Updates and Muddy Clarifications

On August 8, the Commission on Ethics sent out its monthly update by email.  The opening headline and the first paragraph are cut and pasted from that email.  (bolded emphases are mine)

Miami Heat tickets score an ethics complaint

The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE) today agreed to accept a settlement agreement with two political leaders in North Bay Village who failed to report a gift after attending a Miami Heat game last December.   Vice-Mayor Eddie Lim and Commissioner Jorge Gonzalez were the guests of the vice-president of a corporation that has been involved in real estate in the municipality.  They should have filed gift disclosure forms by the end of March for the tickets that were valued between $110-140 each.  As part of the settlement to the complaints (C 13-13 and C 13-14), Lim and Gonzalez agreed to file gift disclosure forms, pay $100 each in investigative costs and accept Letters of Instruction.

On August 13, the Commission on Ethics sent out a revision to the monthly report.  

Miami Heat tickets score an ethics complaint

 

The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE) agreed on August 8, 2013, to accept a settlement agreement with two political leaders in North Bay Village who failed to report a gift after attending a Miami Heat game last December.   Vice-Mayor Eddie Lim and Commissioner Jorge Gonzalez were the guests of a friend of Commissioner Gonzalez.  They should have filed gift disclosure forms by the end of March for the tickets that were valued between $110-140 each.  As part of the settlement to the complaints (C 13-13 and C 13-14), Lim and Gonzalez agreed to file gift disclosure forms, pay $100 each in investigative costs and accept Letters of Instruction.  

I was surprised that this was worthy of a revision and wrote to Rhonda Sibilia, the Communications Director of the CoE.  Specifically I asked her "Will the investigation results of C13-13 and C13-14 also be revised to remove references to Asia Connect Medial's business interest in North Bay Village?"  

Ms. Sibilia replied as follows:  

No, the allegation of the company’s business interests were made by the complainant, but not confirmed or asserted by the investigation.   It was a mistake to put it in the probable cause memorandum, from which I wrote the summary. 

The fact that Asia Connect Modial is doing business in North Bay Village still remains in the investigation and the complaints themselves are not in dispute.  And that is the key point - the gifts were from a company doing business in North Bay Village.   Otherwise it would never have been noteworthy.  

I've written before that the appearance of impropriety in public service can be as destructive as actual impropriety and to watch the Commission on Ethics scramble to change the emphasis rather than leaving the factual first report alone is one of many causes of concern as to the reliability of the ethics watchdogs.  

There is undue influence at the CoE when it comes to North Bay Village.   In the past, the CoE have found that the case of a commissioner receiving a second mobile phone for her personal use paid for by the city for over 7 years was alright since it was "done with good intentions."  They have leaked findings to influence elections in North Bay Village and did not acknowledge criminal investigations resulting from their work.   In one weird move, the CoE solicited documents from me regarding the misspending of public funds, which I provided with no accusations, and then took time to dismiss the bills as gossip and slander rather than math.  

Other sites have accused the CoE of being window dressing but I think it's worse.  They are actively working against their mission in North Bay Village by engaging in partisan politics and not even being subtle.  Our tax dollars at work.  

Kevin Vericker

August 15, 2013 

Ethics At A Discount

The Commission on Ethics decided that for not declaring a gift of arena suites, North Bay Village Vice Mayor Eddie Lim and Commissioner Jorge Gonzalez need to pay $100 each to reimburse the Commission on Ethics for bothering them.  The COE did not levy a fine.   

The Commission on Ethics reports the value of the tickets at $110 to $140 each although a quick look through Seatgeek shows a much higher price for suites at next year's Atlanta Hawks game.

That's what the Commission on Ethics thinks it is worth to break county and municipal codes regarding the disclosure of gifts from people doing business with the government $0 and a "reimbursement" to the COE for their troubles of somewhere between 72% and 90% of the gift value received.  

The short version of what happened, according to the complaints filed with the Ethics Commission, is that on December 10, Lim and Gonzalez accepted an invitation from Pedro Cheng of Asia Connect Medial Corporation to join him in a suite at the American Airlines Arena to see the Heat and Hawks play.   Asia Connect is putting together a package for Turkish investors to buy in North Bay Village and needs commission support for it to happen.   

Lim and Gonzalez accepted the gift and attended the game.  They never reported the gift as required by law and an ethics complaint was filed against them.  

There are so many things wrong with this scenario.   

Accepting an expensive gift from someone seeking favors to do business with the city you govern is legal.  It shouldn't be but it is.   It is difficult to believe that the gift was simply a good hearted gesture based on a shared love of the game.  

The Sunshine Laws in Florida prohibit private meetings where government business is discussed and is specifically about these sort of events.  Although Gonzalez and Cheng have known each other for some time according to the statement given by Jorge Gonzalez to Ethics, Lim and Cheng were new friends.  There may have been no discussion but it certainly gives the impression that there may have been.  

That alone should have been enough for both Gonzalez and Lim to have declined the offer of tickets.  The appearance of impropriety in governance is as destructive as impropriety itself.  There's simply no reasonable way to conclude that the gift was a spontaneous act of generosity from a well wisher.

