be put before voters in 2010. He added that such a plan would do away with piecemeal incorporations and allow the commission to focus on regional instead of district issues in such areas as infrastructure, transportation and economic development. At the meeting, the task force also firmed up its recommendation on the Urban Development Boundary line. In a 9-5 vote, the panel proposed that any attempt to move the line for a specific project must be approved by 75% of the commission. But every five years an independent panel would study whether the line should be moved or stay where it is. If only a simple majority of commissioners approved the independent panel's recommendation, the matter would be decided by voters in a referendum. Mr. Diaz told task force members that the commission is seeking reform in county government just as the charter task force. If task force members keep saying publicly that commissioners will not act on the panel's recommendations it "could become a self-fulfilling prophesyÖthat they"re not going to listen to us," Mr. Diaz said. The county commission created the 21-member task force to review the county's 50-year-old charter last year, after Miami-Dade adopted the strong-mayor form of government in January. The review of the county's charter is required every five years. The panel was expected to hold another meeting on Wednesday (1/23) and conclude its work by the end of this week. Other issues the task force may address in its final report include the balance of power between the mayor and county commission, the functions of the mayor and the county manager, the powers of the commission auditor and Miami-Dade's budget process. |
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