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Michael Miller:
Thank you for joining us, live with the Miami News. And we have some urgent information here. I can promise you, you haven’t heard about this stuff in a long time. Want to welcome you, council woman Marsha Matson. Thank you for being here.
Marsha Matson:
You’re welcome. I’m happy to be here. Thank you for having me on your show.
Michael Miller:
All right. And we’re going to go over a little view your background so people understand. You were elected to the village Palmetto Bay council in 2018.
Marsha Matson:
Yes, I was.
Michael Miller:
You spent 22 years as a university of Miami instructor.
Marsha Matson:
Yes, I did.
Michael Miller:
And then you have your PhD in political science. Congratulations on that.
Marsha Matson:
Yes. Thank you.
Michael Miller:
Did they call you doctor?
Marsha Matson:
Yes, they do. They call me Dr. Manson.
Michael Miller:
I wonder what they call us over there. All right. So one of the things you taught was local government, American Government Business and Politics, Public Administration and Women in Politics.
Marsha Matson:
Yeah. Lots of government.
Michael Miller:
Yes. That’s great. You moved to in Palmetto Bay, right around hurricane Andrew time?
Marsha Matson:
Yes. Just before hurricane Andrew.
Michael Miller:
1991, she moved. All right. That’s before Palmetto Bay was incorporated. I forget what we called it before that. What did we call it?
Marsha Matson:
Pre-incorporation.
Michael Miller:
Pre-incorporation. After you moved, you got appointed to the community council for the people that vote. That’s a local zoning board. There’s 10 or 11 of them still in the county, and then you and a great team of people, that were pro-incorporation got together.
Marsha Matson:
Yes. Our wonderful incorporation advocates.
Michael Miller:
And how long was that process?
Marsha Matson:
Seven years of fighting the county.
Michael Miller:
Oh, my goodness.
Marsha Matson:
Seven years of struggle. Yes.
Michael Miller:
I remember running into one of the people that were involved in it. I said to her, “What is it you want?” And she says, “We want to get money from the county.” “No, the bigger picture.”
Marsha Matson:
Oh, no. That’s not why.
Michael Miller:
And say, “We want to incorporate.” “Good.” So, work on that. All right. Today you came here because you had something occur over at Village Hall the other day, and I want to make sure that we’re very careful. And that you share with the people the letter that you said…
Marsha Matson: Yes. By all means.
Michael Miller:
All right. I have a copy of the letter folks. It’s right here. All right. On large-
Marsha Matson:
Email me. I’ll send it to you.
Michael Miller:
Yes. And by the way, Marcia could be reached, there’s a phone number up there. 786 454-0075.
Marsha Matson:
My email is mmattson@palmettobay-fl.gov.
Michael Miller:
Now, one of the things you going be talking about is something that is dear to Grant and me. Which is openness and transparency.
Marsha Matson:
Definitely.
Michael Miller:
And whenever we see people that are trying to thwart that, it bothers us a lot. All right. A lot. All right.
Marsha Matson:
Yes. It should.
Michael Miller:
And we are so pleased that you are here and sharing information that you are about to. And it has a lot of implications, so let’s hear it.
Marsha Matson:
Okay. Well, first I want to compliment you on your sweater. It brings in the fall season beautifully.
Michael Miller:
It’s perfect. Thank you. My designers sitting over there.
Marsha Matson:
Yes. Well, I wrote this letter as a result of what I consider silencing the people’s voice in Palmetto Bay.
Michael Miller:
When did you write it?
Marsha Matson:
I wrote this letter yesterday.
Michael Miller:
Okay.
Marsha Matson:
And sent it out to the manager. It’s directed to the manager and I CC’d did to the village attorney. And I sent it to you as well. I CC’d it to you. And the reason for this is because we’re discussing an inter-local agreement at this point, which is about the 87th avenue bridge.
Michael Miller:
The hottest subject that has been going on, other than the few other ones.
Marsha Matson:
There are a few other ones, right.
Michael Miller:
But really hot. Really hot. Nobody before wanted to broach the subject, other than no. It went through two commissioners, just about. Lots of passion on all sides.
