Zooming In On The Commission

Doing It Remotely

The North Bay Village Special Commission Meeting for April was held on Zoom, the video conferencing software with a viral spread outpacing Covid 19.   

Zoom is everywhere hosting cocktail parties, weddings, classrooms and government meetings.  

It actually went okay with no major incidents.  

I am amused that the commission which comprises a much younger demographic than most of the involved residents did not seem to be familiar with some of the basic tips and tricks about tele-meetings.  Camera angles matter, people!  Lighting is important!  Backgrounds should match the theme and tone!  Digital natives, indeed.  

Seriously, when several of them were not in the dark, the cameras were jumping and the background kept shifting.   Here's a helpful article on "How Not To Look Like A Hostage" during a remote meeting.  

The Future of Meetings in North Bay Village

For the foreseeable future, the Village will be meeting on e-platforms and that was the first order of business.  Village Attorney Dan Espino reviewed the legal technicalities of complying with Sunshine, the procedures for quasi-judicial hearings, and how the Village meetings can be conducted.  

Mostly legal stuff but it is part of the "new different" as new ways of conducting government business moves forward.  

All board meetings are scheduled in May and will be done remotely and most likely the commission meetings will be online as well.  

On To The Work At Hand (In Order of Interest To Me)

My Favorite Part:  No snark.  No sarcasm.  There was an example of how well a staff and a commission can work together.   When Commissioner Strout brought up her concern that the Village Emergency Order is open ended and stated her desire to put a time limit on the order so that the commission would be in charge, it was immediately brought out that having an Emergency Order that might not be in place could interfere with FEMA funding, the ability of the Village Manager to respond quickly to new circumstances and could impede operations.   

Here's the thing.  Both concerns, Strout's that the Village Commission needs to be in charge of extraordinary measures and Rosado's that extraordinary measures need to be, well, extraordinary, could have resulted in both sides digging into position and forcing a useless shutdown.  

The Village Attorney, in his role as counselor, stepped in and helped the commission and staff get to a place that satisfied the needs.  Essentially the Commission will at each meeting review the existing Emergency Order and decide with the Village Manager if it needs to be amended, eliminated or continued.   

This was a great example of what being useful looks like and I think it should happen more.  

Not everything has as clear path to effective compromise as this issue but the first step should always be how to get the mutually agreed upon goals in a mutual process.   

Well Done!

Fiscal Uncertainty

An area that didn't go so well was the discussion about what happens now to our finances.  

The well thought out concerns of our Financial Advisory Board were brought forward and they paint an alarming picture of potential shortfalls in the money available in the next year.  

The Village has been running its own projections with identified cost savings that show substantial mitigation of the problems and potential cost cutting.   

But for the discussion on this, it felt like everyone was talking past each other.  The Village staff were focused on how the year will end up and starting to project cash inflow based on near normal projections for next year while the FAB is focused on the potential for massive economic downturns.  

In my view, the bottom line is we have no way of knowing and at this point, the Village needs to working hard with as much possible expertise as it can find to chart this out.  The Financial Advisory Board needs to understand and challenge these assumptions.   Combined they have to figure out:

• What the Village needs to do - Keep the Streets Clean, Keep the Public Safe, Balance the Books, Issue the Permits, and so on while figuring out what it takes to do that.  
• What the Village can afford - this scenario planning.  Once we agree what's important to do, figure out what it costs and what revenues will cover that.  
• What the Village should do - most organizations cut the obvious first - layoff employees, cut salaries, cancel customer facing services, etc.  These cuts are like sugar rushes.  They quickly dissipate and leave everyone poorer.  Instead it's time for an honest look at where we can improve our processes and get the most for every dollar spent.   It's complex, tedious work but we need to know the value of every outcome and the effect of cuts before any decisions are made.  
• For its part, the Financial Advisory Board needs to be less focused on specific tactics and sharper on desired outcomes.  How we get to the goal matters.  

Nothing definitive came out of the meeting regarding finances and we should worry.  

