Opa-locka pays steep price for leaders’ graft
Taxpayers will likely bear financial burden for years.
OPA-LOCKA — By the time Natasha Ervin rushed to the Opa-locka airport, the body of Terence Pinder had already been pulled from the black SUV that barreled into the side of a banyan tree.
The 43-year-old city commissioner had killed himself by deliberately driving into the tree at 80 mph just days before he was to turn himself in to state agents on bribery charges.
Fo r E r v i n , s e e i n g t h e crushed car on that bright morning in May was the culmination of months of drama as her city unraveled.
With millions in debts, Opalocka was close to bankrupt. Local city leaders were shaking down business owners in parking lots for cash bribes. And Miami-Dade County had just cut off the city from getting any more public funds.
Ervin and other residents would not just witness the breakdowns — but feel them.
“You get to a point where you say to yourself: What happened to thi s place?” said Ervin, a mother of three. “How did we get there?”
Just two weeks ago during a heated commission meeting, Vice Mayor Joseph Kelley broke hi s silence and offered harsh words to his fellow commissioners and the city manager for the chronic problems.
“I’m just sick and tired of it,” said Kelley, 54, a reform politician who frequently votes in the minority. “I’m not just going to sit back and not sound the alarm. Who is speaking for them? Who is speaking for the residents?”
His outburst came after weeks of meetings with taxpayers who are just now learning the burden they will bear for years of financial failures.
In the past six years, Opalocka has taken on nearly $15 million in debts — an amount that is expected to take years to settle before the city is on solid financial ground.
Already, local taxpayers — more than a third of whom live in poverty— pay the highest tax rate in Florida and one of the most expensive rates for water in Miami-Dade.
“We’re one of the poorest cities,” said Chris Roberts, who has lived in Opalocka since 1968. “They are doing nothing to improve our lives.”
Nowhere has the impact taken a greater toll than on Opa-locka’s employees — nearly a dozen of whom have been laid off while the rest are forced to work shorter weeks as the city struggles to pay its bills and avoid insolvency.
Much of the publicity about Opa-locka has centered on an FBI investigation — including a dramatic raid on City Hall in March — that led to the convictions of the city manager, a public works supervisor and the son of Mayor Myra Taylor.
But the hardships placed on local taxpayers are among the least known consequences of the financial breakdowns and illegal activities that have dominated the city.
The costs to local residents are still being tallied.
“T h e y p ay t h e h i g h e s t taxes. They pay the highest water [bills],” said Steve Barrett, a former vice mayor who joined with others to form a cit ywide citizens coalition last month. “This community is suffering. The [elected leaders] didn’t give a damn.”
Year after year, the burden grew on taxpayers as city leaders embarked on a spending spree that would rival any small city in Florida, records show.
Though revenues were dwindling — partly as a result of a dramatic downturn in the local real estate market — local officials led by Mayor Taylor went in the opposite direction: spending money at a pace that soon shifted the burden onto taxpayers.
They threw catered parties, approved holiday bonuses that cost hundreds of thousands and voted for the purchase of the new City Hall for $7.8 million.
Dozens of new employees were hired, bringing the total to more than 200 — nearly twice as many as other cities the size of Opa-locka.
H o m e o w n e r s s u c h a s Pamela Butler watched their taxes increase, from $944 a decade ago to more than $1,240 last year. “After awhile, I will not be able to pay,” said Butler, a finance office worker who lives in a modest home on Northwest 140th Street.
While officials continued to spend, local officials turned to another source of public money — and misspent it — putting the city deeper into debt.
When city officials wanted to build a glitzy video display and water fountains to promote Opa-locka and elected leaders on Northwest 27th Avenue, they dipped into Miami-Dade surtax money — f unds meant f or s t re e t improvements and similar projects. The county has since ordered the cit y to return more than $700,000.
Other money awarded by the state to pay for critical drainage projec ts to help relieve dangerous flooding in poorer, older neighborhoods was also suspended.
The reason: City officials failed to submit basic paperwork and in some c ases, engaged in improper bidding, records and interviews show.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Joe Aguirre, a storage business executive on Northwest 131st Street who watches the children on his street wade through muck and deep puddles to catch their school bus. “[The drainage] should have been fixed a long time ago. It’s pathetic.”
Not unti l t he a r r ival of City Manager Steve Shiver last year did most residents learn about the persistent misspending and breakdowns that placed the government in danger, Ervin said.
Shiver found the city owed hundreds of vendors, including more than $5 million to its largest creditor: MiamiDade County, for water and sewage treatment.
Shortly before he was fired in November 2015, he warned the city was heading toward insolvency, prompting some residents to show up at commission meetings to challenge Taylor and the commissioners.
“We didn’t know we had no money,” said Ervin, 48, who runs a catering shop and tax preparation service. “They kept saying we’re just fine.”
A publicized federal raid on City Hall in March revealed additional problems of widespread corruption that many residents suspected for years, she said.
The suicide death of Pinder — a onetime reform candidate — while under criminal investigation would show the depth of the illicit activities.
But it wasn’t until residents felt the problems in a far more direct way — their water bills — that they agreed to organize the first community coalition in a decade.
Because of chronic flaws in the water collection system, thousands of bills were sent in September with inflated charges — in some cases, 20 times the monthly cost.
For days, scores of residents descended on Cit y Hall, waving their bills and demanding to see the mayor and city manager over the charges.
“I was shocked,” said Clara Way, 85, a retired nurse’s aide who showed a bill for more than $700 —10 times her past charges. “I don’t have that kind of money.”
Worried over his $1,175 bill, George Suarez confronted officials at City Hall, but they said he probably had a leak. He hired a plumber for $175 and found out it was not the case.
The following month, his bill jumped even higher — all for a family of four. “This is Robin Hood in reverse,” said Suarez, 43, a catering chef whose bill was normally $58.
After waves of complaints, city officials backed down, saying they will monitor the meters for better readings, but the invoices left residents and businesses bristling.
Dozens have since met with Vice Mayor Kelley, who has promised to press the utility department to resolve the billing issues, which stemmed in part from failed meter reading devices.
“It’s not personal with me — it’s personal with these 16,000, 17,000 residents,” he said at a commission meeting last week.
The repairs to the billing system, including the hiring of a consultant, are expected to add more expenses to a city that’s now facing deep cuts just to pay its employees.
A state oversight board that took charge of the city’s finances in June says Opalocka must also pay all of its past creditors, including millions to Miami-Dade County.
Those bearing the costs will be the taxpayers, says Barrett, 64, who served on the commission in the 1990s. For a cit y with an operational budget of just $14 million, the payments will be daunting.
“This is a poor community,” said Barrett. “Come out here on one of the days when they’re giving out free food in the parks. The people start lining up at 6 in the morning.”
By the time the city’s debts are paid, “the people running the city won’t even be around,” he said. “We’re the ones who are going to have to pay.”