Economic cloud over sunny Florida

"By Tom Brown

MIAMI (Reuters) - Economic data continues to suggest that fears of a new "Great Depression" in the United States are overblown. But in places like Miami and Fort Lauderdale, where the housing bust has bitten hard and prices are rising fast, the specter of economic stagnation twinned with inflation looms all too real.

"Since the 1970s we haven't really seen this simultaneous threat of an economic slowdown, and recession, side by side with the threat of inflation," said Sean Snaith, an economics professor at the University of Central Florida.

Nationally, inflation was flat in February, according to the U.S. Labor Department's consumer price index, the most widely used gauge.

But in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, prices were up by 5.3 percent that month, according to the department's southeastern office, in Atlanta, the highest of any metropolitan area in the country.
The department gives national figures for March on Wednesday. The regional figures are released every two months, with the next ones out in May.

For many in Florida, a state that people are leaving in droves because of high property tax and home insurance rates, the biggest and harshest rise has been in energy costs, up 18 percent in the 12 months to the end of February.

And they could continue surging amid Energy Department warnings that gasoline prices could soon hit $4 a gallon in some areas.

"Everything is high. Everything is going up," said Cookie Elias, a Miami-based mother of three as she packed her young children into a minivan after shopping at a local Costco discount retailer in Miami."

Update: The Suncoast Hotel Resort closing

Update: The Suncoast Hotel Resort will be closing on June 17, 2007.

http://www.suncoastresort.com/

Coral Ridge Church Closing Political Arm: Update

"Religious right at political crossroads; Coral Ridge Ministries' decision to disband its political arm has raised questions about how the conservative Christian movement will define its national agenda in the coming years.

Source: The Miami Herald 05/08/2007

When nearly 1,000 Christian activists gathered in Fort Lauderdale two years ago for the Center for Reclaiming America's annual political conference, the mood was triumphant. Speakers hailed President Bush's reelection and the leaders rolled out ambitious plans: launching a Capitol Hill lobbying arm, opening a dozen regional offices and recruiting activists in all 435 congressional districts.

No more. The center -- one of the country's leading Christian grass-roots political organizations -- closed its Fort Lauderdale doors last month, sparking speculation about what its sudden demise means for the future of the religious right.

''It's a big loss,'' said the Florida Prayer Network's Pam Olsen, who led a prayer rally Thursday to mark the National Day of Prayer at the state Capitol. Olsen, who served as the state chairwoman for social conservative outreach for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign, vowed a comeback: ``You will see the Christian-values voters rise again.''
Others, however, see a crumbling conservative Christian base deflated by ethical scandals in the Republican Party, the Democratic victory in the 2006 congressional elections and -- perhaps most significantly -- a split between the old guard and new leaders over where to go from here. An increasingly vocal branch has called for expanding the platform to include global warming, HIV/AIDS and poverty.

`BROADEN OUR AGENDA'
''There's a growing constituency in the evangelical movement that says we really do need to broaden our agenda,'' said the Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, who last year stepped down as president-elect of the Christian Coalition after the group refused to include climate change and poverty on its agenda. ``We need to be not so narrow and combative.''

The Center for Reclaiming America, founded in 1996 as the political-action arm of the Rev. D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries, once stood at the forefront of the fight to ban same-sex marriage, outlaw abortion and promote religion in schools and public life.

SCHIAVO CASE
The center helped rally Christian activists during the Terri Schiavo controversy, gathered thousands of signatures for a statewide referendum on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and sent 196,422 signatures to the U.S. Supreme Court urging the justices to uphold the ban on what is known as partial-birth abortion, which they did last month.
Advancing a conservative Christian agenda remains central to the ministry's mission, but the organization will deliver its message through its media channels rather than lobbying, said John Aman, a spokesman for Coral Ridge Ministries, which had $38 million in revenue in 2005.
''It is a shift in means but not ends,'' he said. ``It's going back to doing what we're best at, which is creating media.''

