Hop Off the Bus, Gus!

Dear Neighbors  

     Thousands of Miami-Dade residents may soon lose the bus service they rely on every day.

     Mayor Daniella Levine Cava's proposed budget would eliminate 12 bus routes and reduce service on 82 more. The people hurt won't be the wealthy. 

     They'll be the working families who can't afford a car, the seniors getting to doctor's appointments, the students trying to reach school, and the employees who already spend hours commuting because they can't afford to live near their jobs.

     Now here's the question.

     Where was this concern for taxpayers when Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins passed on buying the Fisher Island fuel depot for a bargain years ago?

Fuel is the life blood of the County’s PortMiami. Without it, cruise ships and cargo vessels sail away, never to return. 

     And with them, over 200,000 jobs that depend on the port. 

Instead of acting at the first opportunity, the County will now spend an estimated $400 million to acquire the same property through eminent domain.

     Think about that.

     Four hundred million dollars in additional taxpayer expense. Yet today we're told there isn't enough money to keep buses running.

County Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins was the Chair of the PortMiami committee when she let the fuel depot slip from our grasp.

     Will she now vote to eliminate the bus routes?

     Will she fight to protect working families who depend on public transportation?

     Or will she simply tell riders she sees them as the sacrifice that has to be made?

     Budgets are more than numbers.

     They are statements of values.

     When government can't find the money to get a home health aide to work, a student to class, or a hospital orderly to a night shift, but can find hundreds of millions to buy off a developer, voters should ask a simple question:

     If we can't afford the bus, how can we afford to cover Cohen Higgin’s mistake?