Yet another example of Mayor Gimenez meeting with unregistered lobbyists to discuss county business. Why were these individuals not cited? Are we naive to believe a veteran lobbyist such as Brian May did not know his group was violating established county guidelines that restrict lobbying activities? Why did the COE not cite the individuals or the mayor? Does anybody in the Mayor's Office bother to check if lobbyists are registered? Another example of internal corruption. I say this is yet another example because the mayor was investigated by ethics in 2015 for doing the same thing with
Donald Trump on the Key Biscayne Public Golf course fiasco. Of course, ethics never finds any violations. They are fluff in our Government always finding some nitpick technical excuse
not to do anything.
Look who Brian May was representing in this instance, (in my opinion) it is the evil
Las Vegas Sands' Sheldon Adelson, worth about 30 billion. He is the Koch brother of the Casino World. According to Forbes:
Sheldon Adelson makes billions running Las Vegas Sands, America's largest casino company, and he uses that money to buy influence in the Republican Party.
Look at the first two paragraphs of page 2 below.
14 comments:
This is just another example of connected people having access to the mayor who allows meetings to take place illegally with himself and his staff. This is an ongoing problem with the mayor who will meet with anyone like Donald Trump to take over a county golf course without going through the proper county procedures. There are probably scores of instances similar to the blog. Reelecting this mayor will empower him to continue meetings that are illegal and not in the publics best interest.
I believe there are a dozen more that we don't know about. If The Ethics Commission does nothing, what is to stop the mayor?
There is nothing to stop the mayor. Pay to play, baby. Carlos Gimenez, riding your taxes all the way down the sewer.
@NANCY LEE, GENIUSOFDESPAIR: These were not illegal meetings with Las Vegas Sands. Sands obviously met with a number of local elected officials, including Mayor Regalado of the City of Maimi, for the purpose of gauging local support for State of Florida legislation that proposed to allow one or more destination gaming resorts in South Florida. Sands at the time did not have any zoning or site plan applications filed with the City of Miami or the County. They were simply trying to gauge whether there was any real support for destination resort gaming in Miami and Miami-Dade County. As such, no one believed and the Commission on Ethics did not say lobbying registration was required. The Sands representatives in a abundance of caution decided they would voluntarily register to lobby. You may also recall that prior to Sands even testing the waters locally, the Genting Group had already arrived in Miami and bought the Miami Herald and Omni sites for the purpose of pursuing a destination gaming resort if the State of Florida allowed it. Ultimately, both Mayor Gimenez and Mayor Regalado backed away from supporting the State Legislation.
Did I write they were illegal? I don't believe I did Mr. May. Where is that word? Did I write lobbying? Yes I believe it was lobbying. Your definition of lobbying is loosey goosey. Parsing words: what is your definition of "is."
Mr. Wordsmith May, do you know the difference between unethical and illegal? Your behavior, of not registering was unethical.
This sounds like when Ralph Garcia-Toledo drives Gimenez around "to gauge whether there was any real support" for him to get an $18 million cut of a major Water and Sewer Contract. He never registers to lobby, either.
The Commission on Ethics is a useless organization that only whitewashes the corruption that occurs at every level of county government. If they had an aggressive staff that did not require spoon-feeding complaints, they might be worth the millions it costs to keep them going. Instead, it is a worthwhile budget expenditure by the elected officials, because they know if they are ever "caught" by the COE, it is only a matter of time until they are deemed "ethical." Just pay the $100 to attend their useless sessions about lobbying, and then go your merry way.
@geniusofdespair, Nancy Lee. The 2nd word of your Headline says 'lobbying" and the first sentence of your blog post says I was an "unregistered lobbyist", which I was not. If I was an unregistered lobbyist at the time the Commission on Ethics would have cited and fined me as such. As to other "anonymous" comments, there is no "wordsmithing" from me. I followed the law and if I had done anything unethical or illegal the Commission on Ethics would have determined that at the time, WHICH THEY DID NOT.
The purpose of the lobbying registration is to know who is influencing the decision-makers. There are millions of dollars in contracts being negotiated with department staff (WASD, Transit, Aviation, Information Technology Department) and no one registers to meet with them. Angel Petisco of ITD is probably the worst offender...he thinks he is entirely above the process and would never think of asking anyone to register to lobby. The Commission on Ethics ought to set up shop outside his office and take names.
Where did i write illegal? You used that word specifically in quoting me.
And, You were an unregistered lobbyist for that client.
They don't find anything unethical in ethics but they noted that because it was anonymous - they wouldn't pursue it Brian May.
May is unregistered scum. Does that help?
Brian,, Take it somewhere else, this isn't some back room or the well at the BCC... everyone on this blog either knows you or knows who you are and we don't need a favor or fear retaliation.
You want to know your real public perception? Keep on posting..
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