Marsha Matson:
Yes. And up to the present time, it’s been totally quashed. Nobody did it. The previous commissioners, no, they didn’t do it. And including our new county mayor. But suddenly we got a new commissioner who wanted to do it, wanted to put in a bridge in Palmetto Bay. Which is a bridge to nowhere and the bridge to nowhere, why I call it that, is because it would bridge 87th avenue, but then come to a screeching, the traffic, the congestion would come to a screeching halt, at another canal, which cannot be bridged, at about a hundred and 40th street. It’s just moving a lot of congestion, a lot of traffic from the South through Palmetto Bay, in order to satisfy the county’s desire to have a flow way through Palmetto Bay.
Marsha Matson:
And this is only one bridge of the county’s plan. The county’s plan is five bridges in Palmetto Bay. So, this is the tip of the iceberg. And this is one where we have to stand strong and stop that bridge.
Michael Miller:
The purpose though, of this, is to talk about the process of being open with the people, whether they’re voters or not. And I think that’s the real subject rather than the particular thing. But I’d love to talk about the bridge later because it-
Marsha Matson:
All right. I’d be glad to give you the detail.
Michael Miller:
Okay. Let’s hear about it. We have the letter here, folks.
Marsha Matson:
All right. The council appointed a negotiating team with the county, to come up with ways to accommodate residents in terms of this bridge. If in fact we had the bridge. This team negotiated really, without much in the way of citizen or resident input. And so we had a meeting the other day, in which we got to look at this inter local agreement. And this inter local agreement basically says that the county will do things, if it wants to, it’s all conditional.
Marsha Matson:
It’s agreed to do a pre bridge study. But Palmetto Bay has to pay $25,000, half of it to do it. It agreed to do a post bridge construction traffic study. But again, Palmetto Bay has to pay $25,000 to do it. And based on this traffic study, the post-construction study, then there’s a numerated, a long list of things that the county will agree to, if they want to. If they are accepting of whatever the study comes up with.
Marsha Matson:
They will analyze things based on the applicable engineering modifications. The county will implement them subject to eligibility, availability and any necessary approvals. There’s only one thing in this inter local agreement, in my opinion, that really reflects the, excuse me, the voice of the people. And the voice of the people is, they want to be able to protect their property and their quality of life.
Marsha Matson:
And there are only three pieces of this that actually get into what residents want, which is no right turns, no left turns and so on. At this meeting, or before this meeting, a couple of days before the meeting, in which we were supposed to have citizens come in and talk about what they felt about this post bridge agreement. I realized when I was talking to people that nobody knew about the meeting. There was a total blackout of coverage announcements.
Michael Miller:
That the meeting to do what?
Marsha Matson:
To discuss the inter-local agreement.
Michael Miller:
Okay.
Marsha Matson:
All right. And there was a total blackout. There was no spot in a meeting, a council meeting that we had where I could get up or more I could talk about it. I actually got up from the dais and went down to the residents’ podium, to announce this meeting. So that people would know that this meeting was there and they could come to it. And in my opinion, it was a suppression of their participation, in understanding what this inter-local agreement was about.
Michael Miller:
Tell us what happened yesterday? On Wednesday, today is Friday?
Marsha Matson:
All right. So, my idea from this meeting about this inter-local agreement, and it was a near unanimous disapproval of what was going on, and many people had ideas that they wanted to put in here. I decided to propose a town hall, a community town hall. In which people could come and speak and say what they wanted and add things to this. And in fact, I think this agreement should be full of whatever the residents want to protect their homes.
Michael Miller:
Have there been other town meetings on whatever subject?
Marsha Matson:
Of course, we’ve always had town hall meetings that council members have called.
Michael Miller:
Yes.
Marsha Matson:
And they’ve been fully staffed and people can come in and talk.
Michael Miller:
All right.
