The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach

PREFACE TO THE ACQUATIC FUTURE OF MIAMI BEACH Drew Chesler submitted to the Miami Mirror a copy of a long open letter of complaint last May, addressed to the political elite of the City of Miami Beach, about the lack of a comprehensive stormwater program for the city due to the stereotypical carelessness and neglect of city officials. I forwarded it to the SunPost Weekly, where it was published in its entirety. As a result, steps were immediately taken to complete a final draft of a plan and submit it to the commission. As Mr. Chesler had urged, the plan now accounts for rises in sea level, making the city a leader in including that factor. A workshop to promote the plan was held by the city in a training room on 17 August. That was a good start yet was in several ways inadequate to the purpose of educating people who live by and in the ocean, in a place susceptible to tropical storms and hurricanes, yet know next to nothing about the nature of their geophysical circumstances. In fact, many of us cannot even swim. Given the complexity of the subject matter, which is in a way incomprehensible or chaotic, it is unfair to blame those who are experts on such matters for our failure in comprehension. It is easier to gloss over the subject with something known and take ones chances, gambling that the worst will not happen, rather than to lift up the cornerstone of our temple and delve into the unknown. But still the truth must be told in such a way that we can better understand what we are betting on. We

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The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach shall take another stab at that later, and try to boil things down a put them in a nutshell. Mr. Cheslers prolix letter was read in its entirety by only a few people, particularly engineers and public works personnel. Despite the criticism, they must have been delighted by the newspaper space devoted to their arcane technical subject. But I do not believe the city manager and commissioners dwelled on the letter at its great length, because to do so would have been too painful. After I decided to edit the letter and run the edited version as a Miami Mirror exclusive, I realized that there would not be much left of it if I boiled down Mr. Cheslers complaints about bad management to one paragraph, confining the rest of his remarks to the technical details of the stormwater issue. It so happened that I had good cause to sympathize with his pain over the conduct of our public officials. I perceived prophesy in his letter, so I kept most of his letter intact and simply reorganized the complaint into what I believed to be a more organic or less convulsive form. Mr. Cheslers complaint about flooding is archetypical inasmuch as it is a plea to what the ancients perceived to be the lesser gods, the local gods of a city. We cry because we feel abandoned; we want the local gods to pick us up and hold us, and we want them to let us participate, to do some important things ourselves. The greatest god was all too great and remote from human affairs to be beseeched except in the direst of circumstances. Otherwise, the supreme being was otios deus, the useless god, a being not to be mentioned by name. When we carefully examine, for example, what the Hebrews were pleading for, we see that it was justice, that justice be done in the end, that there be a final accounting and reconciliation, so that the Earth be washed clean of those who disobeyed the heavenly mandate and could not be reformed in advance of the apocalypse. Now that should be remembered, so I have repeated almost every word of this instance of the grand complaint for those who have the attention span to bear them, to keep them in mind so that we may be spared from the social calamities that precedes The Flood. David Arthur Walters Miami Beach 17 September 2012

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The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach

I shall reveal to you, Gilgamesh, a thing that is hidden, a secret of the gods I shall tell you, about a city that you surely know, situated on the banks of the Euphrates. That city was very old, and there were gods inside it. The hearts of the great gods moved them to inflict the flood. Epic of Gilgamesh

OPEN LETTER ON THE ACQUATIC FUTURE OF THE CITY OF MIAMI BEACH

May 30, 2012 Dear Distinguished City of Miami Beach City Manager, Mayor and Commissioners: This is my eighth attempt to get comprehensive action from you to minimize our communitys risk from flooding. Prior to being a Miami Beach business man, I spent ten years working in flood control on behalf of federal, state, city, municipal, and the largest of private land owners in Florida. In 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010, my business and property at Golds Gym on 14th and West and 14th and Alton Page 3 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach were flooded, impacting thousands of members, all my employees, and costing several million dollars to me and my companies alone, finally forcing me out of business in South Beach. My losses were almost entirely caused by the city governments neglectful leadership. My health club and wellness center and studios had out-survived the competition here on South Beach because I am a local, a son of this City, and I refused to give up on the City for a decade, and have had the resources to keep piling it on and optimism that eventually you would actually do something substantive to change the lack of flood control thats been in place. However, the environment for business at City of Miami Beach is deplorable. The method from which the City operates and interfaces with business is shockingly bad, and you should know this. Unless the City really invests in the local business community, you will always have nothing but a tourist trap, Art Basel and Urban Weekend and eventually one thats under water in more ways than one.