In fact, I'm sure it was that appearance of impropriety that caused them to not report the gift.  I attended the same Ethics workshop with Eddie Lim and the Commission on Ethics could not have been clearer about the need to report such gifts.   But this gift was not reported.  

I asked Rhonda Sibilia the COE spokesperson why such a paltry fine.  I asked why not at least the cost of the tickets.  She replied, 

The $100 was charged for investigative costs and has nothing to do with the value of the gift.  The two were charged with an ethics complaint for failure to report receiving a gift in excess of $100 in value.  Because both gentlemen responded immediately when informed of their oversight, the potential fine of $500 was waived.

In other words, the law could have fined them up to $500 each, but the COE was not interested in this.  The $100 is a token amount to reimburse for the cost of a cut rate investigation.   The COE does not intend to send a message about accepting gifts and skirting the  edges of Sunshine.  They just wanted it closed.  

This doesn't rise to the level of the scandals alleged in Sweetwater and Miami Lakes, far from it.  But it does compromise our ability to trust our commission.  

Jorge Gonzalez and Eddie Lim seldom meet with constituents and have offered virtually no legislation, nor have either worked on any city initiatives beyond the Farmers Market.  Yet they found time and reason to socialize with people seeking special treatment for profit and enjoy VIP seats in the process.   

The COE left the obvious concern aside by not fining for this violation.  Their judgment that the only issue was the late reporting of a gift and it was not worthy of penalty speaks volumes about how they view ethics.  This is pretty discouraging but not surprising.  When it comes to North Bay Village, Joe Centorino's Commission on Ethics have always played politics and seldom dealt with Ethics.  
We're in a bad place when this is way we accept our government.  

Kevin Vericker
August 12, 2013.  

Commissioners Lim and Gonzalez fined by the Commission on Ethics

From this month's Commission on Ethics Summary - 

 For Immediate Release:  August 08, 2013

Contact: Joseph Centorino, Executive Director

(305) 350-0613 or centori@miamidade.gov

Miami Heat tickets score an ethics complaint

The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE) today agreed to accept a settlement agreement with two political leaders in North Bay Village who failed to report a gift after attending a Miami Heat game last December.   Vice-Mayor Eddie Lim and Commissioner Jorge Gonzalez were the guests of the vice-president of a corporation that has been involved in real estate in the municipality.  They should have filed gift disclosure forms by the end of March for the tickets that were valued between $110-140 each.  As part of the settlement to the complaints (C13-13 and C 13-14), Lim and Gonzalez agreed to file gift disclosure forms, pay $100 each in investigative costs and accept Letters of Instruction.  

Note that the violation is that they hadn't disclosed the gift, not that they accepted a gift, worth over $110 each, from a corporation that does business with the Village.  

Of course they didn't disclose it.  They knew it would look exactly like what it was - personal reimbursement for access.   

I don't have the details on the complaint yet.  I have requested them.  It will be very interesting to find out who the Commissioners were hanging out with while the village goes broke.  

Kevin Vericker

August 8, 2013

26 % Rise in Taxes Proposed. Could be as high as 57%

Last night, the commission voted to cap the operating millage 7.5, up from the current millage rate of 4.7772.  That's the top figure, not one they intend to hit.   Still that would be a 57% increase in our property taxes.   

The probable increase, based on the draft budget presented last night is to 6.0031, up from 4.7772.   

That's a property tax increase of 26%.   

And for this, we get, well nothing.  The status quo.   

The biggest portion of the increase is the Police Budget, requesting a cool $620,085 over last year to maintain the current staffing levels.   

This is a good place to note that this year the Chief wasted $500,000 pursuing two routine personnel matters that everyone knew would lose and against all advice.    He also appointed his own wife to a no show "volunteer" position so North Bay Village would pay for her certification.   The overtime costs are out of control as he keeps an officer he doesn't particularly like at home with full pay.  The force is so demoralized that their sick time is 3 times the state average.  The dispatch department failed their state certification and the detached detectives are not bringing the Trust Fund money this year.   It's bad.    

The next steps are the commission needs to take a sharp pencil and a sharper scalpel to the budget, particularly the police budget, and take the village back.   We are not a socialized employment scheme for failed management and nepotism.   

The public meetings to discuss these will be held September 17 at 6 PM and September 25 at 6 PM.  

Kevin Vericker

August 1, 2013

The Best of All Possible Worlds

Tuesday night, at another marathon meeting, the commission considered the pressing issue of finance.  It's dire.  NBV has spent all of the money in the operational reserve. There are two other reserve accounts, one for infrastructure emergencies and one for utility emergencies, but the operational reserve is where money for unanticipated spending such as lawsuits, back pay for wrongfully fired employees, severance packages for retiring employees, moving office, and hiring new interim managers is.   All of it is gone.  From $1.2 million to $0 in 2 years.  

