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south miami garbage company

Posted on by mcooper

In South Miami, the leafy, pleasant suburb off U.S. 1 just south of the University of Miami campus, the tenor of political discourse tends to toggle between the mundane and the absurd.

Lately it has been more of the latter.

At a meeting last month, Mayor Philip Stoddard and a commission ally were talking about ousting the city’s police chief, something they can’t do because only the city manager has that power (and they had just fired him four days earlier).

Commissioner Valerie Newman, a foe of the mayor, didn’t like what she was hearing and began to object vehemently.

Mayor Stoddard, a bespectacled biology professor at Florida International University, banged his gavel like an impatient Judge Wapner. Newman interpreted that as a cue to proceed.

“These are scoundrels sitting up here who are afraid of being arrested for nudity in front of two minors,” Newman blurted out of the blue. “[And] another one for housing a wanted criminal in his back yard.”

Unusual. And yet so very South Miami, where the politics are raw and deeply personal.

The stakes may be small, but the personalities, peccadilloes and grudges are jumbo size.

“This is unlike any thing I have ever seen,” said longtime political activist Richard Ward, who, as a former middle school assistant principal, has presumably witnessed some unruly behavior. “There has always been back-stabbing, but this — this is just South Miami getting worse.”

This is the city where a previous mayor, running for a new term, was arrested outside of City Hall on election eve for allegedly accepting an illegal contribution. He lost the election (but won acquittal).

A weekly newspaper publisher once ran for mayor even though it was an open secret that his condo was outside the city. The publisher explained that he slept on a cot at his newspaper plant, which is in the city, making him a resident and thereby qualified to run and serve. An architect who supported the other guy would crank-call the publisher at odd hours of the night to see if he lived where he said he did. And if he answered the phone? The architect would say “just checking” and hang up.

It’s where a city supervisor — the human resources manager, no less — hired her brother-in-law as parks and recreation director, despite his lying about having a master’s degree. The manager resigned in lieu of being fired.

The problem with running for office in South Miami is that you might actually win. And then you will be bombarded with personal attacks. Even before his election, during the 2010 campaign, opponents claimed Stoddard was a convicted drug dealer, which he wasn’t. Someone with a similar name –– Phillip Dale Stoddard –– had the rap sheet. And yet, Stoddard won.

During the last election in February, opponents distributed flyers accusing Stoddard of polluting city water by building a pool-sized fish pond in his backyard without a permit. Stoddard said the city didn’t require a permit, but he has since gotten one.

Stoddard’s academic studies focus on how animals’ dishonesty affects communication systems. One study examined the behavior of electric fish, including their sexual behavior.

Newman latched onto that tidbit, labeling the mayor “a pervert” during a public meeting.

The mayor’s chief ally on the commission is Bob Welsh, known as Bicycle Bob because he spent years pedaling around town on a girls’ blue coaster bike handing out political flyers and railing against “big money interests.” During the Mariel boatlift, he met newly arrived refugees and handed them Spanish-language joke books that he had written. Bicycle Bob was elected this past February, beating Armando Oliveros, a former commissioner whose time on the dais was interrupted by a prison sentence for money laundering.

When the spirit moves him, Bob breaks out into song or recites poems during public meetings. A week ago Tuesday, he burst forth with Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry, to lament a report on WSVN-Fox 7 titled “The Naked Truth.” It was aired after Newman’s public outburst over “nudity” and “scoundrels” on the commission.

Newman was referring to an odd episode 20 months earlier at Mayor Stoddard’s three-bedroom home. The mayor’s parents were visiting and were sleeping in his daughter’s bedroom. Displaced from her own room, his teenage daughter chose to sleep that night on a futon in the bedroom of her parents –– Stoddard and his wife, Gray Read.

An exchange student also was staying in the home, in a different bedroom, Stoddard said. It was about 6 a.m. and Stoddard’s parents had left to drive Read to the airport. Someone broke into the house. The exchange student walked out of her room and found the burglar in the kitchen. She screamed, ran to the bathroom and locked herself inside. Stoddard bolted out of his bedroom as the burglar fled. The mayor was naked. When a police officer arrived, the cop saw him putting on his pants.