The local businesses that flank our amazing location here in South Beach have been wiped out several times over during the last nine years, often by the scorched earth policies and practices of this City and its lack of understanding real businesses and failure to help local businesses succeed. The last two flood events cost this city perhaps more than a billion when adding up business interruption, most of which is uninsurable losses. No, the billion dollars or so of flood damage that the community has suffered is not covered by insurance due to this Citys risk factors, reputation, and the fact that it is operating without a validated and current comprehensive master storm water management plan for so long. My own businesses have been destroyed by your neglect, not from the bad economy, that it would survive, but you the City of Miami Beach have had fifteen years to do something about it and you have not. I Page 4 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach equate your operating track record to a drunk driver who excuses himself, saying he was in control when he mowed down twelve people on the sidewalk, but they were all wearing dark clothing. In the last seven years in particular, anyone who has been in power this long needs to look at themselves in the mirror and ask yourself, how many art sculptures and how many barf canvases and how many waterfront developer loop holes have clouded your judgement.

Most business owners that lease or rent in Miami Beach do not even report the damages because they are dealing with landlords and complexities that the City needs to better understand to protect its environment. Food contamination was rampant and mold everywhere in restaurants post flood events. Mold is not covered as moisture must be dried up professionally and instantly, spores must be treated and air tested and treated. Flood coverage maxes out at $500,000 within the National Flood Program, of which Miami Beach is violating and only covers a portion of listed depreciated property. If the insurance companies knew the truth about City of Miami Beach, we would be blacklisted.

I owned Golds Gym South Beach for many years, having bailed out the previous gym from ruin and built up the name and clientele over Page 5 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach more than nine years. I also put together a real estate company to buy the accompanying properties and then South Beach Active etc. We have served this community for nearly a decade, as of this writingproviding health, wellness, and fitness services to thousands of residents and guests. We received on average twentythousand visitors from around the world per year on top of that to work out at the famous South Beach gym. This City is home to me and my family for four generations. My family was here before World War II, first as vacationers, then as part time and for three generations we have been full time residents of Miami Beach. Now I have written you on seven previous occasions about the lack of proper planning and flood control measures with no answers coming from any of you other than Commissioner Libbin. Every City in the United States must have a comprehensive storm water Master Plan in place and updated no less than every five years. I have gone to City Hall and made attempts to get each of your attention respectively on behalf of my companies, my employees, my neighbors and the residents and business owners here in Miami Beach. I have stood in front of you and spoken in public forum at City Hall within twenty feet of this Commission and I have been many times shuffled aside as though the matter were beneath you distinguished politicians, managers and former executive. I can recall being given sixty seconds to speak once in front of this commission, and then subsequently onehalf hour was spent by the distinguished panel at City of Miami Beach on whether or not a man in very short shorts could come near the tennis courts, and another twenty minutes on whether or not the tennis courts should be clay or hard, and yet another allotment of time for lobbyists and lawyers to share why so many bushes and trees should be allowed for landscaping. Those issues were presumably more important to the Commissioners, Mayor and City Manager than the single largest issue that this City faces. The City of Miami Beach is destined to, in its current form, be entirely below water, the next New Orleans only the financial impact here will be on a magnitude that is far greater. Your priorities need to change rapidly. Miami Beach is way behind schedule on a myriad of planning and implementation projects that without my pushing hard and constantly would never have even gotten off first base. The next pending flood disaster, one of many, is capable of occurring any time now, the day of this happening could be 2012 or even 2013 or both but its coming and its likely to occur in June! I am not a soothsayer nor do I purport to have a crystal ball. I am merely Page 6 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach someone who understands the science behind this. basis for understanding this. Science is the

