Bayside Park? Or Garbage Dump?

A coupleof times in the past I've written about this park and included some pictures of fishing and pelicans. Then long after it was damaged by Hurricane Wilma I ran some photos of Monkette looking through the the rusty falling apart chain link barricade to keep us good taxpayers, the citizens of North Miami, away from our pier.

I've got to assume that the insurance money was collected for the damage. Yet here we are years later and nothing has been done? Where's the money?

Actually though, something has been done! The city council and the mayor found some money someplace for outrageous travel expeses, an overly generous pension, health care for life, and increased their salary tenfold. Really nice, huh? More like the scum on the water in that bottom photo.

And they're too damned cheap to increase the paltry advisory board stipends enough to cover our out of pocket expenses. Greedy self centered bastards! They told the city employees that there was no money for raises. They lied! There WAS money, but the greedy bastards put it in their own pockets. Thanks a lot!

And now Biscayne Times contributor Jim W. Harper has picked up the story along with fresh updated photos showing the same old neglect.

Thanks, Jim!

North Miami's Winternational Parade

Friday The Thirteenth ~ First Mug Of The Day

My friend North Miami City Councilman Scott Galvin got an idea a couple of years ago. I know. Nobody expects city officials to think. He thought it would be nice if you could drive down the street and see American flags flying in front of the houses on patriotic holidays.

He decided to use his expense allowance for something other than weekend junkets and entertaining potential contributors to his next re-election campaign. He bought American flags with the money! Any resident who wanted one could have one for the asking.

That's me there, holding my imported-from-India Leica mug. My fiend Mukul Dube in Dehli came up with the idea for the mugs. He doesn't have a cushy government post with a huge expense account like Scott. He will sell you one though. $20.00 U.S. will get it all the way from Delhi to your door, mug and postage included! The little bit of profit he makes goes to help out poor children in Delhi. They can use the help! Mukul's email is uthappam@gmail.com and he'll accept your check.

North Miami Advisory Board Members On Food Stamps?

My son Jonathan was visiting and playing the "good son", doing my taxes for the year. I'm in a position where I don't need a huge income. The boat and the truck are long ago paid for, as is my photo gear. No rent, no mortgage, no car payments. Real estate tax exemptions because I live in my house and I'm over 65.

"Hey Dad, do you realize that you qualify for food stamps?" He submitted the paperwork. A few days later I got this card in the mail! $55 a month in free food! Now maybe I can afford to live on the lousy twenty bucks I get most months from the City of North Miami for serving on the Board of Adjustment.

(I whited out the account number on the card.)

City Clerk E. May Avil Being Sworn In, May 1971

E. May Avil was North Miami's city clerk about forever. The city named the public library after her.

Can North Miami Ever Put Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again?

Can North Miami ever put Humpty Dumpty back together again? I don't know what gave me the idea. I wanted to show how fractured, torn apart really, North Miami seemed during the election. The trouble was that we were being torn apart by people who didn't even live here. Yes, we have a substantial Haitian community, but the last thing we needed was a bunch of Haitians who live elsewhere in the county, even from the next county to the north, coming here and stirring up trouble at the polls during a city election.

Even worse was when the city council was validating the election results these people packed the council chambers, yelling and shouting that North Miami is a Haitian city.

I got the idea of tearing up one of these index prints into a fractured mess arranged over a toned down black and white print showing myself sitting at a Board of Adjustment meeting. Toward the left you can make out another board member.

Since election day a lot of folks have aproached me to tell me how upset they are that these non-residents had tried to creat such chaos here. White and black, Haitian, Jamaican, American black, it everybody was upset about it. Rather than tear us apart it seems to have made us a more cohesive city. That's as it should be. That's the American way. We're a melting pot. It makes for an interesting blend. Humpty Dumpty is doing just fine.

Racial Hatred or Friends And Neighbors? Have It Your Way!

Racial hatred or friends and neighbors? Have it your way. The supporters of Marcellus were not only going around handing out their campaign literature at the polls but they were grabbing stacks of Michelle Garcia's campaign literature out of her hands and the hands of her supporters.

Michelle might have blonde hair and look a bit like a white girl, true, but she is white! That didn't seem to upset her friends and neighbors, who not only came over to the North Miami Public Library for early voting but dressed up for the occasion as well.

I love to see people taking their children to the polls, teaching them about the way democracy works. You vote for the one who is most qualified and who shares your ideals about how the city should be run. Here in North Miami racial hatred should not be enshrined as an ideal. It shouldn't be enshrined as an ideal anywhere.

