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Each month, we print letters we receive from our readers. We encourage all commentary, including criticism as well as compliments, and any thoughts about our community. If you are interested, please send your thoughts to letters@coralgablesmagazine.com. Letters are edited for brevity.

The Election Dilemma

Please note my letter to you as editor is written only on an individual basis and not on behalf of any other individual or organization. With that said, I am concerned about voter turnout. While you write about the election upset this Spring, why is no one concerned that only 20 percent of voters in the City VOTE? It is not the weather, it is not that this election didn’t include election for our Mayor, it is about either indifference or a bigger problem!

Should 20 percent of the residents be the voice for the other 80 percent, and make decisions for our entire community? What can and should be done to encourage voter participation? Can this be a topic for commissioners to address? Any thoughts or suggestions? If you don’t vote then how can any resident or organization allege that the voice of the residents in the community is not being heard by the commissioners?

Gema Pinon Lopez, Esq.

Another Village

Nice article about the Villages [May 2023 issue]. Did you know that in the early 2000s, the McBride family built another of Merrick’s “proposed” villages – Bermuda Village – on Ponce and Riviera? They did a really nice job of making it into a village with small street access and everything. [Also,] you’ve got to do better on the “Guess Where” photos. Cafe Demetrio is instantly recognizable.

Sally Baumgartner

No Place for Politics

Shame on you. I used to respect and enjoy your magazine, but after reading your last editor’s note [April 2023 issue], I am extremely disappointed with your political comments and spreading your personal politics in this publication. You stated yourself that for over five years the magazine has never endorsed or took sides in CG politics, and why you decided to do this now is a very poor choice. The fact that you talked negatively about a very solid candidate in Ariel Fernandez speaks of YOUR personal opinion, and he is a well-respected citizen who has done much for this community. This magazine USED to be an interesting outlet for all other things in Coral Gables besides politics, but you have now changed that to voice your personal opinion.

Jeremy Flores

parking usage of the next 99 years.

Honorable Commissioner Fernandez admits he has no work experience working in a retail store, managing a retail store, or owning a retail store or property. I know of no retail experience by the head of the CGNA [Coral Gables Neighbors Association].

Why the Burger Bob Delay?

On March 13, 1925, George Merrick and various notables formally broke ground in what, a few months prior, had been the Merrick family’s vegetable garden, in order to build his flagship new hotel in the center of Coral Gables.

On Friday, January 15, 1926, two chartered trains, filled with Hollywood stars, European aristocracy, Wall Street tycoons and Washington big shots, left New York’s Pennsylvania Station at 6:30 pm and arrived in Miami 12 hours later in order to join the 1,500 guests celebrating the grand opening party of the Biltmore Hotel. From start to finish, the whole 16-story, 400-room hotel had been constructed, ready to party, in just ten months! A living monument to one man’s vision and determination.

One hundred years later, on January 23, 2022, Bob Maguire and Rita Tennyson, beloved hosts to generations of Gables residents at Burger Bob’s on Granada Golf Course, closed their doors so that the City could renovate the building. Almost 17 months later, the building is still a complete mess, months, if not years, from completion. A living monument to bureaucratic ineptitude

Patrick Alexander

Why We Need the Hub

Past and present critics of the Mobility Hub have claimed to be experts on parking, only to find, in one prominent example, that expertise was based on the assumption [of] historically low coronavirus parking rates – at one point all retail stores were ordered closed for two months! – representing the

I submit that with Coral Gables budget statistics continually showing, for decades, that the downtown generates about 30 percent of our city’s tax collection income each year, and experts including former Assistant Economic White Cabinet Member Tony Villamil [attesting] that negligence relating to these matters will cause residents significant tax increases, opponents of the Mobility Hub need to provide experts.

For those who missed the Town Hall last [month], there was lots of uninformed, ignorant, hatred of the Mobility Hub.

My 25-year multiply published focus on the 245 Andalusia Parking Garage tells me that if the Mobility Hub large parking facility is “stopped” – Commissioner Fernandez’ stated goal – this will lower City revenue by some 7.5 percent for the next 99 years.

Jackson Rip Holmes

That Metallic Flower

Regarding the article in May’s issue of Coral Gables Magazine “Art for Everyone” it was nicely written. So nice that one would think that the public art supported by Catherine Cathers, Coral Gables Arts and Culture Specialist, actually enhances the character and identity of our city. In the article Cathers says, “I seldom, if ever, hear somebody go, ‘Eh’ in reference to the enormous flower sculpture in the traffic circle at Segovia and Biltmore Way. Cathers must have heard that in 2016 those of us who detested the look of the futuristic monstrous metallic flower took to the streets wherever possible to gather hundreds of signatures from discontented residents to get rid of the sculpture. We held meetings all over the Gables including City Hall and were written up in The Herald. But to no avail.

June Frost