And "Jesus, God Almighty, Why Are You Wasting Everyone's Time" Moment - The Hornsby Matter

Actual Screenshot of Commissioner Jackson as she
explains her reasoning for reconsideration of the Hornsby
matter (lower left hand corner)

Last month, following the court decision that the removal of Douglas Hornsby was a straight up violation of due process rights and that the absurd justification used by  Commissioners Alvarez and Jackson that Hornsby's appointment was invalid ab initio (Latin for "sez me") was utter nonsense, the Commission voted 3-2 to approve a settlement for Douglas Hornsby that partially repays some of his legal fees in fighting this removal.   

In a weird twist, Commissioner Jackson voted Yes to settle while Mayor Brent Latham voted No.  Latham cited his concern about the ongoing cost to the Village from cleaning up the messes that these two scurrilous commissioners made.   

Anyway, Commissioner Jackson went searching for her soul following the March 12 meeting and announced on March 13 that she wanted to change her vote.  Of course she thinks she found her soul on Facebook and used that medium to announce her discovery.  Specifically she reached out to Laura Cattabriga, admin of an odd little Facebook Group and failed candidate,  and had it posted by her.  

 So the commission had to take time to deal with this shameless nonsense in the middle of important work about like lives, health and safety.  They did take the time and voted 3 to 2 to let the settlement stand.   

Naturally, the two commissioners, Jackson and Alvarez voted No because they broke it.  

The past should be past but you can't move forward without dealing with it.  

At the next commission meeting, someone should introduce a Resolution of Censure for these two.  Their feckless behavior as they presided through the chaos of the last administration needs to be noted and acknowledged.  Our government and community are still suffering the fallout and it's time for the three useful commissioners to draw a line in the sand.   

Well, that's what I got.  See you online!

Kevin Vericker

April 27 2020

It's been what... a month?

The Figures

April 15 2020 Source Florida Covid Dashboard

April 15 2020 Source https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/96dd742462124fa0b38ddedb9b25e429

The Florida Dashboard paints a grim picture.  On March 17, 2020, there were 70 positive cases in the state.  By April 15, 2020, there were 22,897 and testing has barely begun.   The tests are not widespread, there is much debate as to how prevalent the virus is and how deadly the virus is.   But even with this sample size, and make no mistake, it's a sample, the news is pretty devastating.

The Response

North Bay Village was among the first communities in Florida to take direct action.  By March 12, 2020, the Village Manager Ralph Rosado had enacted the Emergency Powers provision of the Charter and took charge of the Village response.  Any South Florida municipal manager is used to the Emergency Powers since they are always used in hurricanes, but this was a new circumstance.  

North Bay Village, led by Mayor Brent Latham and Dr. Rosado, was one of the first to issue a "Safer At Home" directive that laid out the framework for social distancing and self isolation.   Closing the parks, the baywalk, and setting up time and space for residents to move outside quickly followed.   

In the meantime, the schools stopped meeting in person on March 16 and recognizing that the main source of food for many students was the school breakfast/lunch programs, the school system set up a meal distribution at TIES and Police Chief Noriega staffed it with school resource officer Amy Suarez.  During "Spring Break", the Village provided meals to children and instituted a food program for seniors through the county resources.  

There have been multiple food distributions for people in need, spearheaded by Commissioner Strout and Mayor Latham and executed by the village, staff and volunteers.  Even today, April 16, there is one in place at Village Hall.  

As neighboring towns and cities implemented curfews controlling traffic overnight, Police Chief Noriega decided to do the same here in North Bay Village to prevent the Village from becoming a gathering spot for people kicked out of the Beach and Miami, giving the officers discretion to not harass legitimate people outside but stopping gatherings.   

Throughout it all, the Village communications have been clear, timely and useful.  As we are buried under a torrent of orders and information that we could never have imagined would happen, the manager, the police, the staff, and the mayor have consistently been out there talking, listening, explaining and adjusting.   

And then it happened.  While the case load in North Bay Village is very low, less than 10 known cases, a worker at the Presidente tested positive, another on the administrative staff in North Bay Village did as well.  In both cases the Village put out a response that was serious and realistic.  