After asking many questions about flood control, I spent much time looking for your plans, only to find that you have none, and that you are flying blind. This was one of many cover ups at the City of Miami Beach that has been and continues to be costly beyond comprehension. The cover up mentality is one of culture that needs to change to one of transparency at the department head level. You and the department heads need to analyze and fix that mentality. It takes much more than talking to do these sorts of things. After a few dozen attempts and many emails later, the Mayor finally met with me twice, and she did make an attempt subsequently to direct me to City Manager Jorge Gonzalez where it died on the vine several times. More and more attempts were made via the Mayors office and routed through the City Manager and even the Chief Engineer but that is just another aspect of an even greater problem which is how you conduct City business in this fair City. I was ultimately sloughed off onto the Citys chief engineer at the time, He is now the head of capital improvements, and is no longer the Citys in-house engineer. He was able to understand the issues quite well, and he kept advising that he ultimately reports to the City Manager. At all turns, the road lead to a brick wall. By the way, who is the chief engineer now? Do we even have one? Where did you recruit him from? Who recruited him? The City has a very long standing habit of promoting from within rather than improving the gene pool, upgrading it constantly with the best people for the job. This is a practice doomed to failure at all levels.

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The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach Our storm water infrastructure pre dates World War II in many areas, and it is obstructed, corroded, disconnected, in some instances actually filled in with concrete. The outfall structures are simply too low, impaired, disconnected, filled in sometimes, and poorly inventoried if cataloged at all. Even your own team does not know how many and where and what condition they are in. Real local issues do not seem to be of importance here. It took me years just to get truthful information from this City and so much effort just to get the City of Miami Beach to admit that it did not know what it was doing with regard to operating without an updated plan. Our Citys leaders have to care; they must dispense with the garbage and reprioritize. It doesnt matter if the park benches are pink or yellow, but how do they function and look below water or with mold and spores infesting huge chunks of the City. Most of the time, following flood events and upon my calling a few dozen times, the Senior City people would refer me to the public works department and the City would send a man in rubber boots to my site who didnt know what an outfall structure or culvert or weir is. That is how important we were to the City. The discharge points along Biscayne Bay were surveyed by me and others because the City alone could not be trusted and they were in horrific condition underscoring the added neglect this City has overlooked. Even the things within your control were in bad shape, and were actually the source of salt water intrusion entering the streets when the tide is high. No storm is needed to flood and fresh water is displaced by the density of salt water profoundly. Now add that to a storm. Now add that to a full moon, and now add that to an Equinox. This city has an enormous educational problem. Cover ups continue right and left. Even the public works department seemed to not understand why they have an impossible job. You need to have people who thrive on solving problems; you need problem solvers much like a Basketball team needs shot blockers. Without them, there is no chance for victory. I finally ratcheted my way up to the mayor and met the chief engineer and department head. It was made obvious that the City has had no plan for more than a decade now, and that you, the citys leaders, have exposed us to risk too long. In fact, you have put businesses and citizens at risk. To add to the risk, your own propaganda machine Page 8 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach raves about how residents are happy and how the City has an A on its report card. Indeed, most of the people dont really know about this scandalous situation entirely because of the propaganda put out by the Citys unabashed publishing machine about how wonderful everything is and the wrongful bond ratings that are published based upon this being a land mass that is operating within Federal and State guidelines and it is not. Some of you are in denial. You have permanently destroyed businesses and injured locals in particular and you need to know this. You are running a coastal barrier Island with water on all sides of it, with an 80-100 year old infrastructure, and you have permitted large scale vertical construction along the coastline in the recent decade without adding the requisite below-ground and above-ground drainage and filtration systems needed to divert, hold, process