The city’s new $70,000 taxpayer-funded parking study is out, indicating a massive failure by our leaders. It’s no surprise it greatly contradicts the study done by the developers. The projected parking shortage is shocking and predicts how the new development will grossly worsen our parking crisis. Let’s review. During the downtown development process for Springs Town Center, the developers were rightly told a parking study was needed. However, despite the obvious conflict, our officials made a devastating blunder by permitting the developers to select the consultant. Sure enough, the developer study painted an absurdly optimistic picture of the new development’s impact on our parking situation. The developers loved it, and our leaders foolishly accepted it.
There were doubts about the developer study. While serving on the city Economic Development Task Force, local business owner Max Milam did an in-depth independent study that projected the adverse effect the development would have on downtown parking. But city officials had already sold us out to the developers, so they whitewashed the concerns. Previous city manager William Alonso smugly stated this about Mr. Milam’s study; “As I have already shared with Council the traffic engineer that performed the (developer) study has advised us that he does not agree with the issues raised in the analysis done by a local business owner and that he stands by his professional work and results.” Of course, he stood by his results. The developers paid him good money to deliver them!
How bad are the projected deficits in the new study? Remember these numbers apply only to the Town Center building itself. Other areas of downtown have additional parking shortages. The study separates weekdays from weekends and breaks down each day into three two-hour block samples. Let’s call them morning, noon, and evening. Weekday projections; Morning: surplus of 4 spaces; Noon: shortage of 76 spaces, Evening: shortage of 134 spaces. Weekend projections are worse; Morning: shortage of 14 spaces, Noon: shortage of 96 spaces, Evening: shortage of 200 spaces. That’s right. The study is projecting a whopping 200 parking space shortage on weekend evenings! Those are some eye-popping numbers and indicate a worsening disaster for our downtown parking situation. Consider the negative impact on our community’s quality of life, traffic safety and congestion, and the health of our local businesses who have expressed concerns about parking shortages for a long time.
I’ve publicly thanked council members for their willingness to serve in a difficult position. I want them to succeed and do well for our community. But responsibility demands accountability, and the ultimate blame lies with them. The residents entrust our elected officials to improve the city and protect the community’s interests. However painful, the truth must be acknowledged. They failed miserably in their fiduciary responsibility to the residents while overseeing the biggest downtown development in Miami Springs’s history. Worse, they continue to use evasiveness and a lack of transparency to avoid accountability. For instance, they still refuse to admit their failure to collect a million-dollar parking fee even when city regulations dictate that a fee SHALL be paid. After being deprived of parking fees, and then paying for the new $70,000 study, the taxpayers will now have to pony up more money as the city desperately scrambles for ways to mitigate the parking shortage disaster it created.
The residents were betrayed when our elected officials gave their unending loyalty to inept city management and by extension, the developers. It boggles the mind that even as management failures and favoritism to the developers were exposed instead of accountability the councils continued to lavish accolades and votes of confidence on the city manager and lawyers, thus enabling continued damage. Now the chickens are coming home to roost, and we are hundreds of roosts short.
Jim Llewellyn
Miami Springs
This is an opinion piece submitted by a Miami Springs resident. If you wish to submit a letter to the editor, you can do so by emailing editor@miamisprings.com.