The initial report of the crime made no mention of nudity. But in early July, days after Stoddard roiled the waters at a commission meeting by raising red flags about supposed bid collusion on a sidewalk project, police officers supplemented the report to note that the mayor likes to sleep in the buff.

Relations between the mayor and the manager and chief began to deteriorate after Stoddard criticized their friendship with a former Latin Builders Association president, Camilo Padreda, who is a convicted felon and former FBI informant. The mayor questioned the (competitively bid) award of a city carpet contract to Padreda’s daughter.

The feud intensified in late June when a friend of the mayor, a UM professor, was jailed on a charge of disorderly conduct. The professor says he wagged his finger at a South Miami officer for making an illegal left turn. The officer, who was responding to a 911 call, says the prof used his middle finger.

The charge was reduced to resisting arrest without violence and the educator participated in a pre-trial program.

The broadside about “housing a wanted criminal in his back yard” was a blast at Bicycle Bob, who had been letting a homeless friend stay in a makeshift shelter as he worked on one of Welsh’s properties. The worker was an undocumented Canadian with a drug charge on his rap sheet who did work for neighbors sometimes in exchange for beer. Cops detained him, questioned him and turned him over to immigration in early July.

Tensions have spilled beyond the city’s borders all the way to Tallahassee. Three days after the manager was axed, former Miami Police Chief Kenneth Harms wrote a scathing four-page letter to Stoddard, calling his behavior “creepy, crude and bizarre” and demanding he apologize and resign. The diatribe was forwarded to FIU and the office of Gov. Rick Scott.

No apology or resignation has been forthcoming.

Vice Mayor Joshua Liebman, a political rookie who ran on a platform to “restore trust and civility at City Hall,” was asked this week how that effort is going.

“The definition of insanity,” Liebman said, “is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That is what is happening here. Something has to change.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/05/v-fullstory/3128701/south-miami-a-city-where-weird.html#storylink=cpy

 

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invest like warren buffett

Posted on by mcooper

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/for-buffett-the-long-run-still-trumps-the-quick-return/

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miami gardens garbage waste company

Posted on by mcooper

When Dameion Peart got the phone call from his uncle, he didn’t believe it. He drove to his father’s Miami Gardens car wash to see for himself. He hoped the news wouldn’t be too bad, or maybe the shooting happened someplace else.

He pulled up, saw flashing lights and police tape, and knew it was true.

His father, Errold Peart, had been trying to protect a customer Sunday afternoon from armed robbers at the car wash he ran at Northwest 191st Street and First Place.

The robbers turned their gun on Peart, killing him.

“He put his own life before someone else,” his son said.

Now, Peart’s family began the unexpected task of planning a memorial. He was five days away from his 60th birthday.

He won’t get to see his daughter, Mishka Peart, 23, graduate from the University of Miami’s medical school.

“It’s just sad,” Dameion Peart said. “It was unnecessary.”

When the community heard of the shooting, they started dropping by the scene. They were the ones who lived nearby, longtime customers and friends, each with their own tale of how his father had helped them through the years.

They talked about the times Peart, 59, didn’t charge for carwashes to people short on money. They told Dameion Peart, 32, how his father would give money to people who needed help paying for water and electricity, never asking for the money back.

They shared stories about people who couldn’t get jobs because they had convictions — until Peart gave them work.

One of the younger employees told him it was Errold Peart who convinced her to go back to school.

“He was a very good, kindhearted person and a good father at the same time,” Dameion Peart said. “The community where his business is located, he really helped them out here.”

Errold Peart hailed from Jamaica, where he played cricket and worked at one point at a school for problem children, his son said. He eventually came to the United States, where he continued to play cricket for the USA national team.

Peart represented the USA in five matches at the 1990 International Cricket Council Trophy in the Netherlands, where the batsman was the team’s leading scorer, ESPN reported. The USA made it through the first round that year before losing in the second, according to ESPN.

At first, Peart worked with an airline, his son said, but later decided to open his own business.

He started the car wash more than a decade ago, his son said. He chose the location because it was near a busy stretch of U.S. 441 and near Florida’s Turnpike, the Palmetto Expressway and Interstate 95.

“It was like a landmark,” Dameion Peart said. “Everyone knew him.”

