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Commissioner Regalado told her fellow commissioners at a county meeting earlier this month that the general public who love West Matheson Hammock Park are “out of control”. Her personal cell phone was unusable due to the number of calls and allegedly she even had people come to her house. However she neglected to tell her colleagues why the park goers had been so eager to get in contact with her. That week Commissioner Regalado, having previously soothed the concerns of worried park goers, suddenly declared out and out war, pushing forward two spiteful resolutions designed to ban dogs and block access to the park for many of the current park goers.
On the 11th of February Commissioner Regalado promised park goers a few more public meetings, then two weeks later a Parks Department employee sent out an email promising a public meeting in March. On the 13th March Commissioner Raquel Regalado had an article published in Miami’s Community News entitled “Taking a Closer Look at Matheson Hammock Park West”. Finally it seemed that a Miami-Dade Commissioner had heard the cries for help. Park patrons enjoy the unspoilt park as it is, and so had been trying to stop the Parks Department plans to spend $5 million on an environmentally damaging folly. Commissioner Regalado stepped up with talk of public meetings, taking a step back and finding alternatives to the Parks Department’s project. A sigh of relief, worried park goers were suddenly smiling again.
Sadly it turns out that the reassuring words were just designed to lull the general public into a false sense of security. The public meeting never happened, then at the Portmiami and Environmental Resilience Committee of the 13th April Commissioner Regalado proposed a resolution “directing the County Mayor to assess the use of Environmentally Endangered Lands (EEL) and take action…to…halt uses that are inconsistent with the EEL Program.” The resolution very specifically referred to banning dogs even on the leash, just using environmental protection as a pretext.
For generations locals have walked their dogs in the grassy fields of West Matheson Hammock Park with zero environmental impact but in June last year the Director of the Parks Department, Maria Nardi, had the gate off Schoolhouse Road closed to normal park goers. Suddenly almost all park traffic was diverted up a little nature trail through the delicate rockland hammock that was supposed to be protected at all costs, according to a Parks Department position paper of 2011. This was the result of frankly shameful political lobbying during the pandemic by a few members of the Hammock Lake HOA, all to stop park goers driving past 12 mansions. Now the amount of foot traffic through the endangered hammock is causing environmental damage and the obvious solution is to reopen the gate off Schoolhouse Road, instead Commissioner Regalado decided to just stop people going to the park by banning dogs.
The committee meeting was very animated, many park goers went and addressed the commissioners. One message that was heard repeatedly was “We were told that there would be public meetings. They never happened and now they want to stop me from walking my dog in the fields?” Other commissioners angrily intervened and the resolution was watered down and pushed away for 6 months.
Two days later, at the Recreation and Culture Committee meeting, Commissioner Regalado’s next resolution was due to be heard, prohibiting access to parks via residential roads. Another act of war, effectively giving the oldest park in Miami-Dade to the local HOA by denying the public access. The hearing of the resolution was deferred to the May meeting of the Committee, and now it is reported that the Chairman, Commissioner Soutu, has decided not to allow the public to address the Committee, a blatant attempt to suppress public comment. This is the same Chairman who has not once discussed the $5 million West Matheson Hammock project despite his mission to oversee the Parks Department, despite multiple court cases and environmental infractions by the Parks Department project management.
So Commissioner Regalado, when you accuse park goers of being “out of control” you are being extremely hypocritical. They are not out of control, they are simply tired of political deception. They had to go downtown and be frisked to be allowed one minute to address the committee, before they were escorted out by security. The HOA lobbyists arranged for the local commissioner and his aides come and meet privately with them in their living room to discuss how to use a revised masterplan to shut the gate off Schoolhouse Road to keep out the public.
What really is out of control is your plan to push through two resolutions to effectively banish 90% of the visitors to West Matheson Hammock Park, before ever talking to the park goers. Thankfully commissioners with integrity blocked your first resolution to ban dogs from the park using the EEL program as a pretext. Please cancel your second resolution prohibiting access to parks via residential roads and restore some semblance of democratic credibility. The public meetings must come first.
