Tax Dollars at Work

Dade taking furniture flap sitting down

January 27, 1986

A true news item: In only five months, Dade County Manager Merrett Stierheim and his successor, Sergio Pereira, spent $63,674 furnishing the same office twice.

Harry Hassock, Dade County's newly appointed Curator of Fine Furniture, was steamed.

"Why do you people keep picking on us?" he screeched, waving the newspaper.

I could barely see the man over his teakwood desk, which was nine feet high and tastefully trimmed with polished emeralds.

"Mr. Hassock, we're not picking on anyone," I shouted up to him. "It's just that the taxpayers are getting upset. They see Mr. Pereira running all over town preaching for a sales tax hike and warning that Metro is going broke. It's hard to take him too seriously after he spends $9,000 on a sofa."

"The man needs a place to nap!" Harry said, peremptorily.

"But for that kind of money you could feed and house a homeless child for a year."

Harry Hassock winced. "Please, we're talking leather here. The finest leather from the finest cows in Argentina. And get your notebook off of there—that's a $9,999 coffee table!"

In exasperation I said, "One more time, explain to me why Sergio needed to buy an expensive round desk instead of keeping Merrett's expensive rectangular one."

"Because there was chewing gum stuck under all the drawers," Harry said. "Besides, Sergio is a round thinker. You can't put a round thinker at a rectangular desk—it would be disaster. Hey, what's that crud in my ashtray?"

"Looks like ashes," I said.

"Ashes! Who'd dump ashes in a beveled diamond ashtray? Have you any idea what that ashtray cost?"

"Probably $9,999."

Harry Hassock eyed me suspiciously. "How did you know?"

"Wild guess," I replied. "Sergio's desk set cost nine grand. So did his credenza. All this stuff seems to run about nine grand. Why is that?"

"Because," Harry said, dropping his voice to a sly whisper, "if it cost any more, the Metro Commission would have to vote on it. In public, for God's sake—can you imagine?"

"Talk about problems."

"You bet your burlwood bookcase," Harry said. "To dodge that silly $10,000 rule, I advise county bigwigs to buy their fine furniture in $9,000 pieces. In fact, we have a little saying around here: Nine is fine, ten is trouble."

"Seems pretty sneaky," I said.

Harry Hassock rolled his eyes. "Next thing, you'll be asking why Sergio doesn't pay for this stuff out of his own pocket."

"Why not? He makes $99,500 a year."

Harry sighed impatiently. "What the public fails to understand is that in order for government to function smoothly, it must function in comfort. Comfort requires fine furniture."

Harry climbed off his desk, descended a rosewood stepladder and sat next to me on a $9,999 ottoman. "The more comfortable your government is, the more efficient it will be," he said earnestly. "Simply stated: Government needs a soft place to put its tush."

Somewhere on his colossal desk a magnesium telephone began to ring. Harry scrambled up and answered it.

"Curator of Fine Furniture," he said. "Yes—oh hello, Mr. Manager. Thanks, I knew you'd like it. What! Who said that? Well, it's not Day-Glo marble and you tell 'em that's not the least bit funny."

As Harry spoke, he expertly squirted a can of Lemon Pledge at a thumb smudge on his mink-lined credenza.

"But, Sergio, what's wrong with the desk chair you've got? Hmmmm. I see." Harry cupped a hand over the phone and asked me to step out of the office. "Just for a second," he whispered, "and try not to drag your shoes on the Burmese carpet."

Harry Hassock went back to his phone call. "A throne?" I heard him say. "What kind of throne are we talking about, Sergio?"

Metromover's new legs would be very shaky

July 2, 1986

The same wizards who gave us Metrorail now want to spend $240 million to expand the peoplemover to both ends of downtown Miami.

They foresee a day when the cute little tram is packed to the gills with commuters and shoppers. They foresee a time in the next century when future Dade Countians will look back and marvel at what visionaries we were.

More probably, they will look back and wonder: What kind of mushrooms were those folks eating?

The logic of taking an underutilized rail system and making it bigger is baffling, to put it kindly. Since the collective memory of the political establishment seems so short, let's re-examine Dade's sterling record of mass transit (using the term loosely).

Born of the best intentions, Metrorail is a proven Megaturkey. "The laughingstock of the nation," says Harvard transportation expert Jose Gomez-Ibanez. Building it cost $250 million more than promised; operating it now threatens to break the county budget. The ridership, though improving, remains a pitiful one-seventh of projections.

It's a clean, fast system but—for a variety of reasons—commuters avoid it in droves. This year taxpayers spent $32 million running a train for a measly 14,000 daily two-way riders.

If Metrorail were a horse, it would be shot.

Enter the Metromover, inaugurated to run a loop through downtown Miami and boost (we were promised) Metrorail's popularity. It's an adorable toy, except for one problem: Only 4,500 of 60,000 downtown workers are riding the darn thing.

You'd think we'd learn our lesson. Think again. Rep. William Lehman (normally a rational man), the Metro commission and downtown property owners (surprise!) love the idea of extending the Metromover south to Brickell Avenue and north to the Omni Mall.

What we now have is a government fully mobilized to turn disaster into catastrophe.

If you were a merchant and somebody offered to run a spiffy tram to your doorstep, wouldn't you say yes? Of course you would, especially if the state, the city and the feds were sucking up 90 percent of the tab. What's another $240 million when we've already spent four times that much on Metrorail?

Forget the fact that our buses are falling to pieces. Forget the fact that routes from needy neighborhoods have been cut back, thanks partly to Metrorail's huge deficits.

The trouble with the Metromover is that it benefits the downtown lunch crowd more than the people who truly need mass transit. It will make it convenient for some of us to hop a tram from the office to the Tofutti parlor, but meanwhile thousands need reliable transportation from their neighborhoods to their jobs.

In a strategic move to derail the Metromover expansion, the head of the U.S. Urban Mass Transit Administration, Ralph Stanley, said last week he would be willing to let Dade County spend its Metromover funds on buses.

It's an unprecedented offer, and a smart one. Buses are the first crucial link of any urban transit system; almost seven times as many people ride them as ride Metrorail. The $102 million already set aside for the Metro-mover extension is enough for 728 buses, a whole new fleet. This would be a radical step in the county's transportation saga—spending money on something people would actually use.

In defense of the dream, Metromover's proponents say the new downtown legs are necessary to meet the needs of future growth. Planners predict 25,000 peoplemover riders by the year 2000.

Only two things are certain about such predictions: If it's the cost, they underestimate. If it's the ridership, they overestimate.

They've never been right. They've never even been close.

But let's say this time they are. Twenty-five thousand riders for $240 million—this is a bargain? Maybe so, if you own a bank on Brickell Avenue; maybe not, if you're standing on a hot street corner, hoping for a bus, any bus, that runs on time.