One of Miami’s Community Newspapers
Phone: 305-669-7355
ENDALL GAZETT K E www.communitynewspapers.com
FEBRUARY 10 - 16, 2009
Network works to clear path for bikeway improvements Police alertness pays Reptiles rule in shop H off at shopping malls at Sunset Dr. center
BY RICHARD YAGER
azards and deficiencies along the nine-mile Metrorail bike-pedestrian path (M-Path) from South Miami to the Miami River sparked the biking community’s Green Mobility Network to seek county shortrange funding for upgrading and improvements. “We need to break the ‘impasse’ between government agencies to get the job done,” said John D. Hopkins who chairs the Network, a biking organization of more than 100 Miami-Dade cyclists who promote bike and pedestrian safety as well as path expansions through local government liaison. Eric Tulle, Network secretary, updated members with a 40-minute slide presentation on Feb. 3 at Kendall’s Dice House. The presentation traced M-Path’s maze of unsafe conditions in block-by-block slide photos from the south bank of the Miami River to SW 67th Avenue. “That a city the size of Miami has a clear biking and pedestrian pathway from a major suburban area straight through to downtown is an amazing resource, unequalled anywhere in the country,” summarized Henry Block, Continental Park resident who blogs for bikers. “Not to keep it maintained and improved as a prime community feature due to conflicts of interest is a ridiculous waste of a great resource.” A mixture of government agencies have specific interests for the M-Path that weaves beneath and around concrete pillars that elevate Metrorail’s tracks along the west side of S. Dixie Highway most of the way from downtown to the Dadeland South terminus.
––––––––––––– See
BIKEWAY, page 4
BY RICHARD YAGER lert work by shopping center surveillance police teams paid off with arrests in two Kendall incidents, according to citations issued by respective Kendall and Hammocks District Police commanders in January. Awards were presented on Jan. 28 to Detectives Alexander Rizo and Alain Gomez by Maj. Michael Herrera for alertness and “investigative savvy” when the pair worked what Kendall District police call a “Grinchbusters Detail” at Dadeland Mall in November. Spotting a driver who said he was “having mechanical troubles,” Det. Gomez looked inside the car, bearing two passengers, and discovered other kinds of mechanicals — several global positioning units on the floorboard next to a firearm and satellite radio. Noticing still a fourth subject nearby, standing next to a car with a broken window, the investigation turned up several BB guns as well. Auto theft detectives charged the quartet with multiple vehicle burglaries, as well as grand theft and criminal mischief.
A
This four-foot albino boa is in demand at Mike Barrero’s Snakes at Sunset.
BY RICHARD YAGER ike Barrero, who prefers turtles for pets, says finding pythons and boa constrictors “really isn’t anything new; they’ve been around South Florida for years.” The recently established owner of Snakes at Sunset, a storefront tucked among the Shoppes of Sunset at 9763 SW 72 St., said so-called hordes of multiplying constrictors in the
M
Everglades almost always turn out to be Burmese pythons. “They were the most popular breed exhibited and sold as pet novelties during the ’50s and ’60s,” Barrero explained. “Many became orphaned when jungle exhibit owners along the Tamiami Trail (US 41) closed their shops when the interstates and Alligator Alley opened. “They were let loose in the ’Glades and have been there ever since, grow––––––––––––––––– See
REPTILES, page 4
–––––––––––––––––– See
POLICE, page 4