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In politics, you can’t keep a good idea down. In Coral Gables, you can’t kill a bad one, either.
Take Coral Gables’ chronic efforts to annex three nearby neighborhoods: Little Gables, High Pines, and Ponce-Davis. This is an obsession for Mayor Vince Lago, who has been fighting this windmill like Don Quixote for several years.
So here is a paramount question: Do citizens of Coral Gables want the City to spend lots of their tax dollars bringing these communities into the City Beautiful? Everyone knows that the neighborhoods to the north are going to need the Gables to spend millions to bring their streets and homes up to Gables standards.
Transparency is key to this process? Who authorized postcards to be sent to residents of the neighborhoods that could be annexed without taking into account what Gables residents really want now?
Where is the value here for the Gables? Well, the holy grail is to convert the north side’s Gables Trailer Park Home, which is home to elderly individuals with no money, into luxury apartments. Currently, they live outside Lago’s reach for now because they are in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, but not outside his influence. Why behave so brutally to the poorest among us?
The Book of Leviticus 19:10 refers to the need for just treatment of the poor. “You shall not pick your vineyard bare, nor gather up the grapes that have fallen. These things you shall leave for the poor.” With the lack of affordable housing becoming worse and worse in Miami-Dade, how does it make sense for Coral Gables Mayor Lago to eject residents in a trailer park from homes they cannot replace.
Will Lago commit publicly to require mobile home park owner, Titan Development, to provide homes for the displaced residents of Gables Trailer Park in its planned luxury housing development?
Ask yourself why the Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue union is against the annexation? The union and other firefighters said last year that annexation of these neighborhoods will further strain the City’s fire department. The union is concerned about the safety of existing and new residents.
Gables has tried and failed to convince Miami-Dade County to make Little Gables, High Pines, and Ponce-Davis part of the City. Let’s hope the 13 members of the County Commission and Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava do what is right and reject Lago’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad annexation.
If you’d like to reach out to me: 305-323-8206 or email grant@communitynewspapers.com