In response to the direct question "Are we safe?", the mayor pulled no punches and said "No.  No one is. That's why we keep reminding you to stay home."  This type of clear communication, unwelcome as it might seem, is exactly what a concerned, intelligent community needs.

In the meantime, the Police Department and our first responders were tested and according to an internal email sent out yesterday by the Police Chief, there has been one inconclusive positive and the rest were negative, which seems to be the result of instituting and strictly adhering to safety protocols early on.  

The Uncertain

According to the University of Washington models, Florida has not yet peaked.  We can expect peak hospitalizations around May 3.  That date has changed in the past and to a great extent it shows the success of social distancing and other measures, of which North Bay Village was an early adapter, and the date may move again.  

The key takeaway is "This isn't over."  

In the meantime, it's likely the schools will not reopen this year.  There are plans to plan for businesses reopening and how and nothing is normal.  

In fact, we need to rethink everything.   I am not going to use the cliche "The New Normal".  Instead I prefer to call it "The New Different"  

There is no question that business and markets will stay depressed for some time.  There are no miracles on the horizon.  

The commission meets next week, tentatively, remotely and need to have the conversation about what North Bay Village will look like in the near future (May, June...) and what it might be like if the planned projects and financial commitments the Village is counting on don't come through.   I expect we will see a vigorous plan for the next phase but it's too soon to know what that phase is, so for right now, the Village is functional, our garbage is being collected, our needs are being met, and that's not a bad foundation.  

That's It?! No Complaints, No Snark?

Who Wrote This and What Did You Do With Vericker?

Hell, yeah.  It's North Bay Village and North Bay Village Crazy™ stays strong.  

Over on the Facebook groups, you can see people are throwing their latex gloves in the street and even more stupidly are flushing them down toilets.

County Mayor Carlos Gimenez and City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez took time out of their busy schedules to snipe at each over whether the exact same order should be called "Safer at Home" or "Shelter in Place", thereby wasting space, newsprint and precious brain cells on a stupid beef.

In the meantime, it turns out that former North Bay Village Manager Frank Rollason, decried as the Devil Incarnate by the previous North Bay Village ruling junta, is running the Miami-Dade Emergency Response Center and by all accounts locally and nationally doing a good job.  The former mayor, the defeated mayoral candidate, and the two useless members of the commission all expressed their admiration and apologized for how they treated him.

And Speaking of the Useless Ones 

Neither Commissioner Andreanna Jackson nor Commissioner Jose Alvarez have been seen or heard from in the last month.  Nowhere.  I mean, Safer At Home is a good idea but the other commissioners have used the time to communicate and make themselves available to help.  Not these two.

Except Jackson claims she found her soul and her soul is telling her to pay a stupid political game on the Hornsby settlement and she wants to reconsider her vote to clean up the unholy mess that she caused because apparently her soul is leading her to Chaos , the original state.  So according to a sparsely viewed Facebook post, Jackson wants to reconsider her vote for sanity in the Hornsby matter.  

Commissioner Alvarez

Andreanna Jackson

And of course, The Alternate View

There are a number of people sloping around town spreading rumors about massive, hidden infections in the Village work staff and asking "interested questions" with no intention of getting answers.   I won't name them, because I can't afford to buy a vowel, and I have some pity on how awful it must be to have so many, many personalities in one person, but I will note that if your news sources are a disgraced Village employee and two crows living in a tree on Center Bay Drive, it's probably best to retire from public discourse.  

Kevin Vericker

April 17, 2020

March 12 2020 Agenda

I really didn't have a cool cartoon so I went with this.

Owing to  Purim, the usual Tuesday evening commission meeting this week is scheduled for Thursday at 6:30 PM.  

The agenda, available here, is jam packed and there's a lot to be decided.  

For purposes of this post, I am breaking it out into 4 sections by topic.   

