Mayoral Candidate Laura Cattabriga Pays $127,000 In Hush Money

I stole this office.  So sue me!

There's no other way to put this - our municipal government in North Bay Village is now little more than a disorganized racket.  Tonight, mayoral candidate and impostor commissioner Laura Cattabriga cast the deciding vote to pay $127,000 in severance to a village manager that she, Cattabriga, enthusiastically hired 90 days ago.   It was of course Mayor Crazy Eyes who initiated the firing of Martell and Norman Powell who is used to dealing with troublesome girls from his days as a registered strip club lobbyist and go to fix it attorney, but the deal was so bad that even Commissioner Mary Kramer's husband voted No.   

Yet Laura Cattabriga, who earlier in the evening spoke darkly about how she discovered almost $1,000,000 in emergency spending over the last 4 years and how she could not stand the lack of transparency, leaned in and voted to give away $127,000 of our money because, well, it's best to move on.  

Of course, Cattabriga has a long history of spending other people's money.  She convinced an elderly neighbor to finance her lawsuit against Doug Hornsby, the one the court dismissed, and she used village resources to illegally have Hornsby removed so she could take his seat.  Cattabriga has been using the position of commissioner, to which she is not ethically entitled, to destroy North Bay Village in the press and now this.  $127,000 of our money because the mayor couldn't get along with the Village Manager that she handpicked.  

It was that kind of night.  

The commission appointed Police Chief Lewis Velken to be temporary village manager.  

Our attorney, Norman C. Powell, does not know much about lawyering or he might have told the commission that it is against the Florida Constitution for someone to hold two public offices.  But Powell is not a real Village attorney.  He's the defense team for Mayor Crazy Eyes and when it was pointed out to him that there is a State Attorney opinion specifically on the subject, he did what he does best - made some stuff up.  But there is.  Here.  And Here.

The Budget workshop was just as bad.  It was rushed.  The commission was unable to follow much of it.  The Police Chief/Village Manager did say he wants to eliminate the PAL camp because it's expensive and proposed we merge it into the Miami Dade School programs, with which he is unfamiliar and had not made contact.  Several residents spoke against that, including a brilliant kid from the program, but the commission couldn't figure out what to do so they're kind of leaving it in.  

And lest we forget our lunatic mayor, Connie Leon-Kreps.  A bitter, disorganized woman who does not realize she has failed utterly at being a mayor and being a decent human being.  

During her "report" she made rather a large deal about a generator that cost $27,000 rather than $25,000.  Insisted on an explanation (that's a good thing), got it, the commission voted to spend the extra $2,000 and go ahead, the mayor cackling and chortling about how much better things were and then not 20 minutes later, received a text from someone that he had googled generators and saw them for $8,000 (a very different kind of generator) and tried to rescind the approval.  It was so crazy that even Powell was surprised.  Her motion to disapprove the approval failed because it was stupid.  

Fun sidenote.  If you look at the June Commission Meeting on video, you will hear the mayor complaining about her colleagues taking up so much time with their comments and questions.  I ran the video through a voice analyzer and it showed that on the resolutions and ordinances, our mayor spoke 87% of the time.  The others barely got a word in edgewise.  Tonight she was quieter.  

There was so much in a short meeting, all of it bad.  

By my reckoning, the budget will have to include $500,000 set aside for severance packages - Village Manager, Village Attorney because he will have to go, probably the police chief, and some of the other employees.  

We will lose at least two of the lawsuits and I'm thinking another $500k for those.  

In attendance tonight were the Miami Herald and an investigator from the Commission on Ethics.  

This is getting real.  

Kevin Vericker 

July 10, 2018

Mayoral Temper Tantrum Fails Like Everything Else The Mayor Does

Fading like a bad dream

As Mayor Kreps leaves office and walks away, she is determined to continue tossing molotov cocktails to burn the evidence of her failures.  Kreps never really attempted to govern and has always been driven by her own intellectual and moral demons to act out on a public stage, but since her chief enabler, former registered strip club lobbyist Norman C. Powell, was brought on board at $204,000 per year the acting out has just gotten worse.  

In this week's installment, Mayor Crazy Eyes has been fuming since the failure of the fireworks proposal last week and she blames Marlen Martell for that failure.  And she wants Martell punished!  Now!  

On Tuesday June 27, the Mayor, several of her personalities,  and Norman Powell went to Martell to demand her resignation.   Now the mayor is only one of five and has no right to do that on her own and the village attorney never has that right but they were hoping they could intimidate her into quitting.  Regardless, they failed.  Martell did not offer her resignation.  

