Governments clash in Silver Bluff as Miami police block county from reopening streets

Two of the largest local governments in South Florida clashed Friday when Miami dispatched police to try and stop Miami-Dade County from removing traffic barriers on a side street off of U.S. 1.

The skirmish unfolded in Silver Bluff, home of a long-running battle over traffic short cuts and demands that elected officials intervene to close some entrances to keep cars on main roads. Miami backed the cause, and Miami-Dade did not.

The drama built this week when Miami’s mayor was barred from addressing county commissioners on the matter March 2 as Miami-Dade prepared to approve a rule change making it harder to close streets. By the next day, Miami road crews had set up concrete barriers on five side streets off busy Southwest 17th Avenue and Coral Way.

“Traffic funnels into this little pocket here,” said Beba Sardiña Mann, who lives on Southwest 23rd Street, a block from 17th Avenue. “It’s people who don’t like to sit in traffic. They don’t like red lights.”

No Outlet for now off 17th Avenue

Mann has led the charge for a barrier at the end of her street, pointing to other closures across Miami and beyond. She could claim a brief victory this week once the concrete berms and a yellow “No Outlet” sign went up in the dark of night Tuesday, according to neighbor accounts. Miami justified the barriers as temporary police actions for public safety, bypassing the county’s authority over all traffic controls throughout Miami-Dade.

By Wednesday, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava had written a letter to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, demanding that the barriers come down.

“I must insist the City of Miami immediately remove any and all roadway barricades and barriers installed without going through the approved review process,” Levine Cava wrote. “As we made clear last night to your City Manager, these impromptu barricades are creating a clear safety hazard for the traveling public.”

Miami insists it has the right to close off roadways temporarily, leaving Mann and other residents living on a dead-end street, at least for a time. But not everybody was a fan of the new arrangements. Emma Hildago, 19, lives with her family near Mann and said the street closures have made getting home a mess.

“Usually I turn on 17th. That’s blocked. Then I went down to 16th Court. That’s blocked, too,” she said. “It’s an inconvenience.”

May Pin, owner of the Pekin restaurant on 17th Avenue, said the blocked streets have caused too much disruption for her business. “We don’t want the closures,” she said.

Residents opposing the closures blame the issue on an “outspoken minority” and say city studies show closed streets will divert traffic to open ones.

“The City has spent years and thousands of dollars of taxpayer money measuring the effect of partial street closures in Silver Bluff,” lawyer Raul Tano, who lives in the neighborhood, wrote to Suarez and other city leaders in 2019. “These efforts have led to one inescapable conclusion – partial street closures are a terrible idea.”

Suarez and Levine Cava in a Silver Bluff clash

City commissioners approved traffic barriers in Silver Bluff in January, setting up the clash between Suarez and Levine Cava.

After years of feuding with the last county mayor, fellow Republican Carlos Gimenez, Suarez has touted his friendly relationship with Levine Cava since the Democrat took office in November.

“There are big issues we have to tackle together,” Suarez said Friday. “These streets shouldn’t inflame things like this.”

He’s been in touch with Levine Cava all week, sending her a video a resident filmed of a cement-mixer truck turning around when it found its path to 17th Avenue blocked by the city barricades. Suarez said he told Levine Cava, a fellow lawyer, to ask a judge to settle the dispute instead of having Miami-Dade try to haul away the city’s barriers.

“They’re stealing our property,” he said. “I told her to get a court order.”

Police to Public Works: Halt

Crews from Miami-Dade’s Department of Transportation and Public Works arrived in Silver Bluff on Friday and lifted the two barriers at 23rd Street onto a pair of county trucks. Then city police arrived, instructing the crew to stop its work, according to onlooker accounts confirmed by a source in the county mayor’s office.

By 5 p.m., the situation was at a standstill. Barriers remained off the Coral Way side streets, and a city police car had taken the place of the 23rd Street barriers impounded by the county. The county source said Miami-Dade was considering asking a judge for an injunction allowing county crews to remove the remaining barriers.

Joe Carollo, the city commissioner who represents that part of Silver Bluff, called the county’s objections “discriminatory” for targeting the neighborhood while accepting road barriers in Coral Gables and other affluent areas. “Why are they taking these unprecedented steps in a small Hispanic neighborhood?” he said. “There’s not a neighborhood in Miami that has suffered from the county and state actions like this one has.”

In a statement, Levine Cava said she was “disappointed that the City left us no choice but to send staff to remove those unauthorized barriers.” There was no mention of what was next for the remaining barriers.

For Shirley Nashiro, the stand-off meant an idyllic suburban scene on Friday afternoon: chatting with neighbors in the middle of 23rd Street. Her daughter rode a bike nearby.

“The only reason we want it is for our kids to walk across the street safely,” she said. Neighbor Rachel Johnson added: “It’s a tiny street. But it’s like crossing 17th Avenue.”

Miami Herald staff writer Joey Flechas contributed to this report.

This story was originally published March 6, 2021 at 6:00 AM.