Let's Argue The Law. That's Why We Have Laws.

The argument that followed us out into the lobby of the council chambers came down to whether or not Marcellus should be sworn in as a councilman. The white guy facing away from the camera towards the right foreground is outgoing Mayor Kevin Burns. Michelle Garcia was claiming that Marcellus didn't meet the city charter's residency requirements and the case is in the hands of the circuit court to determine if Mr. Marcellus or Ms. Garcia should get the council seat.

Marcellus's attorneys claimed that the mayor and council constitute a quasi-judicial board who have the job of validating the vote in accordance with the city charter. The city attorney and Ms. Garcia's attorney were claiming that since it's already in the hands of the court the council couldn't act on it until the issue of Marcellus's residency was settled.The attorneys for Marcellus kept referring to him as "Mr. Marcellus" but referred to Ms. Garcia as "Michelle", a very sexist outlook in these times. The place was packed with Marcellus supporters who kept trying to shout down Mayor Burns, there were lots of uniformed police present, and scattered throughout the chambers were plain clothes police as well.

The final decision was to let the circuit court decide the matter. If the council seated Marcellus and then the judge voided that decision then any city business that he'd voted on during a council meeting would be nullified. The decision was greeted by much shouting and cursing that "North Miami is a Haitian city" , that we're a bunch of racists for not seating Marcellus, etc., etc. There are already two Haitians on the council, we've had a Haitian mayor before, and we have a black city manager so that argument doesn't hold much water

The police escorted Ms. Garcia to her car and a patrol car followed her home "just in case". Throughout the night her house was checked by a patrol car driving by every fifteenminutes or so. I spoke with her late last night and spoke with her again this morning. She was fine. I'm still hurting from the pummeling Marcellus's goons gave me a couple of weeks ago.

This morning I received a call from an investigator with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) in Tallahasee. He'll be in town next week and wanted to set up a meeting with me. He has the photographs that were here on my blog, so next week I'll be having a chat with the FDLE. Monkette is sitting this one out.

Elect Al Kaplan North Miami Mayor in 2011

A few years ago a bunch of us decided to go to the February annual camera show at the North Miami Armory (sadly now torn down) and we met up at Jimmie's Place for brunch first. Paul Neuthaler from Hollywood snapped this shot of me in front of Jimmie's Place and posted it on a photography forum. Then James Mitchell, another amateur photographer who is from Washington D.C. and is frequently in Miami on business emailed me. He wanted to use the photo on a T-shirt, Paul said "Go for it!", and suddenly people from Alaska to Europe to God knows where were posting pictures of themselves wearing their "Al Kaplan T-Shirt" on that photo forum. I scanned the photo on the shirt to post it here, which accounts for the texture.

A few months ago people around North Miami were getting fed up with the way the city was being run, about the 1,000% raise the city council awarded themselves on top of a new gold plated pension plan and health benefits better than Obama gets from the feds. The way to balance the depleted city budget? Raise the utility bill! But the water plant is falling apart from lack of maintanance and half the water pipes around town are leaking like seives. The city parks are in horrid shape. The mayor, council, and city manager can afford to drive oversize SUV's that probably get 8 miles per gallon around town while the tax paying residents are losing jobs and falling behind on their mortgages.

People started asking me to run for mayor. I don't want to be mayor. Really! I don't. I'm not on an ego trip. I couldn't run for city council this go around anyway because my district's councilman, Scott Galvin, still has two years to run on his term.

OK, I'm making the announcement! It's official! I'm running for mayor in two years. Vote for Al Kaplan in 2011. Monkette will be thrilled! She's been bugging me to do it for months now! She can't wait to start mapping out strategy and throwing campaign parties withe big platters overflowing with fresh fruit and lots of bananas. With her at the helm there's just no way I can lose. After all, there's just no way anybody would dare to run against me. Can you imagine having to explain to people how you lost a race against a candidate whose campaign was chaired and managed by a toy monkey? It's better to just not run at all.

Now I need YOUR help on a big decision. I'll need a photo to give to the papers, use on posters and handouts, and yes, probably a T-shirt as well. I can't decide on whether I should use this photo or the color shot of me (scroll down) with the cuts on my face and the black eye. Email your vote to preacherpop42@aol.com

Frank Wolland Has The EXPERIENCE To Be North Miami MAYOR

For one thing, he's been mayor before. That convinced Monkette to back him! Two years ago she got involved in Mayor Kevin Burns' re-election campaign and she must have been doing something right!

