‘You would not dare.’ Heated fight over water bills ends with Miami Gardens win

A long-running fight over water bills led to a feisty meeting at the Miami-Dade County Commission on Thursday and a vote that could force changes in a fee that out-of-town customers pay to use North Miami Beach’s water system.

The legislation that was passed doesn’t outlaw the 25% surcharge North Miami Beach adds to water bills for its 130,000 customers who don’t live in the city. That’s been the demand of Miami Gardens, one of several cities where residents rely on North Miami Beach for water and sewer service.

But the new county legislation does require North Miami Beach to either spend all of the surcharge revenue on its water system or sign surcharge agreements with the other cities that rely on North Miami Beach for water service.

That could be daunting in the short-term because North Miami Beach relies on the water surcharge for about $10 million a year of revenue in its general budget. To avoid a drastic change in city finances, North Miami Beach would need to negotiate an agreement with Miami Gardens, giving Miami Gardens leverage in working out a surcharge deal if there is no court challenge of the new county legislation.

While the debate officially centered on municipal water rates, it was one of the most pitched political fights of the year in Miami-Dade County government.

It started in Tallahassee: In July, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed state legislation to ban the water-fee surcharges in Miami Gardens — a bill that North Miami Beach opposed and a county commissioner, Oliver Gilbert, fought to get passed.

After the veto, Gilbert, a former Miami Gardens mayor who now represents the city on the County Commission, briefly tried to fire county lobbyist Ron Book for alleged meddling on behalf of North Miami Beach, whom Book also represents. Book said he wasn’t involved in the water-bill legislation.

Gilbert then shifted his efforts to pressuring North Miami Beach with county legislation that would make it harder for North Miami Beach to continue charging the surcharge without striking a separate Miami Gardens deal or undergoing big budget changes. To drum up support for his legislation, Gilbert used his district office’s budget to send mail to residents in the North Miami Beach area urging them to back his proposed changes.

County Commissioner Marleine Bastien, who represents North Miami Beach and opposed Gilbert’s legislation, held up the mailers during the meeting and condemned them as improper.

“You would not dare do this in any other district,” Bastien said to Gilbert. Later, Gilbert responded that the issue was important enough to justify the mailers: “I dare to do a lot of things right now.”

After the meeting, North Miami Beach Mayor Michael Joseph said his city of fewer than 50,000 people needs the current surcharge revenue to sustain a water system that stretches beyond its municipal boundaries to Miami Gardens and parts of other cities, including Aventura and Sunny Isles Beach. He also described the legislation as intruding on the kind of water-regulation rules that should be settled statewide.

“We think it’s a state issue,” Joseph said. “It’s not fair.”