MEDIA OUTREACH
Coral Ridge officials say they hope to extend the ministry's television, radio and Internet outreach to 30 million by 2012, up from three million today.
Kennedy, 76, who suffered a heart attack last December, was recuperating in a Michigan hospital when the center shuttered its operations. Some have speculated that the closings came about as a result of Kennedy's prolonged absence, although Coral Ridge officials maintained that the two were unrelated.
Kennedy, who founded Coral Ridge in 1974, later emerged as an internationally known evangelist whose Coral Ridge Hour became synonymous with the preacher's slate gray hair, dark suits and robes and commanding voice.
John Green, a senior fellow in religion and politics at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said the longevity of conservative Christian organizations is often tied to their leaders.

PERSONALITY FACTOR
''Many of them are based around strong personalities, and many of them grew out of the individual ministries of televangelists,'' he said. ``It's quite plausible and quite likely that these closings have something to do with Rev. Kennedy's illness.''
The closings come at a challenging moment for the religious right.
The Christian Coalition -- founded in 1989 by televangelist Pat Robertson and credited with helping Republicans seize control of Congress in 1994 -- has dwindled financially and politically. It boasted a budget of $26 million in the late 1990s. By last year, the group was $2 million in debt, fighting off creditors and facing defections from some of its strongest state chapters, including those of Iowa, Ohio and Alabama.

Not all religious right groups are struggling. Focus on the Family, James Dobson's Colorado Springs, Colo.-based group, commanded a formidable budget of more than $140 million in 2005, according to GuideStar.org, which monitors nonprofits' tax returns. Tony Perkins' Family Research Council still has considerable influence in Washington. And Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries' budget was $38 million in 2005, according to GuideStar's latest records.
But groups that are flourishing may face problems as their base ages, particularly if they fail to court younger evangelicals, said Clyde Wilcox, a professor of government at Georgetown University who has studied the religious right.
Some evangelicals are tiring of electoral politics in the wake of ethical scandals involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Christian conservative poster boy Ralph Reed. 'Some of them are beginning to say, `Maybe we've been had in the electoral arena,' '' Wilcox said.
The next generation will likely be less easily swayed by the right's mobilization efforts, he added. ''Younger evangelicals are slightly less partisan, and they tend to be less scared by secularism,'' Wilcox said. ``They're engaging a broader social agenda.''
SOME CONTROVERSY
Last year, pastor Rick Warren, the author of the popular book The Purpose-Driven Life, drew the ire of some conservative Christians for inviting Democratic Sen. Barack Obama to an AIDS conference at his Saddleback Church in California.

And 86 evangelicals, including Warren and Florida's Hunter, backed an initiative on climate change, drawing criticism from James Dobson and other conservatives who oppose Christian involvement on climate issues. Last week, a coalition of evangelical leaders launched an initiative to lobby Congress for immigration reform.

Many Christian conservatives disagree with such efforts, arguing that the Bible speaks more directly on pro-life and marriage issues.

Aman of Coral Ridge said the ministry remains committed to its original moral vision. Other Florida groups -- including the Florida Prayer Network and the Florida Family Policy Council, an affiliate of Focus on the Family -- also say they will stick to their core issues: same-sex marriage and abortion.
CHANGES OPPOSED
''The social conservative movement should not change its agenda,'' said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council. ``While the scripture speaks to all areas, it speaks with more clarity to some areas than others.''
But Northland Church's Hunter, who was among the evangelical leaders who signed the recent statement on immigration reform, said Christian activists must diversify their platform to remain relevant.
''A lot of these religious right organizations are kind of trapped within their original visions right now,'' he said.

''Most movements start off being against something. In order to mature, you have to figure out what you're for,'' Hunter said."

Core Ridge Church Closing Political Arm

Good move. The Church would be better off investing its resources in the works of God, not politicians.

Source: The Miami Herald 05/01/2007

Bringing an end to ambitious goals that included raising $2 million to launch a Capitol Hill lobbying arm, opening a dozen regional offices and recruiting activists in all 435 congressional districts, the Fort Lauderdale-based Center for Reclaiming America has shut its doors.

