Investigation Miami

HOW THE DDA RE-ELECTED MARC SARNOFF

2011-11-13T21:01:00.000-05:00

Al Crespo broke the story about the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) ginning up votes for the re-election of Marc Sarnoff by sending out 39,000 mailers to 18,000 registered voters in the DDA soliciting absentee ballot requests and steering them to the DDA website - a site replete with accolades and photo ops touting the accomplishments of "Commissioner Ethics."

Beyond that, the DDA, according to documentation obtained by Al Crespo, coordinated all sorts of "events" with DDA voters for Marc Sarnoff to attend.

Here's one of the emails that describes, in detail, the coordination of Sarnoff staffer William Placencia, the DDA and Sarnoff himself to Get Out the Vote for Marc Sarnoff. The memo synthesizes the illegal use of city and DDA resources used to bolster Sarnoff's campaign - and note that Sarnoff is copied on all of the e-mails.

DDA Coordinating Get Out the Vote for Sarnoff With His Staffer Plans en CIA

So, how effective was the Get Out the Vote efforts of the DDA for the Sarnoff campaign?

It made the difference between an outright Sarnoff win and forcing a runoff. And conventional wisdom says that if Sarnoff had been forced into a runoff - he would have lost. His opponents had pledged support for whoever the runner-up may be (it was Kate Callahan) and the combined resources of four campaigns would have, most likely pushed Ms. Callahan, over the top and the resulting ouster of Commissioner Ethics.

There are 45,000 registered voters in all of District 2 - with 18,000 in the DDA. Directly contacting 40% of the registered voters in District 2 with public funds provided Sarnoff a HUGE advantage over his opponents.

And the illegal actions provided a boon to the Sarnoff campaign.

The votes in the DDA went for Sarnoff by a margin of 60% to 40%. Whereas all other District 2 precincts were evenly split at 50% to 50%. It is unquestionable that the DDA efforts pushed Sarnoff over the 50% mark, thus averting a deadly run-off.

Absentee ballots in the DDA comprised 54% of the total votes cast as opposed to 38% for all other precincts - does that tell you how effective the Absentee Ballot push was for Sarnoff? Had the margin of absentee ballots in the DDA reflected the rest of the district, that fact alone would have forced a runoff.

But as Al Crespo has reported tonight, it appears that our State Attorney, Kathy Fernandez-Rundle, doesn't have any interest in doing a real investigation of the case. Hell, why should she? She's up for re-election next year and she might want a little help from Commissioner Ethics and his DDA.

So we end up with four more years of Sarnoff - that is, unless some law enforcement agency decides its time to call Sarnoff to account for his illegal actions. We can only hope - and keep posting to keep you, and them, informed.

WE HAVEN'T DIED

2011-11-10T19:33:00.000-05:00

We apologize for not posting for the last week or so. We are itching to write about how the results of the District 2 race came about.

We have a crisis with our regular jobs and have been a little under the weather to boot.

We'll be back soon.

Much is going on at the city of Miami.

We'll try to post early next week, if not sooner.

MIAMI COPS TO SARNOFF - WE DON'T BELIEVE YOU!

2011-10-31T10:07:00.000-04:00

"Commissioner Ethics" Marc Sarnoff is the recipient of the ultimate rebuff from the city of Miami police department.

On the now famous confrontation with Grove gadfly and the supreme Sarnoff hater, Reid Welch, Sarnoff has given statements to police, issued a press release and talked with the press all declaring that Sarnoff was the one attacked.

And if the police had believed Sarnoff, Reid would have been in jail. But he did not go to jail. He was not arrested. Because the police DID NOT BELIEVE SARNOFF!

Of course Sarnoff has never given anyone any reason to believe him. His long history of fibbing on the strangest of things like his and his wife's lineage to the most serious of things like his under oath fibs about meeting with the developer of the Mercy Hospital project when such a communication would break the law have prompted articles like the Miami New Times' Marc Sarnoff's Five Biggest Lies.

Even the Miami Herald coverage does not have it's usual bent toward Sarnoff.

Sarnoff must be seething. His word against a propane gas sniffing gadfly. And his statements are rejected.

Despite all his swagger and threats, Sarnoff is a known liar and not even the Miami police who ALWAYS come to the rescue of elected officials have bailed him out of this mess because they doubt his word.

ATTENTION LAW ENFORCEMENT!

2011-10-28T09:08:00.000-04:00

Today's special report on The Crespo-Gram Report is a must read.

It provides the smoking gun to cause another change of address by "Commissioner Ethics" - Marc Sarnoff. This time from his compound in Coconut Grove to a tax-payer funded cell.

The Downtown Development Authority (DDA), under the Chairmanship of Marc Sarnoff, has used taxpayer resources to bolster Sarnoff's re-election campaign. The DDA's version is that it was only engaged in a "get out the vote" campaign for the sake of downtown and Brickell. Sarnoff has denied any knowledge of the campaign - an assertion the Miami Herald dutifully transcribed and reported without rebuttal.

But Al presents the case that exposes the lies - including audio tapes of DDA meetings, flagrant violations of public records request and the pièce de résistance - the detailed demographic and voter preference information compiled by the DDA and one of the reports it prepared full of glossy color charts. It's an effort that would help a candidate hone his campaign.

Al Crespo's report goes on.

And what it does is lay the case for a serious investigation into the the misuse of public funds, misuse of the public trust and campaign finance violations perpetrated by Marc Sarnoff. It gives the FBI, the DOJ, the FDLE and the State Attorney the smoking gun to finally get Sarnoff off the street.

MIAMI HERALD CALLS SARNOFF AROGANT!

2011-10-25T20:23:00.005-04:00

In a twisted, incomprehensible "endorsement" from the Miami Herald, the editorial board basically called Marc Sarnoff an asshole. Here is what they had to say:

"Like Mr. Sarnoff, his opponents are focused on the city’s ailing budget. But another complaint seems to bind the challengers: the sense that the once populist-sounding incumbent has become arrogant and aloof. That attitude, sadly, was on display during the Editorial Board’s candidates meeting. Mr. Sarnoff would do well to reconnect and remember that the voters can hire and fire."

It's not exactly calling him an asshole, but it comes as close as the Editorial Board will come to using that name. Sarnoff must have been his usual self in the meeting with the Editorial Board - rolling his eyes, accusing others of lying, acting like he's the only one who knows anything.

This is what we know. Sarnoff is not only arrogant - he does not have the moral character to be allowed to continue in office. Shady dealings, treating the taxpayers' coffers as his own personal piggy bank, flaunting city codes, having lobbyists re-write city ordinances, and using city staff and resources to enrich and or empower himself, among a host of other things. And let's not forget Sarnoff's sociopathic penchant for lying, and lying and lying and lying. When was the last time you voted for someone who had an article like "Lies Marc Sarnoff Told Me" written by Francisco Alvarado of the Miami New Times?

It's time for Sayonara Sarnoff. Arrogance is the least of our worries.

FOLLOW THE MONEY!

2011-10-24T09:45:00.000-04:00

"Miamians for Honest and Responsible Government" sent out a mailer listing the $417,973.19 of contributions from lobbyists, special interests and developers to Marc Sarnoff's 2011 campaign.

It begs the questions - why does Sarnoff have to illegally use public money pledged to the Downtown Development Authority when every lobbyist, special interest and developer in town has given him a 5-1 campaign contribution advantage? Why does Sarnoff need to bolster his coffers through shady Political Action Committees that are taking contributions from the same lobbyists, special interests and developers?

Why are these lobbyists, special interests and developers so interested in keeping Marc Sarnoff in office?

Follow the money.

Need we say more?

MICHELLE NIEMEYER FILES COMPLAINT WITH THE ETHICS COMMISSION

2011-10-21T12:59:00.001-04:00

Michell Niemeyer with Manny Alonso Poch ((what?)
Photo obtained from Google Images. Photo taken by Coconut Grove Grapevine

Showing she has some cajones, Disctrict 2 commission candidate has filed a complaint with the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, regarding Sarnoff's BLATANT violation of state of Florida statute 106.15, according to The Straw Buyer.

Sarnoff, as chairman of the Downtown Development Authority, has overseen the illegal use of municipal funds and resources to bolster his campaign. High turnout in this race will help this smarmy incumbent.

The violation of FS 106.15 is a first degree misdemeanor punishable by up to 1 year in prison.

We hope the other District 2 candidates have the same gumption Niemeyer has shown. But we have learned the Miami-Dade ethics commission has developed a pattern of ignoring the obvious and letting Sarnoff off the hook time and time again. State Attorney Kathy Fernandez-Rundle has been just as

So, might we again invite the injured challengers for the District 2 seat to file a complaint with Florida Department of Law Enforcement. At least from what we have seen, you'll have a chance to get to an unbiased, competent group of people who might like a chance to look into the matter.

IT'S TIME TO ACT, DISTRICT 2 CANDIDATES!

2011-10-19T21:47:00.005-04:00

Take a look at the breaking news on The Crespo-Gram Report - Marc Sarnoff ILLEGALLY using the resources and employees of the taxpayer-funded Downtown Development Development Authority in furtherance of his bid for re-election.

DDA Chairman, Marc Sarnoff has directed the expenditure of THOUSANDS of taxpayer dollars for a mailer encouraging thousands of voters from every downtown and Brickell Avenue condo to ask for absentee ballots and has authorized as Chairman of the DDA to expend thousands of dollars for taxpayer paid municipal employees to process the absentee ballot requests.

The mailers tell the voters to return their absentee ballot requests to the DDA, not the Miami-Dade County Elections Department.

With low voter turnout in off-year elections like in the city of Miami, he who controls absentee ballots, controls the elections. We don't have to stretch our memories too far to remember when a Miami mayoral election was overturned by the courts due to absentee ballot fraud.

And what the DDA and Sarnoff has done is commit a blatant illegal act. Florida Statutes prohibit the use of ANY public resource or employee in furtherance of getting elected.

So, Donna, Kate and William, what we hope you are doing is pooling your resources so that you can march down to Circuit Court tomorrow to ask for the grant of an emergency injunction against the DDA and Sarnoff so that no absentee ballots can be processed by the DDA without members of your campaign staffs present.

Then ask for an order demanding the DDA and Sarnoff turn over to you FORTHWITH all information on absentee ballots processed to date.

Then file a complaint with the Florida Elections Commission. Don't bother with any of the local yokels.

Finally, give the FDLE a call and file a criminal complaint against Sarnoff, the DDA, its Executive Director and ALL of the board members.

It's time to act with the brute force that "Commissioner Ethics" Sarnoff likes to imagine he has as he screws law-abiding citizens who happen to disagree with him.

Sarnoff has broken the law big time ----again. Show no mercy.

UPDATE FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE MIAMI HERALD

Here is the Florida Statute that has been violated:

106.15 Certain acts prohibited.—

(3) A candidate may not, in the furtherance of his or hercandidacy for nomination or election to public office in any election, use theservices of any state, county, municipal, or district officer or employeeduring working hours.

(5) Any person violating the provisions of this sectioncommits a misdemeanor of the firstdegree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

Here are the penalties mandated in Florida Statutes 775.082and 775.083

775.082 Penalties; applicability ofsentencing structures; mandatory minimum sentences for certain reoffenderspreviously released from prison.—

(4) A person who hasbeen convicted of a designated misdemeanor may be sentenced as follows:

(a) For a misdemeanor of the first degree, bya definite term of imprisonment not exceeding 1 year;

Florida Statute775.083 prescribes the attendant monetary fine.

Thiscampaign violation by Sarnoff is a misdeameanor of the first degree punishableby up to 1 year in prison

DISTURBING

2011-10-17T23:37:00.000-04:00

Commissioner "Ethics" Marc Sarnoff's attacks on his opponents by political action committees is becoming so "de regueur."

Another hit piece funded by a PAC whose treasurer is the infamous Nancy Watkins at 610 South Boulevard, Tampa, Florida has hit the mailboxes of District 2 residents.

The PAC, "Florida First," with a Bradenton mailing address and Ms. Watkins of Tampa as treasurer has for some reason gotten interested in Miami District 2 politics.

And looking at the contributors to "Florida First" is like looking at the biggest lobbyists and campaign contributors to the Marc Sarnoff campaign -

Like Greenberg, Traurig with its 200+ matters for which it is lobbying commissioners, including gambling, billboards and zoning changes.

Like Akerman, Senterfitt, with its dozens of matters, including representation of "Resorts International."

Like Bercow, Radell & Fernandez - hell we know all about Jeff Berkow - he's the one that wrote the zoning ordinance that would allow 500 foot LED billboards in downtown Miami. The ordinance that was written with Sarnoff.

Then there is "Krome Grove Investors" - tied to Edward Easton of the Easton Group - the owners of Biscayne Plaza at NW 79th Street and Biscayne who dream of a 52 story mixed use development on the site - they might need to show extra good faith with Sarnoff so he can show his true views on the 35 foot height limit on Biscayne Boulevard once he doesn't have to worry about re-election.

There also appears Klock and Nieto, PL, some form of Rasco, Klock, Reininger which has represented the Miami River Marine Group before the city of Miami commission.

Finally, there is just the everyday Sarnoff campaign contributor like Genovese, Joblove & Battista.

We predicted the next hit piece paid for by a PAC would be against Donna Milo, and we were right.

Hey, we can't say for sure that Florida First is another arm of Sarnoff's campaign financing. But there sure is a pattern here. And if it is another appendage of his campaign, he isn't breaking the law by strong-arming lobbyists to give to PACs that will support him so that he can hoard his $400,000+ campaign war chest and make it look like others are doing the dirty work - it is unfortunate that campaign finance transparency is not de rigueur.

But if it is - add this to the behavior we have come to expect from Sarnoff - a disturbing trend. From telling everyone he and his wife are related to famous people - when they are not to telling everyone he is for the "little people" when he is not. For setting up the charade that he voted against the Marlins stadium, when he did not. To telling everyone the $10,000,000 gift to Tibor Hollo, courtesy of the taxpayers, was about jobs, when it was not. To Youtube videos and press releases about his going green by buying a SmartCar, when he did not. The list goes on.

Sarnoff - a man whose life is a game of charades. Disturbing. No other way to say it.

IS THIS SARNOFF'S PAC?

2011-10-11T23:06:00.000-04:00

One Florida address has become synonymous with what is wrong withcampaign financing - 610 South Boulevard, Tampa, Florida.

It is from this address that dozens of political action committeesfor which an accountant by the name of Nancy Watkins feed the underbelly ofeverything that is wrong in politics. Under the shield of"electioneering communications" PACs are formed to circumventcampaign finance contribution limits and HIDE from the voters the real mastersof our "selected officials" - special interests like the gamblingindustry and the billboard industry. Because these PACs can raisethousands of dollars out of the public eye, they are the food that feeds thebeasts that are our representatives.

And when a PAC is funded by other PACs the slithery web ofcampaign finance skullduggery is virtually impossible to trace. Andthat's what 610 South Boulevard, Tampa, Florida is all about - being a home for"super PACs" that feed other PACs so the citizens do not know theforces that the people they vote for are in the bag for.

