I went to one meeting at the Homestead Housing Authority in August and could tell things smelled rotten. Why didn't Bateman make a move in all that time?? Lois Jones was the only one who has earned my respect in that room. Read the Miami Herald editorial today (Yikes! They have a 23 second commercial before you can see their editorial page online): Never mind I can't find the link, I scanned it so you can read it (hit on the editorial).
18 comments:
I think he is going to prove you right.
Don't we elect officials to represent our interests? How is appointing an executive director with no experience, increasing his salary, ignore claims of inappropriate behavior, and not housing migrant workers in reasonable facilities benefiting the community?
The whole system seems to have lost focus of their duties. Why is it up to the Federal Government to have to correct this?
This a a black eye on Homestead.
sorry this is off topic - but there are so many shitstorms in Dade County government and only one of you - that is our real problem. ...there's an important issue being voted on tonight by the North Miami city council on whether to let FIU Biscayne campus get away with turning what is now an incredible "nature/bike path" at the end of 135th street into a new vehicle entrance for the college -- for all of you who vote and pay taxes in North Miami, please go to the city council meeting tonight and urge them to vote no on this.
Bateman will never drop this. Too much money involved. They plan so much building on Homestead Auhority properties and, as everybody knows, Bateman and his best friend & business partner David Berrones are in the construction business.
They may think people don't know what they are up to, but it is all over Homestead and it is rumored, there are some "big" people involved. When it comes out, and it will, it will shake Homestead worse than any hurricane could.
If this is not stopped now, the entire Dade County will suffer.
Carry on Mayor Loser Bateman, your time is coming!
It is up to the Fed's. As long as Centorino and Fernandez-Rundle control the course of an investigation, absfrigginlutely nothing is going to happen to Bateman or anyone else involved. As they like to say, It is just Homestead...
stealing from the Fed's or 'po folks is no big deal, right ?
The Housing Authority is a screwed up legal formation that really gives very little power to the Mayor. It is not clear that he can remove them though he did make such a request in writing.
Everyone wants a bogeyman to point at, but HHA is a case of really bad structure. If the Board goes bad, and it's not clear they are all bad, then there is really no mechanism to shut them down. The city is limited dramatically to just appointing members.
The USDA needs to take the next step and force HHA into third party management without the Board being the deciding entity.
Since Bateman has been elected the following has happened.
1 City project bid system is no longer relevant anything goes.
2 If you support him on the record or under the table you will get city business, get a city job, subcontract a product or service to a friend of Bateman who has city business.
3 Bateman will provide developers a resolution to convert their holdings to agricultural zoning instead of residential or commercial for tax purposes.
4 If you just know Bateman or you are Bateman and violate city code, do not pay your city utilities bill, run a red light, don't pay your city tax bill, allegedly assault your tenant or wreck a city vehicle and it is dealt with by the city or the State Attorney welcome to SERV-PROSTEAD, where the motto is like it never even happened. It is an OZ-like experience.
Bateman is not capable of change. The feds have to act, the board has very little respect left as their links to each other have been made public.
The sad thing in all of this is this housing board/director fiasco is not even the most egregious act Bateman has done. Not even top five. So just know there is more to come.
Anon above: You are right. Very few people know or understand the formation of the Authority and the many jurisdictions involved. However, in the final analysis, it is the state statutes that govern the Auhnority. As far as Bateman is concerned, or any mayor for that matter, their only role is to appoint board members and get out of the way. Instead, Bateman has chosen to involve himself in everything the board does, to the extent that he frequently sends the board advise about what to do.
That is one of the issues Lois Jones is concerned about. Why is this man breaking state law that he is sworn to uphold?
Also, if he had the best of intentions, why did he appoint his business partner and best friend David Berrones to the board who is well known in Homestead as landing jobs with every business that does business with the city. He turns up as construction boss too often, on too many projects not to be noticed. Everybody knows he is running things at the Authority.
There is a confidential memo floating around which involves some very big people in Homestead, at the very least they were copied on it. Politics make strange bedfellows and it is very strange to see some of the Homestead crowd who are or may be involved in this. Overheard that the board, sans Lois Jones toured the Everglades Labor Camp which Bateman's board is attempting to incorporate in the Homestead Auhority. Everything is orchestrated by Berrones who at the very least has a questionable character as does others such as Hentschel.
The whole thing needs to be vigorously investigated and word is out that it will happen.
It is also strange that Bateman continues to bring down Homestead when he no longer controls the Council.
Word is out that his latest action is to get rid of the City Manager which any Homestead resident will tell you is the best manager this Council has ever had. Why? Could it be that the manager will not join him in his questionable quest to continue dragging Homestead into the sewer he occupies? This council needs to stand up to him and let him know that his reign of corruption is over.
If they don't and he is allowed to get rid of the manager, then every member of the Council that can be should be recalled if only to send a strong message that corruption will no longer be tolerated.
Anything less not only taints the Homestead City Council, but it shows a callous disregard for the people they are elected to serve. Let's just they have the guts to do what they must.
