Condo speculation in Miami Beach borders on senior abuse | Opinion

Beach overdevelopment

During the last few decades, Miami Beach underwent many changes and became a desirable destination. Younger folks were willing to take a once-unpleasant area and turned it into an attractive place to live.

Many of them, now seniors, are living on fixed incomes and facing some bad choices: either eviction for being unable to meet the high assessments needed to complete state-mandated building work, or depleting their life savings so they don’t lose their homes. Along with that go their years-in-the-making communities, where they feel safe among their friends and neighbors.

The “reward” for their contributions is the intentionally corrosive activity of unscrupulous brokers and developers who see a money-making opportunity. They use fear, harassment, trickery and a whole host of tactics — “just business” — to grab perfectly good structures on extremely valuable coastline.

Some would call this elder abuse.

The mere rumor of a looming bulk buyout devalues property, makes it difficult for a person to get a market rate price on a home, stirs fear and creates distrust among neighbors, to say nothing of the daily interference of seniors’ health issues. Destroying a community through such tactics, without consequence to the perpetrator, is like a speeding car causing an accident, then leaving the scene of the crime. The hit driver gets the ticket while the speeding driver gets away.

Overdevelopment has been voted down more than a few times on the Beach, apparently to no avail.

Shouldn’t there be consequences for those causing “the accident?”

Susan Schein,

Miami Beach

Losing a shirt

The Trump Account, a new Individual Retirement Account (IRA), recently launched. For the parents of a child born on or after Jan. 1, 2025, this is a no-brainer gift. Parents or guardians may open an account at any time by submitting IRS Form 4547. The federal government will then fund it with $1,000. Parents and guardians may also contribute to the account.

The money is invested in an Exchange Trade Fund, which is traded like a stock and administered by an investment company. The fund grows until the child turns 18, who then receives it as a traditional IRA. The account can also be created for older children but without the $1,000 gift.

Putting money that you paid taxes on into an account that your child will later pay taxes on upon withdrawal doesn’t make sense. Much better to place the money into a custodial account or create a Roth IRA for a working teen.

My grandmother would have compared this scheme to taking the buttons off an old shirt then giving the shirt to someone.

Philip Gotthold,

South Miami

Keep waters clean

On a calm day on Biscayne Bay, bubbles break the surface as a manatee’s snout gulps air. Manatees and Floridians alike depend on clean water. For more than 25 years, a rule most people likely never heard of has been quietly protecting it.

The 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule has safeguarded nearly 60 million acres of national public lands by preventing road construction and commercial logging. This protects critical Florida waterways like the St. Johns River, Alexander Springs and Apalachicola Bay. Our state forests shelter 14 at-risk species.

This rule protects clean drinking water, wildlife habitat and the best outdoor recreation opportunities. Florida has 50,000 inventoried roadless acres, but the full 45 million acres across the country also belong to Floridians. These are the wild places we escape to from coast to coast.

Now, an amendment to the Wildfire Prevention Act of 2025 (S.140) would nullify the Roadless Rule entirely, erasing 25 years of widely supported conservation.

For the manatees, clean water and the wild places we all share, call your senators and urge them to vote against S.140.

Kelli Miller,

Miami Beach

Halting slush fund

A federal judge has extended the injunction against President Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund.” Fortunately, there is an easy way to end prosecution of political opponents based on flimsy or no cause. Presidents simply need to stop doing it.

Unfortunately, there is no apparent inclination to end the pernicious practice and the Department of Justice is less capable of resisting presidential orders to continue it, given the mass resignations of DOJ attorneys who refused to be parties to it.

While Congress could help, law and practice in our democratic society already prohibit such “weaponization.” Accordingly, it has been and seemingly will continue to be the role of the judiciary to curtail such abuses of executive power using existing laws. All Americans should support the courts in doing so.

R. Thomas Farrar,

Miami

Will to win

Florida’s Democratic governor’s race got interesting last week and the Miami Herald published an editorial on June 10 championing a “purple ticket” that pollster G. Elliot Morris might call the “Strategist’s Fallacy,” in which pundits and other elites devise high-knowledge and high-political-engagement concepts, then foist them onto the mass public, which is largely low-political-knowledge and low-engagement.

Employing former strategists like Mary Anna Mancuso on the editorial board makes this all but inevitable. As the name suggests, the strategy the Herald champions is a fallacy, based on a worldview disconnected from voters, especially persuadable voters Democrats will need to win in Florida.

Ideological voters are locked in. Persuadable voters don’t care about ideology; they care about politicians willing to fight for people like them. They want officials who talk the talk, like State Rep. Dotie Joseph, who last week announced her intention to run for governor. She’s also willing to walk that walk.

That is the secret sauce that candidates — like U. S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive, and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a moderate — share. A winning Democratic bid in Florida will need fighters, not ideological candidates, purple or otherwise.

Philip Cardella,

Miami

Not a winner

When the Florida Lottery was proposed, state officials said the money would go to the schools.

With all the money the public has spent on lottery tickets over the past 30-plus years, we should have the best schools in the country.

Not so.

Now, Broward County can’t even pay for its teachers’ insurance? How can this be?

Something is wrong.

Susan Manley,

West Kendall

Heaven knows

I was pleased to read the newsworthy June 4 article, “Florida approves $15 million for security at Miami Catholic schools” by Miami Herald reporter Lauren Costantino. While unfortunate, our learning institutions have reason to benefit by security measures, in light of recent concerns for violence.

I was also impressed by the excellent op-ed column, “Don’t let fear take away pride during Jewish American Heritage Month,” by Brian Siegal, director of the Miami-Broward American Jewish Committee, in honor of American Jewish Heritage Month. He highlighted public awareness of growing antisemitism not only in South Florida, but also nationwide.

Though Jewish learning and religious institutions have been self-funded for many years, it is comforting that the state also funded $15 million on behalf of Jewish synagogues and schools to help offset growing security expenses.

In the face of continued proliferation of religious persecution in our nation, it is reassuring to know that our state has the backs of our communities’ religious groups. Furthermore, it is nice to see that a balancing of religious convictions with civil rights in America continues to be an inalienable right in our society.

H. Allen Benowitz,

Miami