But Peart worried about safety.

“He didn’t like guns. But every year, around this time, for the past three years he got held up at gunpoint and people tried to rob him,” Dameion Peart said. “The last time they even followed him home.”

So Errold Peart got a concealed weapons permit.

On Sunday afternoon, he noticed a pair of young men trying to rob a customer. Errold Peart went out to try and stop it, his son said, only to be shot himself.

The men ran away, leaving behind the customer and a bleeding Peart.

Miami Gardens Police still were looking for the suspects on Monday.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/03/3125443/son-of-slain-miami-gardens-car.html#storylink=cpy

 

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opa locka garbage company

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Opa-locka Teacher Says Principal Harassed Her With Explicit Messages and Got Her Pregnant

Comments (0)By Jon Tayler Thursday, Dec 6 2012

Natasha Phillip had a problem. A few months into her new teaching job at Grace Academy International in Opa-locka, she got sick. As her absences piled up, administrators told her she couldn’t afford more. Then the principal, Gerald Ealey, approached her with a solution: If she “took care of him,” she could keep her job.

According to a lawsuit Phillip has filed against the school, “taking care of” Ealey meant a forced sexual relationship from 2008 to 2011 in which he harassed her and got her pregnant twice. When Phillip stopped the affair, she says, the school canned her.

The school’s lawyer, James Greason, says Phillip’s claims are ridiculous. “There’s no merit to it. To say this was not consensual? That to me is beyond belief.”

Ealey, who is not named in the suit, was fired after the school learned of the affair, Greason says. The Miami Gardens-based Greater Harvest International Church lists Ealey as its bishop on its website. He didn’t respond to several messages left at the church.

In her suit, Phillip claims Ealey told her if “she ever reported his misconduct to any other person at the school, that… it would only result in her immediate termination.” Twice, in 2009 and 2010, he got her pregnant, she says, and both times she used Ealey’s money to pay for abortions.

Ealey also sent Phillip regular lewd texts, dozens of which are recorded in the suit. On March 1, 2011, for instance, he texted, “I don’t want to stick my… in you, but I wanna lick you so bad,” adding, “and when I’m done, I’m gonna drink your bath water.” Later that same day, he texted, “Give me those panties that you have on.”

In early 2011, the lawsuit states, Phillip told Ealey the relationship was over. Then, in June, the school’s administration informed her that her contract would not be renewed.

But Greason says Phillip lost her job because of staff cuts. He also says the school is filing a countersuit, claiming she breached her contract through her behavior.

“She was doing this during school hours,” Greason says. “We want our money back, because she didn’t earn it. She was a flirtatious woman having a good time at the school’s expense.”

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miami small business mistakes

Posted on by mcooper

 

The Top 10 Rookie Mistakes for Entrepreneurs

By JAY GOLTZ

 

 

THINKING ENTREPRENEUR

An owner’s dispatches from the front lines.

 

Many people who start businesses, including me, have little or no experience and just jump in. Over the years, I have compared notes with many fellow entrepreneurs, and I have seen them make the same mistakes over and over again — I recognize them because I have made them all, too. Here is my list of the biggest rookie mistakes:

1. Keeping your rent as low as possible. The key to business is to keep expenses low, right? Wrong. Sometimes it is worth paying more rent if it will generate more customers, if it gives a better image and inspires confidence, if it helps attract the right employees or if it makes it easier to deal with suppliers. In retail, this one mistake can determine success or failure.

2. Hiring someone you know and trust. Competence is more important. While hiring friends and relatives can work, it severely limits the pool from which you choose, leaving out people who could be much more qualified. Friends and relatives can also carry baggage. They can also be very hard to manage, which leads to my ultimate advice: if you can’t fire ‘em, don’t hire ‘em.

3. Buying used equipment to keep expenses down. This, too, works sometimes, but it is often shortsighted. For example, buying a used truck with 100,000 miles on it will guarantee that you will spend valuable time and money fixing the truck when it should be out taking care of customers. Can you really afford downtime with any machine?

