Watchdog Report Vol. 24 No.31 September 10, 2023: EST:05.05.00 – I go when you cannot a community education resource
WATCHDOG REPORT
Miami-Dade, Fla.
Vol.24 No.31, September 10, 2023, Celebrating May 5th,2000: 24 -years of free weekly publishing! www.watchdogreport.net & Former Miami Herald news & editorial columnist. 05.05.00, I go when you cannot, for almost 22-years & a trusted free community education resource & news service, without the attitude.
>>> Just because you do not take an interest in politics does not mean politics will not take an interest in you. –Pericles (430 B.C.)
>> I WANTED TO APOLOGIZE FOR NOT GIVING MY READERS THE SCOPE OF INFORMATION THEY HAVE COME TO EXPECT : Further, if you would rather send a check send it made out to Daniel Ricker and mail it to 3109 Grand Ave., #125 Miami, Fla. 33133. Thank you, Dan. If I get a little help, I will be able to carry on another year and I know many citizens have many demands asking for help. Overall, I am a very low-cost solo operation covering all your major public institutions like none’ve before me for 23 years free weekly. Thank you and please help if you can?
ARGUS REPORT: HEARD & SEEN ON The STREET
>>> With surging homeless populations around country, local county trust getting more attention re permanent housing “four new vertical permanent sites” coming online, from Cutler Bay to Doral in next 30-days, says Trust chair Book to Miami commissioners.
The Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust is acquiring “four new vertical sites for permanent housing,” said long time serving Cchairman Ronald L. Book at Fridays city of Miami first budget meeting. The attorney told commissioners that a facility in North Miami is housing 120 seniors where “80 percent came off the streets of Miami,” he said. He noted the facility was at capacity and the trust was opening other housing facilities in Cutler bay and around 190 single units off of Krome in South Dade. He said the trust is a national model ass all cities in America are dealing with dramatic increases in homeless on the streets from NYC to L.A., and Book has been contacted by former Miami school district Ssupervisor Alberto Carvalho, about creating such a program in LA. The city has some 79,000 unsheltered in the city and is looking for solutions as well. The new facilities will have homeless case workers helping with any clinical diagnosis and getting their required medication.
Further on the 2024 ballot there will be a question asking voters to approve a food & beverage tax on Miami Beach and other beach communities, that were originally were exempted from the tax. This extra income is critical to the trust in eliminating homelessness in the county, with the extra fiscal boostboost. Editor’s .Note: Book has been a long-time sponsor of the WDR. He has also kept the county commissioners from raiding the trusts funds over the years.
>>> County Homeless count up slightly versus many other metropolitan cities, trust, and CBOs key driver to success, permanent housing solution not more shelters in the future.
The Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust annual count on August 18th is out. The city of Miami had 640 homeless in 2022, and 534 this year. For last year the number of homeless unsheltered homeless countywide was 3,566. This year it was 3,729 and trust should be a national model for other cities facing a homeless population crisis.
>>> May we all reflect on the sad 22nd Anniversary of 98/11 Monday that so sadly changed our nation to its core. May the many lost souls rest in peace on this solemn day.day. And what it cost the nation in blood& treasure in Afghanistan, Iraq.
>>> The Jackson Health System has seen a small bump, “maybe 10 systemwide ofsystemwide “of new Covid patients, wrote a reliable source last week.
>>> M-D COUNTY IG 25 years old, has helped save taxpayers, millions
The Miami-Dade County Inspecter General celebrated its 25th Anniversary. The agency fights waste, fraud, and abuse. Since the first I.G. Christopher Mazzella, the office has not been used for retribution that was first feared thanks to his leadership. Here’s one report on MIA elevator mechanics 2023-08-31-elevator-mechanics-dispo-ig-21-0008-i.pdf (miamidadeig.org)
>>>Keys icon Buffett,76, gave Keys new tourist life, as well as 1962 Baptist Health South Florida Fishermen’s Community Hospital crushed after Irma in 2017, newly reopened in July 2021, 38,000 patients treated since then only two hospitals in Monroe County.
Keys icon Buffett & gave lifestyle tourist dollars as well as new community hospital after Irma devastated old 1962 Fishermen’s Community Hospital, one of two in Keys.
