Dave Crystal for Mayor of Miami Beach

Dave Crystal presents the "Graduates" jersey

WHY I’M RUNNING FOR MAYOR OF MIAMI BEACH

My calling and passion in life has always been public service and the pursuit of justice. Having gained thorough insight into the many injustices that plague Miami Beach and the lack of planning and political courage on the part of our leaders to address those injustices, I decided in 2010 to draft a plan for the future of Miami Beach and to run for mayor in order to put that plan into effect. My political and public service on the Beach has been eclectic: I have served on the board of two condominiums (presiding over one of them), have been active in several charities and not-for-profits, such as Miami Voice, served on the Request For Qualifications Committee for the new Miami Beach Convention Center, and, for three years, served as a director of  the Miami Beach Leadership Academy Alumni Association. These experiences have shown me first-hand how political decisions often adversely affect the community. When these experiences were compounded by media reports of corruption inside City Hall, police abuse of power, and astronomical compensation for public employees, I decided to run for Mayor of Miami Beach to restore order, dignity and fiscal responsibility to this city once and for all. Under my watch as your mayor, every decision of the City will be closely scrutinized to guarantee that the community will come first, before the influence of special interests or the pressure of political expedience.

These are some of the problems that I will fix as your mayor:

• The current mayor has raised our taxes to give our public employees raises! Our public employees were already amongst the highest-paid in the State of Florida even before the tax hike. Many of our employees are paid 2 to 3 times what they would get paid working in the private sector. The average city employee has a base salary of over $60,000 a year, which is a stark comparison to the resident who makes an average of $44,000 a year! At the same time, at least 20% of city employees make more than $100,000 a year (including more than 300 fire fighters and police officers who regularly use overtime pay).

• The current mayor has demonstrated such arrogance and self-entitlement that she flouts the law thinking no one will notice. Our campaign recently discovered that Matti Bower illegally bought up two additional years of pension service credit, erroneously stating that her prior employment as a dental assistant had the same exact duties as a commissioner of Miami Beach!

• The city's pension liabilities are ballooning out of control! The city’s pension contributions have gone from $3.5 million in the fall of 2001 to more than $52 million in October (almost 22 percent of the city’s 2011 budget). In less than 15 years, at this rate, the total pension liabilities will be $300 million - greater than our entire current city budget! We need to drastically reform our employees' pension plans immediately; if not, the city will go bankrupt in less than 20 years!

• The City of Miami Beach, like many other municipalities in Florida, went on a spending spree with the expectation that taxes from increased property values would bail them out. Now the city is mostly paying off the interest on this debt while promising more expensive public projects at the expense of long-term infrastructure improvements and systemic reforms.

• Permitting for new business or new construction is near impossible! It typically takes many months to get the city permits required to start a business here. Entrepreneurs and established companies no longer come to Miami Beach because it takes too much time and costs too much money to start or expand a business.

• Our city is governed by a “weak-mayor system” which makes it very difficult to fire corrupt or incompetent employees. The system itself encourages the promotion of mediocre employees. Mediocre employees cost the city money and frustrate citizens and visitors alike.

• So many qualified and educated citizens of Miami Beach are out of a job. Since December, 13.2% of the city’s residents are reported as unemployed and many more are underemployed while property taxes continue to rise (9.98% increase this past year alone).

• There have been too many reports of gay citizens and tourists being verbally and physically harassed by Miami Beach Police. At the same time, 86% of crimes committed in Miami Beach remain unsolved - a much higher rate compared to similarly sized cities in Miami-Dade County (Florida Department of Law Enforcement). In 2009, violent crime (murder, rape, robbery and assault) in Miami Beach was nearly two times the national average and robbery itself was three times the national average (FBI - CJIS 2009).

• Chronic flooding along such roads as 41^st St. and Sheridan Ave., 78^th St. and Carlyle Ave., and Alton Rd. and 10^th St. is causing damage to businesses and destroying cars.

• Rush hour traffic congestion at 41^st, 63^rd, and 71^st streets grows worse every year.

• Our city has many employees who do not speak English at all or do not have a functioning understanding of the language. For a city that is mostly English-speaking this inability to communicate with city employees frustrates many citizens and visitors who are asking for service from their city.

We need a mayor with solutions, a mayor with the guts to tackle the real challenges facing our community. In short, we need a new mayor and a new direction for our city. In a time of crisis, we need crystal clear solutions and a plan to implement them. Miami Beach needs my Crystal Plan. I am asking you to elect me as your new mayor to bring that plan to fruition.

The Crystal Plan is comprised of 10 ideas for reform of Miami Beach city government.
Click here to read the Crystal Plan.