Important Community Alert: Threat to Our Progress

Dear neighbors,

We are reaching out to warn you of a breaking development that could set back by a decade or more the power we’ve been able to gain as a community.
SInce the Biscayne Neighborhoods Association was formed, we have focused on making sure our local elected officials pay attention to the needs of residents in the urban core who live in vertical communities, directly for those in Edgewater and Midtown, and indirectly through partnerships with community groups in downtown Miami and Brickell. We have achieved a lot, and have a seat at the table when decisions are being made that we didn’t have ten years ago. Many big wins in terms of getting public safety resources for our communities, having the CIty focus on fixing streets and sidewalks, creating new park space, dealing with the homelessness crisis and starting plans for new schools in our area would not have happened if we had not united as a community over the past few years and held strong in demanding our fair share.

Now, all that could be undone by a set of proposals before the City that would split the Edgewater community right down the middle, and gerrymander us into two different districts with two different representatives at City Hall. The maps of the proposals for splitting Edgewater are below.

If this split were to happen, Edgewater would literally become the last priority for the elected officials in Miami. Many hard-fought gains would be put in jeapordy. It is likely we could lose the dedicated police command for our community. And we’d almost certainly lose the focus we have been able to get from city agencies to look at the problems that affect us and that are different from those affecting the commercial hub in Wynwood or the single-family residential communities north of 38th Street. We would be wiped off the city map as a cohesive neighborhood, quite literally, with dire effects.

We need you, as an Edgewater neighbor, to sign the petition we’ve created, and ask all the parties pushing this proposal to consider what they are doing to our community. We’ll be advocating on this issue in coming days and weeks. Please share this email with your friends and neighbors so that they can sign up to receive our updates.

Why is this happening?

Over the past several months, community groups in Miami have been suing the City over the results of the latest re-districting. The groups have made various arguments, including to say that the actions of the City Commission when it re-districted constitute an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, that they diluted the power of certain neighborhoods by splitting them into multiple districts, and that the lines were improperly drawn. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are presenting the alternative maps we shared above, and depending on what happens over the course of the next month, those might be the new lines drawn.

BNA is not involved in the lawsuit and has no opinion as to the claims being made or the responses being issued by the City. But we do know this… any new lines that get drawn cannot split up a cohesive, logical and actively growing community like Edgewater right down the middle.

What is our demand?

BNA’s demand is very simple. Edgewater is a cohesive neighborhood bounded by major geographic landmarks. It is a genuine community with shared interests whose residents face issues slightly different than our friends in single-family-home or mostly commercial neighborhoods. We ask that the organizations making the proposals above go back to the drawing board and make new proposals that respest us as a neighborhood. We ask city officials to oppose any re-districting that divides Edgewater. And we ask the courts hearing these issues to consider the interests of our neighborhood

What do I need to do?

Join our mailing list if you haven’t done so already. Sign the petition. Share with a neighbor. Stay informed.