BYLINE: Aldo Nahed

A pregnant woman was dragged on the street by a tow truck Sunday morning as she fought to stop her car from being taken away, witnesses said. Miami police are investigating to determine if a crime was committed.

The incident began around 11 a.m. when Sandra Pierre, 20, who is four months pregnant, parked at the I-95 Pawn Shop on Northwest Seventh Avenue, in a tow-away spot. Witnesses said Pierre went shopping at the Family Dollar across the street and, while there, noticed her green Infiniti being towed by a driver from Torres Towing.

A second tow-truck driver from the company stopped to talk to Pierre, said Kamilah Wright, the Family Dollar store manager.

”She was upset and trying to talk to him,” Wright said. “He was in the truck and began to drive away. She held on to the truck, and instead of stopping he sped up.”

Wright said Pierre was dragged for about 10 feet. A security guard helped Pierre back into the store, and Wright called 911.

She was taken to North Shore Medical Center. Investigators told The Miami Herald’s news partners at WFOR-CBS 4 that Pierre was treated and released.

BYLINE: ALDO NAHED

After its big legal fight with the state, third-party groups such as the League of Women Voters are again submitting voter registrations without the fear of stiff fines for violations.

Mary G. Wilson, the League’s national president, said she will be at the Miami-Dade Elections Department today to turn in new voter registration applications to elections supervisor Lester Sola.

”To a certain extent, you can never catch up,” Wilson said. “There is so little time left before the Nov. 7 election. We’ll never really be able to register all of the voters.”

On Aug. 28, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz deemed unconstitutional a state voter registration law that restricted registration drives such as those routinely done by groups like the League by requiring the forms be turned in to election officials within 10 days or face stiff fines.

The law applied to all persons or organizations that engaged in voter registration except for major political parties, state motor vehicle offices and individuals who seek to register immediate family members. It did not impact such entities as the Family Values Party, Green Party of Florida or the Surfers Party of America.

Under the law, the state could impose fines on individuals, registered agents or board members of any nonpartisan voter registration group. Violators faced civil fines of $250 for each voter registration application submitted to election officials more than 10 days after it was collected, $500 for each form delivered after any voter registration deadline and $5,000 for each application not submitted.

”The ruling allows us to resume our voter registration without concern to the extreme penalties,” Wilson said.

The law went into effect Jan. 1.

Wilson is traveling the state as part of a Public Advocacy for Voter Protection project.

Before Wilson heads to the Miami-Dade Elections Department this morning, she will make a stop at the Miami-Dade College Wolfson campus, which is hosting Voter Awareness Day. She will talk to League members and students about their efforts in breaking down barriers.

”We want to inform voters about the election procedure,” she said. “We think voting should be fun.”

BYLINE: ALDO NAHED

When Reinaldo ”Rey” Trujillo, a longtime North Bay Village activist, filed to run for the City Commission in November, he thought he might have a shot at wining. The election turned out to be much easier than even he anticipated.

When the Sept. 23 filing deadline came, all three seats that were up for election in November only had one candidate, so the three who had filed — Trujillo and incumbents Mayor Joseph Geller, and Commissioner and Vice Mayor George Kane — were automatically elected to the five-member commission.

Geller will serve another two years while Kane, elected to the Harbor Island commission seat, and Trujillo will serve four-year terms. Trujillo will replace Tzvi Bogomilski, who decided not to run again.

Trujillo, 62, is a newcomer to the commission but a familiar face at commission meetings, where he has been a frequent speaker.

”I ran because I have always been involved,” said Trujillo, who moved to North Bay Village from the Hammocks three years ago.

Trujillo said he wants to fulfill a charrette held in June in which residents expressed a desire for more continuity among the city’s three islands.

”The islands are very unique,” he said. “It’s an important part of business to improve and put them on the map. A lot of people know the Kennedy Causeway, but they don’t know they are in North Bay Village.”

Trujillo, a General Electric healthcare clinical system sales manager for Latin America, is a resident at the GrandView Palace. He said his activism with the building is not the reason he decided to run for office.

Trujillo led complaints about the building’s status of repairs after 2005 code violations, as well as damage following Hurricane Wilma to some units in the 532-unit building.