610 South Boulevard, Tampa, Florida has housed some of the mostsinister PACs used to funnel money to campaigns in Miami-Dade County – most notablyJulio Robaina’s “electioneering communications” PAC that poured hundreds ofthousands of dollars into smearing Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

This is what Bud Chiles, the son of the late great Governor LawtonChiles had to say about Ms. Watkins and her “house of PACs” located at 610South Boulevard, Tampa, Florida (from The Florida Independent) – check out thelinks to the Orlando Sentinel and the Miami Herald:

Inlate August, no-party candidate for governor Bud Chiles (who eventually droppedout and endorsed Democrat Alex Sink) held a press conference outside Watkins’office, a beige single-story building in suburban Tampa, calling for greatertransparency from the political committees organized there. “This building behind me is ground zerofor what’s wrong with Florida politics,” he said.“What’s being hidden from Florida voters?”

He dubbed 610 South Blvd. a home for “legal money laundering.”

So when we received a mailer attackingKate Callahan, one of Marc Sarnoff’s challengers for the District 2Commissioner’s seat, we wondered…..who is behind the PAC that paid for thissmear job? Who is behind the PAC, “CitizenAction, Inc.”???

And what did we discover???? Well, the largest contributor to this PAC isanother PAC called “Protect Florida’s Economic Future.” Protect Florida’s Economic Future contributed$37,000 of the $51,000 amassed through September 30 by “Citizen Action Inc.”

We’ll give you one guess on the addressof “Protect Florida’s Economic Future” ……..

We’re sure you guessed it right……it’saddress is listed as 610 South Boulevard, Tampa Florida – or as Bud Chilescalled it the home for legal money laundering.

And there is a problem with this megacontributor…….it is not registered with the state of Florida. Take a peek at Sunbiz.org. Search for an entity called “Protect Florida’sEconomic Future.” There is none.

Then take a look at this web site, Opensecrets.org, devotedto getting the word out on smarmy political finance activities. Protect Florida’s Economic Future wasn’tpicked up as having filed with the IRS. HMMMMM.

And all of this brings us to the pointof this post.

We’ve been told for quite some timethat Sarnoff was forming a PAC and that he was strong-arming everyone within inspitting distance to contribute to it.

We believed that his PAC would raiseits ugly head first to attack his fellow Grovite, Kate Callahan. And now we received a junk political mailerpaid for by the Citizen Action PAC thanks to the largesse of a 610 SouthBoulevard, Tampa, Florida PAC, smearing Kate Callahan.

Is Citizen Action, Inc. Sarnoff’sPAC? We believe it is.

Why? Because Marc Sarnoff is not one to be satisfied with a more than 4 to 1campaign contribution advantage over his competitors. He is not satisfied with already raising$418,000 from every sleazy lobbyist and special interest in south Florida. He is loathe to be portrayed as outspendinghis challengers by a huge margin – after all that would belie the image as a “manof the people” that he wants people to believe.

Look next for the hit piece on DonnaMilo. The registered agent for theCitizen Action, Inc. PAC has quite a history for creating some of the mostsalacious, inaccurate political mailers in the history of politics – we’ll getto that in a later post.

In the meantime, maybe our localnewspaper could take a look at whether the PAC is taking donations from anentity that does not legally exist.

Sleaze everywhere. And in Miami, where there is sleaze, there iseither a Sarnoff or a Regalado close by.

THANK YOU, DANNY

2011-10-10T22:00:00.000-04:00

We have to admit, we are pleasantly surprised by the recent performance of Miami's new Budget Director, Danny Alfonso.

Having been on the job just a short time, he held his own through Miami's budget hearings. He showed time and time again that he wasn't afraid to answer the tough questions and stand up to the pols.

He inherited a disaster from his predecessor. A budget process in shambles and nothing assembled that would resemble a real budget for an organization the size of Miami. Mirtha was working overtime to get herself out of the budget department instead of working overtime on the budget....that is until Alfonso arrived in August.

Despite it all, he seemed to pull it together and he held his own in the budget hearings.

AND he posted on the city's budget department website the most comprehensive set of budget documents we have ever seen - albeit AFTER the budget was voted on and passed.

We have some hope that, finally, there is someone in the budget department with brains and balls. Only time will tell if he has the cojones to stand up to the political pressure. We hope there is a strong strain of integrity to go along with the brains. We have hope....but will keep watching.

In the meantime, thank you, Danny.

MORE INSTABILITY IN MIAMI!

2011-10-03T11:49:00.000-04:00

Miami's Finance Director, Diana Gomez, has resigned.

Word is she is assuming the position of Coral Gables Finance Director.

She leaves behind an SEC investigation into $30 million of illegal transfers, months of unclosed books, a backlog of unissued financial reports.

Good thing for Ms. Gomez - the auditors at Coral Gables are the same ones who overlooked the illegal transfers. The same ones that employee her long-term mentor. Cozy.

The instability wrought by the Regalado/Sarnoff regime continues.

THE POLITICIZATION OF THE SPENCE-JONES CASE

2011-09-28T16:31:00.000-04:00

Al Crespo has done it again!

He was criticized last month for writing about how State Attorney Kathy Rundle was carrying the water for Tomas Regalado by delaying the dropping of charges against Michelle Spence-Jones.

Now Al has the e-mails that prove the biggest factor behind the unconscionable delay in setting Spence-Jones free was POLITICS.

Read all about it at The Crespo-Gram Report. Download all the emails by clicking here.

OUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK!

2011-09-28T03:35:00.001-04:00

In the wee hours of the morning on September 28, 2011, the Miami city commission voted for a budget that was pulled together on a myriad of scraps of paper, some of which were given to the commissioners during the budget hearing.

Here's a summary of what we saw and heard:

Personnel head counts - not reconciled.

Line item budgets for departments - not available.

People fired and rehired - no explanation.

Union agreement with the solid waste supervisors - did not happen and is contested.

The budget papers in front of the commissioners did not reflect the budget numbers they voted on - check out Commissioner Suarez's discussion on the fire budget - in exasperation he questioned whether ANY of the questions he had to ask on the fire budget were relevant because they did not reflect the final union concessions. NONE of the numbers Commissioner Suarez had agreed with those the Fire Chief had.

Analysis to current year's expense - unavailable because the Finance Director Diana Gomez hasn't gotten around to closing the books since June.

"I'll take your word on it, Mr. Manager." "I'll take your word on it, director" - the phrase heard over and over and over again because there was NO comprehensive or comprehensible budget in front of the commissioners.

Crybaby Luis Cabrera - charged to the police department because he is a "Deputy Police Chief" announced he is handling the position of Film Director - guess his mail order MBA qualifies him for this specialized position.

The commissioners made sure to keep their slush fund to pay off elderly centers to the tune of $362,000. This is the money used to guarantee the elderly continue to vote for them. It is all part of the absentee ballot advantage for incumbents.

Marc Sarnoff pretends he gives a crap about old people.
He just wants their absentee ballots - Marin is on the case.

No public input to speak of because the public has been kept in the dark. But in a rare moment of clarity during the budget hearing, District 2 Commission Candidate, Donna Milo, provided some good suggestions that would make our hapless commissioners look like leaders instead of pigs at the trough - cut their salaries, cut their office budgets and eliminate the pension for elected officials. Her comments were met with silence.

Sarnoff was a no show until his ridiculous soliloquy at the end droning on about Trenton, New Jersey. Gort bounced from agreeing with Carollo to agreeing with Spence-Jones to agreeing to agree. Suarez spoke about 50 words. Spence-Jones just wanted the hearing over and saw nothing wrong with being handed a budget that didn't balance and even chastised Carollo for giving a shit. Carollo was again the lone voice in saying this is no way to run a city.

This is our local government in action.

The elected officials voted for a budget that is incomprehensible - because a budget was never compiled. Scraps of paper filled with unreconciled numbers were thrown together and distributed piecemeal over the last few weeks.

The over-paid executive staff put together by Regalado, with a lot of help from his chief lieutenant, Marc Sarnoff, is too busy kissing ass to keep their jobs and get promotions to have time to deal with the people's business. Regalado's "keen knack for hiring the right people," as Sarnoff is fond of saying, is steadily corrupting every facet of city government.

And rather than our commissioners having the balls to stand up and call for a continuance of the meeting until they understood what they were voting on, they just voted. They voted on a budget that did not balance, did not exist, was incomprehensible, did not have support. Well, Frank Carollo voted no on principle.

This is our government at work. Taxpayers screwed. City employees screwed (except for the ass-kissers). And no one was, is, or will beheld accountable.

HE'S BAAAAACK!

2011-09-26T20:15:00.007-04:00

Regalado is back at it again! He has an ordinance on his agenda to continue his agenda of shitting up the city for the benefit of the billboard industry - and his and his daughter's political coffers.

The ordinance, which seems to never go away, will allow every vacant storefront window in the city of Miami to be plastered with advertisements. And we bet that the advertising blitz will extend to more than just vacant storefronts.

This attempt marks the SIXTH time Regalado has attempted to take care of his billboard buddies AND his good buddy lobbyist Armando Gutierrez in the bargain. It is no surprise that he would try to slip this legislative matter in at a commission meeting that includes discussion of the annual budget.

Let's hope Scenic Miami and other concerned citizens show up at city hall and tell Regalado and the billboard creeps NO once and for all! Enough is enough.

MADAM CITY ATTORNEY, WHAT'S UP?

2011-09-25T23:26:00.000-04:00

As of right now the city of Miami has still not published on its web site the proposed 2011-12 balanced budget. The only "news" a citizen can find on the web page for Miami's Budget is this:

Yes, the budget adopted a year ago this month is reflected as "new!" There is no link anywhere on the city's website to find the proposed 2011-2012 budget.

Where is City Attorney Julie Bru when you need her?

In the first budget hearing, Commissioner Carollo expressed deep reservations about voting on a budget that he had not received any details on until the Tuesday before the Thursday budget hearing. He further expressed astonishment that Julie Bru had given commissioners instructions that under law they MUST vote on the budget at that hearing since that was not the process followed in the past. Carollo was concerned that he did not have sufficient time to study the budget proposal. Ms. Bru was quick to give assurances that she thoroughly studied the budget process under state law and two votes are required.

And now we are at the second budget hearing and there is still no "balanced budget" on the city agenda.

Here again is the legislation that has been made available to the public.

2011-12 Miami Budget Legislation

On the second page is a negative expense called "Non-departmental - adjustments to be determined" in the amount of $22,751,200. That means the tentative budget voted on 2 weeks ago is not balanced as mandated by state statute.

The document above is the sole piece of paper regarding the 2012 budget available to the public - barely available to the public. We were lucky to find it since it is buried in the clerk's "legislative hub" which requires training to navigate. We got these pages with a little help from our friends and since we first published them, they have been read 5,406 times. We think the public just might be interested in getting more.

It made us wonder. Are the State of Florida Statutes being complied with when the city does not publish a balanced budget for the public's consumption prior to holding a budget hearing?

The answer is a resounding NO!

This is what Florida statutes require:

"The tentative budgetmust be posted on the municipality’s official website at least 2 days beforethe budget hearing, held pursuant to s. 200.065 or other law, to consider suchbudget. The final adopted budget must be posted on the municipality’s officialwebsite within 30 days after adoption."

It is obvious that the State of Florida requires public disclosure of the budget in advance of the hearing so the public can have its input. And it is obvious that the city of Miami does not want the public to know or understand what it is up to because it has violated the statute by not publishing the tentative budget on its website. Even if Ms. Bru would like to argue that it was published in the mind-boggling "Legislative Hub," the spirit of the statute was grossly violated by burying the information far away from where the average member of the public would look for it.

And while we were reading the statutes, we came across this interesting section:

Thegoverning body of each municipality at any time within a fiscal year or within60 days following the end of the fiscal year may amend a budget for that yearas follows:
(a) Appropriationsfor expenditures within a fund may be decreased or increased by motion recordedin the minutes if the total appropriations of the fund is not changed.
(b) The governingbody may establish procedures by which the designated budget officer mayauthorize budget amendments if the total appropriations of the fund is notchanged.
(c) If a budgetamendment is required for a purpose not specifically authorized in paragraph(a) or paragraph (b), the budget amendment must be adopted in the same manneras the original budget unless otherwise specified in the municipality’scharter.

The city has until November 29, 2011 to amend its 2010-2011 budget. It is obvious the city has been violating this section of the statutes for years.

The city, under state statute, could amend its 2010 budget only until November 29, 2010 - but an amendment was passed months after the deadline, on March 24 2011. And that amendment made it look like there were almost no budget variances in departments. That illegal amendment was published in the city's 2010 annual report and presented a false impression of good fiscal management by the city.

So Madam City Attorney. Since you've been so adept at delivering opinions lately, we'd like to know. What's up with the city's violations of state laws when it comes to the budget process? Will you insist that amendments to the 2010-2011 budget be finalized by November 29, 2011? Will you insist that amendments be published on the city's website 2 days in advance of the vote?

Or will you continue to abet a process that obfuscates the truth and bypasses state laws?

SARNOFF'S PROMISES KEPT

2011-09-19T23:04:00.001-04:00

We believe that MarcSarnoff bears more responsibility for the Miami’s financial crisis than anycity official in the last 10 years. Why? Because of his “Promises Kept.”

The Marc Sarnoffre-election campaign mailers have a theme – “Promises Kept.”

And you can saythat alright.

In a rare kudosto the Miami Herald, it published an excellent article on Sunday, GovernmentEmployees Pension Bonanza. But we’d like to ask, “Where in the hellwere the Miami Herald reporters when the outrageous government salaries,pensions and other benefits were in front of local commissioners forpassage?”

But what doesthe long overdue Herald article have to do with Sarnoff’s promises kept?

EVERYTHING!

Marc Sarnoffvaulted into office in 2006 on the heels of not only the Home Depot scare, andnot only as a result of breaking campaign finance laws, but MOSTLY because ofthe support from Miami’s fire union. Thefire union support was worth several hundred thousand dollars.

MiamiFirefighter, Wilbur Jackson, ran the Sarnoff campaign. Sarnoff’s promises to Wilbur were kept inspades.

MiamiFirefighter, Elvis Cruz, walked with Sarnoff throughout District 2 and chippedin his own money (without it being reported in violation of campaign laws) todistribute flyers touting Sarnoff’s campaign pledges to a community who did notknow the mother of all pledges was to pay back the fire union.

Here’s someinformation from the Miami Herald today that will bring home to you just whatElvis Cruz (with a current annual pension payment of $155,014 PLUS his salary),State Firefighter Union President Tom Gabriel (with a current annual pensionpayment of $171,241 PLUS his salary), and his brother Stephen (with a currentannual pension payment of $174,385 PLUS his salary) need to protect since allthree are currently “double dippers” drawing a salary from the city AND pensionpayments.

What the MiamiHerald is showing is the base pay for these guys. But the contract is chock full of “plus item”and “special pays” that ballooned Elvis Cruz’s pay from $107,041 to $163,072 in2010 (page 2 of the document below) and Tom Gabriel’s pay from $115,962 to$180,167 in 2010 (page 1) of the document below.

