Who owns Miami-Dade: county hall or the residents? That question plays out daily as elected officials run our county as though they’re the owners. It’s true they have a fiduciary duty to make prudent decisions, but they represent all of us, not just themselves. A practical application surfaced l ast week as commissioners asked a pivotal question: what properties in this county that government doesn’t own or control are crucial to our future needs? The question is practical because the county was recently blindsided when a site that fuels cruise ships – the only fueling site in the Cruise Capital of the World – was sold to condo developers, leaving PortMiami clients in a bind that could force them to go elsewhere. The county had decades to plan a backup fuel source or buy the land, but it didn’t. Could other land control disasters be lurking? A call for the mayor to survey all such crucial lands was prudent. But Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins, who had sought a formal report, amended her resolution to instead require the mayor to brief each commissioner but never make the land needs public.  “I don’t want to create a public record of all the property that we need but we don’t own,” said Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III. Restricting that knowledge could keep landowners in the dark about the true value of vital properties so the county could buy them for less, but it would also prevent the “owners” of the county – the taxpayers – from being alerted to critical needs and pitfalls the county faces. Beyond keeping taxpayers in the dark lurks another danger – these 13 commissioners will learn of perils, but they’re term limited and within eight years all will be gone. If future needs aren’t in the public record, within eight years the county will be right back where it was with PortMiami fuel, in a position to be blindsided by an undisclosed peril that commissioners don’t know about – exactly what this study is meant to prevent. The post What pivotal facts belong to county hall but not the public? appeared first on Miami Today. ...read more read less