Topic #1:  Fixing The Past and the Hornsby Matter

The commission will vote on a settlement offer to Doug Hornsby, a former commissioner pushed off the dais in 2018 in what the Florida 11th Judicial Court found to be a violation of due process.   You can find dozens of articles and in my blog by simply searching "North Bay Village Hornsby" on Google.   

The key issue the court found was that the use of the unsubstantiated legal theory that Hornsby's appointment to the commission was never valid violated the clear and simple due process requirements of our charter.  

The settlement offer is for $100,000 to reimburse for legal fees.   

The commission needs to approve or reject this mediated settlement.  

If they approve, the Village will pay $25,000 from our budget while the rest will be covered by insurance.   If they reject the settlement offer, we're back in court.  

This miscarriage of justice, the illegal removal of Hornsby, is being "questioned" by several of the people who perpetrated it for their own benefit.  The usual nonsense.  

Two of the sitting commissioners, Andreana Jackson and Jose Alvarez, voted without comment to support Hornsby's removal and caused this mess.   In an ethical world, they would recuse themselves but neither seem particularly bothered about doing either the right thing or doing things the right way, so we'll see how they go.   

Opinion:  Hornsby has been more than generous in trying to be made whole in this degrading process and the commission would be well advised to accept the settlement.  It sucks that $25,000 of our money has to pay for the bad judgment of Jackson and Alvarez, and the crap legal advice they followed, but it will be much more expensive not to settle.  

Alvarez and Jackson are rumored to be up for re-election in November.  It would be stupid to re-elect them.  

Topic #2: Density

Next month, DPZ will present their full recommendations on the North Bay Village 100 plan.  I'm not going into detail in this post as there is a lot to cover, but the hot issue at the moment is density, specifically in the single family neighborhood on Treasure Island and for new multi unit construction on Harbor Island.   

To recap the issue, in a draft recommendation, DPZ suggested changing the zoning code to allow up to 100 units per acre on Harbor Island, up from 70 units currently, and to allow townhouses in the single family neighborhood on Treasure Island.  

Nobody has identified where that suggestion came from.  

A Treasure Island resident quickly gathered signatures from the single family houses on Treasure Island, 140 of them, nearly two thirds, requesting the commission to not change the zoning to allow multi-unit construction in the neighborhood and several Harbor Island community members strongly oppose increasing density due to concerns about the impact of increased density on traffic, environment and livability.  

On Thursday, there will be no final vote but the petitions will be presented about TI and the concerns noted about HI.   

Opinion:  This came out of left field.  The increased density suggestion was not brought up in the public workshops and has all the earmarks of a developer inspired suggestion.   The commission should end the discussion with a resolution instructing DPZ to deliver the final without the Harbor Island and Treasure Island density changes, or at least two versions.  There's too much history and concern to let this go forward and it could derail the whole plan.  It would be simple for the commission to do it and it's clear it's what the residents want.  

Topic #3: Hiring a Chief Financial Officer

One map of the neglected sewer impact in FTL

A candidate named Stanley Hawthorne has been recommended to be our Chief Financial Officer.  Several residents, including members of the Budget Oversight Board, have expressed concern that his experience is in public administration operations and not in public finance.   Hawthorne was also part of the group that allowed the misspending of Fort Lauderdale's funds for sewer modernization and we've seen how that worked out.  

The commission will be discussing the relative merits of hiring Hawthorne over the other candidates and will decide whether to endorse the hiring of Hawthorne or instruct the Village Manager to look further.   

Opinion:  This does not look right.  

Topic #4:  Our Charter

Commissioner Julianna Strout is leading a discussion item on the Charter.  

There is a serious need for review of the Charter and in particular the strange amendments that the Commission in 2018 put there while ignoring the well crafted recommendations of the Charter Review Board.   

The Charter is our foundational document and it matters that it reflect who we are and who we aspire to be as a community.   I hope this gets the serious attention of the three useful commissioners and I hope the outcome is a full Charter review to get it right.  

There's a Lot More

If you only attend one commission meeting this year, make it this one.  

Thursday, March 12, 6:30 PM Village Hall 1666 JFK Causeway.  

