Just a few things for you this morning from the mainstream media...
A- Herald: Sousa on Miami-Dade's vehicle allowances...for once I agree with her.
It's one thing to say leaders should have a smaller car allowance. It's another thing to give them the allowance and then chastise them for how they spend it. How people spend their compensation is entirely up to them.B- Herald: Just in time for Urban Beach Weekend.
The days of enjoying a piña colada beneath an umbrella on the shores of Miami Beach may be over.C- Herald: They write letters.
The city's attorney has advised officials that beachfront hotels are not allowed to sell or serve alcoholic drinks to customers on the beach.
Although hotels regularly peddle tropical drinks through oceanfront concession stands and waiters ferrying libations to sunbathers on lounge chairs, City Attorney Jose Smith says that's against the law.
``Why they haven't been cited, I don't know,'' Smith said.
[...]
``It's going to be a little nasty on the eve of Memorial Day if they tell the hotels they can't serve alcohol out there,'' he said.
Don't demonize immigrantsD- South Florida Business Journal: Florida loves the Google.
Bravo for Myriam Marquez's May 16 column, Immigrants are the GOP's new political exiles. She brought up an ugly local aspect of the immigration discussion. This is a country of immigrants; however, when relatively recent immigrants criticize others who do the same thing that not only saved their lives but also allowed them to prosper, it is truly an aberration.
Cuban Americans like to distinguish themselves from immigrants by describing their status as being exiles. However, in the eyes of all Americans, we are also considered immigrants.
It's galling that some Republicans equate immigrants with lawbreakers. Immigrants do not take anyone's jobs, as they fill those that no others will do.
Everyone agrees that we need immigration reform. What we do not need to do is demonize people who are trying to make an honest living and support their families -- or unscrupulous politicians who use this and every other issue to confuse the electorate and thwart any hope for real solutions.
GRACIELA CATASUS, Miami Beach
A first-ever economic impact report by search engine Google shows it generated $3.2 billion in economic activity in Florida in 2009..
The dollar figures were estimated by examining the economic value generated by Google Search and AdWords, Google AdSense and Google Grants. The company used two assumptions: First, that businesses make an average of $2 for every $1 they spend on AdWords. Second, that businesses receive an average of five clicks on their search results for every one click on their ads.
5 comments:
"It's another thing to give them the allowance and then chastise them for how they spend it."
Rick; this allowance wasn't given to them by some anonymous benefactor or the tooth fairy.
These are funds that have been approved by the commission.
In other words, they give it to themselves.
Just like the discretionary funds that they have been reluctant to do away with.
Are you sure, Bill? Voters approve their salaries and other aspects of their jobs, after all. Better let Sousa know.
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Bill's right on this one, Rick; voters approve of their salaries, but the car allowance, although described as a "benefit" and a "perk," comes from the "operating expenses" budget along with copiers, equipment, and other things that the Commission sets.
I'm not dead set against the Commission getting some kind of car allowance; but I think it should be fleet vehicles, not something they go out and negotiate individually. We should have a fleet of whatever luxury sedan made by the vendor who supplies police cruisers that particular fiscal year. That we, we're getting the volume discount, and maintenance can be done at cost in the city yard, using inventory also acquired in bulk. And if they choose cash over the car, it should be based on whatever we save by not providing the car.
Not true Ms. Marguez!
I've lost many jobs in the construction industry to illegal immigrant's. And know many men just like me who used to make a good living in construction can't find job's anymore that pay a decent wage. If you think the same builder/ developer that's hiring these illegal's is paying his proper share of payroll taxes you would be seriousely mistaken!
Sounds reasonable, CLJ.
Again, I guess it comes down to voters expressing their approval or disapproval by voting. If you have a commissioner who voted for an $800 a month car allowance and you don't approve of that allowance, don't vote for him/her next time around.
I think it's a terrible practice to continue when people are being laid off and money is short, if for no other reason that the appearance of waste and excess is so obscene. But in reality, that money is barely a drop in the bucket.
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