Marsha Matson:
All right. I proposed a meeting, a town hall for the community to express their opinions and their voices and the manager agreed. And in fact, when I called him on the phone at first, he said, “Well, I’ll have to look into that.” And then he said, “Well, call Karen.” And I said, “I can’t call Karen.” Karen being the major, it would be a violation of sunshine. And he said, “Oh, then I will look into it.” After a while, a few hours later, he got back to me and he wrote me an email that said, “The village supports this meeting. Please send me your announcement, how you want the announcement to go.”
Marsha Matson:
And so I wrote him back and also the attorney and I had a memo of what we needed in that meeting, like staff to take comments and time the amount of time that people were talking, and the lawyers being there to take this and to record it and to have a video and to do announcements. Well, I got an email from him late that night.
Michael Miller:
We’re talking about on Wednesday?
Marsha Matson:
Yes. No. On Tuesday night.
Michael Miller:
Tuesday night. A couple of days ago.
Marsha Matson:
A late email in which he said he wanted a meeting with me at 8:30 in the morning. I said, “Fine, I’ll be glad to come.” The first thing I did in the morning, and the attorney, our village attorney was on zoom, and he witnessed it. I sat down and I said, “What is this meeting about?” And he said, “I’m not supporting your town hall.” And he proceeded to say that he was not going to staff it. And he was not going to advertise it.
Marsha Matson:
And in my opinion… I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it because he had already committed to doing it. He proceeded to tell me that I was, or he implied that I was violating our charter, which prohibits a council member from ordering the manager to do anything. I did not. He asked for my input. I sent him a memo of my input, in which I put down my wants. I want staffing. I want the clerk there and so on.
Marsha Matson:
He was intimidating me. He was trying to bully me to back off. And I just couldn’t believe it. I was horrified. I was shocked. Now, I’ve had a really good relationship with him. Why he would turn around like this and then try to bully me and intimidate me into not having a town hall, in which people would come to talk and voice their opinions and what they wanted in this inter local agreement. I was shocked.
Michael Miller:
All right. I should read part of this. But let’s see some of the comments here. We’ll start from the bottom. “Wait. The manager asks you to violate sunshine laws?” That was a question. How is your eyesight, can you read that over there?
Marsha Matson:
I’m excellent.
Michael Miller:
Okay, good. Where we at? Okay.
Marsha Matson:
Where are we?
Michael Miller:
Straight on. Lee, we’ll read from the bottom up. Can you see where it says Lisa Meyers
Marsha Matson:
Yes.
Michael Miller:
Read what that says, if you can.
Marsha Matson:
“This is absolutely disgraceful.” Yes. I know.
Michael Miller:
Okay.
Marsha Matson:
And the shocking.
Michael Miller:
And Rocky Lawrence, “There’s no such person as Lisa Meyers who lives upon Obey. Okay. Tucker Roads, why don’t you read that one? There you go.
Marsha Matson:
“Wait, the manager asked you to violate sunshine laws?”
Michael Miller:
Wow.
Marsha Matson:
Okay. So, later on in the meeting, he told me again, another really borderline sunshine problem was that he said that the other council members were angry with me about this proposal. Now, I’m not supposed to know that. He was acting as a conduit or a go-between between other council members and their views. I can’t talk to them about this. what was he saying? This was a potential violation of sunshine.
Michael Miller:
So, as you sit here and you talked about this [inaudible 00:12:28]
Marsha Matson:
[inaudible 00:12:28] talking about people having a voice to protect themselves and asking the village to come to their defense, instead of being sacrificed to a bridge to nowhere.
Michael Miller:
Just to remind you, I’m not sure if you were there. For several of the cities, when the internet was first starting. We would get a check registry and publish the check registry, just to keep those son of a guns, knowing that somebody was watching them. And we had a lot of fun with it.
Michael Miller:
Good. Can we go back to the… Okay. Former mayor, Jean Flint, “How hypocritical. Karen held town hall meetings as members of the village council, and now slams the door as mayor.” John Henry. Do you know John Henry?
Marsha Matson:
Yes. I know of him. I don’t know him personally
Michael Miller:
Okay. Where are we with John Henry? Let’s see, there it is. “Where is transparency now? Why does the inter local and the residents South of-
Marsha Matson:
Oh, absolutely.
Michael Miller:
Oh. Admit it. Okay.
