Cohen Higgins Blocked the Door and People Suffered

Dear Jorge

     Miami-Dade voters approved a mental-health diversion center in 2004. The building was eventually completed at a cost of $50 million. Funding for its first three years had been identified. 

     Yet the doors remained locked. Treatment rooms that could have hosted people in need sat quiet as a cavern.
     For months, Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins helped keep the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery from receiving a vote.
     While the facility sat empty, taxpayers were spending about $1 million a year just to maintain it. 
     It was designed to treat people with severe mental illness who otherwise cycle between homelessness, emergency rooms and the County jail.
     Cohen Higgins was unreasonable and demanded delay.
     She questioned whether retired Judge Steve Leifman, a man of impeccable character, who spent decades championing the project, stood to benefit financially. 
     Her delay tactics did not produce a better center. They helped keep a completed onem sit empty.
     Only after community pressure mounted and it became clear that most Commissioners supported opening the facility did Cohen Higgins change tactics.

     She ran to the front of the line like she was always leading the parade.
     She will undoubtedly point to that final “Yes.”
     Voters should remember everything that came before that.
     Responsible oversight asks hard questions, obtains safeguards, and then acts.      

     Obstruction keeps repeating the same questions while a $50-million public facility gathered dust and vulnerable people were stuck in jail or living on the streets instead of receiving treatment.
     She eventually voted to open the doors.
     But remember, Danielle Cohen Higgins spent months holding them shut.