and discharge storm water. Massive pump stations, for example, are needed. Rather than build tennis courts and christen art objects, the City needs to excavate retention ponds and build pod based storage capacity in very creative ways, add pump stations in key locations, drill deep water injection wells, and take a long hard look at the draft of the stormwater master plan that has been oxidizing while distinguished City leaders bob and weave around the latest news scandals. The City ought to seriously consider outsourcing the maintenance and monitoring of all wells and all storm water retention areas and all spillways and outfalls and weirs within City limits with no exceptions, including but not limited to anything that impedes flow or enables it. You also need a chief engineer and a new outside engineering firm. CDM has been with you for too long and they have not stepped up properly nor put this in perspective. They are the same group that ended the communication loop with me just prior to the chief engineer stepping down. Jorge Gonzalez and the City of Miami Beach insiders ranked CDM the highest, but I ranked them third best in my evaluation. You need the best coastal engineers with a global perspective of sea rise and large scale capabilities, and you need bonded construction projects broken down in phases with West Avenue as your first one. The West side of South Beach is on lower ground and is the recipient of all the wrongful discharge and runoff from the entire Page 9 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach eastern shore, something of a toilet for a deluge of storm water and contaminants. CDM was supposed to recommend tax-profiling based upon the discharge origin sites and impacts. Did they do this yet? When the City approves construction, it must know how the new project is going to retain storm water, how it will be diverted, treated and discharged, and to what level of storms will their capacity service. During all-out emergency conditions, the processing of water gives way to human life, safety and property discharge. If the situation cannot be augmented and managed by the City, you need to declare a state of disaster and obtain help and further contribute to helping this community, not destroying it! The process of how you do bids at City of Miami Beach is awful. So much time has been wasted. This issue has taken a back seat for way too long. The non response and/or lack of follow up from the top people who are supposed to be leaders of Miami Beach was a real signal to me about where I wish not to spend my future and any resources that are related to me in any way, shape or form. I had a vision of bringing a super high tech software company here and obtaining the support of you to understand that real jobs have to have real income and really move this place to another level, but those plans are gone forever. It would take multiple miracles to make this materialize because of how backwards this leadership team has allowed the City to go. My meetings with City officials have yielded nothing but lip service and countless dropped balls. For example, Commissioner Libbin, who was handling the neighborhood committee, did not get the BMPs pushed through. Declaration of a disaster must be far more transparent than its been and no one needs to hide the fact that major environmental and financial damage will inevitably occur on these disasters. Disasters need to be classified by how impactful they are and where and assessments made rapidly with follow up assessments documented. You must be made responsible for having a program thats sensitive to this concept that understands the trigger points and events that kick the BMPs into gear. Mayor Bower and Commissioner Libbin and I had an extensive meeting on the more substantive issue of post flooding disaster recovery and emergency response, covering proposed BMPs which I put in writing for you to get accomplished and approved, with regard to the parking, building, code enforcement, fire and police departmentsgun-toting police officers violated my property and employees on Page 10 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach countless occasions in scenes that looked like they thought they were in Miami Vice. But then the ball was dropped. Each of the departments aforementioned has been downright abusive particularly within days or weeks or months following a flood. The City has had the audacity to charge for the delivery of water to my business after its been choked by the Citys own inept, antiquated, backwards sewage and drainage system! I have tried to get your departments to help to no avail. I have even paid for plans to allow us to elevate the floor levels, re construct areas of the property with your help only to be met with cost after cost and fine after fine, parking violations for my contractors and employees within one day after epic flooding, and even had the fire department charge us $50,000 to clean up areas that the Citys negligence caused in the first place and threaten to close us down. Take signage, for instance: signage is essential to