Dec. 2: Stay Home, Commissioners

By Sylvia Gurinsky

What a generous bunch those members of the Miami-Dade County Commission are.

They don't want the folks at either the Beacon Council, which brings businesses to the county, or the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, which brings tourism to the county, to overtax themselves on trips abroad. So the commission created the International Trade Consortium. And as my friend and former colleague Glenna Milberg reported on WPLG-Channel 10 last night, they spent close to $1 million on trips at a time when they've had to cut programs and jobs because of the economic crisis:

http://www.justnews.com/news/21777492/detail.html

Much of the commission still seems to be having a problem relating to the real world most of their constituents - their bosses, let's recall - live in. With these trips, they're not doing anything the Beacon Council and the GMCVB aren't already tapped to do.

That means the International Trade Consortium is redundant. It should be eliminated - and if commissioners really have to go overseas, there are already two organizations they can take a trip with - preferably, one commissioner at a time.

Otherwise, they should just stay home.