”I will recuse myself if I have to,” Trujillo said of possible GrandView issues before the commission.

Trujillo and the returning incumbents say they want to make sure the city’s sewer main gets replaced and utility lines are buried, as approved by voters in September.

Kane, 62, a realty associate for Beachfront Realty, said burying power lines on Harbor Island, the multifamily city district, would be his top priority.

”Harbor Island will have the most revenue per foot in the city,” he said. “However, it’s been the most ignored portion of the city for most years.”

Officials estimate in the next two years that the city’s population will grow to 10,000 residents from 7,000. The ”360” condominiums on Harbor Islands will include three buildings with 414 units in all.

Another issue facing the town: finding a new city manager.

City Manager Charity Good resigned on Aug. 16 but is staying on until a replacement is found.

Geller, 52, says that choosing a new manager is crucial.

”We want someone with experience, vision, integrity and we want someone with an open mind and good people skills,” Geller said.

According to Geller, residents he spoke with while preparing to campaign asked for a renewed emphasis on code enforcement.

Geller, a private attorney and village attorney for El Portal, said he’s looking forward to a second term in North Bay Village, where he has lived for about 24 years.

”I’m very gratified by the support that people have shown for what we tried to do in the first term,” Geller said.

BYLINE: Aldo Nahed

Gregory Monk, of Liberty City, would like to enjoy dinner with his wife and four children at least three times a week.

But Monk, who works 12 to 15 hours a day as a community involvement specialist for Miami-Dade Public Schools and tutors children after school, says most nights family dinnertime is long gone when he arrives home.

“It’s very hard with all the activities I do,” Monk said. “I need a slap on the wrist.”

On Sunday, Monk signed a pledge — part of the first Family Day event at Bayside Marketplace — to have dinner with his family, including his two daughters and two sons, more than twice a week.

Family Day — A day to eat dinner with your children, held nationwide on the fourth Monday in September, was born from the idea that kids from families that eat dinner together are less likely to use drugs, smoke or get involved with the wrong crowd, said Miami Coalition’s Alina Sosa-Perez, who organized the event. It included cooking demonstrations, martial arts presentations and free massages.

“This is a preventative activity,” Sosa-Perez said. “It’s about using our resources before the children get into trouble.”

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, which created Family Day in 2001, cites a 1998 teen survey’s findings as evidence that dinnertime family togetherness heads off trouble on other fronts.

According to the survey, the group said, children who eat dinner with their parents twice a week or less are four times more likely to smoke cigarettes, three times more likely to smoke marijuana and nearly twice as likely to drink alcohol as those who eat dinner with their parents six or seven times a week.

More than 40 parents signed pledges to have dinner or a meal with their children at least twice a week. Organizers say that the low turnout was because of high downtown Miami parking fees and that they hope to add buses next year to reach out to more families.

Iliana Marin, a Miami-Dade education specialist, said she and her son Eduardo, 11, try to eat together frequently.

“Sometimes we do a quick bite,” said Marin, of Little Gables. “Tomorrow we’ll sit with grandma and grandpa.”

BYLINE: ALDO NAHED

North Bay Village commissioners approved adding three new police department positions, including a new deputy police chief and two motorcycle officers, during their final budget hearing Tuesday.

City Manager Charity Good said the new hires wouldn’t increase the overall police department budget. Good said she found money in police funds because of a decrease in gasoline prices and the lapse time before the positions are filled. The positions will be advertised in October, when the new budget takes effect.

The 2006-07 police department budget of $3.86 million, which is 63 percent of the city’s proposed $6.2 million general funds, represents a $364,000 increase from the current year.

”We may be putting in money,” Good said, “but we are getting safety.”

Police Chief Scott Israel said the vacant deputy chief position and the city’s motorcycle units were dissolved in 2004 because there was a lack of money in previous budgets.

”It’s easier to enforce traffic with motorcycle officers,” Israel said. “They will be assigned specifically for traffic issues.”

Israel, who is in charge of 27 sworn officers, said he needs an assistant chief because he wants to groom a successor. In March, Israel was a semifinalist in a Boca Raton police chief search.

Commissioner Tzvi Bogomilsky, who was not at the meeting, expressed some concerns on Sept. 12, because he hasn’t seen speeders on the causeway slow down for police.