The conservative organization, part of the Rev. James D. Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries, let its eight employees go last week. Coral Ridge also closed its Capitol Hill-based Center for Christian Statesmanship, founded in 1995 to convert lawmakers to evangelical Christianity.
Brian Fisher, executive vice president at Coral Ridge Ministries, said the closings are part of a larger effort to redefine the ministry's mission.

''We believe that by streamlining the operations we will be able to return to our core focus,'' he said.
Fisher said Coral Ridge officials plan to focus on television, radio and Internet, with plans to reach an audience of 30 million by 2012, up from 3 million today.

The closings mark a major shift for Coral Ridge Ministries, which runs the 10,000-member Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church at 5555 N. Federal Hwy. in Fort Lauderdale, television and radio ministries, a seminary and an evangelism training program and has an annual budget of $37 million.
Kennedy, 76, who suffered a heart attack in December, is recovering in a hospital in Michigan.
The change also comes at a pivotal moment for the religious right, which is casting about for a presidential candidate during the most wide-open campaign in more than half a century. The 2006 election delivered a major blow to Republican conservatives in Washington and in Florida, where their favored candidate for governor, Tom Gallagher, was soundly defeated. Earlier that year, a petition drive to put a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage on the ballot fell short, despite the center's efforts.

BACKING WANES
Kennedy, an internationally renowned evangelist, founded the center more than a decade ago to advance conservative Christian values in state and national politics. But in recent years, the center has struggled to gain broad backing for its efforts to outlaw abortion, ban gay marriage and promote prayer and creationism in schools.

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle, who for years has welcomed activists from around the world to the center's annual conference, said politicians seeking to appeal to the center were no longer actively courting Christian conservatives.

''After an election like that, candidates are packaging themselves in the middle, rather than to the right,'' he said. About 1,100 evangelicals -- 300 more than last year -- participated in the center's conference in March.

Naugle said he ''can't help'' but think that the center's closing has something to do with Kennedy's health. ''Certainly he was a driving force and a national recognized leader and, hopefully, his health will allow him to come back strong,'' he said.
Corwin Smidt, executive director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., said evangelical groups that are built around a single charismatic leader often struggle in the leader's absence.

NO REPLACEMENT
''For Kennedy, there's just no figure [to replace him] after he's gone,'' he said. ``These televangelists are able to generate a fair amount of money, but in terms of their institutional longevity, it's really at risk.''
He also sees the closings as part of a broader shift away from politics among Christian conservatives.
''There is a kind of retrenching, a regrouping, a rethinking among conservative Christians,'' Smidt said. ``Some people are saying for Christians to be involved in politics, we have to be much more aware of a variety of issues.''
Jennifer Hancock, associate director of the Humanists of Florida Association, said the closings offered evidence that Christian conservatives are losing some of their political clout.
''It's good news for us, and I think its good news for people who care about democracy,'' she said. ``These people were promoting theocracy in America.''
But Gary Cass, who had been the center's executive director for three years, said he plans to stay at the forefront of Christian activism.

''The fight continues because our cause has not changed and the stakes are so high,'' he said.


comments welcome

POLITICAL PHONE CALLS UNDER FIRE

"Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel 05/01/2007
TALLAHASSEE

Cropping up every year or two, they're universally despised. More than the stream of partisan nastiness that spews from the television screen. More than the campaign junk that fills mailboxes.
They are the hated robo-calls, the recorded voices at the other end of the line at the height of political campaigns. Sometimes containing an endorsement of a favored candidate, often hurling slurs at an opponent, the calls are disliked by seemingly everyone, except, of course, politicians who use them.
"Some people swear at them. There are other people who swear by them," said state Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville.

King, state Sen. Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunnellon, and state Rep. Stan Jordan, R-Jacksonville, are pushing legislation that would ban political robo-calls from going to anyone who is on the do-not-call list, the registry designed to protect people from telemarketers.
Lots of people dislike unsolicited calls; Florida's do-not-call list contains 8.1 million subscribers.
Telemarketers and others subject to the rules could face a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation.