Marsha Matson:
Yes. Why does the inner local and the resident South of the bridge? Absolutely. This document should be full of residents’ voices. What they want, if this bridge goes in. All this other stuff, it’s not worth the paper is printed on. It should be full of their requests to protect their homes, and their neighborhoods.
Michael Miller:
Would you like to read maybe the first paragraph there?
Marsha Matson:
Okay. I am extremely disturbed about your vicious actions to stop me from holding a community town hall about the 87th avenue bridge, inter local agreement with Miami-Day county. You are bullying me. You are trying to intimidate me. You are preventing residents from voicing their opinions about the inter local agreement by your refusal to staff the meeting and advertise it.
Michael Miller:
You take some extra ordinary steps by doing this.
Marsha Matson:
Yes, I understand that.
Michael Miller:
Right. what was the trigger where you said, “I have to go do this. I have to send this letter. I need to do that.” What was in you that caused you to do that, rather than say, “Ah. All right. Nevermind.”
Marsha Matson:
Okay. Well, there were two things that came about as a result of that meeting. The ambush of the meeting, in which he had said that he was going to support the town hall. And then he turned around and during that turnaround, he was not going to staff it. He was not going to… It was like saying, “Oh, you can use the village car, but I’m taking out the engine. I’m taking out the seats and there are no breaks.” That’s what it was like, I could use village hall, but I didn’t have the capability of giving a proper meeting to voice the residents.
Michael Miller:
When that occurred, was there an implication that if you wanted to do that, you would need to pay for it yourself?
Marsha Matson:
No. He never said that.
Michael Miller:
That did not apply to anything.
Marsha Matson:
And the other thing that bothered me too, that I thought was really totally wrong, was that as a council member, I have the right, I’m entitled to have a town hall meeting. If it’s about village business. And I represent the people. And I was trying to represent them so that they could speak to this inter local agreement. And he shut the door.
Marsha Matson:
And in fact, he said that, and I told him that previous council members had done town halls. And he said, “I don’t care what’s happened with previous council members. I have a new standard, and this is what it’s going to be.”
Michael Miller:
As you are talking about this, I’m sure that several other people are going to be talking about it, what do you want to occur because of this letter that you sent?
Marsha Matson:
Well, what I want to occur is having a fully staffed, advertised town hall meetings, so people can come in and express themselves. And in fact, let me tell you on your community newspaper show yesterday, manager Marrano was interviewed and he announced his own meeting on the 13th, which I had never heard of.
Marsha Matson:
He’s setting up his own meeting, which will be, I assume, controlled by him. And it’s a virtual meeting. So there’s no human interaction, like I wanted the people to come in as well as doing video and so on. And he is setting up a rival meeting, to the one that he sabotaged, that I wanted to do.
Michael Miller:
Wow.
Marsha Matson:
Yes.
Michael Miller:
That’s quite an accusation.
Marsha Matson:
Yes, he is. Setting up a rival meeting. And this is before he knew what my decision was in terms of whether I could hold this meeting or not. He announced this before I had told him that, actually I decided that there was no way I could really do a proper meeting. So I couldn’t do this meeting.
Michael Miller:
Well, I’m sure at the next council meeting, it should be interesting to be there.
Marsha Matson:
Oh, yes. I’m going to be talking about it for sure.
Michael Miller:
Let’s see Lisa Meyers, “This isn’t even about the bridge anymore. This is about silencing people’s voices.” And that’s one of the things, without regard to this particular issue. We have people on our shows, we have lots of different hosts. We enjoy people when they voice their opinion, whether it’s from the right or left, as long as it’s not too far over. Right. But we enjoy people being able to voice themselves. And whether they’re vaccinated, un-vaccinated, Republican, Democratic, white, black, orange, and everything in between.
Michael Miller:
What’s important is people can voice themselves and then make some decisions about what they want to do. And if the maximum is, somebody gets to speak their piece, we’re all for it, and to be able to do that.
Marsha Matson:
Yes, of course.
Michael Miller:
So, let’s see, Madeline Roman, Pam Gorman. I am… I’m not sure what that means. Can you read that?