The mayor is the bogeyman he put the inept group on--he didn't look for people with experience - he put one woman on because she lived in HUD housing when a child. He should call these people into his office and ask them what the hell they are doing. He should go to their meeting like I did. There is a lot he can do.
Genius, I think you're laying the entire blame on Bateman when the bulk of it actually belongs to former Homestead Mayor, and now County Commissioner (S*** rises) Lynda Bell.
Please read the original article:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/10/2496302/feds-want-outsider-to-manage-homestead.html#storylink=misearch
The problems with the Housing Authority started at the tail end of Roscoe Warren's (pave over everything reign), and the bulk of them continued and were exacerbated by Lynda Bell. She truly deserves the "Loser" designation.
If some posters here are correct, it's up to the State and Fed's to put a professional team to take over the authority. Bateman made bad picks to the Board, and this current Board and the one under Bell (which were far more maniacal per the Herald article I posted) all deserve to get the boot.
I'm very surprised that Lois is going after Bateman, but not really. Lois was a staunch Bell supporter until Bell terminated her from her Dist. 8 office for unknown reasons. It's easy to lay the blame on Bateman, but this started with Bell, and I really questions the political motives.
The newest appointment (I was there the first day he was there) had one mission to silence Lois Jones. Bateman appointed him - and I believe he made that agenda known to the new member because that is what he did at every turn even though he had no idea what the housing authority did or what his role would be (he asked so I know he didn't know). Bateman can be faulted big time with some REALLY Really bad appointments.
By the way, the new guy never went back.
Bell's young-un's baby mama drama gun arrest sure got dropped with the quickness by KFR...
Lois Jones is no pushover for Bell or any one else. Lois has more political, government and legislative experience at the highest levels of government than Bell will ever have, and her contacts are in some very high places, including Washington D.C. and elsewhere.
I talked with her a few weeks ago and was shocked at her background.
She knows what she is doing and, more importantly, she is honest.
Wait till you hear why she was dismissed from Bell's office after she worked like a dog to get Bell elected first as Mayor and then as Commissioner. There were only 2 people who worked for Bell on that campaign and Lois was one of them. Lois's problem is she does not take crap from anybody especially people who don't know as much as her including LeMieux' bag boy Eddie Whatever his last name is.
Lois's moral compass would never work in that office. As I said she is too honest! Lois Jones is no pushover for Bell or anyone else. Lois has more political, government and legislative experience at the highest levels of government than Bell will ever have, and her contacts are in some very high places, as far as Washington D.C. and elsewhere. She is no shrinking violet.
I talked with her a few weeks ago and was shocked about her background. Did you ever hear about age, national origin and race discrimination? Don’t forget the Confederate Flag Issue! How could anyone sitting behind a huge flag as big as the flags you see on the flagpole (or, as someone said, “the flag was as big as half the street) say they didn’t see it when everybody else in the crowd did?
Wait till you hear why she was dismissed from Bell's office after she worked like a dog to get Bell elected first as Mayor and then as Commissioner. There were only 2 people who worked for Bell on that campaign and Lois was one of them. She did the same thing to the oher person too. Neither of them talk to her. Lois's problem is she does not take crap from anybody including LeMieux' bag boy Eddie Whatever his last name is.
You want to know about Lois Jones? Just ask anybody in Homestead what Bell did to her. They could not believe even Bell would sink to that level
Lois's moral compass would never work in that office. You would have to be crazy to take orders from the likes of the two Castellos and Eddie. As I said she is too honest and won't take crap!
Lois Jones delivered over 400 West Indian votes for Bell and then she stabbed her in the back? What kind of woman would do that? Bell needs to get a conscience and a soul.
Let's get the RECALL moving!
The homestead blog had pictures of the new guy putting up Bateman for mayor signs. It's all Bateman and Berrones. The sooner Bateman is shown to be contaminant of the housing authority and the board is retooled the better.
Ed Carrera the prior director has already taken responsibility for giving raises to staff and sometimes housing people inappropriately due to his own compassion and empathy. This current group is there due to the high volume of future construction.
They all have to go except Lois. Any Bateman selection is being redundant, completely TAINTED.
Bateman is now getting looked at under a microscope and that is not what he and his handlers want.
Bell has enough problems she needs to leave people alone.
People in Homesterad cannot stand her.
Ask her why her grandson carried a knife to Somerset academy and was not dismissed even though they have a zero tolerence rule for that.
Anybody else' kid and they would be gone!
Check her financial report and you will see why.
This woman is a piece of work.
I don't know Lois, but know Bell to be anything a very negative adjective would describe and more!
I want to be careful not to criticize Lois, as she did blow the whistle, rightly so. However, for many years, residents in deep South Dade knew Bell's games of stabbing people in the back, and worse.
Why would anyone claiming to have so much political experience, as someone stated about Lois, not do some due diligence and see Bell for what she is and has always been.
In any event, Bell needs to be recalled, I'd like a follow up on the employee lawsuit and the sooner that entire housing board is replaced, the better! Even, yes, Lois, she was part of that Board with all the crap going on during the Bell administration and she didn't blow the whistle back then. There's no way here to have it both ways.
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