4. Keeping your prices “reasonable.” How about picking a price that will allow you to make money? Many entrepreneurs underprice their products or services in an attempt to attract business. They either have no understanding of their costs, or they are too busy to think about them. At some point, they have to hire an employee, and that low price will leave no profit after the employee is paid. It may even cause a loss. This starts a very bad chain reaction of cash flow problems, profit problems and stress. Perhaps the biggest mistake is thinking that these problems can be solved by attracting more business.

5. Saving money on professional advice. There is nothing more expensive than a cheap lawyer or accountant. Good lawyers and accountants make good livings, just like anyone else who is good at a job. You don’t get what you don’t pay for — in this case professional, intelligent advice. And here is the worst part. Most lawyers and accountants are not qualified to be business consultants. For that matter, many business consultants are not qualified to be business consultants. Join a business group, talk to successful entrepreneurs, and get referrals from people who know what they are talking about. How do you know if they know what they are talking about? No one said this was going to be easy.

6. Considering borrowed money a last resort. Maybe it should be, but maybe not. Sometimes it is better to borrow money to do things right than to just do them wrong. Borrowing money is not necessarily stupid, irresponsible, or reckless. But it could be. Knowing the difference is, well, the difference.

7. Picking a bank that knows you and that you have a relationship with. Again, it can work. But it can also be naive. Some banks are known for lending to small businesses. Other banks are not. First, find a competent, experienced accountant. Then, ask him or her to assist you in finding a bank. Good accountants should know from their experiences with other clients which banks are in the game. Ask other entrepreneurs who they bank with. In Chicago, there are probably only 10 banks that are really interested in servicing small businesses (that means lending money). And here is the big tip. The people writing the ads for the banks are not the ones giving the loans. You might consider it false advertising. Yes, they do want your business account — they love the noninterest-bearing balances you deliver. But that doesn’t mean they want to lend you money. If you get in a bind, the difference between having the right bank and the wrong bank can be the difference between success and failure.

8. Thinking you have your advertising figured out. It is very important to know whether your advertising is working — and good luck with that! You certainly need to try to figure out whether your advertising is working, but this can be very difficult. Why? Because even if you are trying to track your results, it’s easy to get bad information: Your advertising may be reinforcing the behavior of existing customers. People may tell you they were just driving by when in reality they were influenced by your radio ad. Many times even your customers don’t know what got them in the door. My advice: Accept that it’s impossible to know everything you’d like to know, but don’t stop trying.

9. Treating your employees fairly. Well, yes, absolutely: do treat them fairly. But what is fair? Is it fair to fire someone after two months because you realize you made a hiring mistake? Or are you supposed to give it everything you’ve got, including four more painful months of hope and delusion, while your customers, your bank account, other employees and even the failing employee pay the price? I have probably hired close to 1,000 people over the last 34 years. I have never succeeded in saving, rehabilitating or dramatically changing the behavior of a bad hire. It might not be the employee’s fault; frequently it isn’t. It could just be the dreaded bad fit. It might even be the boss’s fault, but unless you are going to fire yourself, it is what it is. The rookie mistake is to let the situation go on too long. Often people who are not rookies — just bad managers — make the same mistake.

10. Falling blindly in love with your product or service. Fall in love, certainly. But a wonderful product or service won’t make up for bad decisions and deficiencies in marketing, management or finance. Being a successful entrepreneur means being a competent entrepreneur, in addition to being the best baker, computer programmer, picture framer, hairstylist or whatever it is you are.

I hope this list gives some new entrepreneurs a little insight, or even keeps some wanna-preneurs from getting in over their heads. And one more thing. In sports, you are a rookie for one year. In entrepreneurship, it can last many years. When you learn from your mistakes, you are no longer a rookie. Better yet, learn from someone else’s.

Jay Goltz owns five small businesses in Chicago.

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miami garbage business services

Posted on by mcooper

 

How to Diagnose What’s Wrong With Your Business

By JAY GOLTZ

 

 

THINKING ENTREPRENEUR

An owner’s dispatches from the front lines.

 

Over the years, I have met a lot of entrepreneurs who have been frustrated by low profits, lack of growth, or the stress of the never-ending demands. Many struggle with all three. While every business is different, there are common denominators. In fact, I believe there are 10. The tricky part is that failing to have a handle on just one of these areas can result in mediocre performance, a stressful existence, or ultimate and intimate failure. That is one reason the failure rate for small businesses is so high (here are some others).