With Jimmy Buffett,76, passing. He gave the Keys and Monroe County new visibility and a lifestyle. The other important institution is the rebuilding of the 1962 Fishermen’s Community Hospital (Part of Baptist Health South Florida).After Hurricane Irma devastated it in 2017. The facility since reopening on July 21, 2021, has served some 38,000 patients and in a county with few medical facilities, actually only two in the tourist county. The updated facility was needed given the county’s demographics.
>>> County Homeless count up slightly versus many other metropolitan cities, trust, and CBOs key driver to success
The Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust annual count on August 18th is out. The city of Miami had 640 homeless in 2022, and 534 this year. For last year the number of homeless unsheltered homeless countywide was 3,566. This year it was 3,729 and trust should be a national model for other cities facing a homeless population crisis.
>>>This was corrected Monday thanks. Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami needs to contact Comcast for their community benefit provisions to broadcast public meetings is being upset by a technical problem that has plagued both the county’s and city’s stations and should get a top priority with the upcoming public budget meetings up coming. This is serious and should be corrected at once.
The Public Health Trust is having a Special meeting Aug.30,2023 @ 4:30. Here is the next Years’s budget agendahttps://d3n9y02raazwpg.cloudfront.net/jacksonhealth/93fc2374-3213-11ee-9e9a-0050569183fa-49530377-5c32-4348-a68-db8f71d913df-1692888549.pdf It was passed unanimously by the trust board, no public input.
>>> Fake it till you make it when it comes to GOP debate stage for Mayor Francis Suarez, who considers himself a “unicorn candidate,” says “option” should be to bomb Cuba, not registering in national polls, people wonder if Miami all sizzle, given long colorful history around the nation. He is expected to dropout and home no longer has many cars as he licks his political wounds that the commissioners will now pounce on in his weakened termed out position.
The man claims to have made the GOP debate requirements, not confirmed by the party. He has an extensive record of lack of leadership, especially the commission which gives candidates opposition research a trove of negative examples of the turmoil of Miami politics. He says he is a generational figure, and believes attacking Cuba “ should be an option,” citing past presidents actions Panama and other countries. He also believes what people do in off hours is there business. He told me this as a commissioner years ago at a restaurant in Coconut Grove having drinks but with a Miami police officer, why I remember this. However, the numerous investigations into him will emerge in the national press if his candidacy catches fire but for now it is just embers. The man is considered a cheer leader of the city and cryptocurrency now in decline and he has a spoiled kid perception being the scion of the city’s first Cuban mayor growing up and revered by many exiles. Editor’s note I write about the man since I have known him since he first tried to get a slate for the local GOP executive committee back in 2004.He wanted to get his dad elected as the county’s party chair after the father lost a county commission race, back then and backed Coral Gables mayor Vince Lago years ago.
Two losers Florida education Commissioner Diaz & Dr. Dotres, both failed to show-up at townhall in Miami Garden’s, discuss recent dept. Education decisions: African American studies wording inflaming the community, demonstrations at school board meeting, will impact De Santos presidential campaign?
Florida education commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr., skipped a packed community townhall last week in Miami Gardens. The past state legislator never showed and neither did district Supt. Dr. Jose Dotres. Diaz a strong supporter of charter and works at for profit Doral College ( had a net worth in 2022 of $668,521.in 2012 his net was – $11,346 and 2023 is not online yet) The man along with Antares Flores, R- Hialeah helped the school get accredited and has Diaz’s wife working there. Diaz pushed De Santis’s Woke agenda in the legislature last year. The governor doesn’t realize this posture will hurt him as a presidential campaign taking major hits in the national polls.
May we all pray for the Americans on Maui Hawaii where fire destroyed and took over 100 people in the past paradise island in the South Pacific. May aid come soon to the island and residents. Further, another horrific mass shooting in Jacksonville, when will this end?
>>>> Miami-Dade County renters are in for a shock as landlords are getting hit with their new property taxes after a 12 percent rise in property values now becoming on land value. The county is proposing a 1 percent tax increase but is far outweighed by the land value, and I suspect in September renters losing their homes will rise at a rapid rate. Through rent increases to cover the large, combined taxing entities from the school board to the library system, plus the cost of insurance coverage, one Mc Mansion spikes all homes
STATE OF FLORIDA: Now we learn that taxpayers are paying $9.6 million for De Santos security while campaigning & probable pertains to Miami Mayor Suarez as well?
