Miami-Dade votes to battle state for control of its expressways

Miami-Dade commissioners on Tuesday voted that control of five Miami-Dade expressways that a state-created body began operating in August is to be legally returned to the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority that long had run them.

The county vote said the state had no legal authority to run the expressways because the takeover violated the county’s home rule charter granted by the state in 1956. The county legislation says the commission’s actions – supported Tuesday by the mayor as well – will legally restore control to the ousted authority.

The control issue remains in the courts, and the two commissioners who dissented Tuesday insisted that the Legislature would try again and again to wrest control of the expressways away from the county.

The five expressways are SR 122, the Airport Expressway; SR 836, the Dolphin Expressway; SR 874, the Don Shula Expressway; SR 878, the Snapper Creek Expressway, and SR 924, the Gratigny Parkway.

The sponsor of the ordinance that passed on a final vote Tuesday with the aim of restoring control of the roads to the locally run Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, Commissioner Kevin Marino Cabrera, said the issue had been discussed in meetings “ad nauseum.”

“It’s an issue of they’re clearly trying to circumvent the charter [by] including a road that’s in the middle of the Everglades, unless you’re going to build an expressway in the middle of the Everglades,” he said.

A potential future highway in Monroe County was included in new state legislation that was geared to put a Greater Miami Expressway Agency in charge of the expressways. A key impediment to a takeover had long been that the county authority operated entirely within Miami-Dade and the state could not control a county agency under Miami-Dade’s home rule charter. So the state legislation added to the package an area of Monroe County where a federally owned road, County Road 94, runs entirely through the Big Cypress National Preserve.

The county ordinance passed Tuesday details an allegation that the narrow gravel road, known as the Loop Road, could never legally be wide enough to be an expressway, essentially making the claim of a multi-county agency a sham. That could be pivotal: if the expressways run only in Miami-Dade, the state could not take control contrary to county wishes.

Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez, who argued with Commissioner René García against Tuesday’s action to oppose the state takeover of the expressways, conceded in debate that the measure would pass. “I do know how to count,” he said. “I do see where this is going.”

He read a long and detailed argument that the roads are all state roads and the county should not fight the battle for control. “The Legislature giveth and the Legislature can take away,” he said. He based his argument on “runaway tolls” under the expressway authority.

He also said that the vote by the county would not end the matter.

“The Legislature will file another law, and then another, and then another” to regain the expressways, he said. “Don’t pick a fight with Tallahassee.”

He suggested sitting down with the Greater Miami Expressway Agency to figure out a solution.

“It’s not about higher tolls and lower tolls,” said Chairman Oliver Gilbert III. “I stand up for the right of the people to determine what our transportation system looks like…. Regardless of whether we agree with this item we would side with the home rule.” He added that the needs of Miami-Dade are “more complicated” than in the rest of Florida, and the county should make its own decisions.

The county doesn’t want to pick a fight with Tallahassee, Mr. Gilbert added, “but if a fight is to be had then we will have it…. When you take power and authority away from this board, you’re not taking it away from this board. We govern at the behest of the people. It is their power.”

After commissioners voted 10-2 that the legal control of the expressways is in the hands of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority once again, they approved a separate motion by Mr. Gilbert asking that the county administration set in motion a process for the county to pick its two members to the Greater Miami Expressway Agency (GMX) in case the county authority loses control via the courts.

“If we lose the fight then we have to make the appointments,” Mr. Gilbert acknowledged.

On Sept. 28, the county’s Transportation Planning Organization voted to adopt a process to appoint two members to the GMX board, which has been operating without the four representatives to be appointed in the county as law provides. All five current appointments are under the governor’s control.

The state legislation requires two of the nine members appointed to the GMX board to be named by the planning organization and two by the county.

By state law the planning organization appointees would have to reside in an incorporated area of the county and could not have held in the previous two years an elected or appointed office in the county.

Meanwhile, eyes will turn to the courts, which triggered the changes in control.

After a Leon County judge in August ordered a turnover of assets of the 29-year-old Miami-Dade Expressway Authority to the state’s newly created GMX and ruled the former authority dissolved, GMX took over operation Aug. 19.

Meanwhile, a ruling in the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit that GMX had been properly abolished earlier by the county in accordance with the state constitution is still being appealed to the Third District Court of Appeal by GMX.

The ruling in favor of GMX by Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey in Leon County said GMX was given control as of July 1 by new state legislation that also dissolved the authority. “All of the assets, employees, contracts, rights, and liabilities previously owned or controlled by the former MDX… have been transferred to and are now the property of GMX,” Judge Dempsey ruled.