any business and the process of obtaining permissible signage is absurd here. Yet you permit others to violate the signage ordinances for years on end. A-frames are not allowed; the list goes on and on; yet then, when the City is culpable and negligent in its practices, such as storm water and flooding, it not only doesnt assist, it penalizes that business in every way shape or form with a vengeance. The only Commissioner who bothered to respond to me and my companies significant impacts and issues with this Citys abusive power structure, willful neglect and astonishing arrogance, has been Mr. Libbin. While Madam Mayor did meet with me twice and assign me to a committee with staff members where I was a minority participant, the people who work within the City at senior levels have done a horrible job and not only not followed through but have dropped the ball entirely! Madame Mayor, the subcommittee efforts ultimately failed because the head of that subcommittee left his post and the successful contractor CDM abandoned the feedback loop to me entirely and have not delivered the requisite plan that was to be in place by November 2011 and submitted for approval in December 2011 to the Commission, with Q1 2012 construction in West Avenue and Flamingo Park areas, that have been devastated by the last three floods. What are we talking about? There is no plan in place still! The infrastructure of this City has been allowed to erode, become disconnected and is ancient by all accounts and is not following a revised plan at all. The new plan is in draft form only! You are behind the 8-ball again and again. This would be like flying a commercial Page 11 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach airline jet with passengers and not having a maintenance checklist and no modern mechanic plan in place for the moving parts. You are putting this City and its residents in harms way. In fact, there is no real sense of private/public community partnership in this town. The culture must be changed if you want Miami Beach to be a First World City. You must seek people who are interested in helping, bring in outside blood and you must change how things are done at City level. As it is, officials leave the City with zero transition to the new replacements, or constructive concepts are not passed on: they become abandoned entirely, dusted under the carpet. The debt this City owes to countless businesses and residences is enormous. The City of Miami Beach is absolutely culpable for its neglect and needs to make good on its promises. Jerry, you had the opportunity to make a difference, but you did not follow through to make things happen at Neighborhood. Madam Mayor, you did too but you did not follow through after I pleaded with you to make the master plan happen, get these projects in the ground and put this issue on a pedestal and be very clear about its macro importance. This is much more important than tennis courts, ribbon cuttings and even more important than the Convention Center! It actually pales in comparison, if you understand the scope of this. Just think about it if you can bear to do so: You have a public works department lacking the tools to perform even a low level viable job. Fred Beckmans hands are tied. Where is your city engineer? Who is he? When was the last time that the commissioners and city manager were updated by your city engineer relative to the lack of a plan and lack of a comprehensive program? Did anyone other than I bring this to your attention and why is this not so important to you? I personally volunteered my time to this City to help only to be shot down by the horrific politics of the system you have in place now, just horrible and embarrassing. Please understand the consequences of your negligence and consider the devastating impact it will have if it continues. Mind you that this is a coastal barrier island subject to flooding risks. Flooding is the most costly and profound force on this planet. The ocean and Biscayne Bay are connected and the sea level is rising over time. The rise is scientifically measured and proven; it is not a theory. And the capacity of the bay itself is diminishing. Yet the City of Miami Beach has not had a comprehensive master stormwater Page 12 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach management plan in place since 1997. That is unlawful, shameful, that is wrong, that is irresponsible. This is also a misrepresentation to many agencies and insurance providers about the state of Miami Beach. You have been flying blind and are in no position to slough this off by telling residents it is all due to the gravitational relationships of the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon that result in an exceptionally high tide on rare occasions, something which is too costly to protect against. That is why I implored the erstwhile chief engineer and mayor to get the plan updated, to get the newest plan, which is still just a draft as I write this, into implementation phases. If you do not do this, Miami Beach will be the worst economic disaster in the nations history.