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY: Government internal hibernation till budget hearings in Sept now holding budget townhall meetings around the county to read budget click here: https://www.miamidade.gov/global/management/budget/home.page
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: District should consider having AED on playing fields & school nurses have Narcan for fentanyl overdoses, one life saved worth it
PUBLIC HEALTH TRUST: Special meeting Wednesday at BCC@4:30
CITY OF MIAMI: Taxpayers racking up major legal fees, what is cost of mayor’s presidential campaign security, who paying?
City of Miami Beach: Michael Greico running for mayor again gutsy given all past investigations, has no shame, maintains beach’s troubled political history? Voters should look at alternatives for essential figurehead position since managerthe manager runs city.
EDITORIAL: Biden gaffs in Maui, kitchen fire no comparison to devastation, after “no comment,” answer on beach. Age becoming major concern, won only because he ran against Trump.
STATE OF FLORIDA:
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY
PUBLIC HEALTH TRUST
CITY OF MIAMI
EDITORIAL
COMMUNITY EVENTS
SPONSERS
>>> The Miami Herald and Orlando Sentinel & Sun-Sentinel articles on the Watchdog Report published over the years.
Published on September 9, 1999, Page 1EA, Miami Herald, the (FL) CITIZEN ADVOCATE’ KEEPS TABS ON POLITICIANS
Published on January 3, 2000, Page 1B, Miami Herald, the (FL) MIAMI-DADE WATCHDOG WILL BE MISSED
Published on January 20, 2003, Page 1E, Orlando Sentinel, PAPERWORK TIGER, Miami’s citizen watchdog piles up government files in his quest to keep the “little people” informed. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2003-01-20-0301190045-story.html
>>>Watchdog Report publisher named ‘Best Citizen’ 2003 by the Miami New Times
The publisher would like to thank the weekly alternative paper Miami New Times for bestowing their 2003 Best of Miami, ‘Best Citizen’ award to me and I am honored. Thank you. To read the full story go to http://www.miaminewtimes.com/best-of/2003/people-and-places/best-citizen-6399517
>>> And to support the WDR go to my Pay Pal account that is easy to use and right now would be a great time: http://paypal.me/WatchdogReport
Further, if you would rather send a check send it made out to Daniel Ricker and mail it to 3109 Grand Ave., #125 Miami, Fla. 33133. Thank you, Dan.
>>>And having a member of the press at public meetings gives teeth to the Florida Sunshine Law (and why you get a Flu Shot) and open meetings tape recorded keeps good governance in place and reduces waste fraud and abuse, and public corruption, and is why you don’t speed in front of a state trooper for example. And hope you can support the WDR efforts to have informed residents of public institutions issues, in our community.
>>> Further the www.watchdogreport.net in South Florida is an established news service presence, because most people are too busy to go to these important meetings., and all the information comes through me as a central point allowing me to see things at a 100-mile altitude and being an early warning system when projects have overruns or other issues. But my job is to sound the alarm and I have done so many times over the past years in a host of ways.
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MIAMI-DADE COMMISSION OFFICE OF THE CHAIR www.miamidade.gov
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MIAMI-DADE COUNTY HOMELESS TRUST: www.miamidade.gov/homeless/
MIAMI-DADE COLLEGE www.mdc.edu
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY INSPECTOR GENERAL www.miamidade.gov/ig
MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC SCHOOLS BOARD www.dadeschools.net
MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUPT. http://superintendent.dadeschools.net/
MIAMI DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY www.miamidda.com
PUBLIC HEALTH TRUST & JACKSON HEALTH SYSTEM www.jhsmiami.org
THE CHILDREN’S TRUST www.thechildrenstrust.org
THE GOOD GOVERNMENT INITIATIVE http://goodgov.net/
THE MIAMI-DADE COUNTY LEAGUE OF CITIES www.mdclc.org
THE MIAMI FOUNDATION www.miamifoundation.org
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA http://www.firstgov.gov/
>>> Public, Educational & Social institutions – subscribers at $1,000 or less
CITY OF MIAMI www.miamigov.com.
CITY OF CORAL GABLES www.coralgables.com
CHAPMAN PARTNERSHIP FOR HOMELESS www.chapmanpartnership.org
FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY www.fiu.edu
THE STATE OF FLORIDA www.myflorida.gov
To contribute to the WDR send and make it payable to Daniel A. Ricker
Daniel A. Ricker
3109 Grand Ave. #125
Miami, Fla. 33133