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Miami-Dade County District 8 Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins was visibly upset at the commission meeting on July 16 regarding Item 6B1, and a discussion regarding acquisition of the La Quinta Inn property by the county’s Homeless Trust agency.
County Commissioner Raquel A. Regalado, District 7, had just asked that the rules be suspended so the commission could take a vote on the issue.
Commissioner Cohen Higgins responded.
“I want my colleagues to kind of take note at where we are in this moment and what exactly is being proposed before the body today. This is the second time in a week that a discussion item has been placed on an agenda without any discussion or coordination or consideration for the district commissioner,” Cohen Higgins said.
She noted that it was a particularly controversial issue in her district. “So what is now going to happen is a discussion item was placed yesterday afternoon so that the other parties involved outside of the Homeless Trust have little to no ability to be here to kind of give their report, which is an important aspect I think for this board to consider and we’re going to move to suspend the rules to override a commissioner’s hold on a piece of legislation based on urgency being communicated by the Homeless Trust.
Cohen Higgins said she answers to the residents of District 8 and not Ron Book of the Homeless Trust.
“I am even more concerned now hearing the communications that have been shared publicly stating that if this doesn’t happen today that this property is going to get pulled from the market. I would like Ron Book to approach the podium and give me the MLS number of the listing for the La Quinta property that is currently on the market.”
She said that he would not be able to do it because there is no MLS listing.
“The La Quinta Inn was never on the market and it’s not on the market today, so the threat of it being pulled from the market and the idea that there is another potential buyer out there that’s willing to offer more than $5 million over the asking price is absolutely outrageous,” Cohen Higgins said.
“There is no urgency here and I have always expressed concerns on behalf of my community that we welcome this sort of project within our district, but certainly not at this precise location, so to force a confrontation and to force a vote before the district commissioner is ready to bring it forward on a false sense of urgency is extraordinarily troubling to me.”
She suggested that the precedent that would be set would be the equivalent of her placing on the next agenda an item on the revote of the Calusa Property issue.
“I want to caution our colleagues to walk down this road where we are going to consider overstepping a district commissioner, and the legislative hold, who is responding to the polls and the cries from her residents over Ron Book’s false, and I’m gonna repeat, false representation to this body that there is a sense of urgency here.”
After the discussion, the county commission took no action on the item.
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