Charter approval finalizes Pinecrest incorporation

Voters will elect a council on April 23

By CHARLES RABIN
Herald Staff Writer

Pinecrest made it official Tuesday.

Capping an almost two-year drive toward incorporation, voters approved a village charter that calls for a seven-member council led by a mayor. About 52 percent of registered voters turned out.

“I think we’re happy to see that if you bring government down to the people, people will get involved,” said Gary Matzner, a member of the village’s charter commission. “People will be able to bump into a mayor and councilperson in a supermarket.”

Four council members will be elected from districts, with the two others and the mayor elected at large. Terms will be two years, with a two-term limit.

Pinecrest residents voted to incorporate the village last fall. All that remained was approval of a charter, the document that outlines how the city will be set up and run. It was the last chance to stop incorporation.

“We had an uphill battle to begin with, because there was a big turnout [in the vote to incorporate] in November, without any [organized] opposition,” said Richard Brodsky, an opponent of incorporation. “They did a masterful job.”

Village leaders, who will be elected April 23, expect to be able to improve services — especially police and control over zoning issues — while maintaining or lowering property taxes.

Pinecrest, whose boundaries run from Old Cutler Road to U.S. 1 between Kendall Drive and Southwest 136th Street, had been sending about $1.6 million more a year in taxes to Metro-Dade government than it had been receiving in services, a 1995 Metro study found.

Under the charter approved Tuesday, a majority of voters must approve proposed property tax increases.

Supplemental Election Results

Separate Election Results table on the same page; Pinecrest portion only, saved as election-results-pinecrest.jpg. Not inserted into the article body.

Machine OCR does not reliably recover this small table’s figures. Percentages below were read directly from the preserved crop; final editorial verification remains required.

PINECREST

Approve city charter

• Yes: 58.21% (check mark printed)
• No: 41.79%