Update on Vice Mayor Dubois' 1-6-14 town hall discussion - Initial impressions

It was a well-attended meeting last night. Many people were there in attendance looking for answers. The mayor and staff were present and watched, but offered no input. Thank you Vice Mayor for holding a general event in the evening when those who work could attend.

I was disappointment to find out that no documents were available. In fact, Vice Mayor Dubois expressed his displeasure that he had to cobble together information from sources which he thought were incomplete.

Updates I obtained from the meeting last night:

1. Someone (who won't step forward and take ownership) really wants to close down main street and force traffic to make a hard turn to/from US1. (Can you imagine Miracle Mile being a successful main street with a dead-end turn off?).
2. Annexation now appears off the table, but there are no numbers, let alone no revised projections based upon the current existing Palmetto Bay areas. The original model presented at the Palmetto Bay Business Association luncheon had a much greater area.  How does this Palmetto Bay only model affect the return on investment figures, do they know?
3. The committee is looking to put in 1,500 residential units within the current study area. For comparison, there are approximately 8,000 residential units currently within Palmetto Bay.

One resident who spoke expressed concern about government taking away property form current owners (Eminent Domain) as the 'projected" growth does not occur unless current long-time owners of properties redevelop their property from their prior historic uses to conform with the new goals. 

More updates will come later.

We all want Palmetto Bay to succeed.  I would ask everyone to get involved. No surprises leads to better results.