Kevin Vericker

March 10, 2020

Everywhere At Once - Communicating and Growing

The Old Way - Say Nothing

I Guess Passing Money Under The Table  To
Is a Form of Communication.  

The last administration took obfuscation and made it an art form. 

I was constantly amazed at their willingness to openly disdain the public requests for information, let alone for any semblance of discussion about important issues. 

Well, of course it turned out they were hiding some pretty nasty stuff so I get it now.

Fun fact though.  Connie Leon Kreps has joined the mayor's Facebook page at #OurNBV and I for one am waiting breathlessly until her first post.  You should join it too.  It's a great resource for North Bay Village.

Now it's not fair to simply compare our current mayor, Brent Latham, to the previous mayor.  That bar is way too low.  What I do want to talk about is how much Latham communicates.

The Mayor Latham Way - Communicate Everything

Typical Scene In  Latham's Office

I've compared Latham (favorably) to atoms that show up in two places at once, which is a real thing that happens and you can read it about it here in Popular Mechanics.

Latham saw very few community events and those that were in place were focused on a theme so he started a Village wide Restaurant of the Month, basically a Happy Hour where anyone in the Village could show up, meet neighbors, see a business and talk to the mayor.

Latham's first big project was the Charette, designed to get as many Villagers into one place to talk about what the Village is and what it realistically can be. #NBV100  is going to form the basis of a coherent strategic plan moving forward. 

Latham has attended as many of the board meetings as he can and made his mobile his constant companion.  He's been featured at meetings on resiliency throughout the region and nationally and even took time to pen an op-ed on the Village efforts in the Sun-Sentinel so when you Google North Bay Village, you see something other than the dire headlines of the past.

Now in the biggest move, he's opened a Facebook Group called #OurNBV so he can directly discuss the plans for the future with a group broader than the usual suspects, the ones who show out up at town meetings.  And by the way, he's taking some heat for it from people who believe government is too complicated for the governed but that's not a core principle with him.

Cool.  So Why Bring This Up?  

We have a Mayor who communicates constantly and acts on new information.  That's a good thing.

We have a new Public Information Officer, Malarie Dauginikas, who has an excellent background in publicity, reporting and social media use.   Her boss, Village Chief of Staff, Mario Diaz, is 100% supportive of getting the information out so we can expect good things there.  I will write about those efforts in a separate post.

Remember though that in our system of government, the mayor is only one among five and for anything to happen, it takes at least three votes from the commission. 

None of the other four, Vice Mayor Wilmoth, Commissioners Strout, Jackson, and the other guy, have made any effort at all to reach out to residents.  This is not great for the residents and it's bad for the commissioners.  They are spoon fed information about the Village and have little first hand knowledge of the issues affecting Villagers or access to the vast amount of institutional and community knowledge their constituents have.

But in the meantime, at long last we have a mayor who talks with us, to us and even sometimes at us and we are much better off for it.

Kevin Vericker
February 23, 2020

Alright, If They Have To.

At tonight's streamlined commission meeting there was one item of substance.  A completely fake "discussion" about the role the Village might play or might not play in Social Media.

Actually, they were talking about the Facebook page, North Bay Village Residents Speak, and whether or not issues brought up on the Facebook page should be addressed by the Village.  

Our very well paid attorney, Dan Espino of Weiss Serota, who so far has not found the time to brief the commission on the financial risk presented by the Velken case nor to explain what it means to the Village that our public easements have been stolen from us by private property owners,  found time to research an opinion that "oh oh, talking to people can be dangerous so best not to engage."   

Our Deputy Village Manager, Mario Diaz, presented a compromise plan that I worked out with him and managed to speak for 20 minutes without once acknowledging that the only trusted source of information in North Bay Village is the Residents Facebook page or that the plan was worked out with the Facebook administrator - uh humm - ME.  

Our Village Manager, Ralph Rosado, who wouldn't have his freaking job if it wasn't for the combined community efforts of the Facebook page only heard ONE THING - DON'T POST ON NORTH BAY VILLAGE RESIDENTS SPEAK.  

