What do you want from Miami-Dade County government? Thrive305 seeks answers this week
About six miles divided two participants in Monday night’s town hall on Miami-Dade County government, but there was a wide gap in how they described their local parks options.
Lourdes Lopez, of Cutler Bay, said Miami-Dade’s Parks system is a life saver in her recovery from COVID-19, giving her wide open spaces for safe walks to get her breathing back after contracting the virus last year. “There is such goodness when you go to a park,” she said during an online breakout session in the forum. “You get so much out of it.”
A few minutes later, Hyacynthia Leonce, of the Naranja area, said she was surprised to hear such enthusiasm for county parks. “It seems like in my neighborhood we don’t have activities for kids, we don’t have activities for older people,” she said. “We don’t have the nice things I see at other parks. So I stay away from them. I don’t feel safe.”
The comments came during the first of four weeknight sessions under Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s “Thrive 305” effort, a mix of canvassing, public-opinion gathering and town halls as she prepared to propose her first budget. Advocacy groups and other non-profits canvassed neighborhoods in February to fill out Thrive305 questionnaires on government topics that are now the headings for this week’s forums.
Tuesday’s 6 p.m. online session focuses on Economy and Housing, followed by Transit and the Environment on Wednesday and Trust in Government on Thursday. To participate, visit thrive305.org.
About 26,500 responses were recorded. The questionnaires weren’t scientific in the way pollsters seek out random samplings to measure popular opinion. “This is not something that...we can say is definitive in terms of representing the county population,” said Fernand Amandi, a partner at the Bendixen & Amandi International polling firm in Miami, who was not involved in the Thrive305 effort. “But there is useful information whenever you interview that many residents.”
Questionnaire results put public safety as the top county service for most respondents, though housing was the top for respondents who identified as Black. Countywide, the next two choices were housing and parks.
The questions also drew criticism for favoring the progressive end of the government spectrum.
One question asked residents to pick among government actions to improve public safety. The options largely centered on boosting spending outside of the police department, including new programs on gun violence, post-jail job training and alternatives to incarceration.
The one option involving police involved having officers patrol by foot or bike instead of by car. The most popular, with a 58% selection rate, centered on neighborhood improvements, such as better lighting and activating vacant buildings.
J.D. Patterson, a former county police chief who now oversees all public-safety departments as a Levine Cava deputy, presented the results as evidence the public was ready to invest in safety outside of the police budget.
“Look at how few talk about police cars,” he said. “The community feels we could do a lot better job by broadening our approach to public safety, and not just limiting it to police officers.”
Patterson walked participants through questionnaire results that touched on a divide between Black residents and the rest of the population when it comes to public safety.
The results showed more than 50% of Black respondents disagreed with the statement that “residents of all backgrounds, including my own, have a safe and secure environment in Miami-Dade County.” Of the combined category of white and Hispanic residents (including white Hispanic), more than 50% agreed with the statement.
“In my opinion, this is failure,” Patterson said. “We have a lot of work to do in terms of public safety in this community.”