”We increased the police department last year to add more officers and here we are adding some more,” he said. “I haven’t seen the little things done.”

Last year, two new officers were added to the department.

For the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, the city’s tax rate drops slightly, to $6.09 for every $1,000 of a property’s assessed value, from the current $6.21 rate. Despite the decrease, taxes are likely to rise because of rising property values.

BYLINE: Aldo Nahed

For 25 years, the First United Methodist Church of Miami staff rang the daily carillon bells via cassette tapes. But the days of rewinding tape are over.

On Sunday, music director Dr. Robert Remek played the newly installed digital carillon bell system, a musical instrument composed of cast-bronze bells, through outdoor speakers. During the week, the system will automatically mark the hour and play a five-minute mini-concert at noon and 6 in the evening.

“The previous unit could only be played live,” said Remek, who teaches music at the University of Miami. “With this new digital system, the sound of the bells is somewhat thicker and richer with more harmonics. The sound doesn’t run together.”

Sunday’s special service at the church, 400 Biscayne Blvd., celebrated the installation of the Conrad and Geraldine Arnold Memorial Carillon bell system with 15 minutes of music before and after the 11 a.m. service.

GIFT TO CHURCH

“The music goes out to the steeple, as well as the sanctuary of this church that they loved so much,” said the Arnolds’ daughter Amy Arnold Brown, whose parents were members since 1938. Geraldine Arnold died in June 2003, and after Conrad Arnold died in January 2004, he left money from their estate for sound equipment.

“My father used to volunteer every week to tape the services,” Arnold Brown recalled.

The digital carillon system cost about $25,000. The old system broke down, Remek said.

While the new system has a library of 300 digital songs that play anytime it’s programmed, it has the capacity to add hundreds of tunes.

Another advantage the digital equipment has is a larger musical range. The new bell system can play 49 notes, while the old one played 37. The old system was also bulky, filling an entire hallway closet, while the new one is compact, about two square feet.

“It’s a pleasure to play and a pleasure to hear,” Remek said.

Visitor Ernie Martin of West Kendall attended so he could hear the carillon music. At the end of the service, he said he was moved.

“It’s special to me; my mother-in-law, who’s deceased about 10 years, had a lot to do with the music program at this church and I kind of felt her presence,” Martin said.

The First United Methodist Church of Miami was formed in 1966 through the merger of two downtown congregations, Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church and White Temple Methodist Episcopal Church. A 1965 arson fire unified the congregations. Their combined history spans 110 years, church historian Wilma Baggesen said.

Baggesen said the decision to stay downtown was a good one. She has noticed how the area’s building boom has drawn new members to the church.

“We’re seeing a lot more young people and that is our sound of hope for the future,” Baggesen said.

ENHANCES INTERACTION

Rev. Emilio Chaviano, whose Sunday sermon included many musical references, said the new system enhances community interaction even when service is not being held.

“When it comes out automatically, people will hear it,” Chaviano said. ‘It’s like the church putting out the message to the neighborhood: ‘We love you, we care for you, and we’re here for you.’ “

BYLINE: Aldo Nahed, The Miami Herald

Forty years ago, Bob Craig remembers, the Harvey Seeds American Legion Post 29 was a thriving post.

A chief drawing point at the post, located just outside the Palm Bay neighborhood: the post’s waterfront Restaurant and Lounge by the Bay, which is open to the public.

Craig, a former post commander and World War II veteran, recalls it as a place where local politicians and the well-connected mingled in the restaurant and sipped drinks at the lounge.

“We had the finest built bar,” Craig said.

But through the years, as the post’s membership dwindled from a high of 2,700 to the current level of less than 500, the lounge followed a parallel path: despite its scenic bayfront setting on Northeast 64th Street, business fell to just a handful of diehards.

Post officials blamed the lounge’s outdated design and atmosphere. The post, founded in 1919, moved into the current facility in 1967.

The lounge and restaurant may have worked as a ’60s power spot, but was not suited to today’s sensibilities.

“Things change in 40 years,” Craig said.

And now the Harvey Seeds American Legion Post 29 Restaurant and Lounge by the Bay has finally caught up with the times.