Senate and House committees have approved robo-call legislation, but King said there might not be enough time to pass the final hurdles by Friday's scheduled adjournment. Gov. Charlie Crist's press secretary, Erin Isaac, said she couldn't comment on the specifics of the proposal because it's subject to change as it moves through the Legislature.

Six states prohibit political robo-calls. Florida law exempts politicians from respecting the do-not-call list. The legislation would force politicians to honor it or face the same penalties as telemarketers and other businesses. Rhoda Berman, a voter who lives west of Delray Beach, said the calls were a plague during last year's election season.

"It was insane," she said. "These calls were coming in at the worst times, during dinner and after dinner. It made the whole election so distasteful."
A nationwide survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 64 percent of registered voters reported receiving such calls in the final two months of the 2006 election season. Berman said she sometimes got four a day.
Berman was luckier, in a sense, than Robert Pelletier, of Hollywood. On vacation in Massachusetts for three weeks during the 2006 election season, Pelletier got robo-calls on his cell phone, including two from a Broward County commissioner on behalf of a candidate.
The worst part: Pelletier paid to receive the calls because of the cell-phone roaming charges.
"Boy, was I ticked," he said. "Political calls should be banned from the telephone."
He received more robo-calls this spring. They were no less irritating because they were about the Miramar city election, and Pelletier doesn't live there.
If the legislation doesn't become law this year, King said, he will try again during the 2008 session, in time to spare people from the next election season onslaught.
If not, brace for more calls. Donna Brosemer, of the consulting firm Politically Correct, in Palm Beach Gardens, said many candidates and consultants use robo-calls because they need to reach voters.

"Our options are so few. Television costs a fortune. Fewer and fewer people read newspapers. People are bombarded with direct mail," she said.
Brosemer said she rarely uses robo-calls for her candidates: "I hate [receiving] them, so I assume I'm not the only one out there who does."
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sun-sentinel.com
DISCUSSING THE CALLS
State Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, discusses the much-hated political robo-calls in an audio report at Sun-Sentinel.com/florida "

Crist rejects regressive sales tax hike

"Crist: Don't increase the sales tax
With the House and Senate stalled on property tax cuts, the governor weighed in.
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS AND MARC CAPUTO
meklas@MiamiHerald.com
PHIL COALE/AP

Gov. Charlie Crist talks to a group of builders, contractors and home building professionals at the Florida Capitol for a rally on property tax reform on Tuesday in Tallahassee.

TALLAHASSEE -- As legislative negotiations over cutting property taxes stalled for a second day, Gov. Charlie Crist entered the arena Tuesday, signaling he rejects a House idea to hike sales taxes to make up for deep property tax cuts, but also wants bigger cuts than the Senate is offering.
Crist called the House plan to eliminate property taxes on primary homes and replace them with a 2.5-cent hike in the sales tax ''an intriguing idea,'' but added: ``We have to do the doable, though.''
The governor's comments came as Senate leaders rejected the House proposal as ''unpassable.'' House leaders then rebuffed a Senate offer to deepen its proposed tax cut to $15 billion over five years -- $3 billion more than the Senate's previous position.

The House lead negotiator, Republican Rep. Dean Cannon of Winter Park, said the tax savings offered by the Senate are ''statistically insignificant,'' compared to the House's promise to save $44 billion over the same time.

Though Crist appears to oppose a sales-tax increase, he is closer to the House when it comes to forcing local governments to scale back their tax bases to the 2004 or 2005 budget year. That position alone may help bickering legislators refocus their discontent on a common foe: local governments, which have seen their revenues rise $50 billion statewide in the past eight years.