MiamiOver100K

AND on top ofall these pension benefits, there is another perk for the retirees – uponretirement, the firefighters get paid their accrued sick time and vacation tothe tune of another year’s salary AND they get their “1% money” from a surtaxwe citizens get to pay on our fire insurance so the average retiringfirefighter walks away with another $400,000 in the bank.

So Elvis Cruz,with a life expectancy of 26 more years will earn pension payments, courtesy ofthe taxpayers of Miami, equal to $4,030,464 of pension benefits, PLUS $400,000of 1% money, PLUS $150,000 of accrued vacation and sick time, PLUS subsidizedhealth insurance for the rest of hislife PLUS cost of living increase through his “retirement.” Tom Gabriel, with a life expectancy of 30more years will earn pension payments, courtesy of the taxpayers of Miami, equalto $5,137,230 PLUS, PLUS, PLUS……

Suffice it tosay, the multi-millionaire fire fighters have a lot to protect.

So in 2006, whenthe city of Miami had not agreed on a firefighter union contract since theprior contract expired in 2004, the main concern of the Miami firefighters wasto support a candidate who would give them what they wanted – more thanoutrageous salaries and benefits.

And so theydid. In exchange for Marc Sarnoffpromising “the sky is the limit” to the firefighters, they endorsed him.

And then what happened?

Marc Sarnofftook assumed his office in December 2006. He immediately began to strong arm the administration to get a contractwith the fire union done. The folksnegotiating on behalf of the taxpayers felt the heavy hand of Sarnoff pressure. And we have all heard what a vindictive prickhe is.

Theadministration removed the chief negotiator because Sarnoff complained he wastoo tough - because he wasn’t accepting as “real” the pension smoothing gimmickthat Sarnoff endorsed – all it does is “smooth” unfunded pension obligationsover a longer period of time - thereby robbing Peter today to give the fireguys bigger raises today so the “taxpayer of the future” can foot the bill.

Once thenegotiator was out of the way, the administration, at Sarnoff’s urging, put aunion guy in charge of the city’s side of the negotiations – that’s right a guywith a vested interest in the contract was negotiating on behalf of managementand the taxpayer.

And then the administration,on behalf of the taxpayer, caved on every single negotiating point it had heldon to for nearly three years. We’veeven been told that the administration negotiator suggested even richerbenefits for the union to ask for!

Thenegotiations, which had been stalled since the contract expired in September2004, were fast-tracked and were brought to the commission in June 2007.

And what did thefirefighters get? Take a look at theneat chart the Herald included in the print version of its story!

Miami Herald Salary Chart2

The 18% increasein 2007 included back pay for the HUGE salary increases to September 2004 – so firstresponders ended up getting annual wage increases of 9% for 2005, 2006 and 2007. Then the MOTHER of all promises was kept andthey got another HUGE salary increase in 2008 – 18.2% to be exact!

All of thesemassive increases occurred at the same time the stock market plunged. So guess what happened when the city had tostart making up for NEW market losses AND Sarnoff’s “smoothing” gimmick? You guessed it. The pension costs skyrocketed. So the city got a “double whammy” withsoaring pension costs AND soaring salaries!

Even with the 9%reduction in salaries in 2010, the first responders averaged annual increasesof 7% per year since 2005 - the same period of time when the average Joe inthis country was trying to keep his job. The same period of time when average household income dropped.

Now in all ofthis we said the “first responders” received. But if you look at the contracts, the lion’s share went to thefirefighters and the cops got the crumbs.

You will hearover the next few months Sarnoff deny that he strong armed theadministration. But we hear VERYdifferently. In fact, one of ourcontacts referred us to the commission minutes of June 26, 2007 where thecontract was approved. And they pointedout that Sarnoff KNEW the contracts were overly rich and wanted to distancehimself from his own actions – sorta like his “memo to self” on the MercyHospital rezoning matter.

Unfortunately wedon’t have a video of the meeting, but as Pete Hernandez responded to Sarnoff’scross examination below he had that “deer caught in the headlights look.” What would Sarnoff expect Pete to do? Stand up and scream liar, liar, pants onfire?

Take a look atSarnoff’s questions, which prompted Commissioner Joe Sanchez to questionwhether Sarnoff was cross examining Pete Hernandez.

Sarnoff Trying to Distance Himself From the Fire Contract

The “questions”are amazing, aren’t they? From ourreading of the verbatim minutes, we believe Sarnoff KNEW the firefightercontract was too rich and would get the city in financial trouble. We believe he was running scared in June of2007 that someone would challenge him for his seat in the fall and use hisstrong-arm tactics against him. Webelieve this ENTIRE record was fabricated to cover Sarnoff’s ass.

And we positthat MARC DAVID SARNOFF bears more responsibility than anyone for the financialcrisis facing the city of Miami today.

Finally, we believe if Marc Sarnoff is re-elected, the worst is yet to come!

NEXT UP - SARNOFF AND PROMISES KEPT

2011-09-19T11:17:00.001-04:00

We got tied up this weekend.

But we're working on our next story - All about Commissioner "Ethics" Marc Sarnoff and his promises kept.

Stay tuned!

UPDATE

Meanwhile to read about a Sarnoff promise kept to Eugene Rodriguez to use poor people's money to buy the Skills Center in an attempt to help Eugene improve his property value read the latest on The Crespo-Gram Report!

SARNOFF ILLEGALLY CAMPAIGNING FROM THE COMMISSION DAIS!

2011-09-16T12:34:00.001-04:00

Punky, as Al Crespo calls Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, is back breaking campaign laws.

Read Al's post today about "the one stop shop" for special events that Sarnoff is saying his answer to Kate Callahan's promise to bring a "one stop shop" to helping small businesses navigate the bureaucratic nightmare of Miami's building and zoning and business permitting processes.

Sarnoff also made the statement, during the morning session of yesterday's meeting, that 'he participated in a debate the night before and all of the candidates running against him thought expenditures for new parks were a waste of taxpayer money.'

Sarnoff broke state law TWICE yesterday, using his position on the commission and the television coverage to OVERTLY attack his political opponents, and therefore avail himself of free advertising.

It's about time the D2 candidates file a complaint with the Florida Elections Commission.

UPDATE - A CONCERNED READER INFORMED US THAT SARNOFF ALSO BROUGHT UP THE CANDIDATES DEBATE REGARDING THE MARLINS DISCUSSION AT YESTERDAY'S MEETING.

OUR FIRST COMMENT ABOVE IS AT 1:01 AT THE ATTACHED LINK AND THE MARLINS STARTS AT 2:17.

JOHNNY, JUST STAY AWAY!

2011-09-14T23:02:00.000-04:00

This post is a message to Miami City Manager Johnny Martinez.

Johnny, you might just want to sit out the commission meeting and budget hearing of September 15.

Why?

Because we know that all the way back in June the commissioners, led by Frank Carollo, directed you to put together a preliminary 2012 budget by the end of July.

You didn't deliver.

And now that the first budget hearing is just hours away, you STILL have not delivered a preliminary 2012 budget. To add insult to injury you have included an amendment to the 2011 budget for the regular commission meeting and it too is a DISASTER!

When the commissioners combine considering your INSUBORDINATION by refusing to deliver a well-considered budget with the fact that even though you hadn't gotten your work done you left town for a vacation............we surmise it's not going to be pretty listening to the comments from Frank Carollo and watching you squirm, mumble and stumble to try to make excuses.

But we want to help you out.

So here are a few of the things we noticed in a cursory review of the budget bullshit you have shovelled the commissioners' and the public's way:

You forgot to include a budget for the "Office of Planning" in your 2011 budget amendment legislation. We don't think the department went away. You get a good grade for making the numbers add - but how could you leave out a whole department? Did you forget that Building and Planning are not the same department?
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny - you still have a budget for a department called "Audio/Visual Broadcasting Operations" - that's the department that was set up for Angel Zayon, Mayor Regalado's fourth son who can't find it in his heart to pay child support for his children. And your 2011 budget information says that department was created with the November 18 budget amendment. Just one problem. As Commission Carollo has told you repeatedly, only the commission can create departments and they never did create this one.
Your amended budget for the Police and Fire Departments for 2011 is a GUARANTEE they will exceed their budgets for 2011. Take a look at the June forecast - the one done under YOUR watch as city manager. In that forecast, the "finance gurus" at your beck and call said that fire and police would spend $70,995,485 and $124,947,634. Your new 2011 budget for these two departments is $70,057,724 and $122,348,963 - that $3,536,433 LESS than what your gurus say they will spend for the year. Do you really think they can catch up on this shortfall in the two weeks remaining in the fiscal year.
And speaking about screwing the police department by $2,598,652 - did feel you had to follow through on this budget gimmick to give credence to your stupid argument that Chief Exposito was running the department in the red? It won't work. Let's repeat. Citizens want their police department funded. And if your administrative staff in employee relations can't get around to hiring cops WE WANT THE COPS TO WORK OVERTIME! Johnny, you can't have it both ways. And if you don't believe the citizens, why don't you ask Commissioner Carollo about it. Better yet, why don't you re-listen to ALL of the commissioners dismantle your charge of insubordination on this budget issue in the special meeting re your firing of Exposito.
Oh, and then there's the tidbit we learned today about the 2012 budget. Did you know your budget guru was scurrying around in a panic this afternoon to try to get 2012 budget information from department directors? A little late, don't you think? Hey, maybe if you had passed on your vacation and maybe if you had held off on turning the city into a circus over firing the police chief, you might have gotten the 2012 budget done in time.

These are just a few of the things we noticed in our cursory review of the bullshit submitted to the commissioners. But you might want to check other things like how the "Original Budget" numbers don't agree with the "Original Budget."

But we couldn't finish this post without talking about the red light cameras.

Make no mistake about it, we remember the presentation by Alice Bravo last year. Alice who was YOUR direct report when she helped cook the books for the 2011 budget and is now YOUR deputy city manager.

Those red light camera estimates that YOU were responsible for sure didn't work out for you, did they? As we recall, YOU told the commissioners, through YOUR direct report Alice Bravo and the former moron, er, CFO that the red light cameras would generate $9,557,000 in revenues for 2011.

The way we read your 2011 budget amendment, that $9,557,000 estimate is now $1,893,000. Johnny, that's terrible!

We kind of look at YOUR performance on the red light camera fiasco as indicative of your performance on the 2012 budget - IT'S A DISASTER! We wouldn't be surprised if this fiasco is just one mentioned at the meetings tomorrow, along with, say, your disastrous performance on the billboard settlement issue in the spring.

So Johnny, here's our two cents. Skip the commission meeting and the budget hearing on September 15. JUST STAY AWAY! It's going to be a blood bath. Not that you don't deserve it, but we get queasy at the sight of gore.

And just in case you forgot what Carollo said to you last week about giving hope to morons (Al Crespo's words, not his) - just CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!

HERE WE GO AGAIN!

2011-09-12T22:58:00.000-04:00

Tomas Regalado promised a new age of transparency. The fools who voted for the corrupt, populist idiot believed it.

But look at his track record. Four city managers, each worse than the previous. He takes no responsibility for his own incompetence - like saying he doesn't blame himself for the police chief fiasco because, after all, he doesn't understand the inner workings of the police department. Corruption investigations dotting the landscape. Enemies targeted and cronies rewarded.

And then we have the annual budget -- or not.

Regalado's doormat, City Manager Johnny Martinez, goosestepping to the drumbeat of Regalado and his godson, Crybaby Luis Cabrera (that's his nickname in the police department - we didn't give it to him) plunged the city into a dither about Police Chief Miguel Exposito in the middle of the most crucial time of the year for the city - the PUBLIC HEARINGS and votes on the budget.

And this is where we are:

The last financial report prepared by the "finance gurus" of the city was June. Two and 1/2 months have gone by since the gurus have closed the books. Where is the promise to have the report to the commissioners AND the public within 4 weeks? Are the "financial gurus" and Johnny Martinez so inept that they can't get the financial reports required by city ordinance published timely. MARTINEZ SHOULD BE FIRED.
There is NO proposed budget on the city's website - not on the Mayor's page, not on the Budget Department's page. What frickin' kind of input can the public make at Thursday's budget hearing when it has been given NO information? MARTINEZ SHOULD BE FIRED.
There is NO information in the public as to how the now $62.5 million deficit is going to be eliminated. Is this fair to taxpayers, employees and other city stakeholders? MARTINEZ SHOULD BE FIRED.
The ONLY glimpse of the numbers is the draft legislation. The frickin' legislation which contains the puzzling line item as a budgeted reduction of expenses "Non-Departmental - Adjustments to be determined $22,751,200!!! Now isn't that cute. (Take a look at the highlighted line on the second page). And folks this document constitutes the ENTIRETY of the information in the public domain on the Mayor's and Doormat Martinez's proposed budget.2011-12 Miami Budget Legislation

We prepared a schedule to compare the most recent budget for 2011, according to the JUNE financial report to the proposed 2012 budget. Martinez could not find the time to make sure the public had this modicum of information - HE SHOULD BE FIRED.

Comparison of Miami 2011 and 2012 Budget

Here is what we see:

The budget for the commissioners is UNCHANGED and the mayor is giving up a whopping $11 thousand! Just like last year, employees and citizens will be asked to make sacrifices, but the commissioners won't!
The department for the police department is proposed to be slashed ANOTHER $2.8 million! We guess they don't give a shit about the crime in the city as long as the "selected" officials get their 24/7 chauffeurs! This is probably the deal Ortiz and Aguilar made to benefit their FOP members. Meanwhile, guys, the Fire Department budget is going up!
The city clerk's budget is going down $101,000 - we guess they forgot that this is a frickin' election year and she needs money for the regular election and a possible runoff election. Let's all watch for that in the first budget amendment of next year - we can't expect this cast of jokers to take KNOWN events into consideration in a budget!
The Risk Management budget is magically slashed by $3.5 million! What happened to that discussion that Risk Management is going over by $3.5 million because of increased health care costs. Hey Johnny Martinez, P.E. - that's a $7 million error in your budget. You wanna take a look at it? Or maybe you are taking it out of the employees so that Sarnoff and Regalado and the other "selected" officials can keep their budgets and chauffeurs!
Non-departmental expenses are down $22 million - but that's because the Johnny Martinez, Tomas Regalado and their cast of clowns haven't had time to figure out a budget. The decrease is that "Adjustments to be determined" line in the budget legislation. MARTINEZ SHOULD BE FIRED!
Transfers out are down $2.8 million because they won't get around to replacing the police cars they are required to replace under the contract. Did they forget about the cop who died from carbon monoxide poisoning in a police car that was so old it should have been replace 4 years before the guy died? But there's no danger in this line item for Martinez because Aguilar and Ortiz cut a deal with the mayor - screw the line troops!
The Zoning Department is getting an increase because they are the ones getting paid off so they take care of Regalado's and Sarnoff's buddies like Tibor Hollo, Genting, Mark Siffin and the billboard industry. Of course, you would think that since these special interests get to write their own legislation, the crooks could just skip over the Zoning Department. Don't know about you, but we'd rather see a few more bucks for the cops than for the multi kazillionaire friends of selected officials!