On Sept. 9, Craig and dozens of members, area residents and community leaders got a preview of upgrades at the lounge and restaurant. The place, which has been closed for eight months for renovations, was scheduled to open late last week.

The upgrade cost more than $100,000 and includes new furniture such as chairs, bar stools, tables, flags, bar equipment and the removal of asbestos found in glue holding the old wooden panels, said Bob Flanders, the post’s financial officer.

“We literally razed the bar to bring it into the early 21st century,” Flanders said.

Flanders describes the elevated lounge and restaurant’s sleek look as contemporary Miami Modern, in keeping with the revitalization of the Upper Eastside.

Local designer Drew McDowell of the firm Myles Taylor Interiors, donated his time and expertise to the post for the project.

Post commander Phil Johnson, a Korean War veteran, spearheaded the overhaul. He said he hopes the new lighting and a red, white and blue theme will attract new customers to the lounge and restaurant, and also increase member participation at the post.

Three years ago, when Johnson took the helm, he proposed a vision to update the lounge and restaurant.

“Before, we were in the doldrums,” Johnson said. “And financially we were having a problem.”

Around that time, the post got a needed financial boost when the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, formerly Immigration and Naturalization Services, leased office space in the post’s auditorium.

“They gave us the lifeline to get ourselves back,” Johnson said.

The Sept. 9 event was a preview. When the bar reopens, it will resume charging $2.50 for domestic beers and $3.50 for premium beers and cocktails.

The restaurant’s opening is still in the works, and Johnson is interviewing chef candidates with hopes of offering upscale breakfast, lunch and weekend dinner offerings.

At the Sept. 9 ribbon-cutting, hundreds took part in a ceremony that included somber reminders of the Sept. 11 attacks and a call to end gun violence which has claimed the lives of many young children in the community.

Among the hundreds gathered at the post’s front entrance were the Boy Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts of America and Sea Scout members, who raised the U.S. and POW flags at half mast.

Miami fire and police officials and Miami City Commissioner Linda Haskins carried a wreath, donated by Jenny’s Flowers, in memory of the Sept. 11 victims.

Then everyone gathered indoors, where Miami-Dade County Commissioner Audrey Edmonson and Rev. Jerome Starling spoke about the dangers guns pose to the community.

“There are stray bullets running through our city. Father God, protect our children,” Starling said in a prayer.

Members of the Lauderdale West Community Center hobbies shop handcrafted about 50 police cars out of wood which they gave out to the children.

Afterward, people filled the lounge and restaurant for lunch: hot dogs, sweet brown beans and potato salad were all on the menu.

Mike Perozzi, the bar’s longtime self-described “friendly bartender from Brooklyn,” was once again serving drinks.

Sitting at a table with his wife and longtime friends, Craig gazed at the back lawn and into the bay.

“I still like the old bar,” Craig said, quickly noting, “but I’m also stuck into old things.”

Robert Schenck, a veteran who lives in the area and stopped patronizing the lounge 10 years ago, said he welcomed the changes.

“It was always gloomy,” Schenck said. “The bar was very dark. Now it looks beautiful. I think I’ll start coming here again.”

BYLINE: ALDO NAHED

A majority of North Bay Village voters want their power lines located underground and they also want a new sewer main.

But they are not in favor of a new fire and police building, additional parks and recreation facilities and a makeover to the city’s main thoroughfare.

Voters approved Tuesday a $9.1 million bond to bury the city’s utility lines and a loan of $9.1 million from the state Department of Environmental Protection to replace the westbound sewer main. But three bond questions failed in the special elections.

Voters were against a $2 million bond for aesthetic improvements along the Kennedy Causeway, a $6 million bond for land and improvements for police and fire-rescue purposes and a $9.4 million bond for land and improvements to parks and recreational facilities.

”They voted for $18.2 million,” said Mayor Joe Geller. ‘We deliberately made a point in chopping this up in smaller amounts, so voters had a real choice. I’m satisfied with the voters’ choice.”

Ignacio Diaz, an activist opposed to the bonds, said that a $60,000 citywide promotional campaign that included a television commercial, T-shirts and a city workshop failed to tell voters about the negative aspects of the proposals.

”The ad was the mayor asking the public to trust him and vote on this,” Diaz said. “The public is intelligent enough to make that decision.”

