Miami-Dade County issues harsh audit of Homestead CRA, ignores City of Miami CRA's

As reported by Eyeonmiami, (Eyeonmiami Homestead CRA,  Homestead CRA) Miami-Dade County recently issued an audit report that, surprise, found the following irregularities:


"among other things, CRA officials failed to provide substantive evidence of job creation, business expansion, or affordable housing development activities"

"Also, the auditors have cited several questionable transactions involving former elected officials and others"

"for example, land containing 44 dilapidated "shotgun houses" was acquired at what appears to be an above-market price of $1.9 million from a company associated with former Mayor Steve Shriver. The houses were demolished and two years later the CRA has no specific plans for development."

"further, the CRA disbursed monies to entities with little or no accountability. A not-for-profit entity allied with former Mayor Steve Shriver was paid $401,000 to promote the City's Historic Downtown District. The contract was later cancelled due to performance issues."

Sound familiar? The OMNI/Park West Redevelopment Association submitted a 120 page complaint to the County in October 2009 (Formal complaint) alleging that the City of Miami CRA's had similar violations of Florida Statute 163 pt III, which requires tax increment funds used by the CRA's for redevelopment purposes to be used to reduce slum and blight.  The City of Miami CRA's have a similar trackrecord of non-implementation and non-performance of the legally binding Redevelopment Plan, and this complaint formally requested a legal and performance audit. The County replied that staff has reviewed the City of Miami CRA's and found no reason to undergo a performance audit at this time (MDC-Manager-Response-to-Formal-Audit-request).  A follow up e-mail to Commissioner Edmonson of District 3, who oversees the CRA area was ignored (Edmonson e-mail)

I wonder aloud what the reason one CRA is treated so harshly and another, with much more money at stake and the potential to adversely affect tens of thousands of downtown residents, is treated with kid gloves?

Can we say Global Agreement?  It appears that the inter-local agreement (Global Agreement) whereby the City and the County share responsibility for funding the Marlins Stadium, Performing Arts Center, Port Tunnel, Street Car and Musuem Park has so much at stake that neither the City or the County wish to rock the boat by investigating the City of Miami CRA's.

In the meantime, property owners and residents continue to live in an environment not-dissimilar to a third world county.  The several Billion dollars of property owned within the CRA boundaries continues to be adversely affected by the non-implementation of the Redevelopment plan and the "shell game' of reallocating funds to projects that have little impact on the reduction of slum and blight.

We certainly hope that the County will treat ALL CRA's with the same strict standards. The poorest residents and neighborhoods in Miami-Dade County have been neglected for far too long. Its time to truly redevelop our blighted neighborhoods or, as some suggest, get rid of the CRA's for good.