The Sky is Falling!
Commissioner Ariel Fernandez Leads the Movement to Abandon City Hall
Residents who tune into Coral Gables City Commission meetings were surprised to see that the latest was being held not at City Hall, but at the Public Safety Building. City Hall, the subject of controversy over the last few months, had been effectively evacuated, despite reassurances from multiple structural engineers that the building was entirely safe.
The issue came to a head during the August Commission meeting, when Commissioner Ariel Fernandez declared that the building had been “neglected for 13 years” and compared its apparent imminent disintegration to the Surfside condo collapse. Despite assurances of safety from structural engineer Douglas Wood, a letter from him was uncovered, wherein he listed several repairs that needed to be done, which Fernandez took to mean the building was unsafe.
Last month’s meeting was moved to the Public Safety Building while the building’s support columns were shored up, partly to alleviate Fernandez’s concerns. With that now finished, Mayor Vince Lago, who runs his own commercial construction firm, said, “The building is safe. There are no concerns.” And yet, according to City communications director Martha Pantin, meetings will apparently still be held outside of City Hall until construction is completed. The catch? Construction likely won’t even begin for another two years, pending planning, procurement, etc.
Lago, who opposed any move from City Hall, is still using his office there, as is the City Attorney, the City Clerk, and other staff. “We should stop playing politics and creating chaos,” he told Coral Gables Magazine, “and not make it seem as if Commissioners Fernandez and [Kirk] Menendez are achieving anything of real substance. Instead, [we should] be working to solve the real issues at hand.” Fernandez declined to respond to questions from Coral Gables Magazine, deferring comments to the city’s communication director, while City Manager Amos Rojas Jr., who has also vehemently opposed staying at City Hall, also declined an interview. He has relocated to the city’s Emergency Operations Center.
Lago claims it will cost the city $800,000 to $1 million for office space to house city employees that should be at City Hall until reconstruction begins. “We are not in the business of just giving away money,” he said, adding that he found the idea of issuing a bond to fund the project “fiscally irresponsible.” He and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson were the only “no” votes on issuing a bond, which was advanced by a majority consisting of Commissioners Fernandez, Menendez, and Melissa Castro. Lago claims the interest on the bond plus its principal of $60 million will cost the city up to $100 million. Anderson made a case for using funds from the City budget that were supposed to increase city staff, which the three commissioners opposed.
During the latest Commission meeting, former City Manager Peter Iglesias, also a renowned structural engineer, made an appearance to refute claims made by Fernandez that the building was unsafe now or during his tenure as city manager. “We’ve never neglected City Hall,” he said. “[The Commission] decided to fund Phillips Park [instead of City Hall]. However, that did not mean that we were not going to fund [it].” He explained how the city was able to “remove the pressure on the third floor,” where the most stress on the building was, by moving the Development Services department to its own building next door. The second part of the plan was building the Minorca Garage, which contained office space on the ground floor for the HR, labor relations, and parking departments. Eventually, it and the adjacent Public Safety Building could house most if not all City Hall employees during construction. The idea was “to keep City Hall operational without any life safety implications,” Iglesias added.
As for the title of this story, it is the catch phrase of the old European fable “Chicken Little,” and refers to “one who warns of or predicts calamity, especially without justification” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) and applies to people “trying to incite an unreasonable fear in those around them.” (Wikipedia)