This is the checklist I review when I’m not satisfied with my company’s performance.

Marketing

1. Targeting. Do you have a strategy to reach your best potential customers with your sales and marketing efforts? A shotgun approach is too expensive and inefficient for any company, especially a small one. What percentage of the people you approach actually buy a product or service like yours?

2. Advertising and Public Relations. There are many choices for where to place an ad and how to execute a public relations campaign. The problem with many small businesses is that their marketing activities are driven primarily by which salespeople happen to call on them. Ineffective advertising or public relations can be not only a tremendous waste of money but a tremendous waste of opportunity. If you are doing things the same way you did them 10 years ago, you are probably getting less response.

3. The Message. Lots of companies still use this line: “We will exceed your expectations.” I even saw it on the back of an ambulance. (I don’t know about you, but I have pretty high expectations when I call an ambulance! Are the technicians going to give me a haircut after they bring me back to life?) It was a good line when someone first thought of it. Now, it is old. It is tired. It needs to retire. You need to exceed people’s expectations by coming up with your own line. Maybe it is not a line at all. Maybe it is a message. Whatever it is, it should say something about your company that means something to potential customers.

Management

4. Hiring. I can’t think of anything more important than hiring the right people. Great hiring is a skill, one that frequently is not the strong suit of the typical entrepreneur. Do you have a hiring process? Hiring by trial and error is a very expensive and painful way to build a staff. I have found that hiring the right people is 75 percent of management. What percentage of the people you hire work out great? It should be 80 percent or 90 percent, and perhaps less in a low-wage environment.

5. Firing. This is never a popular subject, and it’s especially uncomfortable these days. But it is a harsh reality of business that some people are just not suited for some jobs. Many bosses avoid firing at all costs, including going broke, because they want to see themselves as being “nice.” In reality, customers and other employees just see them as irresponsible. Here is a simple test: Are there people who work for you who you would be relieved to have come in tomorrow and quit? If the answer is yes, that is not a good sign. Especially if the employee is a relative.

6. Operations. Training, standards, support, recognition, systems, key performance indicators, follow-up, etc. Is your company getting the job done? Are customers happy? Do you know? How is employee turnover? Are employees happy? Would they tell you if they weren’t? Do you have people who tell you the truth? Do you yell? (I know. You’re passionate.) Have good people left your company for more money? That is frequently an indication of other problems.

Accounting and Finance

7. Basic Accounting. Many seemingly successful companies have gotten into big trouble by neglecting accounting until it is too late. Accounting is not just about paying taxes. It is about information, insight, and control. Great accounting will not make a business successful, but bad accounting can destroy a business. Is someone staying on top of receivables, being careful about opening new accounts and making sure the existing ones are current? Could you walk someone through your financial statements and explain each part?

8. Pricing. This is probably the sleeper on this list. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen entrepreneurs either put themselves out of business, or never make the money they should have, because of bad pricing models. They charge prices that bear no relation to the costs or to the value proposition. This is just one of the reasons a company needs accurate accounting — so it can determine the true cost of a product or service. Do your salespeople have control of the pricing for jobs that they quote? If so, are they selling at a price that allows you to make a profit?

9. Financing. Most businesses need some kind of financing. Whether it comes from investors, banks, credit unions, factoring or even credit cards, there is a lot to know and understand. This is another place where a good accountant can be of great help. Or not. If you have one of the many accountants who just do tax returns and are not really experienced at helping businesses grow, you can find lots of information in books and online. Or you can hire a better accountant. Here is a test: Do you know your debt-to-equity ratio?

Leadership

10. Any one of these topics could fill a book, and leadership is no exception. Let me count the ways: vision, direction, inspiration, support. It is similar to management, but they are not the same thing. As my company has gotten larger, I have found that leadership gets easier because I now have managers managing. When a company is smaller, the boss has to manage and lead. One minute you are writing someone up for violating the late policy, and the next you are trying to inspire the troops. Perhaps management is pushing, and leadership is pulling. It’s not easy doing both at the same time.