Geller said the commercial was to inform the public.

”That’s appropriate and that’s our responsibility,” he said.

Diaz, who believes the sewer proposal was the most pressing issue for the city, said residents knew little about the projects to approve them and they were concerned about waste.

”I think we should have waited,” Diaz said. “There are a lot of other issues in the city.”

The City Commission formed a bond committee at the beginning of the year and approved placing the bond question on the ballot in June.

With the exception of Commissioner Oscar Alfonso, all commissioners backed the bonds, which are to be repaid over 30 years.

”Obviously people are worried about the cost,” Geller said. “Yet they chose the two biggest ticket items.”

Like much of Miami-Dade, only a fraction of the North Bay Village’s registered voters took part in early voting, absentee ballots and at the polls.

Of the 2,434 registered voters, 17 percent, or about 430 residents, cast ballots.

BYLINE: MARTIN MERZER AND ALDO NAHED

An unusually strong earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico rocked southwest Florida today, provoking worried calls from nearly 2,000 people in the state and from as far away as North Carolina, geologists said.

No damage or injuries were reported, though many residents of the region experienced dishes that rattled all by themselves and swimming pools that suddenly developed rolling waves.

The 6.0 magnitude quake struck at 10:56 a.m. EDT and was centered 259 miles west of Bradenton and 397 miles from Miami.

Sally Mayse of Bradenton was riding her bike on a local causeway when she felt a vibration and her two-wheeler wobbled. She thought it was a tractor-trailer but none was in sight. Then, she figured it was her imagination.

”I didn’t give it a lot of thought,” Mayse, 46, said later as she relaxed by the bay. “Then I heard people talking and I put it together.”

Experts said the quake was too small to generate a tsunami, though the U.S Coast Guard issued a mariner’s warning, advising boaters to exercise caution in the area.

”We are going to monitor the wave heights,” said Ronnie Mason, a Coast Guard petty officer in St. Petersburg.

He said he saw the computer monitors in the command center shake for 10 to 15 seconds, and his office received numerous calls from boaters and from residents more than 80 miles inland.

One resident in the Bradenton area said she felt the quake for about 30 seconds; others reported about 20 seconds of movement.

On Anna Maria Island, eight miles west of Bradenton, no high-wave warnings were issued and sunbathers still swam in warm Gulf waters this afternoon.

There has been ”no effect from it,” said Capt. Larry Leinhauser of the Manatee County Emergency Services office.

In South Florida, the event passed virtually unnoticed, though Mary Scottoline, 82, who lives along the Venetian Causeway in Miami Beach, said she felt her bedroom tremble around 11 a.m.

”My bed shook and probably the whole room,” Scottoline said. “It shook once and then it shook again.”

Mike Stone, a spokesman for the state’s Division of Emergency Management, said some managers were called to work to monitor any consequences, but none were reported. Gov. Jeb Bush was advised of the situation, he said.

”Some people definitely felt a little shaking in counties along the Gulf Coast,” Stone said.

Guy Urban, an expert at the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said an earthquake was reported in the same part of the Gulf in February — though the cause is not clearly understood.

Quakes often occur in ”subduction zones,” places where two tectonic plates meet, causing one to slide under the other.

”As far as a fault area, there are no major subduction zones,” he said. “It’s a rare place historically for an earthquake.”

Chris Harrison, a geophysicist at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, said he also was surprised to hear of a quake of that magnitude in that region, but Floridians shouldn’t get too shook up over it.

”It’s undoubtedly a strange event,” Harrison said. “You can get earthquakes in very unexpected places, but to say that we’re in danger of getting seriously hurt by an earthquake — that would be too alarmist.”

He said the quake, reportedly at a depth of 6.2 miles, obviously could have been caused by a known or unknown geologic fault, or — somewhat less likely — by the shifting of deeply piled sediment.

In any event, it made quite an impression along Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Mary Ruiz, 67, of Holmes Beach, was leaving a supermarket when she felt “an extraordinary change in motion.”

She feared that it was caused by an explosion, and was somewhat relieved to learn about the quake, especially at this particular time.

Said Ruiz: “Got the 9-11 jitters, I think.”

The staff of the Bradenton Herald contributed to this report.