Category Archives: Coral Gables

A big truck pulled up in front of the house about an hour ago, and a man rang the door bell to tell me that they were here to fix the gas leak.

Gas leak? Gas leak??? This was news to me. It seems that Florida City Gas hires some firm to go around and inspect gas meters for leaks, and they found one at our house. No, judging from the yellow cable ties on our pipes, they found two. I can’t hear or smell anything, so it can’t be that serious, but still.

And no one told us. The workmen said they should have rung the bell, and if no one was home they should have left a note. There was no note. They should have told me, but not to worry, it is — they are — very small.

The work team was quick. In half an hour or less they were done. And then the fun began. The work crew can turn off gas supplies, which they needed to do in order to effect their repair. But they are not able or empowered to turn the gas back on. That, says the blue card, requires a call to an 800 number. Fortunately, since my office is undergoing a treatment that the Vice Dean described in a recent memo as akin to “elephants wielding gigantic tree trunks” ranging through the floor, I am at home today, and able to call now rather than at dinner time, when one might just want to cook something.

So I call the 800 number. The automated voice system wants me to punch many numbers, and I do, navigating to the third level in the menu. Then a robo voice tells me I’ll have to be on hold for a bit as they have a lot of calls. I get a moment of muzak, then a click, then silence. More clicks. Silence. Then the dreaded Bell System voice says, “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up…” Yes, I’ve been disconnected.

So I repeat the whole process and get … a human being! He makes me repeat all the info that the automated system already knew. Then he tells me he’ll have to put me on hold to transfer me to another department. Before he does, I explain I’ve been cut off once already — but it seems they know about the problem, they’ve been having lots of trouble with the system, and he promises to call me back if I’m cut off. I also mention that I’m a little perturbed by no one telling me about the leak. He is solicitous, but all he can say is that he’ll make a note of it.

In due course I’m transferred to Jeanne, who has a slow southern voice and very brisk efficiency. Once again I have to explain where the house is (they send me gas, don’t they know where I am?). She wants to know the name of my subdivision too, the first time anyone has asked me this in more than 18 years. Riviera?

As regards my concern that no one told me about the leak, Jeanne is utterly unimpressed. “I think the most important thing is that they told us, so we could come out and fix it.” I agree, but ask if she doesn’t think that maybe I, the resident, should be told too? “No,” says Jeanne. And that is that.

They promise to have the gas back on well before dinner time.

(Creative Commons photo – c.a.muller.)

They like it here! And so do we.

Coral Gables; The City Beautiful Still Lives Up to its Name – Miami Beach 411.

Gables Home Page has the early results from 2,818 absentee ballots, which will be a significant fraction of the total ballots cast (“By 3 p.m. more than 3,000 residents had cast ballots, a little over 10 percent of the city’s 29,679 registered voters.”).

The absentee voters — thought by many to be significantly skewed to an older and more Hispanic vote — went Cason 40%, Slesnick 37%, and Korge only 23%. In Group 4, Quesada was crushing with 53%. Both Rosenblatt and Sanabria were far behind with 18% and 17%.

So presumably this means Quesada wins, because I think he’ll do well on the in-person vote too. Whether it means Cason wins is much harder to say without knowing how much of an absentee effort Slesnick made, and how different the in-person vote is from the absentee. Arguably, there might be more Slesnick voters turning up in person, maybe enough to turn the tide. The 3% gap between them, after all, is only 85 votes, not enough to rest comfortably on.

Polls closed over an hour ago. Where online do they report the results? There’s nothing evident at the Miami-Dade election results page, nor on the City of Coral Gables web page.

Update: I just read here that there were actually 4,683 absentee votes as of Monday, which would mean the numbers above are only partial even for the absentees. If correct, that also means that there could well be more absentee voters than in-person voters, in which case maybe these numbers will hold up after all?