Whether you score well or poorly on this list, keep in mind that it is an ongoing struggle. Personally, I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I can assure you that I am constantly wrestling with almost every item on the list.

So how did you do?

Jay Goltz owns five small businesses in Chicago.

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miami small business managers

Posted on by mcooper

When people think about small businesses, they often think about those in what is known as the lower middle market. These businesses typically do more than $5 million a year in sales, and they often have more than 25 employees. It’s good work if you can get it. For one thing, if your business is in this group, you are likely to get regular offers from people who are interested in buying your company.

But a lot of people don’t realize how tough it is to get there. Of the 27 million businesses in the United States, according to the Census Bureau, there are only about 300,000 with more than $5 million in sales. And there are only 150,000 businesses that manage to do more than $10 million in sales. It’s often when a business moves beyond $10 million in sales that a line is crossed: You will either have learned the skills of being a lower middle marketbusiness owner or you will fall back to being a traditional small business again.

Actually, there is another possibility. If you take the leap and add overhead to handle the extra sales you are expecting but those sales don’t appear, your business can easily fail. Overhead is easy to add and very difficult to cut.

The lower middle market is where business becomes more complex. To move upstream from a microbusiness requires that you become a manager. Taking the next step to being a middle market business requires that you learn to manage managers. Successful business owners in the lower middle market have learned to work through and with others. The better you can do this, the more successful your business will be.

Hiring is always important, but it becomes even more so in the lower middle market. The owner can no longer be involved in every decision and having the right people in the right places can often make the difference between success and failure.

This issue almost sunk my vending business. In 1995 when I ended my career in the vending and food-service business, we had built our company to four branch operations, 90 employees and about $6 million in sales. That put my business and me solidly in the Lower Middle Market.

But along the way, when we opened our second branch, I made a huge hiring error. The manager I selected was not very good at his job, and I wasn’t very good at managing him. Luckily I had a stable structure in our main branch, which allowed me to fire this manager and take over his responsibilities.

Eventually, I learned that hiring was more science than art. I found that if I followed a system, instead of using my gut, I could improve my hiring efficiency from 30 percent effectiveness to more than 80 percent. I also added systems for delivering service, managing cash and creating new business. This was all part of putting together a dashboard that allowed me to monitor what we were doing.

The real change for me was learning how to manage. I couldn’t do it by brute force. I had to learn to set standards and then to inspect to make sure our standards were being met. My dashboard was part of the solution. The other part was providing face-to-face feedback and learning to hold others accountable.

That required learning to trust and to allow our managers to make mistakes. When we were a small company, mistakes weren’t O.K. They happened, but no one would admit they happened, least of all me. As we grew I had to learn to let others make decisions and then learn from their mistakes. The key was keeping the mistakes small enough that they didn’t sink the business. The better I got at allowing myself and others to learn from their mistakes, the better my company became. And the more I removed myself from day-to-day operations, the more I was able to focus on strategic issues and initiatives.

A nice side effect of this is that cash flow often becomes more predictable. And that allows you to make plans, such as how to expand. As a business becomes more predictable, banks get more interested in you as a customer. This can create a source of financing for growth that may not have been available previously.

The best thing about being a private business owner is that you get to choose what type of business you want. My father has said for years that you are only limited by your ability and your ambition. I think he’s right.

Some owners believe that being a middle market business owner fits their needs. For others, staying a microbusiness is best. If you like the idea of being a traditional small business where growth is not your mantra, you can choose that route. Success isn’t guaranteed, and sometimes events get in the way, but part of successful business ownership is being able to take advantage of good luck and manage bad luck. It’s part of the deal you make when you decide to work for yourself.

Where do you want your business to go? What challenges have you faced along the way?

Josh Patrick is a founder and principal at Stage 2 Planning Partners, where he works with private business owners on creating personal and business value.

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south florida garbage company

Posted on by mcooper

Swisher Hygiene Inc.’s financial troubles are providing an opportunity for Progressive Waste Solutions Ltd. to push further into Florida.

Progressive Waste is scooping up Choice Environmental Services Inc. from Swisher in a $123.3 million deal that will help it build route density.

Swisher Hygiene’s decision marks its relatively quick exit from the trash business. It entered the market in early 2011 with big plans to integrate garbage services with its broader sanitation and hygiene offerings for businesses.

