MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

5 Street and Meridian Avenue NW Corner Vacant Lot

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WORST SIGN OFFENDER IN SOUTH BEACH

Comras Company Takes the Cake
January 11, 2014 Miami BeachThe Miami Mirror names Comras Company Worst Sign Offender in Miami Beach.

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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

I have been unable to find a single temporary sign erected on properties or placed in windows by Comras Company in South Beach that complies with the provision of Section 138136 of the Miami Beach Code regulating multifamily, commercial, industrial, and vacant land signage, requiring that, Each individual sign shall receive a permit from the license department which shall charge a fee per sign. The permit comes in the form of a permit decal that must be affixed to each sign.

5 Street Meridian Second Sign (L) 1000 5 Street Office Building (R)

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In addition, several Comras signs do not conform to the provisions that, The sign area for a multifamily sign shall not exceed four feet by four feet. The sign area for a commercial/industrial sign shall not exceed four feet by six feet.

824 Washington Avenue among scores of other window signs in SoBe

And, Real estate signs are not permitted on windows of apartment, multifamily buildings or individual offices. Detached signs shall have a setback of ten feet if lot is vacant, three feet if lot has improvements. Sign may be placed on structure or wall if structure or wall is less than three feet from property line. Height shall not exceed seven feet.
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Furthermore, Detached signs shall have a setback of ten feet if lot is vacant, three feet if lot has improvements. Sign may be placed on structure or wall if structure or wall is less than three feet from property line. Height shall not exceed five feet. A study of existing signage in chic South Beach indicates that the Code Compliance Division of the Building Department of the City of Miami Beach does not enforce the law unless someone complains about specific signs. The permit fee per sign is miniscule according to the citys Finance Department, which stated it as $15 per sign although the published code requires a $25 per sign fee, and declined to research its records for totals collected unless I paid for an accountant to query the database and sum up the amounts.

900s West Avenue (L) South Pointe Drive Entrance to Continuum (R)

However, many real estate sales and rental organizations do abide by the law albeit inconsistently, wherefore permit decals can be found on some of their so-called temporary signs, some with expiration dates dating several years back. The dirty little secret about temporary for rent signs in front of apartment buildings is that they are actually prohibited permanent signs since they are not removed as required when there are no vacancies or are used as bait-and-switch advertisements for referral to other properties. It is my opinion that customers should beware of professional real estate sales organizations and construction companies that fail to voluntarily abide with even the most superficial of code requirements. If they obviously violate the signage code, who knows what other laws they are violating in a less obvious fashion? One realtor, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, informed me that the signage code used to be stringently enforced back in 2001, when he incurred substantial fines for his signs. However, he said, sometime after former city manager Jorge Gonzalez took over the city, enforcement became increasingly lax.
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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

A Mayor Dermer Collins Park NOCANDO Ghetto Building (L) 1790 Alton Rd (R)

A city manager has broad discretion over the exercise of city functions. For example, according to a city parking and traffic board member who declined to be named, Gonzalez ordered parking code compliance officers not to enforce parking ordinances in a dense South Beach residential area because he had a dispute with the towing company that towed his car and was lobbying for increased towing fees. Gonzalez, who is now city manager for Bal Harbour, denied that he ordered Code Enforcement not to enforce the signage code unless someone complained about specific signs. He believes he has been scapegoated for the few blades of bad grass in an otherwise will kept and developed lawn, and that attention should be focused on the responsibility of city commissioners for the citys flaws. Current City Manager Jimmy Morales also denied that he order Code Enforcement to lay off enforcing signage law. The top management of Code Compliance, the Mayor, and Commission are aware of the violations, having received photographs of several of them. And all anyone has to do to notice violations is walk around any block. Therefore; if the violations continue they have sanctioned or condoned them. Why should residents have to complain to have the law enforced? One frequent complaint residents have had is retaliation for complaining about code violations, even when their identity was supposed to be kept anonymous. After I stated to a code compliance administrator that I did not wish to file any complaints against violators, and asked whether several signs in the posh South Pointe area had been issued permits that were perhaps not affixed to the signs as required, a code officer entered several complaints into the public online system with my name on them. He apologized when I complained that I had not complained and had simply asked if there were permits issued for
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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

the signs. I believe he is a loyal public servant under orders from above to selectively enforce certain city ordinances. Top city officials including the so-called reformist mayor and reformist commissioners have not responded to my recommendation that signage law be amended to provide mandatory minimum fines for noncompliance with signage code, and provide that a substantial bounty be paid to resident whistleblowers who document and report sign violations.

1020 6 Street December 2013 (L) after Porosoff took over the property (R) before he took over

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Real estate professional Arthur David Porosoff did speak on the record. He said my suggestions were meritorious, but he offered that the city makes it difficult to obtain permits and keep them updated. Permits should be obtainable online, he declared. I originally encountered Mr. Porosoff because he took over a decrepit property inhabited by vagrants, crack dealers and a hooker in my neighborhood. He secured the building, made it attractive, and should handsomely profit from its sale given the size of the lot and its location. Code Compliance had allowed the building to deteriorate, the fence to be pulled down. and the boards pulled back to allow entrance. The unresponsiveness of the city managers office to requests for information regarding an old fire department violation notice that was suddenly removed from the building after I reported on it led to a superficial county ethics commission investigation. I believe that the ethics commission has gone easy on City of Miami Beach officials over the last few years. The ethics commission investigator obtained an admission of disregard on the public information request but did not refer it to the state attorney, and he did not interview a sanitation worker who alleged that top Code Compliance officers may have been involved in manipulating fines and liens in regards to blighted properties all over the city. The investigator discovered no copy of the original violation notice since the city said no copies are retained since the information is entered into the database, which indicated that the fire

