Miami Politics, America's Perp Carnival by gimleteye

Come corrupt us, seems to be the shingle hanging out in front of every politician’s office in Miami, Florida. I’m not making this up.

With housing markets collapsing like castles made of sand, the news of the day is a throwback to the 1950’s or some other era brazen era gilded by greed.

It’s nauseating, what Miami politicians have done in recent years, in the name of protecting public health and welfare.

Thievery of the public trust is the order of the day. How else to interpret Sunday’s feature story and today's second part in the Miami Herald: prominent African American leaders (Kendrick Meek, Carrie Meek, Dorin Rolle) aided and abetted a scam artist to once again pilfer the public trust in Miami Dade County? Developer reaped millions for biotech park never built.

“Under the watch of local government, a Boston developer reaped millions in poverty money for a promised biotech park but never delivered a single building—leaving only a desolate swath of land in one of Miami-Dade’s most neglected neighborhoods.” That's just the most recent chapter.

There was Barbara Jordan in 2006 trying to shoe-horn her own county “affordable” housing ordinance, a fig leaf for big developers like Lennar to plow more condominiums into farmland. There were African American county commissioners looking the other way as the County Housing Agency itself was plundered by low level political hacks aspiring to be big lobbyists, reported by the Herald in its Pulitzer Prize winning "House of Lies."

The Miami Herald deserves kudos, but damn if the city’s only daily newspaper didn't come up in second place in last week's other story of public corruption: the hijacking of an entire city department charged with capital improvements—turning a public department into a private contracting firm called, surprise, The Firm.

These scandals took flight at the apogee of the building boom in 2005, like a slingshot stretched and aimed at every politician with a nose for private gain. Like then county chairman Joe Martinez taking free work on his West Dade home from a contractor associated with the leadership of the Latin Builders Association, then seeking changes to the Urban Development Boundary?

Eagerly they jumped on whatever train was leaving whatever station, without concern for ethics or the law, and in the narcoleptic wake of Jeb Bush’s 'let’s streamline development for developers' school of government.

Looking back at the building boom and the behavior of public officials, who needed crack when simply raising your hand in an affirmative vote for the builders' lobby offered such delectable treats to compliant city and county commissioners?

A few weeks ago I wrote, “The recent, past building boom contained the seeds of the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on South Florida taxpayers. The stories are just beginning to bloom.”

Little did I know.

But The Firm headline leads to another clammy question: how did a monthly news magazine get a leg up on the city’s esteemed daily newspaper?

Miami Monthly appears to have scooped The Miami Herald in its in-depth report, “Robbing the City Blind: Welcome to The Firm. Where city employees work on their secret clients on city time, with city equipment, and on the city’s dime.”


The Herald did report the story on Saturday, and both news sources may have held off breaking the news until the State Attorney’s Office made its case.

“They called it ‘The Firm’—a consulting business Miami city government employees were running from their desks at the Riverside Center administrative building. On Thursday, police and prosecutors called it racketeering and organized fraud,” the Herald reports.

But Miami Monthly appears to have had the details, and the sources, to the heart of the story.

“In late December 2005, HDR consultants started piecing together clues that something was seriously amiss. One consultant told another in an email: ‘I have seen meetings between firm members to discuss and produce plans for projects that have no relation to any CIP (Capital Improvement Plan) project. I have also seen firm members holding meetings in their cubicles… with open plans that have nothing to do with any CIP project… These occurrences are well known by all CIP personnel in the 8th floor.’”

The Miami Herald reported, “We are arresting virtually an entire arm of city government,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said at a news conference in the lobby of the city administrative building.”

But Miami Monthly gives us the detail: an initial January 2006 investigation dead-ended, allowing a full nine months for those charged to go on their merry way.

Beyond the question, was the Herald asleep?, how little regard did government employees have for law enforcement, that they felt continued their merry way for nine solid months until—as Miami Monthly reports, “late in 2006 a handwritten anonymous letter detailing The Firm’s activities arrived at the city manager’s office”?

Finally, City of Miami Human Resources Directior Rosalie Mark recommended a company to perform an in-depth investigation: RJD Unlimited, Inc.

