Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

City gives kids a great reason to give thanks November 26, 1986

Now it will be a good Thanksgiving at 1640 S. Bayshore Drive.

Now the kids who live there can stay as long as they need. The Miami City Commission said so Tuesday in an act of decency and wisdom.

The house is owned by CHARLEE, Inc., a nonprofit group that places abused and neglected children in foster home settings. Opened in July 1985, the home on South Bayshore operated successfully and without controversy, until a few neighbors complained this year.

They didn't complain so much about the kids; it was the idea of such a place in their neighborhood. They said it wasn't really a foster home, but a therapeutic facility. They said it was a zoning matter.

Three years ago the city said that CHARLEE houses qualified as foster homes, and should be treated the same way. This year a different zoning official gave a less favorable opinion.

The dispute could have shut down the Bayshore house and three others in the city. Doris Capri, CHARLEE's executive director, said: "The majority of our children do not have healthy homes to return to."

Curiously, the two most prominent opponents of the Bayshore home, lawyer A. J. Barranco and County Judge Murray Klein, did not appear at Tuesday's meeting. City Hall filled with other neighbors who felt strongly both ways. An attorney for CHARLEE got up to talk about definitions. The city zoning man got up to disagree. The commissioners wrangled about concepts like "equitable estoppel."

While all this was going on, the kids were home doing their school-work. The house parents, Mima and Fadi Aftimos, kept it a secret that Tuesday was the big day. They didn't want the children to worry. The children have been worried most of their lives.

Some of them have been beaten and sexually molested by their real parents. The home on Bayshore is the safest they've ever known.

Back at the commission chambers, everybody was agreeing that CHARLEE was a wonderful program, and that the children now living at the Bayshore home are model kids. Even Commissioner J. L. Plummer, who wanted the issue taken to a full-blown public hearing, felt obliged to say: "I gotta tell you, I think the CHARLEE program is doing a terrific job. Let's put that in the record."

And having put that in the record, Plummer then launched into a rather odd and irrelevant inquisition into the finances at 1640 S. Bayshore—how much are the house parents paid ($9,000 each), how much the state pays CHARLEE for each foster child ($53 per day) and so on. This would have been understandable if the city of Miami were paying the bills, but it isn't. The house is owned outright by CHARLEE and every dime of expenses is paid by the state.

The real issue was not zoning, finance, or improper definitions. It was the children—whether or not they belonged.

"These are not juvenile delinquents," said attorney Gary Brooks.

Said one neighbor, "Give us some control, that's all we ask."

Said another: "Are we, the residents of this area, going to add to their neglect and abuse? … Let's do what is right and just."

Another man implied that he saw one of the youngsters jump from the roof into their swimming pool.

"My kids do the same thing," remarked Mayor Xavier Suarez, "and I don't even have a pool."

The house on Bayshore is only a few blocks down the road from City Hall. One of the commissioners, Rosario Kennedy, actually took the time to visit. She talked with the children and their foster parents, and even their teachers in school.

On Tuesday, after listening to nearly two hours of debate over whether the place should be zoned as a foster home or something else, Kennedy finally just said:

"All I saw was a very neat house with two caring parents … All I saw was a house full of caring and love."

The vote to reverse the zoning administrator was 4-1, with Plummer dissenting. Afterward Fadi Aftimos couldn't wait to get home to tell the kids they can stay. No one needs to hear it more.

Politicians waking up to the green vote November 5, 1990

Another election season comes to an end, leaving many voters confused, disappointed, unenlightened, uninspired and depressed.

Deeply depressed. One more day of campaign commercials, and we'll all need a dose of Prozac. Bob Martinez is still rhapsodizing about the electric chair, while Lawton Chiles has enlisted the sheriff of Sumter County—Sumter County!—to tell us crime's a darn big problem.

Is there any hope for Florida?

Maybe a shred. Somehow the citizens have managed to educate office-seekers about some new priorities. For the first time, the issues of conservation and "growth management" have been pushed toward the top of the political agenda. It doesn't mean candidates must listen, but they'd better act like they're listening.