The mayor has been encouraging people to be positive and do things, an odd request since being positive and doing things is what got the city in this fix.  I suspect she means be cheerful and pretend things are going well.   Optimistic assertions contradicted by actual facts are not being positive, they are merely delusional.  When your car runs out of gas, no amount of positive thinking will get it running.  Only petroleum will.   When you are out of cash, you don't need a smile and a cheerful disposition, you need bucks.   

It's this sort of cheerless optimism that led us to this point.  The finance director, Bert Wrains, has brought a new level of transparency to our accounting and it was he who explained that the over spend was the result of the Police and Legal actions.  Specifically:

• The Police Department lost two cases brought by employees who were wrongfully terminated, resulting in paybacks over  $200,000 to the officers fired for political reasons.  
• The Police Department failed to budget for anyone retiring and when one detective did, it cost $108,000 for accumulated vacation time.  (Apparently the detective in question never took a vacation in 12 years.)  
• The Police Department incurred $50,000 in overtime expenses as there are a record number of employees claiming sick leave while keeping one of the reinstated officers at home with full pay but not on duty because the chief doesn't care for him.   
• The Police Department fought these cases against legal advice and against the commission advice, incurring nearly $175,000 in legal bills for cases that were bound to lose.  
• The Police Department is about to settle $25,000 on an officer who sued because his feelings were hurt, but nothing else, when he failed to report a fistfight he was in.   On the postive side and just to show there are no hard feelings, the chief made the complainant "Officer of the Year."    

But when it comes to the police, the commission is blinded by positivity.   It's cringeworthy.  One small example, at Tuesday's meeting, the police chief, without an ounce of shame, told the commission that he was too busy after his two week vacation to review the crime stats, but he hoped they were in their packet.  Well, they were and the commissioners were not too busy to take five minutes and review them.   

Instead of calling the chief out for his complete lack of interest in providing his bosses with even the pretense of work, they fell over each other to compliment the chief that felonies were down by 2 in the last month.  The Chief responded far too modestly that the credit belonged not to him but to the force and the community.  It was far too modest of him as clearly the crime rate falls whenever he takes some of his five week per year vacation time.  

I started out talking about the transparent accounting  and it is so much better than it was.   But the reporting needs to be clearer.  We are not over budget because things happened to us.  We are over budget because decisions have been made, some good, some poor, but we are not the victims of circumstance.   If the reporting were better, the cost overruns for legal would be properly reported as police department expenditures.   With that clear knowledge, we know where to look for savings. 

Tonight, the commission is meeting to discuss capping our tax rate at 9.1, the highest in the history of North Bay Village, nearly double our current rate of 4.772.   The police have asked for an additional $1.2 million and that accounts for the bulk of it.  I can't be at tonight's meeting but I am watching this closely.  

Unless the commission loses their rose colored glasses, the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill.   You can't pay for things with unicorns and happy dust.  It's time to cut off the spigot.  

Kevin Vericker

July 18, 2013

Mario Garcia's blog does a great job of breaking down last night's interim manager meeting.   You should click here to read it in detail.  

The process was wrong.  Commissioner Duvall couldn't be there as the "special" meeting was scheduled while she was in the hospital giving birth.  She wrote about her worries that this was being done hastily saying "Even though this is an interim position wouldn't this have called for interviews from the commission and possibly including other candidates?" and list the questions that were not asked last night.  

Richard Chervony was more blunt stating that the meeting was called hastily to avoid discussion and consideration of the hire.  He sharply criticized the Lim-Kreps for calling the meeting as an emergency, noting there are 4 scheduled meetings already set in July, and wondering aloud if Sunshine had been violated.   

The three other commissioners were defensive on the subject, dismissing Chervony and ignoring Duvall's concerns, with the mayor adding that Chervony would benefit from reading books about positive things.   That was weird. 

The criticism of the process, the rush to move this forward, was unanimous from the public.  Nobody at any point was criticizing the current interim manager nor raising concerns about  the candidate.  Simply, it was concern about rushing the process rather than wait five days for the regular meeting and give all five of the commissioners to properly interview.  Remember this is the same commission that deferred appointing boards because the Vice Mayor was out of town yet on this critical appointment, did it without a full commission.   

It's not good.  Again, read Mario's Blog for the full coverage.  

Kevin Vericker

July 12, 2013  

Maybe This Time...

The Mayor and Vice Mayor are calling a special meeting for Thursday July 11. at 7:30 PM to appoint another "interim" Village Manager.  The search for a permanent one has hit a wall since, seriously, who wants to sacrifice their career in North Bay Village?  

Right now the city is being capably led by the Deputy Village Manager, but once again we are falling into the old pattern of believing the next one is the right one.  

The candidate is Frank Rollason and you can see his impressive resume at this village website.  Mr. Rollason may very well be a good choice to lead the village for a while but his chances of success are slim.   

Don't forget he's hobbled by the same contract that gives our grandstanding, political operative police chief immunity from supervision which has killed the budget, and he will be reporting to the same commission as the others.   And this commission has not shown much leadership.   

Kevin Vericker

July 9, 2013