Marsha Matson:
Where’s Pam Gorman’s. Oh, it’s, okay. “I asked Marsha to have a meeting-
Michael Miller:
To include all residents.” Oh, there we go.
Marsha Matson:
Okay. Wait a second. Here we go. “I asked Marsha to have a meeting to include all residents, especially D3, where my daughter lives. Marsha was very accommodating.” Yes, by all means, especially Malbrook, but also all of D3 should be able to have their comments reflected in this inter-local agreement. We should have all our residents be able to say what they want.
Michael Miller:
Maybe you’re starting a movement here. Hey, George, good morning to you. Rocky Lawrence says, “Lisa Meyer, it’s unethical to pretend you are someone who you’re not.” Lisa feel free to come on the show one day. All right. And so again, John Henry asks, “Why no concessions to the South again?” I guess he’s concerned about the bridge.
Marsha Matson:
No, absolutely. We should have D3 reflected in here. And in fact, we had to fight the county to get the signs and stop sign, the no right turn signs and stop sign to protect Melbrook. And they should definitely have their say, because if the bridge is built, those signs might come down. So, that should definitely be included in the inner local agreement.
Michael Miller:
What do you wish would have happened, when you express your views about wanting to have a town hall meeting?
Marsha Matson:
Well, I wish I could have held it and have the citizens come in and talk and built in what they want, into this inter-local agreement. And have it properly advertised and have it staffed, so that it could be properly recorded. That’s what I would like.
Michael Miller:
Maybe that can still happen.
Marsha Matson:
Well, maybe. That would be nice, it’d be good.
Michael Miller:
So, here we are, first day or two of October 2021. And you’ve really opened the door, because I’m sure that some of your council members are going to have comments about this.
Marsha Matson:
Oh, yes. I definitely plan to bring this up at the next council meeting. Definitely.
Michael Miller:
What might be some of the things you might say to them as you’re sitting up there and it’s going to be live, right? People will be able to watch it. Are you holding some chamber council meetings in person?
Marsha Matson:
Yes.
Michael Miller:
Right. Some in person and it’s also big-
Marsha Matson:
Yes. On Monday, we’re having a regular council. Yes.
Michael Miller:
Are you going to comment on this?
Marsha Matson:
Of course, I am. Of course.
Michael Miller:
Okay. What might be some of the things you might say to the public and to your colleagues?
Marsha Matson:
Well, to my colleagues who actually voted to defer this, because it was so flawed, there’s 60 more days for us to fill out. And so I’m going to ask them to have a town hall meeting, that I’m proposing, to support that. So that residents can come in and talk about how they want to protect themselves from this deluge of traffic that’s going to come through.
Michael Miller:
Is this still an issue of whether the bridge is going to be there or not? Or you’re saying we want to have input and we want to have those extra things, that might happen.
Marsha Matson:
Okay. That’s a really good question. I see there is a mentality that I’ve complained about, I call it the Done Deal mentality. And that is, “Oh, we’re going to have a bridge. We have to give them these concessions.” Or they have to give us these “Concessions”. I call these surrenders, really, more than anything.
Marsha Matson:
I would like people to think that there is still chance that we won’t have the bridge. And there are so many ways that we can do this. It involves democracy. It involves representative democracy. We have an election coming up for a county commissioner. People should look at who’s running for that and see how they feel about the bridge.
Marsha Matson:
We have elections coming up for village council members. They should look at candidates and see how they feel about the bridge. We have a redistricting coming up for county commission seats, which will be done by December. And right now District 8 has 38,000 too many people. And it has to be reapportioned. It has to be redistricted.
Marsha Matson:
Perhaps Palmetto Bay can contribute to that flow of people outside of District 8. Now, I understand that the commissioner lives in Palmetto Bay. So, this might mean a split District in Palmetto Bay. But you know what, in terms of this particular issue and probably others, having another commissioner would be good in Palmetto Bay. And let me just interrupt you one second. The people can be involved in this. This is a democracy.
