What’s New With This Story:
-The Coast Guard off loaded a huge amount of cocaine at Port Everglades today.
-The cocaine was collected over the course of two months from operations in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
– Key West based Coast Guard cutter Thetis was involved in the operation.
The U.S. Coast Guard brought the spoils of the drug war to South Florida Thursday.
Over 12.5 tons of cocaine, with an estimated street value of $378 million was off loaded at Port Everglades.
According to CBS Miami, the haul was delivered by Coast Guard cutter Escanaba.
The drugs had been collected over a two month period in a series of operations in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
“The crew’s contributions over the past two months directly support our government’s efforts to dismantle smuggling routes used by transnational criminal organizations and interdict drugs at sea bound for the United States,” Cmdr. Michael Turdo told CBS Miami.
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Cover Photo Credit: Craig Stanfill/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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North Miami Residents Fume Over Trash Pickup Company’s “Garbage Job”
What’s New With This Story:
-Large numbers of North Miami residents are sick of Waste Pro, the private company that has served as the city’s garbage collector for over six years.
-Some residents are willing to pay more in taxes in order for the trash pickup to go back to city management. Trash pickup services were privatized in 2011.
-North Miami Councilman Scott Galvin organized an event in early September for residents to vent their frustrations with the company. The regional VP for Waste Pro, Russell Mackie showed up to the event as well.
-Mackie said that Waste Pro has contracts with 21 South Florida municipalities and that the company has never lost a contract due to poor service. Instead he blames the problems on a poorly designed contract that North Miami has been slow to amend.
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In North Miami, residents say that the garbage trucks are still rolling on the streets as late at 10:30 PM some nights.
Trash pickup can be spotty according to others and a lack of quality service has put a bad taste in the mouths of many.
The situation has become so bad that there are residents willing to do something truly drastic- pay more in taxes to fix the problem.
Judy Brown, the president of the Sunkist Grove Homeowners Association said that she would be willing to do just that.
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She has lived in North Miami for 38 years and has seen the quality of trash pickup over the decades first hand.
“As soon as it became privatized, I noticed a difference and I started getting complaints,” Brown said. “Because, I’m the homeowner president, they would call me and complain about the trash not being collected.”
Brown said that the real problems started around 2013 when the bulk pickup stopped getting picked up.
She said things were better when the city was in charge of trash pickup.
“They took pride in what they were doing,” Brown said of the city workers who used to operate the service.
She said they would be done by 7 AM. With Waste Pro, she’s heard of trucks still picking up trash at 10:30 PM.
Michael McDearmaid has lived in NoMi for 50 years.
“When it was a city service, there was much more service,” McDearmaid said. “A lot of that had to do with the fact that they were employees of the city. A lot of them lived in the city.”
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He said that the workers would look out for residents, even calling the police if they felt that certain things were amiss.
“Ultimately in a city of this size, service is everything,” McDearmaid said.
He said that if Waste Pro came up with the best offer, then they should be given another chance and that privatization efforts around the country have been a “mixed bag”.
According to city manager Larry Spring, it would cost roughly $20 to $25 million to restart a city trash program.
City Councilman Scott Galvin said that he doesn’t think its likely for the city to do trash service in house again but he might be willing to support such an effort.
So why are things not working out with Waste Pro?
It all comes down to the contract that was signed in 2011.
“What they need to understand is it’s not an unhappiness with Waste Pro,” Russell Mackie the Regional Vice President for Waste Pro Florida said. “Waste Pro sort of by default gets blamed for that. But there’s a deficiency in the contract.”
Under the original contract, Waste Pro was only supposed to collect bulk pick up once per month.
But after residents complained, the company agreed to do it once per week according to Mackie.
But Mackie said that the company wasn’t paid extra for the additional service.
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In addition to that, the amount of trash picked up at the curb has increased 30% and the landfill has raised its prices 15%.
The contract officially ended in May but service was continued under an overtime provision until August.
Waste Pro continues to service North Miami basically without a contract in a bonus time arrangement.
An opening biding process for a new contract will be sent out to all interested companies.
Waste Pro intends to apply again.
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Is This What Jesus Really Looked Like?
Could this be what Jesus Christ really looked like?
Photo Credit: Don Schwenneker WTVD/ Facebook
Not exactly the blond-haired, blue-eyed dreamboat that we have been shown for years in Church, huh?
According to a study originally reported on by Popular Mechanics, the above face is probably the best bet for what Christ actually looked like.
In short, he was probably short- around 5 ft. 1 in- the average height for men living in the Middle East at that time period.
It is also unlikely that he had long hair and probably looked like a normal guy. As the article points out; in the Bible, Judas needed to kiss Jesus on the cheek in the Garden of Gethsemane in order to show the Romans who Christ was. That might have had to do with the fact that Jesus blended in with the crowd to a certain extent, at least physically.
It is a fascinating study that goes into great depth.
Read more about it over at Popular Mechanics.
Cover Photo Credit: James Shepard/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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This Gun Loving Miami Teen Is In Jail On A Child Porn Charge After His Dad Turned His Phone Over To Police
What You Need To Know About This Story:
-An 18 year old student at Miami Krop Senior High School is in jail after his father turned over the teen’s phones to police.
-Sean Mesa was arrested on charges of possessing child pornography and a charge of improper display of a firearm after police were given his phones to look at concerns his father had regarding his gun use.
–The Miami Herald reports that federal and local investigators knew about Mesa before his father turned over the electronic devices because of various social media posts he has made in the past.
-Mesa’s father was apparently motivated to turn over the phones after the Parkland shooting.
-From the Herald:
“Mesa came to the attention of U.S Homeland Security Investigations’ Violent Gang Task Force, which forwarded his Instagram and Snapchat photos “recklessly displaying firearms and pointing them at the camera,” according to an arrest warrant.
Miami-Dade Schools Detective John Messenger went to Krop High on Tuesday to try to “engage in a friendly conversation to understand what Sean Mesa’s fascination with firearms was.”
Mesa, however, bristled — telling him ‘he likes guns and it was his right to post on social media whatever he wished.'”
-After the police visited Mesa at school, his father agreed to turn over the phones to authorities.-During the search on the phones, the US Secret Service found video of a 10 year child being sexually abused. Mesa allegedly had shared in a group chat.Do you know Sean Mesa? Send us a tip to [email protected]
This story is from The Miami Monster, a new brand focused on telling the true stories of what life is like for a young person living in South Florida. Be sure to also follow our founder Joel Franco on Twitter to keep up to date with the latest breaking news in the area. You can send news tips to [email protected]
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