Day after day, throughout the whole campaign, if you Googled things like North Miami Mayor, Kevin Burns, or any similar group of words there it was: Monkette's coverage of the race above the Miami Herald's story. That's right! The Price of Silver was getting more hits than the Miami Herald's on-line edition! But Kevin can't run more than two consecutive terms.

So Monkette and I put our heads together and decided to back Frank Wolland. He and I spent a few years working together on the North Miami Planning Commision, and he went on to become a city councilman followed by sitting in the mayor's chair. He was a good and effective mayor, and he and I pretty much think alike on most issues. I told Monkette "Hey! Go for it!" I'm not sure exactly what her motivations are, though. Banana plants in every yard? The ego trip of writing blog posts that beat out the Miami Herald website for readership? The thrill of running another successful political campaign?

When Frank stopped by here yesterday she was thrilled to put one of Frank's yard signs in the front lawn. She set it at just the right angle so it's visible to cars regardless of which direction you're driving on either N.E. 14th Avenue or N.E. 133rd Street. Tuesday night she's dragging me over to the Central North Miami Homeowners Association meeting. That girl has some serious politicking planned! Her candidates ALWAYS win. She has a 100% track record!

Pondering Politics In the Drizzle...

North Miami has an election coming up in May for two of the four members of the city council and the mayor. Twenty years ago Councilman Scott Galvin and I both ran for council seats and we both lost. The city had at large elections rather than district elections. Scott and I had both gotten asolid majority of votes in our parts of town but not elsewhere. He and I worked our butts off with a petition drive to amend the city charter. We wanted elections for council people to represent a district. We had to fight the sitting council to even get it put on the ballot. It got on the ballot and it passed!

Scott finished college, got a job, and bought a townhouse. In MY district. He ran for council again and got elected. But that's cool. He's good at what he does and I had run more to get somebody out of office (he dropped out of the race) than any great desire to be on the council myself. We ghave districts but between my having covered North Miami politics for the newspaper, serving on several city advisory boards, and working on several political campaigns over the years it's difficult to have such a narrow view that I'm not interested in who gets elected in other districts. It all affects the city and what affects the city affects me.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately about the mayoral race. There are a bunch of people planning on running. One, a former mayor, a disater, I couldn't support if he paid me. As for the others, there's one that I think I'll be backing but I'm still not 100% sure.

That leaves the two council races, neither of which is in my district. Tonight at the Central North Miami Homeowners Association meeting I got to listen to and talk with a candidate running for the District 3 seat, Michelle Garcia. I was impressed, very impressed. I shot a roll of B&W of her working the room, talking with various small groups of people. The major concern of many residents is fear of losing their homes. They owe more than the house is worth these days and many have lost their jobs. It's a national problem, of course, but she was willing to listen. She listened to complaints about the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) and how they've screwed up the traffic patterns with no left turn, no U-turn, and no right turn signs where they're not needed. It creates a lot of you can't get there from here situations. She listened, took notes, promised to look into these problems. I took a yard sign. I'm on an avenue with a lot of through traffic. Maybe I can't vote for Michelle Garcia but I sure plan on doing what I can to help her get elected.

Chatting With Jim Devaney, Former North Miami Police Chief And Former City Councilman

Damn! Jim and I go back a long time. I was a kid, really still in my twenties, shooting for The North Dade Journal and Jim had yet to make chief. Then for the longest time he was the chief. Back then he was a bit too "old school" for my tastes. I was still going through my hippie period and there was no love lost between the "hippies" and the "pigs". We wanted to smoke a bit of herb and they had the law to enforce. But I was the news media and also the contract photographer for the City of North Miami. We had a truce. Don't ask, don't tell.

I was always getting assignments to photograph things like the new police station, police awards ceremonies, the police shooting at targets at the range. I even got to do some shooting at the range myself, the bullets out of guns type shooting. Me and the cops, we got along.

Then one day Jim retired. After a few years of boredom, I suppose, he ran for city council and had no trouble in getting elected. He was a good and effective councilman too, and it was useful to have the perspective of a cop sitting up there when it came to dealing with issues of crime, and public safety in general. These days Jim is really retired, but he pokes his nose in here and there. I think this occasion was at a swearing in for the new mayor and council.

Flying The Stars And Stripes!

Councilman Scott Galvin got this great idea that our North Miami residents should try to make the city look more patriotic by getting everyone to fly the American flag on national holidays. He made a deal with a local flag company and got a "wholesale price" on a mess of 3x5 foot flags complete with aluminum poles and brackets. Anybody stopping by his office could pick up a free flag. He was hoping to see the streets lined with flags on the Fourth of July. It didn't happen. Oh, there were flags flying, but nowhere near what he'd hoped for.