WASTE CITED
In a 13-page document prepared by the governor's policy and budget staff, the governor listed 13 examples of waste in government and presented a chart that labels responsible growth at 42 percent across all government services, rather than the higher levels counties and cities have experienced.
The House also has made governments the foe in the tax wars, suggesting that legislators are concerned only about how taxpayers -- not governments -- fare under the cuts.
Crist appears to be leaning toward the Senate position on other issues, however. He supports allowing homeowners to take savings from the state's property tax cap with them when they move, a practice known as portability.
He didn't indicate, though, whether he supports the Senate approach of imposing a higher tax cap for homeowners who take advantage of the savings. And he supports the Senate proposal to give first-time home buyers a tax break.
The governor also appears to be holding firm to the idea of doubling the homestead exemption, now at $25,000, for all homeowners. The idea has not been included in either the House or Senate tax-cut plans.
The governor's office estimated the total savings under his proposal at $23 billion over five years and $2 billion to $3 billion next year, depending on which year the tax rollback occurs. The average savings for homeowners would be either 6.5 percent or 9.3 percent.
`IDEAS ONLY'
The document offers no specifics but was titled: ``Governor's Recommendation to Legislature, Property Tax Reform.''

Crist, who until now has made only upbeat but vague comments about the Legislature's property tax proposals, crossed out those words and wrote ''Ideas only'' before it was distributed to the press.
As Crist conducted the first in a series of hastily called town hall meetings on property taxes in West Palm Beach Tuesday night, the talks between the House and Senate soured.
Senate Republican Leader Dan Webster of Winter Garden used his most forceful language yet when he said the chamber considers the House plan unpassable, because it relies on a constitutional amendment to swap property taxes for sales taxes.
He said he is ''100 percent sure'' the House plan will never win the approval of two-thirds of voters it needs to pass. Though eliminating all property taxes on homesteaded homes would make homeowners happy, he said, the idea would antagonize other voters, such as renters and the owners of businesses or second homes.
So legislators should focus on rolling back property tax collections to provide immediate tax savings, Webster said.
STILL WAITING
After the Senate made its offer, Cannon, the House's lead negotiator, said his chamber is ''still looking forward'' to the Senate plan, as if one hadn't been offered.
As Cannon spoke, Sen. Mike Haridopolos, the Melbourne Republican who leads Senate negotiations, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him. Both faced forward, barely looking at each other and speaking to reporters instead.

''The numbers don't lie,'' Haridpolos said firmly. ''The numbers are clear: $15.33 billion. That's movement,'' he said.

He noted that the original Senate plan called for $12.3 billion in savings over five years. Counties would roll back their tax base by $8.8 billion and cities by $3.7 billion. Special taxing districts, such as water management districts and children's services councils, would see their tax base cut $422 million.

''We have made a positive step forward today,'' Haridopolos said. ``We expect that positive steps will be made forward in the counter offer.''
Said Cannon: ``At this rate, it may take us a couple years to get to our numbers, but that's OK. We'll wait till we get there.''"

Cuban dissidents stand trial

"Secret trials in Cuba criticized; Two Cuban dissidents went before secret trials this month as one of the island's longest-serving political prisoners was released. CUBA
Source: The Miami Herald 04/24/2007

A Cuban dissident was sentenced to 12 years in prison in the second secret trial in less than a week, while a third government opponent was freed after completing a 17-year sentence.

Lawyer Rolando Jiménez Posada's 12-year sentence came as one of the island's longest-serving political prisoners, Jorge Luís García Pérez, known as Antúnez, was released after serving a sentence marked by hunger strikes, allegations of beatings and a bold escape.

Last week, independent journalist Oscar Sánchez Madan was sentenced to four years in prison, after being arrested, tried and convicted all in the same day -- and also without a defense lawyer present.
''Those kinds of things only happen with an order from up top,'' said Manuel Vázquez Portal, a former political prisoner who now lives in South Florida. ``What I think is that after Fidel Castro's apparent recovery [from intestinal surgery] the government feels reborn and is taking measures in the name of that recovery.

''There's quite a contrast in having two secret trials in one week, which show a tightening of political repressiveness, and this good news about Antúnez,'' said Elizardo Sánchez, who heads the illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
''This is a step back to the early days of the revolution, when there were summary trials and executions,'' Sánchez said in a phone interview from Havana.

