Eye on Miami Editorial Page July 10th: Ooh La La Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

Miami Herald Dropped The Ball, We Picked It Up!

Head Tilting Mayor Gimenez, Is His Head Too Heavy to Remain Upright? I Think It Is His Tell - When He Is Bullshitting. He Also Rocks in His Chair When He is Angry.

MAYOR CARLOS GIMENEZ

Mayor Gimenez and his gaggle of taxpayer money spending staff (Lester Sola comes to mind) just returned from the Paris Ooh La La Trip and decided that they will not pursue the Air Show in the Everglades. It was a colossally stupid idea so no surprises there. But note: He did get his Paris trip - on our dime AGAIN, using the idea as a front for the trip. Smart guy. Trade trip my ass.

Mayor Gimenez is getting VERY GOOD advice now. He wants to lower your taxes (rather than put the money towards the inevitable downturn - like he should) and do anything else he can think of to get reelected. He even put in place a new library Czar. The only saving grace is the County has a very powerful Chair in Jean Monestime. What will that mean this next year? With Commissioners Juan Zapata and Xavier Suarez at his heels, Mayor Gimenez will be grimacing and rocking back and forth on the Dais. He hates these guys. Watch that head tilt tell of his.

You all know I liked Carlos Gimenez and even gave him money for his campaign but his staff sucks and he knows it. He tried to get Lynda Bell reelected, fundraising for her. She was his hatchet man. He became a worse bully than he already was. He used to yell at Alina Hudak and Glaser-Moon when he was Commissioner now he embraces them. He didn't even bother cleaning house when he became strong mayor. After running on lower salaries, he raised all the salaries for his upper level staff  and hired new people at top dollar. He instead punished the lower level workers with salary cuts and Departmental shenanigans. He is not the man I supported. I do believe that our Clerk Harvey Ruvin, should order an audit (sorry Kathy Jackson he is independent, you work for the Mayor) of the Special Taxing District money. Something very strange happened there.

Is this legal? An invitation was sent out for a Holland and Knight fundraiser. Here is what they said in the subject line of their email:

Subject: Invitation to: Miami-Dade Residents First - Fundraising Reception July 22nd 2015 5:30pm - 7:00pm for Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez

If he has not registered as a candidate and has not opened a campaign account, how can they mention his name? This is a PAC , not allowed to coordinate with a campaign/candidate I thought, but he has no campaign and he is not even an official candidate. The PAC raised almost $100,000 in June. Grand total $1,235,952 before he even opens a campaign account.  I find this totally suspect. But I find just about everything totally suspect...like the fetuses found in the Homestead police station refrigerator.

This was on the PAC expensess. Were they picking up a donation from Caryn Seidman Becker for $15,000 (CEO of Clear) and Amsterdam Hospitality for $20,000? They stayed at the Empire Hotel owned by Amsterdam??? The stay was not a comp? DO GO TO THIS LINK  ON AMSTERDAM HOSPITALITY (SEE STAR BELOW FOR AN EXCERPT OF THE 7 PAGE STARTLING STORY)

Finally, Gimenez said on Spanish Language radio Thursday that he will support Jeb! Bush for his Whitehouse bid.  What about poor Marco Rubio? Another Bush in the Presidency? Three crummy, mediocre (one dangerously stupid) Presidents from the same family? What idiots we are. I, on the other hand, have made smart choices. Donald Trump is my first choice, Ted Cruz would be second and Bobby Jindal would be third. Three great, impressive men. 

Anyway, who is advising the Mayor? He finally is not kicking himself in the butt.

LIZ PLATER ZYBERK

The iconic architect, formerly head of the Architecture Department at the University of Miami, thinks what we call the Nail Clipper Building is the Clothes Pin Building. Interesting. No one calls it what it is but what it looks like. She is not mincing words in the fantastic Biscayne Times Article:

Free to voice her opinion now that she is free of the University.

Liz also said: “I don’t think we need the biggest anything in the world,” including the “biggest casino in the world,” the Genting site that’s another Arquitectonica project. “We need to understand what our capacity is, where this adolescent came from. If we’re giving money to something, it shouldn’t be some pie-in-the-sky project -- it should be helping people get around.”

VIRGINIA KEY

Does anyone know what this tower is for at Virginia Key's sewage treatment plant? I was told this is a drill rig for an exploratory well that they are drilling at the site. What are they exploring for?

Speaking of sewage, I am taking vacation time this summer so you might not read a lot from me. Maybe that will make your  day: A Lobbyists' blessing in disguise.


BEST POLITICIAN THIS WEEK

Donald Trump. I have never been so amused and so looking forward to the Republican Debate. Thank you, thank you for running Donald Trump. But remember, that Northern Border is trouble too! Those Canadians come in soused with beer and Americans go across for cheap prescriptions. Quite a bad mix. Wall it off with all that granite you have left over from your buildings.  We don't need no stinkin' chain link or cement fence if you are president Donald. You can build us an elegant wall, with your name on it of course.

* New York Magazine:

Amsterdam Hospitality remains a tight-knit firm, employing many Podolsky siblings, spouses, and children. Jay is in charge of strategy. (“Like, here’s a piece of crap,” said the former employee, “and how can I turn it into something profitable?”) His older brother “Stewie,” a bearded tough-talker with a taste for Italian sports cars, handles acquisitions. They are active in Jewish charities, and their children have branched into fashionable enterprises like nightclubs and handbag design. Stuart owns a condo on East 57th Street and has a house in the Hamptons next to a friend, billionaire John Catsimatidis. Jay’s family lives in a townhouse on West 64th Street. The extended clan often gathers at Jay’s summer place in Westhampton Beach, a Charles Gwathmey–designed mansion. I was told it was a bargain, that the previous owner sold it cheap after it was damaged in a fire.

The Podolsky brothers continued to buy SROs: the Park View Hotel on 110th Street, another on Central Park West. At every turn, they did battle with enforcement agencies and tenant groups, who ­complained—in a prelude to today’s ­argument—that the landlords were allowing the city to use them as a dumping ground for the homeless. In the early nineties, outrage about filthy “welfare hotels” drove the city to shift emphasis to programs operated by nonprofits. But this policy change, along with the Giuliani administration’s hostility to tenant rights, opened a new marketplace for the Podolskys. Once emptied of the indigent, the welfare hotels could become “boutiques.”