Shit, why go on? The city of Miami is being operated as a criminal operation. The people running it are corrupt, inept or both.

When city officials and staff can't even perform the most important task they have completely in the sunshine and with some thought behind it, there is nothing we can do but wait for the tax bill, lock our doors and work our asses off to boot all of their asses out of office.

And Johnny Martinez - Frank Carollo was right. You HAVE given a lot of people hope. Because if an inept moron like you can make it to city manager of a major city pulling down $250,000 a year in salaries and benefits anybody can.

POLICE AND POLITICS - A BAD MIX

2011-09-10T20:58:00.002-04:00

Please,make no bones about it. We are not fansof Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito and his “main guy,” Al Alvarez.

We’veknown Exposito over the years to play politics in order to parlay his way intothe top spot in the MPD. He underminedprevious chiefs over and over again by meeting with commissioners (especiallyRegalado and former Commissioner Angel Gonzalez), sending poison faxes andencouraging others in the MPD to do the same.

AlAlvarez is so tight with Commissioner Mark Sarnoff that Sarnoff attendedFather’s Day celebrations at the Alvarez home. It would not be beneath Alvarez to do Sarnoff’s bidding by getting thedirt on the plethora of “Sarnoff enemies” in Miami.

Butthis is what we get when politics and a police department mix. Chief Exposito was selected to be policechief because Regalado figured this political operative would goose step to hiscommands in order to keep the job he sought for so many years.

Fora time, Exposito fell in line – he appointed Regalado’s godson, Crybaby LuisCabrera to Deputy Chief and Regalado was glad. Crybaby Cabrera pushed Exposito to appoint members of the Crybaby Cliqueof the MPD to key administrative positions – and Regalado was glad. Exposito initiated a ridiculous investigation into anMPD bike allegedly stolen by former Mayor Manny Diaz – a bike that in the endwas determined to be a departing gift to Diaz from his staff – and Regalado wasglad. He summarily rolled-back orencouraged the retirement of the staff of former Chief Timoney, humiliatingthem in the process, and Regalado was glad.

BecauseExposito, at the beginning of his tenure as police chief, was doing such as agood job of doing Regalado’s bidding, such things as an alarming spike inpolice shootings were defended by Regalado as something the criminals shouldexpect – in fact Regalado uttered the famous words, “We will meet violence withviolence” in his vociferous defense of Chief Exposito in the early days of hisadministration because Exposito was doing such a good job of licking the bootsof the Mayor.

Everythingwas going just fine until Exposito, correctly, decided there was a limit to howfar he would go to keep his job. Wesurmise that he just couldn’t stomach the return of the illegal gamblingmachines or “maquinitas.”

Expositohad made quite a mark for himself several years ago working with his mainpolitical supporter at the time, Miami Commissioner Angel Gonzalez. Gonzalez was appointed to be thecommissioner in charge of the city of Miami’s “Quality of Life Task Force”whose aim, in part, was to clean the city of illegal gambling machines and thedrugs, prostitution, robbery and other crimes this underworld business broughtwith it. Exposito was the police liaisonfor the Task Force .

Expositotouted himself for years as the guy who cleaned up the city through hisinvolvement in the Quality of Life Task Force – and, by the way, the Task Forcedid its job.

Sowe suppose that even a political operative like Exposito could not be such a hypocriteas to suddenly support gambling machines when he made his name going afterthem.

ExpositoCORRECTLY understands that the maquinitas have historically been a blight oncity neighborhoods because once the Task Force got rid of them, crime went downand the residents in these neighborhoods were grateful.

ButRegalado started pushing to bring maquinitas back into the dank bars and “cafeterias” in LittleHavana and Allapattah.

Why? It’s all about money and power.

Thereare powerful influences behind gambling in any form, make no mistake aboutit. And it doesn’t take some localbloggers to inform you about the history of the ties between gambling andmobsters in the United States. And withgambling comes the other underworld cash cows like drug distribution andprostitution. Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Havana….we’ve all seen the movies anddocumentaries and read the news accounts.

Theties between Regalado, his money man Armando Gutierrez, a disgraced state senator (Medicare fraudster), the owners of a Nicaraguan cigar company inLittle Havana (with a history of on-site arrests for cocaine distribution) andits owners, The Lucky Seven (Maquinita Mavens) and others will come to light over the nextfew months. And we believe as the fullpicture comes to light, ordinarycitizens of Miami are going to stand aghast at what they wrought when they casttheir ballots for Tomas Regalado.

Butthis post is not about the underworld of South Florida.

Thispost is about what happens when corrupt politicians take control of our lawenforcement agencies.

WhenExposito “turned” on Regalado on maquinitas, he hit Regalado where it most hurt– he threatened his power.

Sincethe well-publicized feud began, the spectacle of Mayor vs. Police Chief hascreated a national embarrassment for the city of Miami. And trust us – NEITHER side in this fightgives a shit.

Regaladohas, since the “fall” of Exposito, been hell-bent on firing him and anyoneassociated with him.

Butit’s not the firing of Exposito we are concerned about – it is what willreplace Exposito that alarm us.

Sincethe “fall of Exposito” Crybaby Cabrera and the police union AND theirassociates like two of the three cops Exposito wanted to demote, but wasdenied, started using their political connections to ensure a reason could beformulated to justify Exposito’s firing. In effect, they took a page out of Exposito’s playbook.

Whenthey succeed, don’t think for a minute that Regalado won’t reward them fortheir efforts.

TheFOP under the stewardship of Aguilar and Javier Ortiz created a ruse (asreported by Al Crespo) that they were going to pursue a recallRegalado drive. In reality, the FOP hasbeen undermining Exposito to such an extent that FOP Vice-President Javier Ortiz “reported” to thecommission the misleadinginformation that Exposito has let overtime get out of control, hoping thecommissioner would think the department is going to blow its total budget,laying the groundwork for one of two charges against Exposito.

As proof of Al Crespo's exposé of the cozy relationship between Regalado and the FOP, Javier Ortiz spent 17 hours sitting next to Orosa in the special commission meeting held to make a judgement on the Exposito suspension.

We’veseen the City Manager has already ceded his authority in personnel matters atthe city to Regalado’s godson, CrybabyLuis Cabrera. The politicization of thestaff of general employees of the city is well underway as Cabrera skulks thefloors of the MRC and threatens people with looks and words and summarilydismisses those HE deems disloyal. Cabrera’s influence resulting in the city manager rescinding hisapproval for Exposito to demote two of Cabrera’s close associates laid thegroundwork for the second charge against Exposito.

Thereplacement of Exposito at the MPD will be one who will goose step to Regalado’sand his unsavory friends’ orders. We canalready see it.

MannyOrosa has atainted history with the Mercado cops. He was the sergeant in chargeof the drug unit that beat Mercado to death. He got out of the charges by snitching. We believe he snitched not because he wanted to stand up for justice,but to get himself off the hook. Thepolice union (the FOP) is led by Armando Aguilar, alsocharged in the Mercado case with trying to cover up the crime. The ties to the jump out boys and the MiamiRiver Cops run deep.

Readthis article from the Miami Herald and you will get an idea of the badcharacters in the MPD over the years. And make no mistake about it…may of those who were closely tied withthis cast of characters are still there, most prominently current FOP PresidentArmando Aguilar. And Aguilar hasdefended the actions of many of this cast of characters over the years andsupported the ridiculous “inconclusive” finding of investigation afterinvestigation. Interesting as well inthe article is that Exposito was taking a stand against the corruption – a snitchstanding up for justice.

Herald Article on BadCops

Cabrera,Aguilar, FOP Vice President Javier Ortiz, Orosa and a cast of cops withquestionable history will run the show when Exposito is gone. Copsno decent citizen wants representing them. They may have had truth and justice in their hearts at one time, butonce they started to believe they could be judge, juror and executioner, oncethey crossed the line by defending bad cops they should have turned in theirbadges. Because once a cop can justifyone illegal action, it is not too hard to justify another….and another….andanother. And cops gone bad get temptedwith all sorts of other bad things, and somehow can justify giving into theirtemptations on the basis of their shit pay, shit hours, shit civilians, shitequipment, or whatever.

Andthen we get back to the nefarious characters in the maquinita business. Lots of money to spread around. And money breeds power in Miami.

Itreally is no surprise that the 11^th hour white knight to put thelast spear into Exposito was Alberto Milian, the attorney for The Lucky Seven –the kingpins of the maquinitas. Milian,who was until a couple of hours before showing up to defend city manager JohnnyMartinez’s suspension of Exposito, was being paid by The Lucky Seven to get themaquinitas that were confiscated by the MPD in Exposito’s disloyal (toRegalado) raids on the illegal gambling operations that have popped up all overagain under Regalado’s new “Screw Quality of Life I Need to Protect MyPocketbook” task force.

WithExposito gone, cops like Orosa, Cabrera, Aguilar, Ortiz, Pablo Camacho and JesseAguero will be running the MPD. Peoplechosen by the likes of Cabrera will be in charge of every department of thecity. Just think of it. No more code enforcement of illegal gamblingestablishments. Police turning a blindeye to the underworld of Miami.

Andwith an “Asian” company buying the Miami Herald site with a plan to bring legalgambling to Miami (hey, look how well it’s worked for Atlantic City) the stakesfor the likes of Regalado are even higher.

Whetherwe like it or not, Exposito is the last line of defense against really corruptforces.

What’sthe lesson in all of this? Citydepartments, especially the police department, should not be politicized. When city employees are led to believe andare shown through the acts of elected officials that they will be rewarded bygoose stepping to the politicians, theethics of the organization are denigrated. That’s how we got Exposito and that’s how we will get the next, worsepolitical operative.

Whenpoliticians are allowed to exert their influence in hiring and firing decisionsthe results are what we have seen and what we will see to a much worse extentin the future in Miami. The best thingthat could happen for the citizens of Miami is that the next chief is ahard-nosed cop with NO past association with the MPD. Someone who will break up the silly cliquesin the department. And his/her firstaction should be to summarily dismiss ALL of the old guard.

Thecharter should be amended to mandate that ALL executive staff hiring and firingdecisions in the police department are under the absolute control of the policechief because police and politics are a VERY bad mix.

In the end, choosing the lesser of two evils, weprefer Exposito to stay where he is. Weprefer not to let the likes of Regalado and his buddies have free reign topad their pockets at the expense of our quality of life.

JOHNNY MARTINEZ GETS 11TH HOUR LEGAL COUNSEL!

2011-09-09T16:33:00.003-04:00

After a three hour break, Johnny Martinez comes back with legal counsel! He had no counsel during the morning session, other than Commissioner Francis Suarez (as pointed out by Commissioner Willy Gort).

We think he needs the representation - because so far we've counted about 11 lies under oath by Martinez during the morning session.

But we know the real reason is that Regalado is so pissed at Martinez and Orosa was twitching so badly they had to change the camera shots at Martinez's idiocy, the order came down that Martinez needs an attorney!

UPDATE - THE ATTORNEY FOR MARTINEZ, WHO OFFERED HIS SERVICES FOR FREE, REPRESENTS THE MAQUINITA COMPANIES, ACCORDING TO CAROLLO! TALK ABOUT A DISGUSTING THREAD TO THE "CUBAN MAFIA"!

UPDATE 2 - JOHNNY MARTINEZ'S NEW LEGAL COUNSEL HAS QUITE A TRACK RECORD - LIKE

CALLING JURIES MORONS AND BUFFONS http://www.truthinjustice.org/milian.htm

HEY CHUCKIE RABIN! ARE YOU STARTING TO GET THE PICTURE?

REGALADO AND EXPOSITO FALL OUT OVER THE GAMBLING MACHINES! THE ATTORNEY FOR THE GAMBLING INDUSTRY HAS LONG TIES WITH REGALADO THROUGH HIS RADIO CAREER. WHEN JOHNNY THE DUMB DUMB MARTINEZ FALLS APART IN THE MORNING SESSION, REGALADO AND HIS GAMBLING BUDDIES SEND IN THEIR ATTORNEY PRO BONO.!

CHUCKIE, CAN YOU SMELL A RAT WHEN IT'S SITTING ON YOUR NOSE?

GORT JUST CALLED SUAREZ WHAT HE IS!

2011-09-09T13:38:00.000-04:00

To underscore how UNFAIR the hearing going on right now is on the termination of Miguel Exposito, Willy Gort just referred to Francis Suarez as what he is acting as!

He just announced that Suarez is trying to act as Johnny Martinez's attorney!

And that is EXACTLY what is happening!

CITY ATTORNEY RULES THAT ORDINANCE CAN OVERRIDE CHARTER!

2011-09-09T12:02:00.000-04:00

In an unbelievable move to kiss Regalado's ass, the city attorney just ruled that the city commissioner can over rule the taxpayer approved City Charter! The charter clearly gives the Fire Chief and the Police Chief the authority to hire and fire their staff! And the taxpayers of the city wanted it that way so that the staffing in the two public safety departments cannot be turned into a political nightmare.

Julie Bru and Tomas Regalado, along with a lot of help from Francis Suarez, are turning the city public safety departments into political appendages of their offices to be used for nefarious reasons.

TOMAS, TAX LIENS AND A TON OF QUESTIONS

2011-09-09T00:42:00.001-04:00

We’ve all heard about Tomas Regalado’sproblem with tax liens and the garnishment of his city of Miami wages to getthem paid.

We’ve been led to believe that itwas a one-time problem because of the “reporting” done by mainstream outlets like the MiamiHerald - which we all know absolutely Y’s Tomas Regalado.

But after doing some research we’vefound that the problems with Tomas Regalado and not paying his taxes was aCHRONIC condition, not just a one-off slip of the tax return.

It looks like Tomas Regalado was asinept at filing his tax returns honestly and he and his daughter, the bulldogRaquelita, were at filing their campaign reports.

Here’s a rundown of the TomasRegalado tax liens over the years, according to Miami-Dade County records:

· $13,107related to Regalado’s 1988 federal tax return

· $16,369related to Regalado’s 1995 federal tax return

· $1,266related to Regalado’s 1996 federal tax return

· $8,423related to Regalado’s 1998 federal tax return

· $1,070related to Regalado’s 2000 federal tax return

· $7,694related to Regalado’s 2001 federal tax return

· $9,259related to Regalado’s 2002 federal tax return

THAT’S A GRAND TOTAL OF $57,188of tax liens filed against Regalado over the years. And that total would not include the years,if any, that he came clean with the IRS before it had to resort to slapping alien on his property! And we'd also like to point out that from 1995 - 2002 there were only TWO years in which Regalado did not cheat on his taxes.

So we talked with our CPA friend. And after looking at this list, he said, holy shit! That adds up to a lot of unreported income orover-reported deductions or under-withheld taxes for a lowly "journalist"!