But things started moving sideways for Swisher not long after taking control of Choice Environmental, and the company finally decided to sell the operation instead of staying in the capital-intensive rubbish business.

For Vaughan, Ontario-based Progressive Waste, the acquisition of Choice Environmental will allow the company to add density and increase productivity on collection routes and push more trash to its J.E.D. landfill near Orlando.

“There’s a potential for significant internalization,” said Michael E. Hoffman, a stock analyst forWunderlich Securities Inc. who covers Progressive Waste.

Swisher Hygiene’s move to exit the trash business comes as the company has some heavy hitters on the company’s board, including arguably the industry’s biggest name in history, H. Wayne Huizenga. The billionaire is best known for his work with Waste Management Inc. and then later Republic Services Inc., now the two largest trash companies in the country.

“These assets, the Choice assets, fit very nicely with our existing operations and lend themselves very well to our strategy of building more dense collection routes and raising our internalization levels at our landfill in the area,” said Chaya Cooperberg, a spokeswoman for Progressive Waste.

Choice Environmental, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has more than 150,000 residential and 7,500 commercial customers in Southeastern, Southwestern and Central Florida. The company operates sixhauling operations and three transfer and material recovery facilities.

Swisher Hygiene’s CEO, Thomas Byrne, said the company was pleased with the Choice Environmental operations.

“However, during this period we determined that we could provide our customers with the same benefits through a less capital-intensive, more cost-effective approach by partnering with other service providers to cross-sell waste services on a national scale,” he said in a statement.

Choice Environmental brings an additional $72 million in annual revenue to Progressive Waste.

Hoffman said that while the purchase price might seem higher on the surface, Progressive Waste will be able to save money by integrating new and existing collection and administrative operations and pushing more waste to the J.E.D. landfill. Choice Environmental’s mix also is weighted toward higher-margin commercial work.

“This is a good deal. It will be accretive to earnings next year,” he said.

Progressive Waste has been bulking up in Florida since its 2010 acquisition of Waste Services Inc.

“What you’ve seen us do is not enter into new markets there necessarily but tuck into our existing assets in the region and the acquisition of Choice is very much in line with that strategy of adding assets to our existing marketing footprint there,” Cooperberg said.

The purchase price could increase by $1.75 million if certain revenue targets are met. Ten percent of the purchase price also is being held back and could be adjusted based on the delivery of audited financial statements to Progressive Waste.

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miami beach garbage services

Posted on by mcooper

A pair of Florida boaters are alive today after clinging to parts of a cooler for nearly seven hours when their fishing boat capsized off the coast of Miami.

George Verdecia, 29, and his older brother, who was not named, left for a fishing trip late Monday night but only made it about three miles off the shores of Key Biscayne, Fla., before their 12-foot vessel capsized at around 2:30 a.m., according to Coast Guard authorities.

Choppy water and high waves swamped the boat and caused it to capsize, Lt. Commander Joseph Abeyta, commanding officer of the Miami Beach Coast Guard station, told ABCNews.com.

The brothers had lifejackets on board, but had them stored beneath the boat’s seats. When the boat capsized, the only thing that popped to the surface was a cooler. Verdecia grabbed the lid while his brother grabbed the cooler’s base, according to Abeyta, and both held on, unable to fight the strong current. The two floated all night long and drifted apart.

Verdecia’s brother made it to shore around 9:30 a.m. Monday and was spotted by a woman walking on the beach who immediately called 911. Authorities contacted Abeyta’s Coast Guard officers who were preparing to depart on a training mission and instead diverted their resources to search for Verdecia.

“We launched all available assets to respond because the brother stated that his brother [Verdecia] was still out there hanging on to the lid of the cooler,” Abeyta said. “He was a half mile from shore but the current was preventing him from making it to shore.”

The woman who called 911 could see Verdecia from the shore so she directed Abeyta and his officers on the Coast Guard boat to his location where they pulled Verdecia to safety, less than 20 minutes from when they first got the call.