Our commission members, three of whom don't bother to talk to residents in any forum and I am specifically referring to Vice Mayor Marvin Wilmoth, Commissioner Andreana Jackson and Commissioner Mary Kramer's husband, sat there just staring, while Commissioner Julianna Strout talked about reading the page and reaching out (not  borne out by any activity on her part but whatever...) and our Mayor at least had the grace to acknowledge that the page has been a civic good and that it was damn hard work to keep it going through one of the most corrupt administrations in North Bay Village history but then started complaining that sometimes people bring issues there that belong elsewhere.  Which is precisely the point.  It's the Village Administration's job to get the conversation to the right place.  No different than if someone told them about a problem while on line waiting for coffee.  

Instead of Doing Their Jobs, They Sit Around Worrying About Other People

The fundamental issue here is trust.  The Village has not yet earned the trust of the residents to get the right information at the right time.

They are working on it.  Hard.  And making strides.  

Latham has seemingly been everywhere at once and Rosado has finally started to communicate the successes he has led, but both of them rely on a volunteer force of Facebook moderators and community leaders to get their message out.   And then feel free to dismiss the efforts with no acknowledgment.  

A Little History

The North Bay Village Residents Speak group began 10 years ago when we were being lied to about the developer's plans to put a strip club behind Channel 7.   After that threat went away, I decided to keep it going because there was literally nowhere else to get any information about North Bay Village.  Without any publicity or marketing, it grew to over 2000 members and over the years was the place where it was brought to light that:

• We didn't have Police Chief or Village Manager because Lewis Velken was working informally as a contractor without any written agreement.  
• Commissioner Douglas Hornsby was removed illegally from his seat.  
• Treasure Island Elementary crashed and without the pressure of the Facebook group would either be a D school or shut.  
• During Hurricane Irma, it was the only source of information in the Village.  

And too many issues to enumerate here.  Just scroll through the posts from 2018.

No wonder that commission hated it.  

Andreana Jackson

Mary's Husband

Andreana Jackson walked away when she decided that it was more personally beneficial to try to please the former mayor than do the right things by the people who supported her.  

Mary Kramer arranged for her husband to be on the commission, where he has done virtually nothing.  NO, PEPE, YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DOWNTOWN EXPRESS.  

Both of these were active collaborators in the mismanagement of North Bay Village.  Read the transcripts and the depositions.  It's no surprise they don't like the information out there.  

But What The Hell Is Wrong With This Administration?  

In a dizzying change from the lies and cover-ups of misdeeds in the last administration, I find myself  fighting for the last year to get out the information about the things that are going right in North Bay Village.  Not what I expected.  

In spite of management's best efforts to keep under wraps the success of our police department, the professionalization of our staff, the long overdue dog park, the free transit WHICH HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH PEPE, the streets finally being mostly done, the excellent work on the hurricane, the airily dismissed North Bay Village Residents Speak  has persisted in getting out the information that for some reason this successful management wants covered up.  

I think our Village Manager, Commission, and Attorney are so deeply ingrained in believing that the people who pay them, the people they serve, are nothing more than bothersome noise, to be managed, not spoken with.  

I'm pretty disgusted.  

Kevin Vericker

February 11, 2020

Differing Claims in the Velken Matter Could Leave North Bay Village Broke

The Velken matter has been sent to a judge after the Department of Administrative Hearings heard an appeal from our former contractor, Lewis Velken, who worked as both NBV Police Chief then Village Manager, was told his status as a "contractor" rather than an employee was invalid and appeared to be an end run around the FRS rules that prohibits employment in an FRS agency within 6 months.

The Florida Retirement Systems demanded that Velken repay a total amount of $691,307.41 in retirement benefits he collected.  Velken says he doesn't owe it.

There are two "Proposed Judgments" on the website at the DOAH which the judge will have to decide.  To see them yourself, go to the DOAH website and enter Case # 19-002746.  Then select the Dockets Tab.  