Let’s figure it out. We’llgive Mr. Regalado the benefit of the doubt and assume interest and penaltieswere 30% of the lien. So theunderpayment of taxes was about $40,000. If he had a tax rate of 30%, that translates to tax return errors of$130,000!!!!

That’s a ton of dough for someone who claims his net worth is only$5,000 (or the $7,500 to which his “story” recently changed).

Here are the federal tax lien filings:

Regalado Tax Liens

Some, but not all of the tax liens racked up by Regaldo have beenlifted.

· The 1988bill of $13,107 was paid and the lien lifted on July 25, 1999. We believe that was before his city of Miami wageswere garnished by the IRS.

· The 1998bill of $8,423 was paid and the lien lifted on May 7, 2003

· The 2000bill of $1,070 was paid and the lien lifted on June 18, 2003

· The 2001bill of $7,964 was paid and the lien lifted on November 19, 2003

· The 2002bill of $9,259 was paid on the lien lifted on February 4, 2004

But the public records do not showreleases of liens on the whopping 1995 bill of $16,369 or the 1996 bill of$1,266! Those liens were filed by theIRS in October of 1998. The IRS would have re-filed the lien inOctober of 2008 if the amounts were not paid and did not and they expired. Sowhen did Regalado pay off those liens and did his ineptness forget to ask for arelease of lien?

Here are the releases of liensrelated to Regalado’s federal income tax shenanigans.

Release of Regalado TaxLiens

Tomas has said over and over againthat he got behind in his taxes when his wife lost her job……she lost her jobfrom 1988 to 2002????? Of course shedidn’t. It’s just another bald faced liefrom the most corrupt mayor in the history of the city of Miami.

The trail of the Tomas Tax Liensraises a number of questions, especially since he continuously claims to be sofricking poor. But we’re certain thatRegalado would never lie on his financial disclosure forms because the statesays the penalty for lying on the form can include impeachment, removal orsuspension from office, and a civil penalty of up to $10,000, among otherthings.

So here are some of the questions:

· What was thenature of the problems in the Regalado tax returns that caused the assessmentof additional taxes? Did heunder-report income or over-report deductions? If he under-reported income, where did that income come from? Or maybe the assessment have to do withunder-withholding taxes. But that wouldbe a ton of under-withholding the Regalado family income was only his becausewifey was unemployed.

· How didRegalado come up with the money to pay off that $13,107 lien in 1999? We also checked the public records to see ifmaybe he put a second mortgage on the homestead that year to borrow the moneyto pay the taxes….but he didn’t.

· When did the1995 and 1996 taxes of $17,439 get paid and where did Regalado get the money topay them?

· Why wouldthe Miami Herald ignore this story and misreport it for years?

· How in thehell did the electorate get sucked into voting for a serial tax cheat to run acity that survives on collecting taxes?

Interesting questions. But then there are a lot of questions aboutthe finances, public filings and actions of Regalado. Maybe while the FDLE is looking into theRegalado campaign, they could take a look at Regalado’s history with theIRS.

After all, this sure paints a pictureof a guy who might have been desperate to get the Feds off his back.

THE CASE FOR FIRING FIRE CHIEF MAURICE KEMP

2011-09-07T19:11:00.000-04:00

Tonight we are making the case that Fire Chief Maurice Kemp should be fired due to his disastrous management of the budget of the Fire Department of the city of Miami.

Much hoopla has been made over police department overtime which,according to the latest“The Miami Herald Y’s Tomas Regalado" piece has "rocketed" to $1.8 million over budget. Such a hoopla has been made that Johnny Martinez has used the myopic focus on this one line item out of the total $125,000,000 Police Department budget to justify his firing Police Chief Miguel Exposito.

So the Miami Herald tells us the overtime in Police has "rocketed." What the Miami Herald does not say is that despite the budget variance in overtime for the police department, Exposito has managed the police budget so that total police department expenditures are projected to come in at $134,019.01 UNDER budget for 2011, according to the latest financial report submitted by Johnny Martinez's finance gurus.

We went into lots of detail about the police budget in our post, As Lazy As.........A Stoned Sloth. And we noted in that post that it is clear Exposito has done a good job of managing his budget. The cost of overtime is a much lower burden on taxpayers than filling the vacant positions - which weren't filled because of the incompetence of the city of Miami's employee relations department, not the chief's.

But, if Exposito should be fired, in part, because of lack of budget control by letting overtime go over budget while keeping the total budgeted expenditures in line.....THEN THERE IS A BIGGER CASE TO CAN FIRE CHIEF MAURICE KEMP.

In the latest financial report, the Fire Chief Kemp has allowed overtime and special pay for members of the fire department to ROCKET TO $1,070,510 over the budgeted amount! And when you compare that to the total fire budget it is 1.5% of the fire department budget.

The $1.8 million of overtime in the police department is a mere 1.4% of its budget.

But where Chief Exposito has managed to bring the police department total expenditures for the year in at $134,091.01 LESS THAN BUDGET, the Fire Department's total expenditures are projected to come in $168,007.87 MORE THAN BUDGET.

So on the basis of fiscal management, Chief Kemp is a TOTAL DISASTER compared to Chief Exposito.

Case closed.

If Regalado and Johnny Martinez want to fire the police chief - they have a better case to can Fire Chief Maurice Kemp.

And with Kemp gone, and Regalado's affinity for people of questionable character, maybe he'll name Veldora Arthur as the new Fire Chief. She'd be the perfect bookend to the Mercado cops running the other side of the "Public Safety" departments of the city of Miami.

TWO MERCADO COPS IN THE DEAL!

2011-09-07T01:00:00.000-04:00

The Miami Police union, the FOP, has spoken.

Armando Aguilar, president of the union announced today that the union supported Mercado cop Manuel Orosa for chief two years ago when Miguel Exposito instead was appointed. And Aguilar said the union supports Orosa for chief today.

And why would that be?

Armando Aguilar was also one of the cops caught up in the beating to death of the suspected drug dealer, Leonardo Mercado.

Please read the post Mercado Cop Named Interim Police Chief! and then read this LA Times article which documents the indictment of Aguilar as well.

6 Miami Officers Indicted in '88 Death of Drug Dealer _ Law Enforcement_ the New Charges Claim a Police Cov...

In the Miami police department, birds of a feather flock together.......AND WITH MAYOR REGALDO.

There is an ill wind blowing for the citizens of Miami. Thugs running the police department AND city hall.

MERCADO COP NAMED INTERIM POLICE CHIEF!

2011-09-06T13:57:00.002-04:00

In keeping with Tomas Regalado's corrupt stewardship of the city of Miami, he has named a cop with a real questionable history to be the interim police chief.

Manuel Orosa, he of the "Mercado Gang," has been put in charge of the MPD. Orosa wasn't just one of the cops on duty at the time of the incident - he was the Sergeant in charge of the group of thugs in uniform who beat the unsavory Mercado to death.

The naming of Orosa goes along with Regalado's affinity for other cops implicated in the 1988 beating to death of a suspected drug dealer - like Pablo Camacho who worked in Regalado's office after his release from jail after serving 18 months for his role in the murder.

The beating of Mercado grabbed national headlines at the time. Here is a story from the New York Times.
8 Miami Officers Suspended in Fatal Beating of a Suspect - New York Times

Corruption everywhere.

This action underscores, again, the Tomas Regalado has no interest in doing the right thing for the citizens of Miami.

He has one interest - that is to keep himself in power using all means possible.

We need the Feds!

UPDATE - KEEP YOUR PC TUNED TO THE CRESPO-GRAM REPORT! AL TELLS US HE'S GOING TO GIVE US MORE INFORMATION ON MANUEL OROSA!

WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN?

2011-09-05T20:13:00.000-04:00

Word is that Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito will be suspended tomorrow.

We're not sure exactly what Exposito and his "Number One" ally, head of Internal Affairs Major Al Alvarez will do in reaction to the firing, but it's sure to be something unexpected.

Lining up with Exposito and Alvarez are Commissioners Carollo and Sarnoff. Lining up with the Mayor are Commissioners Gort and Suarez. It is still uncertain how Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones will vote.

Speculation on how the events will unfold has been moving at warp speed over the weekend.

And one of our readers came up with a video of what he thinks might happen.

For your enjoyment, a mockumentary, starring Sarnoff as the news reporter, Exposito as the Chief, Al Alvarez as Slaughter, Johnny Martinez as the screaming meemee, and Mayor Regalado and his godson, crybaby Luis Cabrera, as the couple sitting on the park bench.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

WIPE THE SLATE CLEAN!

2011-09-02T23:18:00.000-04:00

It's looking like door mat City Manager, Johnny Martinez, is going to fire Chief of Police Miguel Exposito on Tuesday.

As it has become the routine lately, Al Crespo broke the story first and then the mainstream media caught up with the story.

We've never been fans of Exposito, or his cadre of creeps like head of Internal Affairs, Al Alvarez.

But in a statement that says it all about how corrupt the city of Miami has become with Mayor Tomas Regalado, Phantom Mayor Armando Gutierrez, sociopathic Marc Sarnoff and his sidekicks running things - Chief Exposito is the last line of defense between a felonious free-for-all by the city's "selected" officials and the taxpayers' pocketbooks.

It's a slam dunk that Regalado will force door mat Johnny Martinez to appoint a chief who is more copacetic with Regalado's penchant for being in the pockets of the gaming industry. And that does not bode well for Miami.

So because of that, we're sorry to see Exposito go.

But maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe the commissioners will do the right thing and insist that no one in the police department and no one who has ever worked for the Miami police department will be eligible to become the new chief.

Wipe the slate clean. National search. Bring in fresh blood and fresh ideas. If Exposito goes - get rid of the whole damn crew.

HYPOCRITES

2011-08-31T21:53:00.000-04:00

The charter of the city of Miami is much stronger than the “code of ordinances” because the charter can be changed only by a vote of the electorate. The code of ordinances is changed at each commission meeting by the “selected officials” we call commissioners.

This is what the charter of the city of Miami says about compensation for commissioners:

Sec 4 - Form of government; nomination and election.

(h) Salaries of the mayor and commission. Effective on November 4, 2003, there shall be paid to the city commissioners the sum of $58,200, which is equal to sixty percent of the mayor's salary in effect on July 16, 2003. Such salary shall be paid per year for each commissioner, in twelve equal installments. The compensation of the mayor shall be determined by the commission.

Commissioners, under the city charter, should be paid a salary of $58,200 per year.

That salary is twice the median household income in Miami. So, for most Miamians the salary paid to commissioners is a substantial salary.

When the Miami New Times published its report on city employees earning more than $100,000 per year, there were 4 commissioners on the list:

· Francis Suarez earned $113,375.12 in 2010, or $55,175.12 more than the salary approved by the voters.

· Willy Gort earned $108,359.52 in 2010, or $50,159.52 more than the salary approved by the voters.

· Richard Dunn earned $106,105.56 in 2010, or $47,905.56 more than the salary approved by the voters.

· Frank Carollo earned $104,659.84 in 2010, or $46,459.84 more than the salary approved by the voters.

What the heck is that about?

The voters approve a salary of $58,200 for commissioners and then it is ignored and they get paid over $100,000 a year?

That’s just about what happens.

We checked around and found that not only do commissioners get the salary approved by the voters, but they also get paid expense allowances as determined by the city manager.

So basically, the city manager curries favor with commissioners by giving them, AT HIS DISCRETION, a HUGE expense allowance.

Included in the expense allowance is $800 per month car allowance even though the commissioners get ferried around town 24/7 by $130,000 a year police officers who should be patrolling our neighborhoods.

Also included in the expense allowance is a phone allowance to defray the cost of the commissioners’ cell phone service so they can get text messages and send text messages during commission meetings in violation of Florida law.

Not included in the expense allowance is the costs for, like, say, two full-time publicists for Marc Sarnoff to him get elected which we the taxpayers fund; or political toadies like Pieter Bockweg and Luis Cabrera for whom the taxpayers also foot the bill for outrageous salaries and benefits so their political godfathers can skirt laws to benefit themselves.

So before the commissioners and the mayor start railing about out of control salaries in the city, maybe they want to take a look at all the money they are stuffing in their pockets for what each one of them has treated as a PART TIME JOB!

It’s about time that one of two things happen. Either the commissioners keep their bloated salaries and expenses allowances and give up all outside employment so we don’t feel short-changed by paying well over $100,000 a year for part-time commissioners or give up their expense allowances and come clean about their outside employment.

After that happens, then wail away at all the other wasteful salaries and benefits and give the taxpayer a break.

And then if they ever decide to change the “expense allowance” of commissioners they can do it in the sunshine instead of through some back-door secret memo signed by the city manager.

From where we sit, the “selected officials” in Miami just look like a bunch of hypocrites.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER

2011-08-28T20:04:00.000-04:00

This is how the Miami New Times reported about Raquelita Regalado’s launching her campaign for Miami-Dade School Board Member in Erik Maza’s July 19, 2010 article, With No Experience and Lots of Cash, Miami Mayor's Daughter Raquel Regalado Runs For School Board:

“Raquelita Regalado got her start in politics in 1996, working as her father's chief of staff -- gratis -- for his first campaign. She launched her own campaign because the county was missing out on state and federal money. "The need is for someone to go to Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., and be an advocate for the county," she says. "I've grown up in Miami politics, so I have a relationship with those politicians." However, she admits she has never appeared in an official capacity before the state or national legislature. Her main qualification, she says: two kids in the county system.

She adds that she has a career independent of her father and that she wouldn't ask him to help her raise money. Yet many of papi's donors appear on her campaign financial reports. Pedro Munilla and several members of the MCM construction family have donated the maximum $500 each. So have developers David Brown and Charles Tavares. Munilla and Brown are clients of lobbyist and Tomasito compadre Armando Gutierrez, who is also a Raquelita donor and whose wife is volunteering.”

So she wasn’t going to turn to Papi for help fund raise for her campaign – right.

Maritza Gutierrez “volunteering” for the Raquelita campaign?? Read on.

We’ve written extensively about the Tomas and Raquel Regalado campaign finance violations in connection with Tomas Regalado’s 2009 mayoral campaign. Currently, there is an FDLE investigation of the shenanigans in that campaign, including Raquel Regalado’s role as her daddy’s campaign treasurer.

Raquel, an attorney, also acted as her own campaign treasurer for her own 2010 successful bid for the school board.

And as we said in our posts, The Numbers are the Numbers - and Something’s Wrong!, Did Regalado and His Daughter Break Federal Campaign Finance Laws?, and Ethical? Transparent? ---Like Hell!, Raquelita is as inept at handling a cover-up of campaign shenanigans as her father is at trying to run a city.

So what with the all the problems with daddy’s campaign reports, we thought we’d take a look at Raquelita’s campaign reports.

And we hope the FDLE decided to do just that too!

Here’s a rundown of a few of the things the FDLE might want to check into regarding Raquelita’s campaign reports for her 2010 election, besides the tidbits in the Miami New Times report:

The last report filed for the Raquelita Regalado campaign shows a $9,589.35 excess of monetary contributions over expenses. That’s illegal. Raquelita should have disbursed the excess funds and reported how she did it by November 22, 2010.

