Short Summary from Last Night's Meeting...

I stayed for most of the meeting and left just before discussion on the revisiting of the RO/County water decision. These are the highlights:

• Commissioner Golden's presentation on the decision making process of the Commission ended up being a "canned" Powerpoint presentation decrying the decision to go with County water. Might be worthy of examining, but could we have truth in authorship here? It was obviously prepared in large part by Bill Coakley - it was not "Golden's Report". Please call it what it is.
• All consent items were approved.
• Peter Timm endorsed Mary Lindsey for the District #2 seat. I didn't know she was running. Is she?
  
• "For the Children" lease was approved.
• They will be looking again at reforming Public Comment - the length and positioning of public comment on individual agenda items. Expect this on a future Commission agenda to include a review of the rules and existing code related to public comment. The Mayor thinks that his new policy has been "wildly successful". From the tone of the Commission and public's comment, it is likely that we will at least be offering our comments after the Commission discusses an item, not before.
• After a lot of confusion about the maximum square footage allowed in the Beach and Casino future land use designation, the three related items passed by the expected 3-2 vote.
• The Casino Building structural report is not yet available. According to staff and the Mayor, the original structural engineer "cut and ran" and they had to get a different one. Does this sound remotely true?
• I did confirm with Marc LaFerrier that he is leaving to become Miami-Dade's Zoning Director and will start in about three weeks.