Jiménez, 36, is a lawyer who ran the Human Rights Center on the Isle of Youth. After hanging a sign outside his home in the town of Nueva Gerona that quoted Jose Martí daring people to think independently, he was arrested in the spring of 2003 and held without trial for four years.

HANDLING OF TRIAL
Sánchez said Monday he just learned that Jiménez was tried April 6 on charges of ''disrespecting'' leader Fidel Castro, revealing state secrets and illegally printing and writing anti-government posters and graffiti.

The family was not notified of his trial date, and when Jiménez protested the lack of defense counsel, he was tossed out of the courtroom and not allowed to represent himself, Sánchez added.
''We're not just talking about a closed-door trial; we're talking about a secret trial,'' he said. ``In my 20 years doing this kind of work, I can tell you I have seen very, very few secret trials. I have been tried twice, and both times I had my family and a lawyer -- a lawyer who works for the state and could do nothing, but there he was, representing me.''
Vázquez said he believes secret trials have been taking place all along, and that it's just now that human rights groups are learning of them.

'They're trying to say: `Not only are we not going to release political prisoners, but we're going to put a few more in jail, and there's nothing you can do about it.' ''
Antúnez, 42, a former sugar cane cutter jailed for speaking in favor of reforms at a public plaza, served his 17-year sentence, plus another 37 days. He was released Sunday.
Antúnez's public act of defiance got him a six-year prison sentence. Two years later, he broke out of prison to see his terminally ill mother before she died. His brief escape cost him another 11 years in prison. His mother died while he was in prison.

Antúnez's time behind bars was marked by failing health, allegations of beatings by state security agents and a series of hunger strikes to protest prison conditions. In 2000, human rights activists reported that he'd grown so frail that he was down to 100 pounds.

`AIR OF FREEDOM'
''The path has been hard, but already the air of freedom is barely visible on the horizon,'' Antúnez said in a statement released by the Cuban Democratic Directorate, an anti-Castro exile organization. ``I am more committed to the struggle, I am more committed to the cause for which I was sent to prison. My body, soul and heart will always be at the service of Cuba and my people.''
``Nothing or nobody will make us waver.''

While jailed, he founded a political prisoner movement named after Luis Boitel, a dissident who died in 1972 of a hunger strike he began when he wasn't released after serving his sentence. Antúnez also penned a jailhouse memoir, Boitel Lives, published in Argentina.

''He's very brave,'' said Janisset Rivero, executive director of the Democratic Directorate. ``I spoke to him yesterday. The first thing he said was: `There are a lot of people suffering in prison, and we have to get them out.'''

There are 280 political prisoners currently being held in Cuba, according to Sánchez's commission. "

Racial tension in Miami-Dade

Political

Commission change stirs tension; Racial tension in Miami-Dade politics could be exacerbated by a debate over the County Commission's structure. Source: The Miami Herald 04/03/2007

The next flare-up in Miami-Dade's increasingly tense ethnic politics might be attached to a long fuse lit months ago by Mayor Carlos Alvarez.

Answering questions after a late-January breakfast speech at the Miami City Club, he gingerly toed into a 20-year-old fight about how citizens should be represented on the County Commission.
''Without a doubt, there is a lot of interest in a combination of single-member districts and at-large,'' he said. ``It's a very touchy subject, but one there's a lot of interest in, without a doubt.''
From another politician at another time, it might have been a blip; polls show broad dissatisfaction with the County Commission, and Alvarez is not the first to suggest tinkering with its structure by adding members who are elected by the full county instead of a small district.

But the idea -- which Alvarez and others believe is bound to surface this spring when commissioners appoint a task force to study changing the county charter -- is seen as an attack by many black leaders, who fear their share of commission seats would fall. Some are especially apprehensive after two earlier incidents with racial undertones.

