Remarks by Joseph Magazine
62 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 3
- Play at 1:17:01
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And this is something that my intention is to help with the beautification and enhancing the aesthetic beauty of our city. Right now, well, any time in a city, you may have various plots of land that have projects that are coming further down in the future. And Debbie, correct me if I'm wrong now, there's a lot of nuance to this, but essentially if there is a pending project and there's no building permanent place, what is required right now is we have the chain link mesh fence. And there's a reason for that. You want to see visibility. You don't want this opaque…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 1:40:28
“Commissioner Magazine. Are there covenants or deeds on this that mandate the type of housing we need to provide here?”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 1:40:58
“Walk me through that. Why are these covenants? Did we... Do we get tax breaks on this?”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 1:41:43
“So let me talk about how I view this in general. And I should have paid more attention to this that I didn't appreciate some of these details. In an area like this, We are facing a housing affordability crisis across the board at every income level. In particular, our working class. It's just an article, Miami became more expensive than New York. We are facing this across the board and this is one of our working neighborhoods where families that have two parents or single moms living with daughters trying to make ends meet tend to live in general for this program. If this housing, I don't…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 1:42:48
“It would revert to market rate housing, but that market rate housing would house working class families, single moms with children, people trying to get by in our city where that housing is needed most. So now I'm trying to sit here and recollect where I'm saying, well, that housing actually is being taken away from them and we're paying to then move homeless people into it. How do I go and tell the working mother at my daughter's school, no, I'm sorry, you can't live here. You don't have the ability to rent here. The guy that just moved here from San Francisco and is homeless on our street,…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 1:43:52
“Very easy question. Is this a program where you take somebody from the street and put them right into this housing?”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 1:44:08
“So, yes. That is insane. Okay, that we're putting people from the streets right into the middle of a working class neighborhood. How close is that to our community centers? And not only that, we're paying to do it. We are paying to do that and we are paying to take that housing offline in a working class neighborhood away from single mothers trying to send their children to one of the best schools in South Florida working two, three jobs so they can give their children a more dignified living than what they may have had. We're taking that housing away from them and we're paying to take…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 1:45:56
“Is Flamingo Park not completely filled with the same exact type of market rate housing where single mothers are raising their children? Of course it is. Okay. Of course it is. No, I'm sorry. No, there's affordable housing for various AMIs. I'm sorry, hold on. So you're telling me the overwhelming majority of Flamingo Park is not market rate housing that organically serves our working class. In fact, I'm sitting next to one. right, that lives in Flamingo Park that was able to be a proud single mother giving her children a dignified living in the same exact neighborhood across the street. So,…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 2:21:09
“Other kosher caterers that have worked with us in the last few years as well, so it's completely open. It's not exclusive to Danziger.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 2:32:04
“OK. I'll be supportive, especially with that amendment. Can't let a good dad joke go unwasted. I'll have a short leash with this. If there's any issues here, I would ask to revisit it. In particular, kidding aside, the issues that Brian laid out, I think he laid it out pretty eloquently, where we don't want this to signal that Rottweilers and Pitbulls are somehow allowed off their leash and just to be roaming free. This is to accommodate this, let's call it grace period, if you will. So with that, I'll be fine supporting this.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 2:52:09
“Our administration, you have jumped through hoops that we've put you through over the past several years. Thank you to the Commission for being cost-conscious, but also realizing how critical it is that we move forward with some of these infrastructure and resiliency challenges. Because of how important and nuanced these discussions have been, evidenced by just the back and forth that we heard there. We've all become so detail-oriented. I think what we can also do is take a step back and make this even more simple. And I actually apologize for not kind of seeing this earlier and hoping steer…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:00:33