Michael Miller:
If you’ve ever watched a trial, you have one side and the other. They each have their own points and they fight till the end. Right. And even when the jury goes the other way, or the judge, sometimes they’ll even try to appeal it. And so we get that. All right, which is, everybody should have their opportunity to voice themselves. They hope that they can get their stuff or something in between, right?
Michael Miller:
Again, when you watch intense trials and you see the advocate freak out there banging away, and you’re certainly an advocate for a couple of things. One for the event, but two, bigger picture, which is making this as public and as transparent as possible.
Marsha Matson:
The voice of the people must be heard. And they’re the ones who are being sacrificed, to the bridge. And therefore, they need to be able to put in what they want to protect themselves, in this inter-local agreement.
Michael Miller:
I know that the county has said, “We’re going to start on at whatever month it is.” But it ain’t over until it’s over.
Marsha Matson:
Right. You know better than anyone, it’s never over till it’s over, it’s never over, right?
Michael Miller:
Yes. I live in horse country and we fight developments all the time. We’ve been moderately successful. And somebody says, “One day something will happen.” I said, “I know. One day I might lose my molars back here, but I want to keep it in my mouth as long as possible.” I admire your being so full of vigor.
Marsha Matson:
Absolutely. That’s why we incorporate it, to be able to protect our people and stand up for them. And not to believe this propaganda that the county’s putting out, which is, it’s a done deal. You have no say in it. No. We have a city that can fight this. We just have to stand up and fight it.
Michael Miller:
Again, if you could push the magic button about this here, what would that be? Not whether it goes in or not. But the process of communicating with the residents, what would you want to have happen?
Marsha Matson:
Well, what I’ve said before is I would like to have a fully staffed, well advertised meeting, in which citizens, residents can come in and add their wants to this document. And that would go to the county.
Michael Miller:
Is it possible that you misinterpreted the conversation or emails?
Marsha Matson:
No.
Michael Miller:
No possibility.
Marsha Matson:
No possibility.
Michael Miller:
All right.
Marsha Matson:
And fortunately I have a witness who can… The thing is, I wouldn’t be talking about this, if it weren’t so outrageous and he was trying to intimidate me and bully me. And that is not his job. He’s supposed to be fair and impartial.
Michael Miller:
Are you surprised?
Marsha Matson:
Oh, I’m shocked.
Michael Miller:
All right. Because that’s out of the ordinary.
Marsha Matson:
Absolutely. I’ve had a very harmonious, good working relationship with him.
Michael Miller:
How does this help that? If you want to have some harmonious relationship?
Marsha Matson:
Well, hopefully he will see that he made a mistake. And that as a council member, I’m entitled to this town hall. And that I’m working on behalf of the residents and that he will realize it’s a mistake on his part.
Michael Miller:
Well-
Marsha Matson:
And once, what is it in psychology, once you realize your mistake, then you can move on and develop a relationship again. And I like him. I have always had a good… He was my first choice for manager. I’m just shocked over this whole thing. I really am.
Michael Miller:
You do want it to work out.
Marsha Matson:
Of course.
Michael Miller:
All right. And working out in this case is you’d like a fully open conversation with the people that would like to attend, whether it’s in person, over zoom or emails so people can have input. So they can say, “Let me tell you one thing. Such and such happen, but I got an opportunity to express myself.”
Marsha Matson:
Yes. Exactly.
Michael Miller:
That is so important to be able to do that.
Marsha Matson:
Thank you Michael. That’s well said.
Michael Miller:
I’m going to thank you for your service to all of us in Miami and-
Marsha Matson:
Thank you for having me on the show.
Michael Miller:
And I know you you’ve helped improve the lives of literally thousands of people over your career at the university. And many thousands in Palmetto Bay and the surrounding areas.
Marsha Matson:
Thank you so much, Michael.
Michael Miller:
My pleasure. And again, our guess as Marsha Matson, council woman of the village of Palmetto Bay. If you’d like to reach her, there’s a phone number up there. Listen, please like the page. Share it with everybody. Thank you everybody for commenting. And fight the good fight. Have a good day. Folks. See you.
Marsha Matson:
Bye
