Your tax dollars at work!

The February 14th issue of Miami Today reports on a county audit of “Art in Public Spaces.” Even the County Commissioner who called for the audit is appalled at the report and rightly so. Commissioner Sally Heyman said of the questionable practices found by the audit:

“…(it) amounts to negligence to the point of being criminal.”

Much of the very expensive 630 piece collection, paid for with our hard earned tax dollars and estimated to be worth about $28 million, are damaged from neglect even though the program had $3.6 million in its bank account last year. The audit said:

“It is ill-advised to procure expensive artwork without consideration of long-term maintenance costs.”

Who dropped the ball on what the auditor called a “program in shambles”? The program is overseen by a 15 member board of trustees and the commission retained final oversight. The audit says that these trustees have not done their job. In addition, there is an 11 member advisory committee and they get paid $500 a day plus expenses when their services are used.

I think County Manager Burgess And Michael Spring have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do but I think they will weasel out of this mess with a slap on the wrist. Also, here are the trust members (I bet each is on multiple boards and most offer little more than their names, as usual, to County Boards):

Cindi Nash, Chairperson
Susan Ackley
Felice Dubin
Vera Dubson
Sandi-Jo Gordon
Julio Grabiel
Cheryl Jacobs
Penny Lambeth
Dr. Paula Levine
Becky Roper Matkov
Graciela N. Solares
Carol Damian