First, black voters overwhelmingly opposed Alvarez's successful bid to increase his power, fearing an end to the commission's ability to spread jobs and contracts among various ethnic groups.
Less than two months later, Alvarez infuriated many prominent black leaders when he fired transit director Roosevelt Bradley -- one of the county's highest-ranking black administrators.
In that environment, ''the issue of at-large elections will definitely scrape the scab off the political relations between the various ethnic groups,'' said Miami attorney H.T. Smith, a prominent black leader. ``This is a power grab by elitists who believe they're smarter than everybody else.''
Smith was one of several people who testified in a 1986 federal lawsuit that gave rise to the current system of 13 single-member districts.

The suit alleged that the County Commission -- at the time, commissioners were elected countywide -- was not representing Dade County's growing minority population. Anglos made up 78 percent of the commission in 1986 but just 56 percent of the voters.

The few black commissioners who were elected countywide were too beholden to the votes and fundraising of whites and Hispanics, Smith said, which limited their ability to take on issues such as police brutality, affordable housing and economic development.
''It would be like an Israeli being elected by all Muslims,'' Smith said. ``If he wanted to get elected again, he would have to soften his rhetoric and couldn't be an outspoken advocate.''

NOTABLE FIGHT
In one notable fight leading up to the lawsuit, black homeowners in Northwest Dade were unable to stop former Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie from building a football stadium in their neighborhood.
''There was a great deal of frustration,'' said George Knox, a former Miami city attorney and one of the plaintiffs. ``There was no person who actually represented the interests of the people who resided in that geographic area.''
But Knox has also joined the ranks of politically prominent leaders who believe at-large commission seats need to be considered during an upcoming review of the county's charter.
''I think history is not going to support the notion that single-member district elections solved any of the problems or allayed any of the fears,'' Knox said. ``Blacks may not be very much better off in terms of the economics and politics since '86.''
The commission is stuck in a classic political crunch: hated as a body, loved as individuals. Scandals have driven its approval rating down around 40 percent, according to a poll conducted in January by the Metropolitan Center at Florida International University. But no commissioner has lost a reelection bid in 13 years; when half of them faced voters in 2006, not a single one was even taken to a runoff.
That makes significant change unlikely without a structural overhaul, which would need voters' approval.
''Commissioners were very committed to their districts but not always willing to see countywide issues -- that's the problem when you don't have any at-large members,'' said Ric Katz, a long-time lobbyist and campaign strategist. ``Having some at-large members would bring that perspective back to the commission.''
Such a debate, however, will inevitably be drenched in racial and ethnic suspicion and fueled by the ongoing tension between Alvarez and the commission.
''In light of what has occurred, I think now we need these four districts and their representatives more than ever,'' said Commissioner Audrey Edmonson.
Smith said the issue could be divisive enough to bring back the ethnic political battles of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Those fights peaked during a 1990 visit by South African leader Nelson Mandela, whose arrival was protested by some Cuban-Americans upset with Mandela's support for Fidel Castro. Smith responded by launching a massive tourism boycott that lasted three years.
''It's not like the tension is gone,'' Smith said. ``It's just below the surface.''
Former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez, who joined Knox as a plaintiff in 1986, said he remains skeptical of at-large seats but believes voters are frustrated enough to try almost anything.

ISSUE `INESCAPABLE'
Former County Manager Merrett Stierheim floated the notion during his public appearances opposing the strong-mayor campaign, stopping short of an endorsement but saying the conversation is ``inescapable.''
He chaired a committee during the lawsuit that recommended a combination of at-large and single-member seats, but the proposal failed with voters because it was attached to a salary increase for commissioners.
A similar hybrid is used in Jacksonville, where the city council includes 14 districts and five at-large members who are elected county-wide but must reside in one of five residency areas.
The federal judge who ruled on the 1986 lawsuit suggested a similar system would not violate voting-rights laws.
''There were all sorts of systems that could have been in place,'' said U.S. District Judge Donald Graham. ``There were probably methods by which they could have had some at-large seats in those days, but they decided not to give it a try.''