I was driving down the street and saw this house, probably in foreclosure, all boarded up, and a huge pile of trash out in front. I stopped to check out the pile for treasures. The only thing I salvaged was that cute little toy monkey sitting on the shoulder of the dressmakers' form. Monkette was sitting on my front seat and she suggested that I get a photo of the little toy monkey showing her patriotism by holding up the American flag.

Next year I'm going to suggest to Scott that he should get a whole big bunch of little American flags. Maybe we can convince all the toy monkeys in town to go out in their front yards and wave the red, white, and blue.

Life Is Just One Adventure After Another...

I never much thought that I'd led much of an adventursome life. Since high school I've spent the majority of it living in the same North Miami neighborhood. I'm now living about eight blocks away from the apartment where my mom and I lived back in 1956. Unlike most of my photographer buddies from the 1960's I didn't travel the world covering wars or shooting pretty pictures of exotic far away places. No, I spent it right here, or close by anyway, and my shooting was largely for local publications, companies, governmental bodies, and a lot of politicians. Everything from the local city council to a few U.S. presidents.

In the last few years, since starting this blog, a lot of people have remarked that not only have I led an interesting and adventursome life but I've managed to do it within just a few miles of my house. That didn't really sink in until Mario Flores opened Rootz Gallery, kicked me in the butt, and forced me to come up with some prints to hang in the Gallery.

When I stand there in front of a row of pictures like this it makes me see the variety of people and things that I've photographed over the last few decades. The blog is nice but the images are small, and a computer screen doesn't do justice to a silver print. He shot this picture of me a month or so ago, right after he'd hung the framed prints. Yeah, he made me put 'em in frames too. The only two photos that you can make out in this shot consist of a couple of elderly people all dressed up for a Halloween party at a nearby retirement home which I shot in the late 1960's for the local paper, and the other photo was taken maybe ten years later at the Brighton Seminole Indian Reservation just south of Lake Okeechobee. They raised cattle, rode horses, and dressed like cowboys.

Damned Hair Is Turning White On Me!

I guess that I should consider myself lucky. My scalp isn't showing and my hair is still nice and thick but as I look back through the photos here on the blog it's pretty obvious that it isn't as brown as it once was.

A few years ago the city put in this plaza in front of the art museum and next to city hall. I honestly don't remember exactly what this "event" was all about but the Public Works guys set up a bunch of these little pavillions. As usual I was early. People were still setting up and the crowds had yet to arrive. Just out of frame on the left is a Starbucks. It's maybe 80 meters away from me, smack dab in front of the art museum. I walked over to get a cup of coffee while waiting for some people to show up.

Now there's talk about Starbucks closing that location. Not enough business. But across the street to the north is the Luna Star Cafe. Alexis was pissed when Starbucks opened there and now she can't wait for them to fold up and leave. If you're at N.M. City Hall, the Museum of Contemporary Art, or just visiting some of the many galleries in the area stop into the Luna Star Cafe and tell Alexis that you read about it here. She also has a variety of food items and something no Starbucks carries ~ imported beers and wines.

Dreams Of Interama ~ The Fantasy That Failed

I'm still trying to decide whether to just write a straight piece about Interama, the failed project in the drawing, use it to make a point about failed projects of that sort in general, or go on another tack about how many projects of this sort are expected to fail from the beginning but funnel a lot of public monies into the pockets of those who came up with the idea, did the design work and promotion, etc. The project might have failed but the money flowed.

The second failed project for that same property was Munisport, and I was one of those who made some money taking lots of pix on the ground and from a helicopter of the property over a several year span. The only real need to keep the project going for several years was to get federal, state, and local tax dollars flowing into a few rich guys' pockets.

Now the land has the North Miami campus of Florida International University, a state park and mangrove preserve, and a few acres of new condo buildings. That's a lot better than wall to wall solid condos like some people planned when Interama bit the dust.

A Variety Of Variances And The Futility Of Denying Them

Deputy City Manager Dennis Kelley and I had a little confab a day or two ago in his office. I'd tried to get him to meet at Starbucks and put the coffee on his expense account but he came up with the double excuse that he didn't drink coffee and had no expense account. I'm easy to get along with so I agreed to meet him in his office.