Now since her daddy’s net worth has famously been reported as $7,500 – that excess is a LOT of dough to the Regalados!

And as Al Crespo reported today, Raquelita FORGOT to file her campaign close-out report which is required to be filed under state law so that her campaign can tell the public just how she disposed of all of her monetary contributions legally under State of Florida laws.

In fact, she was notified of her failure to comply with state laws (SHE’S AN ATTORNEY??) all the way back on December 2, 2002 and Al reports she has yet to comply, nearly 10 months later!

Raquelita continued to “keep in in the family” by giving her brother, Jose, a paycheck of $2,500 for his hard work on her campaign. We sure hope she remembered to report the payment to the IRS so Jose doesn’t get into the IRS problems daddy is well known for. His brother Tommy scored big in daddy’s campaign – so it’s about time Jose got a chunk of the campaign cash for himself!

There are a few other folks that got paid enough to warrant a 1099 to the IRS – Violette Sproul cashed in for $10,300 and Amparo Arroyo cashed in for $8,500; And were sure that Angie Gold paid taxes on her $3,000 payment because Raquelita, as a lawyer, would never have overlooked the IRS reporting laws.

But it is the $2,700 paid to Ursula Marrero that caught our eye. Ursula is the wife of Tomas Regalado’s employee, Jose Marrero.

Jose is the guy who allegedly got his driveway paved, courtesy of the Miami taxpayers according to Al Crespo’s post of May 11, 2011.

Jose and Ursula are no strangers to political campaign financing fraud – they were tight with ex-County commissioner Miriam Alonso, who pled guilty in 2006 to more than 2 dozen felony charges involving her 1997 and 1998 campaigns. Jose and Ursula were key witnesses in the investigation as reported in the Miami New Times all the way back in 2001 in a Jim Defede article titled The Secret Slush Fund.

So with all the corruption they have been smack dab in the middle of over the years, we are SURE they insisted on the proper tax reporting……..wonder if they reported the free driveway…………

Fuel Outdoor Advertising, Steve Marin's favorite client, provided a ton of billboards and other signage for Raquelita’s campaign - $19,100 worth. We hope to heck they charged the normal rate for all the Raquelita signs we saw for months – because if they didn’t it would be considered a reportable “in kind” contribution --- we don’t see any contributions of any kind from Fuel.

Then there is the ever-present phantom mayor of Miami, Armando Gutierrez and his company, or his wife’s company, Creative Designs. They walked away with nearly HALF of the campaign revenues - $72,391.60. Hey, didn’t Raquelita say Maritza Guitierrez was “volunteering” for her campaign?

When you combine the $300,000 the Gutierrez’s y got from Tomas’ campaign with the $72,000 from Raquelita’s that adds up to quite a tidy sum. Hell, with that they could buy FOR CASH three homes at the average value of a homestead in the city of Miami. We, hope they kept good records to show the FDLE where all that money went if the investigators decide to stop by.

And of course Raquelita’s campaign is just chock full of contributions from the usual suspects like….

o Willy Bermello, the guy who arranged for the illegal foreign contributions to daddy’s campaign, as reported on the campaign report prepared by daddy’s campaign treasurer, Raquelita

o Lobbyist Steve Marin whose clients have been awarded more no-bid contracts than any other lobbyist in the history of the city of Miami….and wasn’t he in the middle of the red light cameras contract too?

o American Traffic Solutions, AKA the red light camera company chosen by the city of Miami, contributed to the campaign of daddy’s favorite daughter. Of course they were trying, at the time they gave to Raquelita’s campaign, to get the red light camera contract awarded to them. So the more support they could show the Regalado dynasty, the better their chances.

o Carlisle Development, related companies and many of their “subs” and lobbyists showed their support. Hey, we can’t hold it against them if they were trying to improve their chances of getting more sweetheart deals from daddy at the city. We don’t think they’ve ever been in the school construction business.

o Tibor Hollo , the developer given a grant of nearly $10,000,000 from the CRA – taking away money meant to help poor people – was a $1,000 contributor, including the contribution from his company. Maybe it was just a way to cement a deal.

o Manny Alonso Poch is popping up everywhere, including making a contribution to Raquelita’s campaign. Now he’s got a lot of irons in the fire with daddy and daddy’s lieutenant, Commissioner Sarnoff, these days – Marine Stadium, Rockerman Canal, getting out from under code violations for his charter school, so it’s a good thing he shows his love.

o Molina Towing – perennial towing company of choice for the city of Miami commissioners – what in the hell would be Molina’s interest in a school board race?

o Of course there’s the HOST of zoning attorneys that have business constantly before the city of Miami ---- guess they’re interested in education too!

o Nelson Horta threw in $100 – hell his puff pieces on the Regalados should have been shown as in-kind contributions!

o David Samson, the president of the Marlins gave $500 – what is that about. Didn’t Regalado vote against the stadium…..oh that’s right he didn’t have to because all the other commissioners voted yes.

And finally,

o Crybaby Luis Cabrera, (My Dear Luis to Diana) the guy wants to be police chief of Miami gave $500 as did Al Vega, Executive Assistant to the CURRENT chief, Miguel Exposito. Wow, ya think Exposito knows?

As a matter of fact, the contributors to Raquelita’s campaign look a whole lot like those to daddy’s campaign and in the end, look to have more interest in city of Miami business than school board matters. Tomasito and Raquelita like to keep it all in the family.

But with nearly $10,000 of excess contributions for which the legal disposition has not been reported and all the other interesting ties to daddy, daddy’s friends and daddy’s ways, it might just be worth a hard look by the FDLE.

DIDN'T THE TOADIES GET THE WORD?

2011-08-25T18:08:00.000-04:00

Michelle Spence-Jones was restored back to her District 5 Commission sheet as of yesterday afternoon .

But if you look at the city of Miami website, you'd think all the Regalado and Sarnoff toadies in IT and communications and GSA didn't get the word. In the past, the ONLY thing the city did quickly was change the "Officials" on the city website within moments of their being sworn in and making sure the names were changed on the offices before the swearing in.

Looks to us like there's a little angst over the return of Spence-Jones.

Here's the city's web page as of this moment, with our anotations. Dunn is still there and no mention of Spence-Jones.

Maybe the switch over is hung up on Dunn's assertion that he should get paid a severance amounting to his $100,000 a year salary and benefits for the remainder of the Spence-Jones term. If the City Attorney rules in his favor will we see TWO D5 commissioners since we will be footing the bill for both????

OUT WITH BOTH OF THEM!

2011-08-25T00:48:00.001-04:00

We don't think it was some inexplicable pang of conscience that caused the Miami Herald to write a story correcting their previous "announcement" that the charges against Michelle Spence-Jones were dropped because a key witness mysteriously changed her testimony.

Because having witnessed the despicable behavior of State Attorney Kathy Fernandez-Rundle and her PERsecutors over the last 10 years, we suspect she is throwing Richard Scruggs under the bus to save her own sorry ass - and the Herald is a willing abettor because their “journalists” don’t seem to know better.

In today's story, as opposed to its original story, about the dropping of grand theft charges against Michelle-Spence Jones, there is actually an explanation of why a major witness in the investigation changed her testimony.

Here is how the Herald put it in its original story, insinuating that Barbara Carey-Shuler changed her testimony to take care of her friend:

“The development was long expected — the theft case crumbled last year when a key witness, former Miami-Dade Commissioner Barbara Carey-Shuler, changed her testimony incriminating her former protégé.”

The Herald said nothing else regarding the “change in testimony” in the rest of the article. In fact, using a non-scientific sample of our friends and colleagues 100% believed, based upon the original Herald article, that Carey-Shuler changed her testimony to get Spence-Jones off the hook.

And by the way, since, by their own admission in the original article, even the Herald expected the dropping of the charges for quite some time, did the Herald reporters think to ask WHY it took the Fernandez-Rundle and Scruggs so long to drop the charges? Do you think the Herald might want to look into the rumors running rampant that Fernandez-Rundle was refusing to drop the charges as part of a pact with Sarnoff and Regalado?

Now today, the Herald has published a story with the sensational headline:

Top Miami-Dade public corruption prosecutor under fire after Spence-Jones’ cases fail

The article focuses only on Kathy Fernandez-Rundle lieutenant, prosecutor Richard Scruggs. The Herald doesn’t lay a well-deserved finger on Rundle. Here is how they report Shuler’s change in testimony NOW - we call this a much more complete, and FAIR, report. However, the point of the story was to shoot bullets shot at Rundle's lieutenant, prosecutor Richard Scruggs.

“In September 2009, prosecutors called in Carey-Shuler under subpoena — giving her immunity from prosecution — to explain an official letter bearing her name that asked the agency to disburse the money to Karym Ventures, the Spence-Jones company. Carey-Shuler surprised them when she said she had not written the letter and that she never intended the money to go Spence-Jones.

Based on her testimony, Scruggs cast the letter as a forgery designed to steal the money and Spence-Jones was charged. One of the community groups also told investigators that they never even knew that county money had once been slated for their coffers.

But Spence-Jones’ defense team uncovered an early draft of the letter, with Carey-Shuler’s handwritten revisions on it. At a later deposition, Carey-Shuler changed her story when shown the draft, saying she must have indeed wanted the money to go to the Spence-Jones family company, Karym Ventures. The case crumbled.

Scruggs authored a memo closing out the case that ripped into Carey-Shuler’s changing testimony, and suggesting that the early draft had been missing from the original evidence files and had been planted by Spence-Jones or a surrogate.

Spence-Jones’ defense attorney, Peter Raben, called the allegation “grossly offensive.”

On Wednesday, Carey-Shuler’s defense lawyer, Reginald Clyne, said his client was “upset” after reading the close-out memo, saying she was unfairly portrayed. Carey-Shuler says it was Scruggs who told her the official letter was a forgery, and she didn’t remember having re-directed the money to Spence-Jones.

On Wednesday, Scruggs denied telling Carey-Shuler that the letter was a forgery, saying she was the one who pointed out inconsistencies in the official letter that showed she hadn’t written it.

Had the case gone to trial, Clyne said, Carey-Shuler “would have done what Armando Codina did, and said Scruggs lied to her. That’s what she would have said on the stand.”

Carey-Shuler, through a lawyer, said she was mulling a defamation lawsuit. Codina, in an interview, called Scruggs a “serial liar.”

It has been no secret that the PERsecution’s case disintegrated faster than a bottle of Jack Daniels in Rundle’s liquor cabinet when evidence was presented on June 21, 2010 that Barbara Carey-Shuler had in fact authorized the $50,000 grant to Michelle Spence-Jones’ family.

The close-out memorandum written by the State Attorney’s OFFICE for the Spence-Jones case contains this statement:

“Without Dr. Carey-Shuler's cooperative testimony, and without her explanation of why she appears to have drafted the letter which was provided to MMAP, the State does not believe that it can meet its burden of proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

And again, they’ve known about this exculpatory evidence since at least June 21, 2010!

So why in the hell did they continue the persecution? Why, after Spence-Jones was acquitted in the spring of unrelated charges and clear word was coming from the state attorney’s office that they were going to drop this, their weaker case, in the June status conference for the case did they not do it?

The disgusting thing is that the Miami Herald has NEVER bothered pursuing WHY Kathy Fernandez-Rundle and her lieutenant Richard Scruggs continued to PERsecute Spence –Jones in face of new evidence over a year ago. At the very least why did they not drop the charges after she was acquitted in March? WHY did they continue to go after her?

And from all we are hearing THAT IS THE REAL STORY – the real story is the why behind the State Attorney taking so long to drop the charges?

The REAL STORY is all about allegations of the denigration of the office of the State Attorney through Rundle’s willingness to target the political foes of those who she considers her allies. We first wrote about this possibility in our post Vendetta?

And now that Rundle has to face an second-rate “journalists” about a failed public corruption case (we WISH we could say ANOTHER public corruption case – but Rundle doesn’t seem to be interested in investigating public corruption involving her friends only “foes of friends” or people whose seat she is interested in), she is putting the spin on it. And she is throwing her chief public corruption prosecutor under the bus (he deserves it) to cover her own ass. And she signed a close-out memorandum that shows exactly how despicable it was to continue the PERsecution for the past year. And the Herald is just going along with it.

So the Herald gives us an article attacking (rightfully) prosecutor Scruggs. But not a single word or nuance questioning the competence of Kathy Fernandez-Rundle is included in the article. What ever happened to “the buck stops here?” There is not even a quote from Ms. Rundle, or an indication that the Herald reporter tried to get a quote from her.

And the Herald gives us an article that does not indicate any intellectual curiosity on behalf of the reporter as to why it took so long after the changed testimony of Ms. Shuler to drop the charges.

The real story is missed again. But at least, maybe, people will have a clearer picture of why the case fell apart – not because of a key witness changing testimony for a protégé, but because of new evidence that refreshed the witness’s memory.

And since we’ll never have the real story because the parties involved will continue to protect each other and the Herald doesn’t have the curiosity to find out, maybe we can settle for something else.

Maybe the parties so damaged by the outrageous prosecutorial misconduct on behalf of the State Attorney’s OFFICE will follow through on their “musings” about seeking redress. Maybe a complaint to the Florida Bar will result in an investigation.

In the closing line of today’s Herald story, we are told:

“Fernandez-Rundle is looking to replace Centorino (head of the public corruption unit), who will become the director of Miami-Dade’s Commission on Ethics in the coming months.”

And it’s obvious, from the scathing report about Richard Scruggs in this particular Herald article, that he is not in line to take on the role.

From our perspective, that’s fine. He should go. But so should Kathy Fernandez-Rundle.

Kathy Rundle should shoulder the ultimate responsibility and consequences of the sorry state of affairs of the office she has lead for 18 years. She should be held responsible for the abuse of power that was evident in both Spence-Jones cases.

Kathy Fernandez-Rundle and Richard Scruggs - Chief and lieutenant. They should both go.

The Straw Buyer has weighed in with an EXCELLENT post on the State Attorney's Office's handling of the Michelle Spence-Jones matter. Please check it out!

GAME CHANGER!

2011-08-23T20:16:00.005-04:00

This entire post is OUR opinion. Take it or leave it - it's how we feel.

All the efforts of Marc Sarnoff and Tomas Regalado to get rid of Michelle Spence-Jones have failed.

All the water carrying by State Attorney Kathy Fernandez-Rundle for Sarnoff and Regalado has come to an end.

The State Attorney has FINALLY dropped all remaining charges against Commissioner Michelle Spence Jones and she SHALL be returned to her seat FORTHWITH!

Now the tables have turned and Sarnoff is, we have heard repeatedly, conspiring with the police chief and other interesting former Miami officials to get rid of Regalado. And Regaldo is, we've heard conspiring with an interesting gang to turn the tables on Sarnoff.

For both Regalado and Sarnoff it’s a power game - the good of the city be damned! But we will NEVER forget how tied into the Regalado camp Sarnoff has been. In fact, the way the Palm Beach Post put it:

"Regalado, who during former Mayor Manny Diaz's eight years in office was often on the losing side of 4-1 votes, now appears poised to secure a solid commission majority. Both Gonzalez and Spence-Jones were staunch allies of Diaz, Regalado's political nemesis.