“I'm sorry, Commissioner Buck. I wasn't proposing to compress that into an accelerated, I wasn't proposing to compress it into a more accelerated timeframe than what you had proposed. The exact funding mechanism that you have that exists in the hybrid method for the utility rates, we do that, but we don't move forward with the geobond portion, right? So we're borrowing less. We would have to essentially reconfigure what constituted that utility rate portion of the revenue bond, right? But we're essentially borrowing less, and yes, you're absolutely right, Commissioner Bach, we're just…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:10:42
“Only if you borrow the same amount. You're answering Commissioner Fernandez's point as if we're borrowing the same amount.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:11:06
“And I don't mean to interject. I'm trying to understand the concept. You answered it as if we borrow the same amount across the board. I'm not proposing that. When you said people on the lower income threshold would be more impacted by what I'm proposing, that's not correct because we're borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars less under my proposal.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:13:03
“John, what I've suggested is, is borrowing the same exact amount in the utility, via utility rates, under this proposal as your hybrid proposal. The same exact amount, right? So there's no shifting, oh, well, okay, it's more for people, the same exact, mechanism that you're proposing in your hybrid. See, let's do that and we move forward with it. Let me ask you a question. What happens to the lower income people if in November homestead exemption is taken away, I'm sorry, increased and then over the years It's greatly expanded. That means the people whose homes are at $5, $10, $25 million…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:14:40
“Geo bonds are funded via property taxes, correct? Correct. I'm asking a question, I know the answer. If in November, a large portion of the people that are paying property taxes are removed from having to pay them, by definition, then what is that going to do? The people that aren't part of that homestead exemption. And over the years, it's going to grow and grow and grow. That is the plan here. So the people whose homes are worth $10, $20, $30, $50 million in Miami Beach, are removed from having to pay into the GEO bond debt service.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:18:35
“So the, sorry, the lower income homeowners would get exempt. However, 66% of our city, the residents are renters. They get no exemptions and they are the ones left holding the bag for where this shifts to. If you lose income, it has to be borne by somebody. It's not going to say don't pay your debt service. It's going to be borne by the people that aren't exempt from this. I'll just reiterate very simplistically what I am proposing is I can in good faith vote for and I don't lament people that are it is just my difference in opinion I think it's very important we move forward with water…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:20:55
“I know, but just first phase three and four. Just talk to me. I don't even want to say off record. We're on record, but just not with the engineering stuff, just layman's terms.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:21:33
“But not in a compressed borrowing window. It's not even a five-year, right? But the projects that are not as mission critical, that is how we achieve affordability. is we prioritize right now for the next couple of years, and we revisit in a few years if we come back and these affordability challenges have lessened. Then we look to a further borrowing program. We're not getting rid of these programs. We are just saying for the ones that can get completed in this shorter, let's call it five to seven year window, those are the ones that we borrow for right now. I don't have, I don't think it is…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:24:59
“We already have a free proxy because in your hybrid method, you're already proposing that. So in a large way, you've already mapped that out.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:25:32
“Nobody's been able to explain to me why the different types of projects would cost different. I think Jason is the one to say. To any material.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:26:32
“And John, also what it does is it removes any of the ballot risk and if the voters vote no, what are we going to do? Come back and say, oh, just kidding. I know we need to move forward with these things. So let's do it anyway. As our Public Works director, right we have this 10-year 700 million dollar project if i would say to you john right now we've been talking about this since years and years before you even came into the city with by october on second reading we can get you 450 million dollars of projects to go do this 10-year plan Would you not take that and run to the bank with it? Not…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:45:32
“Nobody said that. We are the commissioners. We get to decide. If we would say we can borrow up to $450 million, guess who the legislators are? For better or for worse.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:45:54
“Well, given that First Street Phase 3 and 4 won't start for 10 years, I think we could talk about borrowing for that 10 years. some years down the road. I would be perfectly comfortable having that conversation.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 3:57:40
“Can I just, and maybe we just have a casual conversation, people jump in here as they want. Here's my issue with this, right? I mean, I'm just following along, and again, this isn't knocking anybody, but the West Avenue thing”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026