Miami-Dade Dems Juan Cuba & AccountableMiamiDade.com Petition Drive - Episode 119 - 5/23/2016

Episode 119 of the Only in Miami Show hosted by Grant Stern featured Juan Cuba, Exec. Dir. of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party discussing campaign finance reform, local activist Peter Ehrlich discussing the Lemon City vs. Little Haiti neighborhood designation issue in the City of Miami and Jim Angleton of Aegis FinServ discussing the Brickell Condo glut of 1989. Grant's editorial focused on an extended overview of the Miami real estate market as questions abound over pricing and the inventory of new luxury condominiums being built en masse on Miami-Dade county's east side, many for foreign buyers. The Miami-Dade Democrats and their Executive Director Juan Cuba have been committed to campaign finance reform, and supported County Commissioner Daniella Levine-Cava's recent legislation to impose disclosure requirements on all county elected officials who raise money for PACs. Now he's petitioning to add a countywide ballot initiative with Accountable Miami-Dade (www.accountablemiamidade.com) to create a publicly funded campaign finance system that rewards small donors, and caps the ability of those with county business from contributing to political campaigns. Cuba also highlighted the opportunity the Democratic party has to take back Florida's Senate in a rare all seats election after re-districting in Tallahassee. Cuba is part of Engage Miami and also the founder of the Downtown Dems club. Peter Ehrlich is the strongest supporter of the Lemon City neighborhood designation in Miami's historic waterfront community between NE 54th Street and 2nd Avenue and the water, including the city's first library and original port of Miami. He opposes the efforts to officially designate much of that area as Little Haiti. The matter will be heard at the City of Miami city hall on Thursday, May 26th as a matter sponsored by District 2 Commissioner Hardemon seeks to create a new neighborhood appellation. Jim Angleton Jr. is in charge of Aegis FinServ and was a banker and real estate finance specialist active during the 1989 Brickell condo glut. He ended the program by sharing some of his direct experiences during a Miami market crash driven by an excess of lending on high rise condos whose foreign buyers weren't interested in the market for the long haul.