Early voting for Miami-Dade District 5 Commissioner has started, and you can now vote at Government Center in Downtown Miami until May 20th. Please vote - it's time for Downtown Miami residents to have a representative in the County Commission! Also, please attend the Candidate Forum this Wednesday, 6:30pm at First Miami Presbyterian Church - 609 Brickell Ave. Following please find some thoughts on local interests from your neighbor, community activist and County Commission candidate Eileen Higgins: Dear Downtown Neighbors, It is looking very likely the City of Miami intends to charge ahead with a 10-year contract for Formula One in Miami, which again keeps Parcel B a parking lot and racetrack rather than a park. Certainly, we can all appreciate the City Commissioners’ intent to try to bring revenue-generating events to Miami, but I hope they do a lot of studying of the impact on businesses, parks, traffic, and neighborhoods. During this 10-year period, the signature bridge will be under construction, at least a dozen new high-rises will be under construction (some along the track site), New World Center will be open, and much more. In other words, this will be a neighborhood with more people, more businesses, more construction sites, and more traffic. As we all know, the Formula e-car race shut down the city center for weeks, made it impossible for pedestrians to cross the street, and left bus drivers with no place to drop off passengers. Without a sidewalk, buses straddled two lanes of Biscayne, slowing or blocking traffic completely. When they stopped, they had no choice but to let their passengers off into a lane of traffic. What happens if Amazon selects Miami as its next HQ? That’s another set of construction projects and businesses that will need access to our streets to get their employees to work. Let’s hope the City Manager takes this into mind as he negotiates with Formula One. The downtown of 2018 will not be the downtown of 2022 nor of 2028. He must consider the growth the city has already approved and permitted as he moves forward to evaluate this project. Eileen Higgins