Accountability? That's Optional!

Greetings!:

Danielle Cohen Higgins has served on the Miami-Dade County Commission since 2020.

Now she wants South Dade voters to give her another term.

Naturally, her campaign website explains what she has accomplished.

All four paragraphs of it.

Her record is divided into four expandable boxes:

Affordability. Public Safety. Environment. Transportation.

Inside, you will find the usual campaign verbs. She “championed.” She “supported.” She “helped create.” She “secured millions.”

How many millions? Which projects? What did she personally sponsor? When were they completed? What measurable difference did she make?

The website does not say.

There are no ordinance numbers, budget comparisons, project schedules, or before-and-after measurements. Nothing distinguishes her work from simply casting votes as one member of a 13-member Commission.

Then there is the campaign’s “In the News” page.

It contains exactly five stories covering nearly six years in office. Four come from the same throw-away community newspaper. There is nothing from 2022, nothing from 2023, and nothing from the current election year.

Five stories.

Fear not. The page offers plenty of opportunities to contribute.

Apparently, the campaign found more ways to ask for your money than to document Danielle Cohen Higgins’ accomplishments.

This is not a first-time candidate introducing herself. This is an incumbent with a taxpayer-funded office, a substantial public budget, and access to millions in government spending.

Her campaign has every incentive to present the strongest possible record.

And this is the best it could do.

Four boxes. Five stories. Six years.

The taxpayers supply the money.

The campaign supplies the adjectives.

The website supplies the donation buttons.

That is very little accountability for such a very big office.

Friends of South Dade