Homestead City Council candidates differ on housing, jobs

Six days before the Homestead election, council and mayoral candidates expressed their vision for Homestead's future during a two-hour debate at the Keys Gate Golf Course Clubhouse.

Voters found out Wednesday how the candidates stack up on key issues: balancing the budget, solving the foreclosure crisis, bringing more people into the city and building a new City Hall downtown.

The eight running for the four council seats agreed that a surge in businesses would help strengthen the city's declining tax base.

``We need high-paying and high-quality jobs that will raise the median income and improve the quality of life,'' said candidate Stephen Shelley.

But candidates said it was equally important to focus on balancing the budget.

Angel Garrote, a businessman running against Councilwoman Judy Waldman for Homestead's Oasis seat, said he would take a zero-based budget approach and start from scratch.

Garrote, a business development manager for CompUSA, said his business skills would help the council deal with the shaky economy.

Waldman said the city had been successful at balancing the budget, but did so at too high a cost -- layoffs.

Councilman Tim Nelson said job cuts were a fact of business.

``You have to tighten the belt when you're loosing money,'' said Nelson, who is running for the northwest seat against Shelley, an attorney and vice chair of the Planning and Zoning Board.

Nelson told the crowd of 140 that ``people with business experience need to make the decisions.''

He is part of incumbent Mayor Lynda Bell's ticket, which includes Garrote and incumbents Melvin McCormick and Nazy Sierra.

Councilwoman Sierra, a former teacher, said her focus was on education and told residents they could expect two new charter schools to open by 2011.

``Education is closely tied to the property values of homes,'' she said.

Her opponent for the council's Waterstone seat, businessman Elvis Maldonado, also supports bringing more schools to the Homestead area.

But he has accused Sierra of preventing a charter high school from coming into the Oasis/Keys Gate area.

He believes the decision was linked to a disagreement between Sierra and Charter Schools USA, her former employer.

Sierra has denied that, saying she had resigned as a teacher in 2004 from Keys Gate Charter School that is owned by Charter Schools USA to take a job with Walden University.

Christina Cruz-Ortiz, a former assistant principal at Keys Gate Charter School, confirmed Sierra's account.

In addition to touting education and business development as ways to bring new faces to Homestead and pump energy into the future budget, the candidates tried to figure out how to help families currently struggling to keep their homes.

``We built too fast and too much,'' said Councilman McCormick, 33.

He is running in the southwest district race against Rev. Jimmie L. Williams, 30.

Mayor Bell agreed with McCormick saying, ``We could have done better. I fought this over-development. We just have to make sure this doesn't happen again.''

Homestead has received $2.8 million in stimulus funds to help people undergoing foreclosures and those who may soon find themselves without a home.

``We need to work with the community and give people a lesson in how to finance and how not to live outside their means,'' Nelson said.

Candidate McCormick put the blame on the banks.

``A lot of these people were tricked into buying homes. Banks made deals that looked good, and then mortgages turned out to be higher than expected,'' he said.

Bell reassured residents that homes were selling again and being put back in the hands of families, not speculators.

She also said the city would benefit greatly once construction began on the $18 million City Hall building planned for the downtown area.

Her opponent, former Councilman Steve Bateman, along with Shelley, Williams, Maldonado and Waldman, said that now wasn't the time to build.

``We don't need to build City Hall now while we are still laying people off,'' Williams said.

``We're in the toughest recession of our lifetime. Let's not spend the last dollar in the bank,'' Bateman added.

Bell and candidates running with her said the money had been secured and the city would be getting a better deal the sooner construction began.

``We have $17 million in reserve and $1 million from the Silver LEED certification. We do have the money. There are a lot of construction workers out of work. Let's get it done,'' Sierra said.

However, Bateman suggested that the money in the bank be used to pay the city's current bills.

Bell disagreed.

``The idea to use nonrecurring funds to pay recurring debt is a fiscally foolish decision. You could bankrupt your city that way.'' Bell said.

``If we miss the opportunity now, it will be the biggest mistake of this city's life,'' the mayor added.

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