That puts Regalado and his chief lieutenant, newly anointed Commission Chair Marc Sarnoff, firmly in the driver's seat at City Hall.”

Sarnoff, from the beginning of the Regalado regime, was Regalado’s Chief Lieutenant.

Sarnoff and Regalado deserve each other. Neither have friends. They see people only as opportunities or barriers. They were an opportunity for each other for a while as they wreaked havoc on the political landscape of Miami by joining forces to convince the State Attorney to take down their barriers like Michelle Spence-Jones. They had no thought for the human toll of their actions because they have a sociopath's ability to block human emotion.

Now that the shit has hit the fan because of the fostering of cronyism and political patronage by the Sarnoff/Regalado Regime, someone has to take the fall. Each are determined the other will take it. We put our money on Sarnoff prevailing. He's a tad smarter, tons more vicious and more connected. Hell, he's the only person we know that gets a pass on perjury charges by his friends at the State Attorney's Office.

The thorn in everyone's side will again be Michelle Spence-Jones. And with Michelle back on the dais, the power has shifted. The question is will she go to the dark side of Regalado or the dark side of Sarnoff. Or will she be the independent voice on the commission that used to drive them all crazy.

In any event, it's a game changer! Welcome back Michelle!!!

WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE!!!

THE REPORTS ARE COMING IN THAT REVEREND DUNN IS ASKING FOR SEVERANCE PAY!

IT FIGURES THAT A GUY WHO HAD NO PROBLEM HANDING THE FORMER CFO A SUPER GOLDEN PARACHUTE ON HIS EXIT WOULD BE ASKING FOR HIS OWN PAYOUT FROM THE TAXPAYERS' MONEY TOO! HE FOUND IT WAS A LOT EASIER STEALING FROM THE UNWITTING TAXPAYER THAN HIS GRANDDADDY'S CHURCH!

READ ABOUT IT AT

THE CRESPO-GRAM REPORT
and
THE STRAW BUYER

AS LAZY AS....

2011-08-21T19:37:00.010-04:00

A Stoned Sloth

Today, from Chuck Rabin at the Miami Herald, we have the exclamation point to put at the end of the sentence – The Miami Herald is in the Bag for Tomas Regalado!

Anyone connected with the city of Miami since Tomas Regalado became a commissioner knows how the “tip line” for the Miami Herald has worked. Each week Regalado gathers information that, without further investigation, will throw mud on a Regalado adversary. He gives his weekly “stack of trash” to the Herald reporter assigned to the city of Miami. And because, unfortunately, too many “Herald journalists” assigned to the city of Miami are lazier than a stoned sloth, they run with the Regalado spin.

Ask anyone in the know and they will tell you the most prolific source of information for the Miami Herald over the years has been their fellow “journalist,” Tomas Regalado and his minions. We have believed for a long time that the Miami Herald is indebted to him. And too many times the truth is crushed under the towering debt the Herald’s assigned reporters owe to Regalado.

Because the reporter is so indebted to Regalado, in Chuck Rabin’s “The Miami Herald Y’s Tomas Regalado” piece today, the headline of the story and every nuance and slant is tilted toward Regalado’s side in the Tomas Regalado vs. Police Chief Miguel Expositor feud. Chuck is taking care of his source – but, as usual, is doing a grave disservice to the general public by abnegating every principle of journalistic integrity that exists.

We are not fans of either the Chief or Tomas Regalado, don’t get us wrong. But we’ve found that whenever the Herald reporters pick sides the taxpayers get screwed. And with Luis “Cry Baby” Cabrera, Regalado’s godson, telling anyone who will listen that he is within days of being appointed chief of police, we are scared shitless – because Regalado, with his (as Sarnoff puts it) “keen knack” for appointing people, just might appoint Cabrera, who we have been told has a penchant for throwing fits, crying and being led out of the building in an emotional heap, to the top law-enforcement position of Florida’s largest city.

Chuck Rabin picking the side to support in the Regalado/Exposito drama is disconcerting because we just might end up with the worst of all worlds – Regalado as mayor, Sarnoff as the titular chair of the Miami Commission, Armando Gutierrez as the phantom mayor, and a guy with an emotional makeup so tenuous that he shouldn’t be allowed to touch a gun or walk past a serious investigation as the chief of police.

So we are going to pick apart the story in an attempt to present another side. The side that Chuck Rabin, were he not a sloth in the bag for Regalado, should have explored before writing the tripe in his story today.

The headline of today’s Rabin Tripe screams “Understaffed Miami Police Dept. spending big on overtime,” inviting the reader to believe that ANOTHER financial fiasco in the form of budget-busting expenses has hit the city. But if the reader has the patience to read on, flip the page and look at the ninth paragraph of Chucky’s love letter to Regalado, they will read this –

“Overall, the department will meet its budget mark for 2011, but that’s because of savings from not filling dozens of open positions, police and city administrators say.”

So WTF is this story about?????   It’s not about another blown departmental budget at the city????

There is no mention in Chucky’s puff piece about Regalado slashing the police overtime budget by $3.7 million (familiar number) this year – from $6.2 million in 2010 to $2.5 million in 2011. What’s with that Miami Herald? Where are your journalistic ethics?

There is no mention in Chucky’s “please accept this gift as a partial settlement of my indebtedness to you, Tomas” article that Regalado slashed police salaries and wages by $11 million from 2010 to 2011. Hell, we consider it an example of excellent management that Exposito expects to bring in his 2011 at the budgeted amount.

Chucky the stoned sloth then goes on to tell us all about the police department being 110 officers short.   And how last year (that would be in connection with the 2011 budget) then city manager Carlos Migoya relaxed the hiring freeze so that 40 police vacancies could be filled.

Think about it……Exposito was given the authority to hire only 40 officers.   So it’s his fault if those hires weren’t done. But why is Chuck beating him up for the other 70 vacancies?   Isn’t that Regalado’s fault? How about the fault of the city manager du jour? How about lay a little blame on the city commission?

And of those 40 authorized, Exposito has recently hired 19.   So crucify him for the 21-man shortfall? We think not. Because again, if Chucky had bothered to extract his head from Regalado’s orifice long enough to ask a “policing” question, he would have found that the hardest people to recruit for the city of Miami are cops.

Where the fire department gets a hundred applicants for each of its openings, the police department is lucky to get 4. And after the psychological and physical tests, the number allowed to go on to police academy dwindles to a handful of people.   The city of Miami has not successfully filled a new police recruiting class in over 20 years because starting salaries and working conditions for a cop at the city of Miami suck – the union cares only about the people ready to retire.   So again, our hats off to Exposito for successfully filling 19 positions out of his allotted 40.

And then there is Chuck’s slanted foray into the “philosophy” of policing. Exposito has pointed to the drop in crime, as reported by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, over the last two years.   Exposito credits his reliance on “tactical robbery and gang units” to the drop in crime.   Chucky emphasizes that citizens want to see cops patrolling.

Okay. We get that.   But with the city of Miami finances in a shambles, we can’t have it all. Who is better at deciding the policing strategies to deploy in our city?   Would it be the police chief whose tactics have resulted in a drop in crimes or would it be a boot-licking city manager, Johnny Martinez, whose comment in Chucky’s article was “I think that they should have a better balance and move some back to patrol. Right now he’s standing by the way he has it set up.”???

With no respect for Johnny Martinez, he has ZERO policing experience and should not be butting his big fat nose into how to run the police department.   Johnny, keep your big fat nose up that engineering firm’s butt – you know, Johnny, the one the County Manager wasn’t so happy with you and the county procurement office about!

So, we’ll go with the chief on this one.   At the last commission meeting he explained his bias toward tactical units as this –

“Keeping more officers in patrol units would “put presence in the street and save money, but it’s not going to get the job done,” the chief told city commissioners last month. “All we have are officers writing reports all day, and there’s nothing being done to get the criminals off the street.’’

And that makes sense to us. If his tactics are targeting groups of criminals, getting them off the streets and reducing crime, we are with him. The crime statistics have not proven him wrong despite the politics-driven sniping surrounding him.

Finally, let’s really talk about the supposed “cost” of this overtime versus filling the vacant positions.

If we use an average base pay rate of $50 per hour and 1800 hours per year of actual work (excluding vacation, sick time, training time, holidays, etc.) the $6.2 million of overtime is worth 46 cops on the street. (6.2 million divided by $50 per hour*1.5 overtime rate*1800 hours of actual work per year).

What would the same 46 cops in newly filled positions cost the taxpayer?

· First, we’d have to pay them for 2080 hours, not the 1800 hours because the new cops will get holiday pay, vacation pay, sick time pay and training time. The cops on OT do not get extra holiday, vacation, sick or training time.

· Then we’d have to pay them pension. Since the city of Miami does not include overtime pay in its pensionable salaries, that is a huge marginal cost – like 65% of the base pay.

· Then the new people would have to get health insurance at the rate of $12,000 per year – the guys on overtime don’t get “enhanced” health care costs.

· Then we will assume the same average pay of $50, because if they hired 46 new cops, the city would promote a number of patrol officers to sergeant, sergeants to lieutenants, etc.

· Finally there is additional workers compensation, training and other costs that accumulate to another $5,000 a year.

· So what would the cost be for 46 new cops? $8.7 million!!!!!!!

· That’s (46 cops*2080 hours per year*50 per hour base*1.65 for pensions) PLUS (46 cops * $17,000 of insurance and other benefits) - $8.7 million.

In another “hats off” to Chief Exposito, he has put 46 cops on the street for $6.2 million with his use of overtime compared with hiring 46 new cops at a cost of $8.7 million - he is saving us $2.5 million! And that is BEFORE the taxpayers pay for the $35,000 take-home cars for the new cops, their $2,000 of weapons, their $2,500 computers and their $1,500 Kevlar vests, all of which the cops working overtime already have.

You will read NONE of this in the Miami Herald. Because the Herald, especially Chucky Rabin, is in the bag for Regalado !

And in the final cut to Exposito to curry favor with his loan shark, Chucky in his slanted, biased, inaccurate and inexcusable story states:

“Exposito, who is on vacation, could not be reached for comment. Questions sent to his spokesman Friday were not answered.”

And we certainly believe that to be the case. And that is because the city manager has issued a gag order prohibiting the chief, or anyone on his staff, from talking to the press without the City Manager’s prior consent about anything other than “policing” issues.   Exposito was smart to stay away from this story. It was a hatchet job from its inception and Johnny Martinez would have twisted anything Exposito had to say into a violation of this directive.

But Chucky failed to mention the gag-order.   Because it would make Regalado and his City ~~Manager~~ Toady look bad and could have had the effect of shedding doubt on his ill-researched pap.

We hear that the mainstream press is not happy with bloggers these days.   And it has nothing to do with “journalistic integrity.” It has everything to do with bloggers shedding a glimmer of light on the abject failure of the mainstream media to live up to long-established journalistic principles.

We would have no readers if the Miami Herald suddenly took stock of itself and critically examined HOW it goes about reporting a story.   We would have no readers if the Miami Herald prohibited the cozy relationships that develop between its journalists and public officials that result in misleading and biased puff pieces rather than hard-hitting journalism. We would have no readers if the reporters at the Miami Herald had a hunger for the story.

To close, we’ve never been big fans of Chief Exposito. But the alternative is really scary.   Rabin’s story today was nothing other than another attempt to cover Regalado’s ass when the City Manager does fire Exposito.

And that should have been the story – because it is obvious to anyone who hangs out at City Hall or the MRC that the end is near. If it weren’t, they wouldn’t be so desperately driven to throw mud at each other as fast as they can.

The “journalist” from the Herald is as lazy as a stoned sloth……..and the taxpayers get screwed.

CAMPAIGN, SHAM - PAIGN - WE NEED ANOTHER INVESTIGATION!

2011-08-17T21:56:00.001-04:00

Now that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) has launched an investigation into the 2009 Regalado campaign and with our expanding readership, we thought it appropriate to republish an article about the campaign irregularities of Marc David Sarnoff and his 2011 campaign.

The Miami New Times recently published an article on a mysterious company, with no corporate filing information, housed at the same suite of law offices as one Marc David Sarnoff, receiving substantial payments from the campaign coffers.

And what with Sarnoff's penchant for questionable campaign activities as chronicled in our post, Bret Berlin - Only a Party Mate, we thought the FDLE might want to take a whack at investigating "Commissioner Ethics."

And what with Shell Lumber being part of the 2006 shenanigans orchestrated by Bret Berlin AND being part of the most recent campaign violations we chronicled in Attention District 2 Candidates!, we started thinking that maybe the FDLE would see a pattern of very disturbing behavior on the part of Commissioner Sarnoff, serial prevaricator.

So here is the first story published on what we believe are Sarnoff's cheatin' ways. Oh, and by the way, the wife of another Miami commissioner worked at the Four Seasons when this event occurred. Two birds with one stone?????

_______________________________________________________________

On May 19, 2010, Marc DAVID Sarnoff held a fundraising event at the posh Four Seasons Hotel on Brickell Avenue.

It was a blockbuster event with, reportedly, somewhere between 300 and 400 people in attendance.

Judging from the campaign report filed in July of 2010, it was a HUGE success. The report shows 640 different contributions for a total of $278,000 - mostly from this event.

BUT SOMETHING IS REALLY FISHY AND WE WANT AN INVESTIGATION! So anyone out there who would like to pursue this with an ethics complaint, we're giving it to you as straight as you should need it.

According to Frommer's room prices at the Four Seasons in Miami are as follows - Winter, $475-$575 double; $675 suite; off season $350-$450 double, $550 suite. Pretty posh right?

Valet parking will set you back a cool $30.

An entree at the Acqua restaurant costs $21-$30, according to Trip Advisor.

A drink at the bar will set you back at least $8, if you are not into a premium label.

These factoids just provide some background info on how friggin' expensive the place is.

So how much do you think the Four Season Hotel would charge YOU, if you wanted to throw an intimate party for 350 of your closest friends?

We'd venture to say at least $75 a person what with the room cost, food, liquor, music, microphones and all of that other shit. And we KNOW that is on the low side. And then you have to add 7% sales tax and the 18% tip they tack on.

At $75 a person (plus taxes and gratuity) that party for 350 people would set you back $33,000. And we think we are really lowballing this estimate. Try calling the Four Seasons and get their banquet prices.

We noticed in the July campaign report that the expenses reflected by the Sarnoff campaign for this event looked low. So we decided to wait a few months and see if he was a little late in paying the tab for the shindig and we'd see that the balance was paid by October 10.

It was reasonable to think that Sarnoff would hondle a little on the price seeing as he is too cheap with his campaign dollars to pay for his personal publicists , David Karsh and William Plasencia, and has opted to stick us taxpayers with that tab.

We eagerly anticipated the October 10 report to see how much the BIG EVENT cost the campaign.

Guess what. The cost is the same as reported in the July report - $7,618.71.