CAMPAIGN COSTS
Countywide campaigns rely heavily on radio, television and polling, and require far more fundraising than district races; Edmonson said many legitimate candidates simply could not afford to run.
Four candidates in the 2004 mayor's race -- the last major countywide race in Miami-Dade -- spent more than $1 million. By contrast, not a single commission candidate spent more than Dorrin Rolle's $409,792.

The charter review task force, which the commission is supposed to convene every five years, is expected to tackle other explosive issues, as well. Commissioner José ''Pepe'' Diaz wants the group to discuss reinstating elections for constitutional officers: sheriff, tax collector, property appraiser and elections supervisor.

Even the task force's composition has become a political football. Under a bill sponsored by Commissioner Katy Sorenson, 10 local groups -- including in NAACP, League of Cities and Chamber of Commerce -- would each appoint one member. A competing bill filed by Diaz would allow one appointment from the mayor, each of the 13 commissioners and each of seven municipalities.
As 2007 is the 50th anniversary of Miami-Dade's charter, Commissioner Carlos Gimenez said task force will undergo a ''soup to nuts'' review.
''This should be the charter for the 21st century,'' he said.

HAITIAN MINDSET DIFFERENT BY COUNTY

Political

"HAITIAN MINDSET DIFFERENT BY COUNTY; BROWARD COMMUNITY NOT AS POLITICALLY ACTIVE
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel 03/30/2007

When Haitian refugees reach the shores of Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, community leaders have traditionally rushed to the scene to serve as advocates.

But in Broward County, Haitians are more reserved. Many of those speaking loudest on behalf of the boatload of Haitians who landed on Hollywood's beach Wednesday are from Miami.
That's because Haitians in Broward -- many living in the western suburbs of the county -- tend to be less politically active and more concerned with upward mobility, said some Haitian community leaders. Those who are the children of Haitian immigrants have little connection to people escaping Haiti by boat. Their community is not consumed by the politics of their homeland, or organized to receive new arrivals.

"People are busier than in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, working two jobs," said the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, a Haitian Catholic priest now living in Fort Lauderdale. "In Broward they play low profile."

On Thursday, Haitian Women of Miami led protesters to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection center in Pembroke Pines, where officials held the refugees. They called for federal authorities to release the Haitians on their own recognizance and grant them due process.
Lavarice Gaudin, chairman of Veye Yo, a Miami group affiliated with the Lavalas political party of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, said the growing Haitian population in Broward needs a political voice. He said his organization plans to develop programs to help mobilize the Broward community.

But Edna LaRoche, a spokeswoman for Minority Development and Empowerment Inc., the largest agency serving the Haitian population in the county, said Broward Haitians are not silent on such issues. They simply have a more subtle approach.

She said Minority Development asked elected officials Wednesday and Thursday to intervene on behalf of the Haitians.

"We do appreciate everything that the Miami community is doing, and we think that will have an effect," she said. "But by the same token, so will our efforts."

Miami-Dade has long been an entry point for Haitian immigrants.
Refugees came in droves when life under the regime of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier became unbearable, and settled in Miami's Lemon City, now known as Little Haiti. In the 1990s, another wave of refugees arrived when a military coup overthrew Aristide, the country's first democratically elected president.

Some also made it to the shores of Palm Beach County, where community activists in Delray Beach and other communities with large Haitian populations welcomed them, said Daniella Henry, a community activist who helped settle many through the Haitian Chamber of Commerce in Delray Beach.

Those who settled in Miami in the 1970s and 1980s laid the foundation for grassroots leadership, which paved the way for Haitians to win political office and encouraged political activism.
But as many gained upward mobility, they migrated into Broward, settling in Miramar, Pembroke Pines, Pompano Beach and other areas.

Jean Jabouin, a Haitian radio talk show host who recently moved from Broward to Palm Beach County, said their lives are now far removed from the struggles in Haiti.

"Broward's population is a bit different. Reaction is not going to be same like in Miami-Dade or Palm Beach," he said. "It's a different phenomenon. As much as we say we can understand, we really can't understand how people would risk their lives to come here."