Neither side is disputing the baseline facts.  Both proposed judgments agree that:

• Velken was never an employee of North Bay Village.  He was paid through Stephanie Leon PA, a lifelong friend, who set up a business specifically to "lease" employees.   
• Velken and the Village Human Resource Manager at the time were told by the FRS that there was no way around the 6 month requirement.  (Note:  Velken claims that the information provided by the FRS was inaccurate.)  
• There was never a written contract with the staffing agency and the Village and there was never a commission resolution agreeing to this situation.   

And from the witness transcripts in the hearing, there were three different figures listed as compensation - Velken believed it was $132,000 per year, then Village Manager Marlen Martell thought it was $110,000 per year and Stephanie Leon thought it was $133,000 per year.   This is mentioned in the FRS Proposed judgment and refers to the transcripts.  

Velken's Proposed Judgment further states that Village Attorney Norman C. Powell was consulted on the arrangement and according to the transcript of the testimony, said he saw no problem with the arrangement.  

Powell denied any knowledge of the arrangement at all in the Miami Herald article  calling it a "complete fabrication". But Velken's attorneys seem pretty confident that Powell approved the arrangement.  

Both sides have presented their view and it's now up to a judge to decide.   

It's hard to know what the judge will decide but in my opinion, the absence of a written contract is a big red flag.  

And Florida law states that if an attempt to defraud the FRS is found then "The employee and the re-employing FRS agency will be jointly and severally liable for reimbursing any retirement benefits paid to the employee. §121.091(9)(c)3, Fla.Stat. (2019)."

This means that the Village could face penalties as well if the judge decides against Velken, and Velken has already sent a letter to the Village stating his intention to sue if he is forced to repay the money.  

But Before We Go:

The question must be asked.  

How did a 20 plus year police veteran, a village manager, an HR manager, and a former mayor all of whom have admitted they knew about the arrangement and who presumably knew that there was never a resolution brought to the commission or any written contract, decide to let this happen?   

And while he denies initial knowledge, why did our former Village Attorney Norman C. Powell, who definitely knew by September of 2018,  never bring it to the commission?  

My opinion is that that thought they would get away with it.  

And they almost did.   If it hadn't been for social media and this blog, the whole thing would have never seen the light of day.    

Those of you who have followed me for a while know that I have been the object of hard attempts to shut me up (Powell is "suing" me and the former mayor threatened to) and soft attempts to stop information flowing (the Village refusal to engage with citizens.)

If it hadn't been for this blog, we'd never have known.  That's why I write it.  

I'll keep you informed as soon as there is definite ruling.  

In the Meantime, Here Are My Highlights From the Proposed Judgments

From the DOAH Proposed Judgment:

54. According to Mr. Velken, the salary negotiated was $132,000.00. Tr. 438. 55. According to Ms. Martell, the negotiated salary for Mr. Velken was $110,000.00. Tr. 190. 56. According to Ms. Leon, the negotiated salary for Mr. Velken was $130,000.00 annually. Tr. 139.

From the Velken Proposed Judgment:

32. Ms. Martell then took Mr. Velken upstairs to discuss the contracted employee arrangement with the Village Attorney, Norman Powell. (T-2-185, 186, 189; T-4-432, 469) It was Mr. Velken’s understanding that as the Village Attorney, Mr. Powell had the final say as to whether such an arrangement would be appropriate. (T-4-433, 469) Mr. Powell said that he did not see anything wrong with the arrangement and that he would research it and let them know if he found out anything to the contrary. (T-4-433) 33. Ms. Martell advised Mr. Velken that Mr. Powell told her that everything was okay to proceed. (T-4-434) NBV has contracted with other agencies for individuals to provide services in other high ranking Village positions such as the Director of the Planning Department, the Village Engineer and Public Works Director. (T-2-200; T-3-345) 

Mr. Wrains discussed the Agreement with Village Attorney Norman Powell, who had approved this arrangement, as well as had Ms. Martell. (T-3-355, 382)

Kevin Vericker

January 25, 2020

It Could All Go Off Course

Last entry, I posted about the relative good shape the Village is in as the world enters the 2020's. 