BULLSHIT!

He is trying to tell the electorate that he staged an event at the Four Seasons Hotel for 350 people for $21.77 per person, including tax and gratuity, or $17.41 a head before taxes and gratuity . Hell, it would cost more than that at the Renaissance Ballroom on 32nd Avenue!

Then we figured there would be some "in-kind" contributions to cover the additional cost. Nope- not a single one.

So this is it. It sure looks like Sarnoff has violated campaign finance laws. If the Four Seasons gave him a discount, it must be reported on his campaign report as an in-kind contribution. And in-kind contributions have the same limit - $500 per entity - as cash contributions. Of course, he could pay for it out of his own pocket - fat chance of that.

He either has not paid all the bills for this affair or he has lied on his campaign reports. And we would not be surprised if suddenly after he reads this expose, he will come up with an excuse of why he didn't have time to pay the event bills on time even though he has been sitting on nearly $300,000 since the event was held.

WE WANT AN INVESTIGATION!

We are tired of Sarnoff breaking laws and rules at his pleasure. We taxpayers are tired of paying for his campaign staff through tax dollars.

We want to know what happened to at least $26,000 of missing contributions and expenses.

We want the Four Seasons to tell us they would only charge $17.41 a head for a 350-person cocktail party, replete with bar and appetizers. We're booking our next big party there if that's the case!

If Sarnoff runs down to Brickell to pay the tab because of this posting, we want the Four Seasons to show us the history of the billings complete with dates of rendering and documentation of any dispute resolution process that was held over these last 5 months.

If Sarnoff says he paid for the event out of his own pocket, we want to see the cancelled check and we want a sworn affidavit from the Four Seasons that it did not refund the money back to him.

We don't care if Sarnoff wants to spend his campaign money on the most lavish affairs known to mankind BUT we expect him to report his campaign costs AND contributions honestly.

Somebody, please, file an ethics complaint. We are sick of Sarnoff and his games.

We NEED an investigation!

And we are just getting started.

ATTEMPT TO DEFRAUD THE MARKET!

2011-08-14T20:28:00.000-04:00

Maybe the Florida Department of Law Enforcement can team up with the SEC and the Feds with another investigation into breaking laws by Tomas Regalado – like attempt to defraud the municipal bond market.

Back in June, when the CFO and the city manager of the city of Miami resigned within days of each other, Regalado was concerned that the instability among the top management of the city would hurt the $125,000,000 bond issue that was undergoing review by the rating agencies.

Regalado suddenly announced that Miami Parking Authority CFO, Scott Simpson, was going to assume the role of “Interim CFO of the City of Miami” pending a search for a permanent CFO. Simpson was named Interim CFO because of his long-term good relationship with the rating agencies. And his ruse was intended to improve the credit ratings that would soon be assigned to the bonds.

This is how CBS 4 Miami reported it on June 16 in its article titled Miami Names Temporary Finance Chief:

“Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado has picked an interim chief financial officer to lead the city through its latest budget woes.

Scott Simpson, finance chief of the Miami Parking Authority who earlier in his career served as the city’s finance director, will spend the next three months looking for ways to balance the 2012 budget, which faces an estimated shortfall of $40 million.”

This is how the Miami Herald reported it on June 21:

“Crapp is the second top administrator to leave the city in a week, and its third city manager since February 2010, when Regalado fired Pete Hernandez and replaced him with banker Carlos Migoya. As he promised, Migoya stayed only a year, fulfilling an obligation to fill a $105 million budget hole. Last week Chief Financial Officer Larry Spring left the city for the private sector after eight years. Spring said he left after learning Crapp was likely leaving as well.

The quick naming of Martinez was pushed in part by commissioners’ concern about the city’s financial state. Commissioners questioned leadership two weeks ago during a tense meeting in which they noted budget season was approaching rapidly. That forced Regalado to make a quick move to replace Spring with parking authority finance director Scott Simpson on an interim basis.”

After the quick announcement by Regalado, we immediately got wind that neither Simpson nor his boss at the MPA, Art Noriega, had agreed to let Simpson assume the title of Interim CFO of the city of Miami.

This is how what we reported, after digging for the truth in Interim CFO? Was it just a sham to save a bond rating?

The board of the MPA met on Friday and is not very happy with the announcement that Scott would be on loan to the city and act as its interim CFO. They really were not happy, we hear, that Art Noriega, the Executive Director of the MPA, had even offered to help Regalado in light of Regaldo's attempt to disband the MPA last year. In his defense, we hear, Noriega swore that he NEVER told Regalado he could borrow Simpson to be the interim CFO. Supposedly all Noriega ever offered was the use of Scott from time to time for "technical assistance and advice."

Now that we have the minutes of the June meeting of the board of the Miami Parking Authority, it’s official. We were right!

Scott Simpson NEVER agreed to become the interim CFO of the city of Miami.

Here are the minutes from the June Miami Parking Authority board meeting that we reported in our June piece – by the way, didn’t the Herald’s Chuck Rabin have the time to attend the meeting – or is it just too early for him to get his ass out of bed and try to do some REAL reporting?

MPA June 24 Board Minutes - Simpson Interim CFO Discussion

The terms "miscommunication" and "misinformation" are used EIGHT TIMES in the course of explaining to the MPA board that there was NEVER an agreement to let Scott Simpson assume the role of city of Miami interim CFO.

Noriega even tried to get the Herald to report it correctly BEFORE its June 21 story:

Art Noriega to the MPA Board: “It was misinformation, to say the least. I mean, it was wrong. I mean, it was never intended that way. I spoke to the Herald reporter before -- after the online article came out, but before the print article did, and clarified it. It was still mis-titled in the article in terms of the title. Certainly she probably had very little to do with that. But the gist of it is, one of the things that we realized through this entire process is that we can't seem to get around this idea that misinformation, after misinformation, after misinformation. It's a lot of -- a lot that's been misleading throughout this whole process. “

In Chuck Rabin’s “The Miami Herald Y’s Tomas Regalado” piece last week, Chuckie let the electorate know that “Another issue that has plagued Regalado: He occasionally strays from the facts.”

That would be called lying in normal-person-speak!

And when the lying involves attempting to paint a rosier picture of the city of Miami than really exists, it’s called ATTEMPT TO DEFRAUD THE MUNICIPAL BOND MARKET.

It’s not just us who feel that way…..read the minutes again and you will see what Mr. Simpson had to say about the “misinformation” perpetrated on the public:

SCOTT SIMPSON TO THE MPA BOARD: …“The problem that causes is the false expectation of what the role can do on a part-time basis, to wall street, investors in Miami bonds as well as general community.”

In our view, Regalado, together with his hand-picked second in command, Marc Sarnoff, have turned the city of Miami into a criminal enterprise.

And we believe the lie about Scott Simpson assuming the CFO position at the city was specifically designed to prop up the city of Miami's sagging bond ratings by creating the ruse of some form of stability in the city.

We cannot rely on our dipsomaniac State Attorney, Kathy Fernandez-Rundle, to deal honestly with a local investigation. We need the combined efforts of state and Federal intervention.

FDLE INVESTIGATION!

2011-08-12T08:55:00.000-04:00

Thank you Florida Department of Law Enforcement!

We needed to know that someone in the legal community is interested in breaking the back of political corruption.

Because all we see is State Attorney, Kathryn Fernandez-Rundle hobnobbing over cocktails with the political establishment and ignoring the corruption around her lest her own political ambitions be threatened. And we come to expect the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics to put lipstick on the pig of corruption in Miami-Dade County rather than put an end to the questionable acts of politicians and public "servants." And the Miami Herald is too busy sucking up to Regalado, the long-time purveyor of their news stories, to bother with being the a watchdog for the citizens.

The Miami Herald today reports that the FDLE is gathering documents to investigate the 2009 Tomas Regalado campaign. Of course it is buried on page 3 of the local section, because page 1 was reserved for a "The Herald Supports Regalado" story.

We first reported the irregularities in the Regalado campaign reports in our June posts Did Regalado and His Daughter Break Federal Laws?, The Numbers are the Numbers - and Something's Wrong!, and Ethical? Transparent? ---Like Hell! In those posts, we chronicled illegal foreign contributions, nearly $40,000 of unreported campaign contributions and an apparent sweetheart deal - like free -on the rent of the building housing the Regalado campaign headquarters. We also reported on questionable practices by city of Miami officials, like time stamping the date-sensitive reports as received at 1:40 AM!

We hope that our posts helped move this along - but we can't presume. But, from the Herald report, it looks like at the very least the FDLE is looking at the foreign contributions and the nearly $40,000 of unreported contributions. And since the FDLE is asking for the banking records, they will get into the rent-free campaign headquarters.

What we did not bring up, but hope the FDLE will look into, is whether the campaign issued 1099's to anyone who received more than $600 from the campaign coffers, include daughter Raguel Regalado and daughter-in-law Marta Basallo Regalado, so that they appropropriately reported the sums on their tax returns. Especially important given the history of Tomas Regalado not paying his income taxes and having his commissioner wages garnished for years.

What is clear is that Regalado and his campaign treasurer, his daughter Raquel Regalado, tried to make a mockery of campaign laws. When politicians are up to no good, they like to keep it in the family - a good daughter will cook the books and more reliably keep quiet about it than anyone else.

Today, Raquel tries to chalk up the campaign reporting irregularities to "bookkeeping or accounting errors." Raquelita, YOU were the treasurer. YOU were the campaign bookkeeper. YOU were the campaign accountant. YOU were totally incompetent at keeping track of campaign contributions and expenses. And YOU were totally inept at hiding the irregularities.

Under state law TWO PEOPLE must bear legal consequences for the campaign shenanigans - the TWO people who signed the reports - Tomas AND Raquel Regaldo!

All we can say is thank you, FDLE - the citizens need someone in their corner to protect the rule of law! And while you're in Miami, keep reading the blogs. We just may be breaking some more news on the 2011 campaigns!

ATTENTION DISTRICT 2 CANDIDATES!

2011-08-08T22:11:00.001-04:00

This is a story especially for Donna Milo, Kate Callahan and Michelle Niemeyer, the three people vying to unseat Marc DAVID Sarnoff in November.

Sarnoff's campaign chest is legendary. And now that he's formed a Political Action Committee (PAC) to supplement his campaign war chest and is strong-arming everyone within spitting distance to contribute to his PAC since all the political whores have maxed out their contributions to the Sarnoff campaign account, his financial resources will be hard to match.

But, you can start getting the word out about his border-line pathological lying, his handing out taxpayer money like it belonged to him AND his cheating in campaigns.

We wrote about it first in Brett Berlin - Only a Party Mate.

And now you have something to look into in the current campaign. We think it worth your while to read this and pen out a complaint to the Florida Election Commission.

Sue McConnell (Sarnoff's friend, Flicka) has again raised her ugly head.

Here is a campaign advertisement for the Sarnoff campaign that was e-mailed from Sue McConnell as president of the "Village of Center Grove" e-mail address:

First you'll notice there is no disclosure of WHO paid for this political advertisement. All political ads, as this one most certainly is, must contain the disclosure of who is behind the advertisement. That is a violation of Florida Statute 106.143(1)(b) which says:

Any other political advertisement published, displayed, or circulated prior to, or on the day of, any election must prominently:

1. Be marked “paid political advertisement” or with the abbreviation “pd. pol. adv.”

2. State the name and address of the persons sponsoring the advertisement.

Second, you might want to ask yourself who paid for the hot dogs, soda and ice cones (what, no cream???) and the Sarnoff for commissioner-emblazoned garden signs, t-shirts, hats, canvas bags, fans (he's copying you, Kate!), and even dog leashes and collars. If it was Shell Lumber and/or the Village of Center Grove then there should be a disclosure of in-kind contributions to the Sarnoff campaign.

And you might find it interesting that from its founding and all through its name changes until March of 2008 (what??? he was a commissioner AND the president), Marc Sarnoff was the president of the Village of Center Grove, Inc. And Sue "Flicka" McConnell was with him the WHOLE TIME. Doesn't sound like an "independent organization" to us!

And then you might want to look at Florida Statute106.021 (3) No contribution or expenditure, including contribution or expenditures of a candidate or of the candidate’s family, shall be directly or indirectly made or received in furtherance of the candidacy of any person for the nomination or election to political office in the state or on behalf of any political committee except through the duly appointed campaign treasurer of the candidate or political committee, subject to the following exceptions: (a) Independent expenditures; etc.

Independent expenditures are defined in Florida Statute 106.011(5)(a) – “Independent Expenditure” means an expenditure by a person for the purpose of expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate or the approval or rejection of an issue, which expenditure is not controlled by, coordinated with, or made upon consultation with, any candidate, political committee, or agent of such candidate or committee. An expenditure for such purpose by a person having a contract with the candidate, political committee, or agent of such candidate or committee in a given election period shall not be deemed an independent expenditure.

Now we really think there is no way Sarnoff can make the case that Sue McConnell, his PAID CAMPAIGN WORKER, or the organization he founded could be deemed anything as other than NOT independent.

What Ms. Flicka McConnell and her organization are doing, and more importantly what Sarnoff is doing, is a violation of Florida Law.

And finally, you might want to look into whether, in fact, Village of Center Grove, Inc. is in actuality an electioneering communications organization under Florida Statute 106.0703. Because it seems to us that the only time we have heard from this organization since 2006 is when it is working for the re-election of Marc DAVID Sarnoff.

And if it is in actuality an electioneering communications organization, then has it EVER filed the public financial disclosures it is required to execute? It has not. THAT IS CALLED ANOTHER VIOLATION OF FLORIDA LAW.

So candidates, we set it out for you. Volley 1 across the bow. If you're really serious about taking down a really bad character - go for it. And if you don't, we might confuse you for a shill for the Sarnoff campaign.

MORE REGALADO CAMPAIGN SHENANIGANS!

2011-08-05T08:06:00.000-04:00

We've been on the sidelines for the last few days, but Al Crespo is going strong.

Read Al's stories on the $15,000 of campaign money paid to Regalado's daughter in-law (Tommy's wife). Hell, they kept it in the family - campaign dollars were also used to pay $5,000 to Regalado's daughter, Raquel, the campaign treasurer who accepted $8,000 of illegal foreign contributions.

Al goes on to talk about Tommy's possible membership at the exclusive Ocean Reef Club. If true, it sure makes you wonder how in the hell little Tommy accumulated the $40,000 initiation fee and the $5,000 a year membership fee.

We sure do hope the FBI and the IRS take a look at the strange campaign transactions.

And no week would be complete without pointing out how the Miami Herald is in the tank for Regalado.

Read all about it on The Crespo-Gram Report - and while you're there, get your own personal get out of jail free card!

BREAKING NEWS ON THE CRESPO-GRAM REPORT!

2011-08-01T21:57:00.000-04:00

The city of Miami Fraternal Order of Police is calling for a vote of it's members on whether to spearhead an effort to recall Mayor Tomas Regalado!

Read about it on The Crespo-Gram Report!

Al Crespo puts another notch on his "scooping the mainstream media" belt!