Now with evidence in hand, the Miami Police Departments Internal Affairs division “took immediate action.”

“The massive investigation identified more than a dozen employees—some earning over $100,000 a year—surreptitiously managing 70 private projects ranging from additions and remodeling of private homes to multi-million dollar shopping centers—all during city business hours.”

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said one source, predicting that those brought in for questioning would freely rat out their cohorts in hopes of leniency.”

This story not only has legs. It has eighteen wheels.

Well, yes. Damn it: let’s have the names of the private individuals who were having work done by a city department for their construction projects.

By all means, let’s see if any of those individuals turn up as campaign contributors or consultants to contributors of political campaigns in the city of Miami?

I have questions: plenty of them.

Under what conditions of malfeasance does an ENTIRE city department go to the dark side?

I would say: under conditions of malfeasance in which corruption is not only tolerated but under conditions where ethical behavior is regarded as a career-killer.

The Herald reports, “City Commissioner Joe Sanchez said he was pleased the city initiated the investigation, though he said City Hall faces a difficult task in keeping the public’s trust. ‘There’s a perception that we’re all crooks,’ Sanchez said, ‘It’s absolutely wrong.’”

Joe, you’re wrong.

Let me tell you why city employees thought they could get away with turning over a department of government to private interests: it is because every single day government employees watch elected officials turn over their zoning and permitting authority to private interests.

Commissioner Sanchez, are you listening? Commissioner Pepe Diaz, are you listening?

What effect do you imagine it has when a powerful developer, Sergio Pino, takes a county commissioner on a private jet trip to the Caribbean during which time “no county business is discussed”?

And what effect does it have on county employees, who watch Natacha Seijas enforce hegemony over Hialeah politics by ruthlessly persecuting opponents and even violating their civil rights with the assistance of local police?

What effect does it have on morale of county employees when the Miami Dade Ethics Commission simply smiles and says, tsk, tsk.

How else do you think Miami citizens view a decision like the recent one to approve Jorge Perez’ zoning change at Mercy Hospital, to build condominiums for the ultra-wealthy in the midst of a housing market crash—in the face of universal civic disapproval?

What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.

So this leads to other questions: is it possible that employees at the city of Miami have migrated knowledge to or from the culture of corruption at Miami Dade County?

It is naïve to think there is no cross-pollination between the employees at the city of Miami and Miami Dade County: especially when key political consultants and big law firms lobby at both places.

So what does it say, that the Miami Herald could not uncover this major story before a monthly magazine?

Is it possible that good people in government are not talking to Herald reporters about corruption that they know to exist and talking to Miami Monthly, instead?

What is the real story behind the projections of financial stability by performing arts organizations that plunged the PAC into deficit?

How is it possible that a monthly magazine organized an investigative piece, did all the work that a monthly magazine does, and with all the lead-time delay, still did a better job than the Miami Herald on this important story?

A while ago, we praised the Herald for the “House of Lies” series and its Pulitzer. But we also noted, in passing, that it is easier to write about fraud done to poor and homeless people than to taxpayers by an economic elite that feels omnipotent in Miami and cultivates strong ties to the city’s only daily newspaper.

Mayor Manny Diaz told a lobby packed with reporters and city employees that his administration would continue to try to root out what he called the “bad apples.”

Balance that, against what fake biotech developer Stackhouse, told the Miami Herald in today’s paper “… Carrie Meek had nothing to do with her son's requests for federal dollars. It's totally unrelated,'' he said. ``Trust me.''

All we can say is—it is a very sad day for the City of Miami and every politician that can lay claim to protecting the public interest.

“In all, Stackhouse companies received commitments for nearly $30 million in public money from county leaders since he began to push the biotech park in 2003. That includes $23 million the County Commission approved to purchase a parking garage that the developer says will be built in the next two years -- even though the garage is already months behind schedule and there is no money to put up buildings to go with it.

''This little project that couldn't has turned doubters into believers,'' Commissioner Rolle said after the vote.”

And if you believe that, we have some wetlands to sell you to subdivide and live on the balance for your retirement. I'm still waiting for the Miami Herald to level its full wrath at the Perp Carnival of Miami Politics.