But no one can afford to pretend it's all blue skies from here on in.

Yes.  The commission is no longer a dysfunctional circus acting out dramas of little interest to real people and the employees are actual employees rather than contractors, but the last administration has left a number of land mines that could derail the recovery.

The most visible ones are the two useless commissioners, who aided and abetted in every piece of the destructive insanity throughout 2018.   Neither one contributes to the commission or the village and 2020 should see a goodbye to them.

Commissioner Jose Alvarez

Commissioner Andreana Jackson
(No I don't know what she's doing)

But there are less obvious and far riskier issues yet to be resolved.  And of course a crazy one.  Let's start with that.

People Are Supposed To Give Back Government Property.  

It seems that one or two former electeds and a former charter officer failed to return taxpayer owned property when the taxpayers decided that their services were no longer needed.   

Reports are that these include village phones, at least one village computer, a whole server's worth of data, id cards and for some reason, badges.    The Village has been trying to recover these for some time (since November 2019 at least) and so far have been ignored.   So there's an item on the commission agenda next week to compel the Village to take action and explain that these were not lovely parting gifts.    

Hornsby Lawsuit Awaiting Settlement Following Finding.

The 11th Judicial Court of Florida found last July that Douglas Hornsby had been removed illegally from the dais.  Now the Village is entering into mediation with Hornsby as there are considerable legal bills, above and beyond what the Village spent in this ill begotten move, and other damages. The amount could be huge.    

It's my view that Jackson and Alvarez, both of whom voted for the removal of Hornsby, and who should have known that the process being used would never stand up in court, should recuse themselves.  After all, they weren't part of the problem, they were the problem.   

Who's To Blame For Lewis Velken?

On March 6, 2019, the Florida Retirement System notified former North Bay Village Police Chief Lewis Velken (and interim manager) that he had violated the FRS rules with his arrangement to be paid through a third party.   Velken was ordered to pay back $691,307 dollars and his ongoing benefits were reduced or eliminated.   Velken is currently appealing the ruling stating that his arrangement did not violate FRS rules.   It's Case No: 19-002746 and the details can be found here.  

Velken asserted that he was legitimately working for a contractor in his response and not in violation of the rules.   

There's no clear view of how this works out but Velken's attorneys have reportedly already put the Village on notice that Velken might sue in the event of an unfavorable decision.   

Given the uncertainty, the Village Manager at the time said under oath that the arrangement was made by then Village Attorney Norman Powell, who in turn was quoted in the Miami Herald saying "“That’s a complete fabrication,” Powell said.  Now both of these people are gone but if the Village is sued and loses, the taxpayers are on the hook for a large amount, which could include the $691,307 DROP, lost pension benefits and legal fees.   

It's pretty urgent that the Village form a strategy now if they are to defend against this.   

You Can't Just Ignore Things.

There's still a lot of cleanup left over from the reign of lunacy that preceded 2019.   

Two of the above are financial threats but there are other toxic spills that need to be addressed by the commission, and solely by the commission.  

• There were a series of useless and in some cases destructive Charter amendments put on the 2018 ballot.  In particular, a Citizens Bill of Rights mirroring the County Charter, that does not contain any agreed up investigation or enforcement methods, a nepotism amendment that does not define "affinity" and makes no sense, a series of amendments to hobble the village administrator, and others. 
• Through most of 2018, Zoning hearings were not held as "quasi-judicial" as required by Florida procedure and it is possible that the decisions made during these are not enforceable.
• Regardless of how the Velken pension turns out, there remain legal questions raised by the FOP as to police actions taken while he was acting as police chief and if he was able to sign contracts as Village Manager.  These need to be made clear.  

2019 Was A Good Year

It started out contentiously with the old guard protecting their positions and that took a lot of energy.  Jackson and Alvarez are not productive.  The new administration got ahead of itself sometimes but overall, a good year, not just in contrast to the previous year but by any measure.  

The holidays are over.  The Commission will be back next week and it's time for a plan to finish the job they started.   

Kevin Vericker

January 9, 2020