The subject of our discussion was my next door neighbor's fence again, a situation that's been dragging on over two years now. His position is that the fence meets current code requirements and the guy paid a double permit fee because it was constructed without a permit. My position is that it really doesn't meet current code requirements because the thing was measured from the wrong place, and furthermore, besides the fact that no variance was ever sought, it certainly didn't meet the more stringent requirements at the time it was installed

What I'm saying is that if the code said a five foot fence was allowed at the time the fence was built but a six foot fence was constructed without a permit or a variance, maybe you can accept the double permit fee for an after the fact building permit but the fence would still have to get a variance if it was six feet tall whether or not the code was later changed to allow six foot fences. It would have to conform to the code as it existed at the time it was constructed.

So after all this arguing back and forth, all the tap dancing around the issue, and never really coming close to refuting any of my points of argument, he decides that the city attorney should research it. This little Fence Problem has dragged on more than long enough and probably has already cost the taxpayers in excess of $10,000 in wasted staff time. After I agreed that yes, the city attorney should research it, Dennis drops the bombshell! He tells me that North Miami is the laughing stock of all the surrounding towns and cities because of the way we don't enforce our own codes, and give out "hardship" variances like candy simply for the asking. Even if the Board of Adjustment turns down the request the City Council will most likely approve it.

My interest here? Well, that's me on the right, a member of the board, six years now, and that follows a few years on the Charter Review Board and a decade or more as vice-chair of the Planning Commission. My other interest? That the fence was put up by my next door neighbor, and the city attorney told me a few years ago that as the holder of a "quasi-judicial office" it was incumbant on me to report my neighbor to the code enforcement people. I did. Going on three years later the fence is still there. Hence the meeting with Dennis. I take my board appointment seriously! I probably know the city code better than he does, as well as knowing about when and why it's been modified over the years.

And what about me being the only one there wearing a suit, white dress shirt, and that cool looking Jerry Garcia neck tie while sporting a beard and a carefully arranged mess of curls on my head? Hey, it's fun being the best attired dude in the room one time while the next time I have holes in the knees of faded jeans and look like I just came back from a day's fishing, sporting two days worth of stubble on my face and messy unkempt hair. Best of all, I like showing off my hair when most all of the guys twenty years younger than I am are half bald at best.

Opa-Locka, Highest Violent Crime Rate In The United States?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opa-locka,_Florida will tell you all about the place. Just click on the link and you'll find out the history, the people, and the crime. Actually, where I'm standing is only about 6 miles due west of my house in North Miami. I've visited Opa-Locka many times over the years on assignments, or just wandering around photographing the buildings. I've never run into any situations where I felt threatened. I've had offers to buy drugs and I've had offers from some very sexy looking young ladies to purchase more personal things, but a friendly "no thank you" or "sorry, not today" seems to work just fine.

A Photography Exhibit At MOCA, North Miami's Museum Of Contemprary Art

It wasn't all that long ago that museums rarely exhibited photography at all, and then only the work of long established photographers, or at least somebody who already had the right credentials in the art world. Few and far between were people who collected photograhic prints as art or displayed the pieces in their homes or offices. All that has changed in the past few years.

North Miami's Museum of Contemporary Art had their opening patrty for a group photography show and I decided to check it out. There was a large variety of work shown, arranged so that each exhibter had their own space on the walls. Some of them liked to print large while others preferred smaller more intimate style begging you to get close to admire the prints. They were mostly silver gelatin prints but one of the photographers showed platinum prints. One showed prints mounted on aluminum, but conventional matted and framed pictures dominated the show. The food table seemed to be getting the most attention.

Jazz at MOCA ~ The Best Seats

They're not so close that it's difficult to see up on the stage, and it's right next to the center aisle. We all got there early, supposedly just for that reason. I suspected, though, that Jeff also wanted to show off his new lady friend. When I first started dating Vivette back in '91 she and I really stood out when we went someplace together. Nice Jewish guys just weren't suppposed to be seen cavorting around town with a brown skinned beauty. These days you see all kinds of combinations, hear all sorts of accents, and often there's a kid or two that obviously isn't the guy's. Nobody cares anymore. They just accept it.

My original plan was to sit with them but I spent too much time wandering around taking pictures and shmoozing with people. A group of elderly people took up the rest of the seats in that row. They asked first at least. I ended up sitting in the back. The weather was delightful and the music superb!

Between the monthly Friday night free Jazz at MOCA concerts, and the new Saturday Night Live festivities featuring food and live music along West Dixie Highway, North Miami has become an ideal place to enjoy an inexpensive date, complete with plentiful free parking. Now I just need to get me a lady friend!