Commissioner Mary Kramer's Husband -
The Mayor's only reliable vote

Much of the rest of the week was the two of them trying to get enough votes to fire Martell in a special meeting.  That would require three votes.  The mayor could only count on two - herself and Mary Kramer's employee, who I understand is named Jose Alvarez.   To succeed the mayor needed assurances that Vice Mayor Andreana Jackson and/or illegally installed Commissioner Laura Cattabriga would support the motion.  

Laura Cattabriga, who is planning to run for mayor and who the mayor believes is dedicated to continuing the Kreps Krazy legacy (she is not) is dishonest, slick and unctuous towards the mayor when it suits her but unlike the mayor, Cattabriga is not stupid and knows that if she joins in firing a village manager 90 days after enthusiastically hiring the same one, it will look like, well what it is, a failure to govern.   So Cattabriga, along with Jackson, have refused to support the notion, letting the question of Martell's continued employment sit until after the election.   

There is of course one other factor.  Eddie Lim could be a third vote either way but he's voting based on his belief of what's best for the village and Crazy Eyes can't risk that.  So we have the mayor stewing in incoherent rage and based on past behavior, we can assume that the mayor will start trying to take it out on Cattabriga.  The spiral continues.  

Kevin Vericker

June 30, 2018

Terrible Mayor Slams City She Hates

On Mayor Crazy Eyes Kreps' march out the door following her unprecedented failure as our mayor, presiding (mayoring?) over the evacuation of all our waterfront businesses, our tax hikes, our school decline, and the host of issues that we face, is determined to keep throwing gasoline filled bottles in her wake.  

Last night, our mayor appeared on NBC 6's "exclusive" exposé regarding FEMA claims and Frank Rollason.  Now the whole purpose was to insult Frank Rollason but when our mayor saw the added advantage of spending another $250,000 of the taxpayer's money to prove she is really the victim here, she put on her warpaint and got on camera.  

And what a story it is.  

You see, Norman C. Powell, former registered strip club lobbyist and current North Bay Village Attorney, El Portal Interim Village Attorney and illegally presiding traffic magistrate, put in a complaint saying that the FEMA chargebacks from the Village were too high.  

Since Powell is a new attorney, he thought the State of Florida was in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency because he didn't know yet.  So he brought the unfounded complaint to the state who politely told him it had to be at the federal level.  He insisted he was sure that a guy had told him that was not true.  So the FDLE put in a Public Records Request just to shut him up.  

Pro tip, if the FDLE wants to investigate you, they put out something called a subpoena which actually compels you to turn over the documents.  They don't suffer the same way we poor bloggers have to with Public Records Request.  

Anyway, Norm did take his stuff to the feds, to the DOJ specifically.  Where it is sitting and will eventually be investigated and eventually found unwarranted and eventually the village will get its money but not before it ruins next year's budget.  

But it does give Mayor Crazy Eyes a chance to put a hurt on Frank Rollason and that's sure worth a quarter of a million of our tax dollars, right?  

Here's the whole bullshit from NBC 6. 

Kevin Vericker

June 28, 2018

Norman's Got A Side Hustle

Remember back when registered strip club lobbyist, Norman C. Powell, took the job as North Bay Village Attorney and demanded a record breaking $204,000 per year, plus a full year's totally illegal severance payment not to sue the Village if ever he is fired?  

When our Commission was shamed into questioning this shockingly generous contract for a completely inexperienced municipal lawyer, Norman got serious, narrowed his eyes and looked the commissioners up and down, leaned forward and said "I'm all in."  And he is.  Of course he's "All In" with El Portal, a number of side jobs, and now this one has come to light.  

Norman C. Powell - Not just a strip club fixer, defender of the mayor, prosecutor of sitting commissioners, incompetent counsel, but get this - a friggin' judge.  

Yep, that's right.  Turns out Norman's making singles add up by sitting as a magistrate in Miami-Dade Traffic courts hearing traffic cases including cases from North Bay Village where he has been the chief legal officer since the November coup.  This is to a normal person a shocking conflict of interest.  The lawyer for your prosecutor is also the judge?  That's more of a Cuba thing, isn't it?  

Well, Norman did not see it that way and he didn't bother to report it.  The Commission on Ethics was asked for an opinion and protector and friend of the Mayor, one Michael Murawski, CoE Advocate and Candidate to replace Let 'Em Go Joe, Miami's Second Greatest Enabler of Municipal Corruption, was forced to conclude "Gee, Norm, it just don't look right so let's get you moved over to another jurisdiction where you might not meet as many cops who report to you."   

