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The West Dade Federation of Homeowner Associations (WDFHA)
hosted an elegant evening of tribute to County Commissioner Miriam
Alonso July 20 at the Doral Park clubhouse. Some 200 residents joined
the WDFHA leadership, the Doral Community Council, and Alonso's own
staff to say thanks for her contributions to the Doral community.
WDFHA's Jesse Jones (left) and Morgan Levy (right) presenting
Commissioner Miriam Alonso with a plaque of recognition.
WDFHA President Morgan Levy shared some hopeful news
on the incorporation front. The federation has been invited by the
County Commission to start discussions, July 25, regarding the
specifics of incorporation. Levy opined, "We're closer to our
goal."
Pastor Steve Alessi of Metro Life Worship Center,
still the only religious congregation based in Doral, gave an
invocation in which he stressed the need "not to compete with,
but to complete, each other."
Levy recalled some of what Alonso accomplished locally
in the four years that she has held office.
These included blocking a proposed INS office and a
state juvenile detention center, fostering a dialog between residents
and the mining companies that conduct blasting in the adjacent lake
belt, and above all, giving continual support for Doral's
incorporation. With each accolade, he had the audience chant out a
mantra printed on placards they were waving: "Miriam, you were
there!"
Levy and WDFHA Vice President Jesse Jones presented
Alonso with a plaque and a clock, symbolizing Alonzo's penchant for
working at any and all hours of the day. Her staff gave her a flower
bouquet worthy of a queen.
Alonso waxed enthusiastic about Doral's incorporation,
endorsing the, "people's right to decide the type of governance
they want and to make their own choices."
She then turned to current problems the county faces
from blasting in the lake belt, just beyond the farthest western
residential zones, which include Doral.
"Lake belt is a misnomer," she noted.
"In reality, it's a mining belt, and if the mining isn't properly
regulated, it's going to threaten our water supply, which depends
totally on wells in the Biscayne aquifer, and our homes."
Alonso decried the recent state legislation that
eliminated the county's authority to regulate the blasting and
transferred it to Tallahassee.
"It was slipped into a transportation bill at the
very last moment, courtesy of a lobbyist for CSR Rinker
Materials," she said, "with no discussion in committee and
no floor debate. The industry got away with murder. The blasting
intensity allowed by the new law far exceeds what the county ever has
allowed or would allow. It's three times the level that causes
structural damage to homes."
Alonso predicted that intensified blasting "will
stop development to the west and devalue property in the west" of
the county.
"I want the industry to stay," she conceded,
"but it needs to make adjustments to the community."
To that end, she is taking a two-pronged approach,
"going to court to overturn the new law, and lobbying in
Tallahassee for its reversal." She invited the community to join
the lobbying effort.
In response to Alonso's talk, Levy quipped:
"Miriam has given us our marching orders."
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