Local residents and business owners have been sinking or have already sunk. We have been flooded out of our location five of the last eight years. You know that this is not from heavy rains alone. Heavy rains have been here forever and are about to come again! Each of you is too intelligent to accept the bunk and hogwash about ten-year and twenty-five year and even fifty-year storms. When fourteen-thousand cubic feet of water enters a commercial or residential property and separately floods without any rain, you must understand about sea level rise and the topography of Miami Beach and the lack of below and above ground infrastructure. Without understanding the problems you face, you cannot engineer solutions. Without understanding who your chief of staffs are and who is missing in action, you cannot execute on any plans ever. I have Page 13 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach waited for you to respond too many times as this Cities leaders, only to be let down by what really must be apathy. I have thrown more than 10 million hard earned dollars at this Citys local community in the last 5 years alone all of which has been dissolved because City of Miami Beach has not done its job! For 4 generations we have believed in the Citys potential, and now I have stopped believing. You have lost one of this Citys sons. You have also neglected this City in a big way, each of you. It is high time for all of you to fully understand the gravity of the fact that not everyone in Miami Beach is wealthy and part of the Jet Set. Not everyone here has second or third homes in Aspen and New York City. Some people work for a living right here in Miami Beach and many are struggling in Miami Beach on many levels. The City is not only a hindrance but I would say the greatest harmful force in their potential success. You ought to swallow this for now and truly understand it. It is time for you to stand at attention and work for the community on real local issues that affect the short and long haul both, with long range vision goggles on. Unless theres sustainable environment and business here, Miami Beach will simply be a seasonal sandbox for boozers, urban warriors, transients and money laundering, flight capital and an occasional high brow art show until it is submerged, then all of that will just find another beach town.

