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🙌 Two ways to celebrate Friday.
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🙌 Two ways to celebrate Friday.

We’re ready for this to be us.

#VOTELIKEYOULIVEHERE

Last week we asked for your help building a better voter guide by answering one simple question:  What do you want to know about voting and the candidates in the Aug. 28 local and primary elections?

We got 57 questions from the community, and today we’re answering your questions on how to vote. Here are a few examples:

  • How do I know if I’m registered to vote? Where do I register and what is needed?
  • What are some reasons to update my registration?
  • What is the deadline to do any of that?
  • How can you request an absentee/mail-in ballot? If you request one but don’t use it, can you vote in person on election day? (We get it. That “I voted” sticker is 💸.)
  • Can you leave things blank if you’re uneducated on the issue or don’t have an opinion?
  • What are all the endorsements and what do they mean?

Find the answers to all of those questions here.

Shoutout to Rusty Butler, Ron Bilbao, Anna, Allison, Johann, Ray, Jackie, and Leo for sharing their questions with us. (Some people opted not to share their full names, and others shared their questions totally anonymously).

Stay tuned for our full voter guide out in early August, where we’ll dig into local, state and national races and provide info on some referenda you’ll see on your ballot. And, ICYMI, Monday is your last day to register to vote. Head to thenewtropic.com to find out how to do that if you’ve slept on it so far.

BTW. Our bad. In yesterday’s newsletter even we were so thrown off by Hialeah’s confusing street grid that we mixed up the two main dividing streets. Hialeah Drive is the north/south divider and Palm Avenue is the east/west divider. Sorry for mixing them up, next time we’ll just use Waze.

THE PRICE OF PARADISE

As current condo owners are well aware, Miami has some of the highest condo maintenance fees in the country. According to Trulia’s 2017 research, the average monthly fee in Miami is $415. (FYI: NYC came in at $571 and San Fran at $463).

There is no getting around the monthly fees that the freedom of condo ownership provides you – like not having to mow the lawn Saturday mornings – so we talked to a couple of local experts about what your fees cover.

Not surprising, the largest percentage of a buildings maintenance fees ends up going to insurance. Fees also cover the maintenance of communal areas such as the pool and landscaping, city services like trash and water and building employees like security and the front desk.

For more info on condo maintenance fees and special assessments, check out our latest home buying video.

PRODUCED BY THE NEW TROPIC CREATIVE STUDIO WITH CANVAS MIAMI

WHAT'S NEW IN THE 305

We feel so seen. “Stop trying to pretend you don’t live in Kendall.” (Miami.com)

Too lit to quit. Earlier this week, someone set dozens of golf carts ablaze at the Melreese golf course, the spot where David Beckham wants to build his Major League Soccer stadium complex. There’s quite a bit of public opposition to the plan, so there were a lot of suspicions that the fire had something to do with that. But nope, police say. They’ve arrested and charged someone, and he’s just your everyday arsonist who is suspected in a couple other fires. He’s got no beef with Beckham. (Miami Herald)

YASSS. South Beach-Downtown commuters, get excited: you’ll be getting a trolley across the Macarthur Causeway, and it could be here before the end of the year. The City of Miami has authorized the city manager to work with the county and Miami Beach to provide the service. It won’t be free like other trolleys across the county, but for drivers who spend hours every week in gridlock on that road, it’s probably going to be worth spending the extra cash. (Miami Herald)

Sore winner. Daniella Levine Cava was the only county commissioner to vote against the $4 billion American Dream Miami mega mall (she explained why on The New Tropic). Now she’s paying the price, even though the mall was approved. The mall’s developer is now the top donor to Gus Barreiro, Levine Cava’s challenger for the District 8 county commission seat (and yes, he’s related to Bruno Barreiro, a former county commissioner, and his wife Zoraida Barreiro, who lost a race to fill her husband’s seat earlier this summer). (Miami Herald)

Trapped. Miami is filled with small apartment buildings in various states of disrepair that are euphemistically called “naturally occurring affordable housing” because they’re too messed up to charge much for rent. For many low-income residents, those apartments are the only option, even with holes in the floor. And even those are disappearing in gentrifying neighborhoods like the West Grove and Little Haiti, where developers are paying landlords big bucks for the land those buildings sit on. When developers get the land, many of those low-income residents are left with nowhere to go but a friend’s home or a homeless shelter. Head to reporter Nadege Green’s Twitter feed for more on the crisis. (WLRN)

This grass isn’t greener. If you’ve been to the beach lately, you’ve probably noticed that SoFlo is swimming in smelly seaweed right now. Turns out seaweed coverage worldwide last month was eight TIMES what it was in June 2017, and Fort Lauderdale saw three times the slimy stuff. At some beaches, cleanup crews are working nonstop to separate the trash from the seaweed and bury it in the sand past the high tide line; at others, they’re letting it decay on the beach because it’s a natural process. (Sun-Sentinel)

The Parkland effect. The Parkland tragedy turned a lot of people into advocates, mostly for more gun control. But not Andrew Pollack. He’s the father of Meadow Pollack, one of the students who died that day. Andrew has embraced guns as a way to address the school shooting crisis, and came up with the the Aaron Feis Guardian Program – named after the coach who died protecting students that day – which trains school personnel to be stationed at public schools with guns to guard against shooters. Meanwhile, the Parkland tragedy prompted a 41 percent increased in young registered voters, but it turns out that they’re not the staunch Democrats so many people assumed them to be. (Miami New Times, Miami Herald)

THAT’S ALL FOR THE WEEK.

We’ll catch you Monday. ✌

– The New Tropic

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