“When he came on board our vessel he was physically exhausted and showing early onset of hypothermia,” Abeyta said. “He was barely hanging on to the lid of the cooler. That was basically

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Art Basel, known as the world’s premier art show for modern and contemporary works, will stage its 11th annual international exhibition on Miami Beach, Dec.6-9 with satellite art fairs in Midtown/Wynwood and Overtown.

At Art Basel weekend in Overtown, Dec. 7-9, the public is invited to Shop, Dine and Explore at the Art Africa Miami Arts Fair located in the Historic Overtown Folklife Village and District. Presented by TheUrbanCollective in collaboration with the city of Miami and the South East Overtown Park West Community Redevelopment Agency contemporary artwork from the African Diaspora will be featured at this second annual arts fair.

According to Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones, “South Florida temporarily transforms into an art Mecca during Art Basel and we want to give people the opportunity to learn and experience the unique culture of our local Diaspora artists.”

Art Africa recognizes the African Diaspora’s artistic contributions to the modern world. Organizer architect Neil Hall and president of TheCollective said, “this group of artists of African descent is dedicated to the advancement of local African, African-American and African Caribbean artists.”

The catalog features professional artists who produce and sell art. For ticket information,www.artafricamiami.com. This exhibition will be held on the Ninth Street Pedestrian Mall, 919 NW Second Ave., adjacent to the historic Lyric Theater.

Head west on Ninth Street to Third Avenue, to the Ward Rooming House Gallery, 249 NW Ninth St., where original works of local artists Purvis Young, Charles Latimore, Earnest King, Oscar Thomas, Jerome Jones and Randall Williams, will be featured. This SEOPW CRA and Black Archives exhibition is curated by Timothy Barber. Tour contact: 305-381-0653.

Plan to spend several hours or several days in the area: Friday, Dec. 7; Saturday, Dec. 8; and Sunday, Dec. 9, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. On Northwest Second and Third avenues from Ninth to 17th streets there are restaurants, barber shops, dry cleaner, beauty shops, women’s apparel, churches, grocery stores and a kiddie park. Shop, dine and explore is a collaborative of the SEOPW CRA and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau.

At 4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 9, The Links, Inc., Greater Miami Chapter presents The Seventh Annual Overtown Holiday Spectacular! at The Historic St. Agnes’ Episcopal Church, 1750 NW Third Ave. Free admission. www.greatermiamilinks.org.

A weekend trolley will circulate through Overtown for those who wish to park and ride. Art Africa will be housed in an 8,000-square-foot, fully enclosed, air-conditioned exhibition tent on sacred land in Miami’s Colored Town, now Overtown.

At the turn of the 20th Century, black people were limited by custom and law in “every phase of life” including being prohibited from living in white neighborhoods. As a result, many blacks owned their own land. In the 1930s Willie Watkins built a mini resort with a tennis court and apartments on the site occupied by Art Africa. The resort became a permanent residence for local blacks and those relocating to Miami. Laws began changing in 1964. In the 1980s, this land was cleared for redevelopment.

Thirty years later, in 1994, the historic pedestrian mall was constructed, beginning the slow painful revitalization of Overtown. The mall’s sidewalk design represents kente cloth developed in West Africa by the Ashanti people.

No doubt pioneer families, including the Dorsett, Rogers, Johnson, Russell, Sands, Smith, Albury, Reeves, Stirrup, Sawyer, Newbold, Bethel, McKinney, Sweeting, Strachan and Heastie, who lived and worked in Colored Town will swell up with pride when they see the exhibition at this location. I did last year at the inaugural arts fair.

This year art enthusiasts will enjoy the more than 50 contemporary artists from the Global African Diaspora. Artists exhibiting include Addonis Parker, Carl Craig, Carl Justse T. Eliott Mansa, Rodney Jackson, Betty Morais, Marie Therese Dupoux and Turgo Bastien.

Featured events include Jamaica’s 50th anniversary celebration and a special exhibition from artists of Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti and Barbados, with a musical honoring the mambo king Cachao. During Art Basel weekend, Overtown again becomes a destination for tourists, visitors and residents.

 

Dorothy Jenkins Fields, PhD, is a historian and founder of the Black Archives, History and Research Foundation of South Florida Inc. Send feedback to djf@bellsouth.net.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/25/3112744/overtown-will-participate-in-art.html#storylink=cpy
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