Miami Beach is where my heart has always been. I made it my home; I invested my money, my time and my resources in this City. I got married in South Beach, brought many investors, friends, and family here too over the years. For more than 65 years, my family has done the same. I was proud to be from Miami Beach. You, as this Citys leaders should know that people like me who contribute, employ people with productive and clean jobs and who care about the Page 14 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach community are no longer proud to be part of Miami Beach. You as elected Commissioners and Mayor and Senior Manager have damaged this town, left it in a ruinous state, and you have lost one of this Citys long term sons entirely in the process. The latest grotesque news about the FBI arrests of city enforcement employees is of little surprise to me, as a long time resident and long time business owner in Miami Beach, someone who has seen firsthand the inner workings of Government in action over the last twenty years, especially the inaction that led to the devastation of my businesses and property. I am rather in awe that it has taken this long and it has taken the FBI to expose just the tip of the proverbial iceberg emerging from the slough of our citys government. There are many more problems that have not been exposed fully. It is sickening to me that it has taken the FBI to flush out and force some modicum of desire to change with the extortionists and drug infested sleaze that this city has allowed to work for it under Jorge Gonzalez and on your watch. You need to change how you are operating lest this same thing recurs. There is a lot of work to do here in Miami Beach to clean up years of city-level wrongdoing and neglect. After the recent scandals and FBI stings, the forced resignation of Mr. Gonzalez, and the picketing at city hall, it dawned on me that any city that paints a picture of how wonderful everything is without a deeper self-critique, will always be far more vulnerable to the scrutiny of analysis and real world lens of perspective. It is much better to be more transparent at the leadership level and share the problems and the proposed solutions and put forth time tables for resolution; it is essential to hold your team accountable including the persons in charge of the process itself. I have toiled for ten years and catered to this community in many ways, helping countless residents move out of the alcoholic night club scene and into the health and fitness and nutrition scene, overcome cancer and a whole lot more. We would not hire anyone who worked in night clubs and who went for the easy quick cash, we en-cultured our people with a manifesto of values seemingly out of place here in South Beach. I love this city and think it has wonderful potential, and I see all of that potential being buried by the state of affairs that you have permitted it to deteriorate to. The recently exposed problems of graft, shakedowns and local governmental abuse at many levels are not new current events, it has been going on for a decade and it is very deep. Page 15 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach As a business owner, former land owner and as someone who has made attempts at interfacing extensively with City of Miami Beach, I am sick of dealing with corrupt people and the burdensome red tape here in Miami Beach and I am disgusted by the fake surprise that I see expressed by some officials now. Who in this group didnt know that really bad stuff is going on inside the ranks of City of Miami Beach at a variety of levels and for a protracted period of time? You would have to be blind not to know, so do not act surprised, be agents of profound change. Swapping out the city manager alone is not a solution. When alluding to wide scale corruption, I am referring to the people and system that work for you and ought to be directed by you profoundly and you should be aware of what goes on here in our wonderful playground called Miami Beach, at the ground level. Frankly, it has always been the senior people who are responsible for the ground level behavior so pick them wisely and limit their tenure. You should set a good example, but I am here to tell you that you have not. It is shameful what you have and have not done. You have each failed miserably in demonstrating that you care, let alone that you are and will be proactive and partner with business and the community in real things, not in pie in the sky projects and not simply on caviar eating art shows. I implore you to understand this gigantic issue. It is far more important than me, my companies, and the fact that I, along with my entire team of people, employees, members, investors, and more have lost faith in you entirely! There is not just one man to blame! I have no love lost for Mr. Gonzalez because he abused me and my companies and the Citizens and residents. But Gonzalez alone should not be blame. It is disappointing that, although you now have taken barely two months to retire Gonzalez, you did not do that years ago, and also change the structure then to empower the mayor to really take over many more responsibilities, as it is the mayor who reports to the people. How could you permit a city manager to be a dictator, especially given our local Cuban American populations experience with Fidel Castro? Yes, the Commissioners have permitted a dictatorship, much to the shame of all of you regardless of your ethnic backgrounds! And now the city manager will be lucky to just step down and move on. He has lost his chance to really make the biggest positive impact too. You Page 16 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach could have spared him from this disgrace by providing him with the supervision he needed long ago. The fact that you did not take massive action, have multiple meetings with me, did not bother to come to my place of business and the fact that you did not hold CDM accountable to all parties and find a proper replacement chief engineer is awful. The fact that no plan is in place and no construction that you have been doing follows any approved plan, is just horrible. Your aides were simply unresponsive to my emails and calls. You should be ashamed, for it appears that a city such as Miami Beach will only respond to law suits or fat cat developers and the FBI. Do you not know that what you have done and not done is just wrong, and that, in some ways, you are responsible for allowing the Gonzalez administration to run amuck? You have each failed miserably in demonstrating that you care, let alone that you are and will be proactive and partner with business and the community in real things, not in pie in the sky projects and not simply on caviar eating art shows. The status quo is for you to be unresponsive; it is the easy way out. You cannot just blame Mr. Gonzalez alone for the horrific state of affairs thats been going on right beneath your noses for more than a decade. No, you need to start taking full responsibility and understand this. There are much larger issues but structure and governance are where you ought to start. You cannot rush to behind closed doors to repeat the same mistakes, by simply appointing a new City Manager. This is a classic text book mistake. It is time to roll up your sleeves and make change really meaningful, or step aside for others that will. That will not be fun work, theres no room for grandstanding, just for hard and intelligent work. Between tattoo parlors and South Beach Tow, Magic City, Scarface and the real wild west style shootings, the latest City of Miami Beach FBI stings and government scandal and all the things yet unreported, this Citys stock is operating on hot air, smoke and mirrors. Whats more powerful than this, is simply knowing how to do the right thing and when to stand up for whats right. For you, its too long and too late as you have missed the boat several times over and for some you simply didnt follow through. For me and my team, Miami Beach is no longer a place I can and will hold my head up high and call home or even put my office. I am embarrassed for you and no longer proud to say, Im from Miami Beach! You have lost me, my businesses, my energy and any inertia and value that is associated with me. I hope Page 17 of 18

The Aquatic Future of the City of Miami Beach you learn something from this it has no purpose other than to let you know what the future holds unless you change its course now. Having an airboat or hovercraft at City Hall might be a wise idea but dont expect taxpayers to fund it. Sending people for recon to Venice Italy might have been a better idea than Switzerland on the taxpayers dime. Healthfully yours, Drew Chesler South Beach Active Note: Drew Chesler was forced to close his Miami Beach business in June 2012 after losing nearly $5 million in the aftermath of flooding.

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