In the Miami Herald today they wrote about a Haitian janitor, Innocent Escarmant, who died without life insurance at age 62. He worked two jobs to make $30,000 a year. He left behind a wife (who cleans condos for a living) and a college student (with a part-time job). That is what life is like in the community -- a struggle. At the same time what are the leaders doing in the community? Ripping off their neighbors to enrich the lives of their friends and relatives. The Herald is promising a 4 part series starting Sunday (I look forward to it) on the investigation it has conducted (and there is a separate audit) into the Miami-Dade Empowerment Zone Trust which has close ties to the County. Willard T. Fair, who is also president of the Urban League, heads the Trust and Audra Wallace is the CEO. Somehow Commissioner Barbara Jordan's sister ties in and we know Commissioner Rolle has pushed for money for this Trust. According to the Herald the Trust has gotten $68,000,000 and the Auditor Cathy Johnson said:
''The Trust Board was negligent in exercising its fiduciary responsibility.''
The article said there was little oversite over the funds and some of the money went to friends and relatives of the Board's Trustees.
$68,000,000 of our hard earned money, part of Innocent Escarmant's very hard earned money, wasted! Rest in peace Innocent.
P.S. and you wonder why Marleine Bastien is angry!
By the way, Saturday Speakup is your opportunity to bring up an issue (in 300 words) that you have on your mind.
6 comments:
Those crooks who wasted or stole the taxpayers money should be indicted and if quilty they should go to jail. Marline Bastien should be yelling at them to give her money. Taxpayers should be yelling at them to get their money back. Or maybe she could just invent some stupid project and Williard Fair and Audry Wallace will just write a check from one of their dozens of bank accounts. And who pays for their suits? Maybe that is where all the money went?
Problem is, the Herald won't publish most of what I send...probably because sometimes I also lay blame on them and their lousy/or lack of reporting the articles or facts that should be told to the public. Is it any wonder their circulation keeps diminishing?
My latest beef is the fact that they haven't informed the public about the real consequences of the property tax proposal. They just parrot what they're told by legislators without doing the research.
They like press releases pitbull. Let's see what there 4 part series brings...i would suppose they want those awards that Debbie's crew won them last year, so it might be good.
I am so disgusted those "poverty pimps" keep stealing from the needy as they enrich themselves, their relatives and their friends.
Who are these people? Willard Fair and Audra Wallace? Their names pop up at every scandal.
So what else is new?
5 million dollars plus for an elevated pedestrian crossing by the University of Miami. (Community meeting recorded in Sunday’s Neighbor’s section also mentions developer of planned 90 condo units near old University Inn.)
2 years ago a student was killed when someone ran a red light. Rather than enforce traffic regulations, pedestrians, and bikers, will lose their ability to cross without this expensive addition. How much does it cost to install a camera to record red light runners? This occurs constantly in Miami. Even police seem uncertain what is legal. I asked a few if it wasn’t illegal to drive around someone waiting to turn left. They seemed to think it was okay if there was space. What space? Someone’s front yard? I notice areas by cross streets getting paved over to accommodate the impatient passing cars. One time on Sunset Drive, neither I, nor the person if front of me, could turn left since cars were streaming around us on the right. In some cases “calming” circles have been placed with an attempt to create a curb with plantings and cement to say “stay in the road.” We need traffic enforcement and better education of drivers and cops. Designing projects around people’s disregard for basic safety doesn’t improve their driving, it rewards contractors.
S
They say what goes around comes around. It appears that more corruption is continuing to come around and we need to focus on some citizens' arrests that will assist the State Attorneys' office in remembering its job. Commissioner Dorin Rolle appears to be rolling in the dough. In fact we might name him as the newest member of the "dough boy" corruption hall of shame. He brought some school bags recently to Lincoln Fields and told everyone he would be back. Not yet. Seems he has a memory problem and can't keep his promises, either. His deposition is going to be a toss between "can't remember" and pleading the fifth. There goes the neighborhood.
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