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violation notice had been voided because it was for a fire extinguisher that is not required for uninhabited except by squatters in an unprotected building. I contacted Mr. Porosoff again because I believed his sign on the same property did not have a permit decal affixed to it. Alas, the photograph I took of the sign obscures the bottom right corner, where I did see a permit decal the next time I passed by. I followed up with city officials on his recommendation that the temporary sign permitting process should be handled online for the convenience of everyone concerned. City officials did not respond. They seldom do directly respond to constructive suggestions. A realtor who declined to be named said that Permit Doctor, a permit expedition company annexed to City Hall, handles signage permits but the fee is high and realtors are cheap. A member of the Planning Department staff recounted how her real estate instructor had described how the sign permitting system could be gamed by placing an advertisement for one property on another building, owned by someone difficult to reach. By the time someone complained and the sign was taken down, a great deal of free advertising could be had. Fines are handled by the citys special master quasi-judicial court. Insiders have complained that the so-called court is simply a political arm of the Building Department, of which Code Compliance is a division, and that its judges are expected to follow its orders inasmuch as there are no independent branches of government in the strong city manager, weak ma yor form of government, as there are in the truly American system of government. The so-called reformed city system is criticized for its tendency to become fascistic or right-wing authoritarian, dominated by the interests of undemocratic big businesses. I contacted Michael Comras on the signage issue on 5 December 2013, with copies to the city manager and top code enforcement officers, as follows: 5 December 2013 Michael A. Comras 1261 20th Street Miami Beach, Florida 33139 Dear Mr. Comras: Congratulations on your thriving business in Miami Beach. Attached please find photos of a few of your signs.

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I am conducting a study of signs subject to the City of Miami Beach signage law. I have noticed that all of your signs I have seen so far do not have a sign permit sticker [decal] on them. I am informed by Code Compliance that real estate signs must have permit stickers on them. As a matter of fact, half of the signs of all the companies I have tallied to date bear no sticker on them, or have expired stickers. I suspect that is because the ordinance is not enforced unless someone complains. Are you aware of the signage law? If so, do you know about the sticker requirement? Have you acquired the permits for all your signs? Has Compliance ever contacted you? How do you frankly feel about the signage ordinance? Do you believe it is worthwhile for the city to have the ordinance and to proactively enforce it instead of waiting for someone to complain? Your input will be appreciated David Arthur Walters Investigative Journalist Mr. Comras responded politely on 10 January to say that he would take care of the permitting. I forwarded his response to the city manager, with my comment that all one has to do is ask, and noted that I had suggested to code administrators that they bother to call David Muhlrad, who was the citys first code compliance chief, and ask him to take care of the permitting of the unpermitted signs on his many apartment buildings. Those signs far outnumber the Comras Company advertisements, but at least most of them bear expired permit decals, whereas I cannot find a single decal on a Comras sign. Code administrators did not respond to my suggestion. Whenever I call managers of the businesses concerned, they are courteous and eager to take action. Thomas Comras happens to be a very important person lauded for his contributions to the development of our beautiful city on the beach and to significant charities. Apparently, his company is informally exempted from the signage law. Perhaps a search of the sign permit log, which is said to be kept somewhere in the garage, would show whether or not Comras has ever been issued a permit. Some people believe that laws should be abided by even if unenforced, but others pick and choose among commandments, claiming that only good laws should be obeyed, at least the injunction against murder.
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Code Compliance refuses to provide reasons for the enforcement moratorium on the signage law unless someone complains about particular signs, referring inquirers to a city sophist for the answers they know very well but will not pronounce. Sophists are of course paid for their rhetoric, are not inclined to bite the hands that feed them, and are adept at making the worst argument appear the better, even to the extent of proving that nothing exists. Now it should be said that the intention of the signage law is to regulate free speech to ensure the safety and health of the public in an aesthetic or pleasing way. To be fair, the Comras signs do not appear to obstruct visibility in such a way that would cause traffic accidents. And most people would not find them that ugly. If the policy were to enforce the law only upon complaints from the public in order to conserve forces for more important compliance issues, there are enough complainers around to draw attention to something obscene, so why should we worry? Well, are other, more important laws being ignored too?

Sometimes compliance officers do take the initiative; for example, Club Madonna was cited for posting a sign depicting former Mayor Matti Bower supporting small business by inserting money in the underpants of a male stripper at a gay bar. Supervision voided that citation on constitutional grounds. The only criticism I have of the Comras signs besides the fact that they muddy the faces of city officials is really not aesthetic but of a practical nature. The bright colors of the signs, apparently designed to blend into the bright environment, detract from the advertising purpose. If everything in the universe were the same color nothing would be seen. The Comras signs are certainly not photogenic with a cheap camera, which good signage should be. As far as I am concerned, a sign should differentiate itself from its background. And the contrast of
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colors within the display should be marked enough or the message to stand out. To that end I prefer, for example, the signs of Hogan Brothers and Kobi Karp that have white letters on a background so brown it is almost black.

These effective signs bear current permits and license numbers

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