Here's the opinion Michael Murawski issued.  Commission on Ethics Finding 

Here's the list of all the tickets Norman heard in the time between his taking the job as North Bay Village Attorney and June 7 when the opinion came out.  He sat on a total of 35 cases from North Bay Village, 1 from El Portal, and 39 preconference pleas.   If yours was one of them, I'm just saying, you got a good case if you want to fight it.  

In the meantime, Judge Norman C. Powell ruled that only Ana Watson does not require a village permit for work on her unit.  

Mayoral friend, Ana Watson, who is a subject of interest along with Mary Kramer and Mayor Crazy Eyes Kreps in the extortion of Doug Hornsby, and who is facing four criminal counts of forgery from her co-op, hit a coding snag.  She and several of her neighbors at the Bayswater had to fix their air conditioners.  

In spite of the fact that at least on paper, code reports to the police who reports to the village manager who reports to the commission, Norman C. Powell put on his Judge Judy drag outfit from last Halloween and ruled that Ana Watson was uniquely exempt from the coding requirement and no this has nothing to do with Ms. Watson's refusal to provide evidence to the State Attorney's office on the Hornsby matter.   Nothing at all.  

In the meantime, Norman's hustling it at North Bay Village, El Portal, Miami-Dade Traffic courts and keeping his fingers in the side development deals.  

I was about to say "You gotta admire the work ethic" but no, no you don't.  It's not a clean hustle.  

In the meantime, the mayor is continuing to build her case against Marlen Martell.  I don't know what specific pissed her honor off but she is fighting this hard and nasty.  

Kevin Vericker

June 26, 2018

More Ethics BS and The Mayor Wants to Fire Marlen Martell

Norman C. Powell's Proudest Accomplishment -
Actually claims he's a free speech hero for this.  

Current North Bay Village Fixer / Attorney Norman C. Powell, formerly a registered strip club lobbyist in North Miami Beach, has one client - himself.  He's collecting a base of $204,000 per year plus he's up for a sweet part time gig in Biscayne Park and all he has to do is bully the dais and try to keep the investigations away from the mayor.  

Norm is doing this through a combination of questionable moves, loud defense tactics, and most importantly by bullying anyone who gets in his way.  

Norm's got a big, lying, dishonest, false police report that he is pushing on Frank Rollason, one that was closed out but Big Daddy insisted be reopened just because and in that complaint, Finance Director Bert Wrains and Commissioner Eddie Lim are directly accused of issuing an ~$15,000 payment to cover a personal expense from Frank Rollason.  This is a crime to fabricate a complaint and use police resources for a false investigation.  

The complaint was apparently concocted by a four charge fraudster in collaboration with Norman and it's going nowhere but Norm needed to make sure he slapped Eddie Lim up some more.  

So Norm decided to cuck Eddie Lim by fabricating an Ethics Complaint that said that Eddie Lim was trying to get business in the Village.   Powell got his second to bottom girl, Commissioner Laura Cattabriga, to express her fake concern that Eddie was representing a petitioner .  (Seriously, Laura Cattabrigga being "concerned" is like an Italian Soccer Player getting "injured", pure cheap theatrics hoping to score.)   

Laura Cattabriga is "concerned"

Anyway, Norm and Laura went off to Ethics and filed a complaint C18-18-4 accusing Eddie of abusing his position on the commission by, well, it's not clear by what.   And Ethics had to investigate it and today dismissed the complaint because it was always not true.  Here's the complaint dismissal for your review.  Here to see the closeout memo.  

This is part of a larger pattern.  Earlier this year, Norman C. Powell and Vice Mayor Andreana Jackson concocted a fictitious complaint against former Commissioner Chervony and at Powell's insistence, the police department wasted tens of thousands investigating a wholly fictitious complaint.   

Police Chief Noriega's complaint shows a very different view of Norman C. Powell's claims that the police chief withheld information from him.  

And of course we have second to the bottom girl, Laura Hughes Cattabriga, undeclared mayoral candidate and designated successor to Crazy Eyes who took a closed internal investigation and colluded with Norman C. Powell to slam the North Bay Village Police Department on NBC6.   

Just remember, we're paying him $204,000 per year base to do this part time.  He's smarter and richer than you or me.  

The Mayor is Trying to Fire Village Manager Marlen Martell.  

Well, that was quick.  At last week's commission meeting, Mayhem Martell presented the most half assed proposal for July 4th fireworks ever seen.  Not only had she not accounted for where people might go to look at the fireworks, she was planning to put them between Benihana and Shuckers burt couldn't be arsed to get their input and had no idea of what the police impact might be, three weeks before the event.  Now Martell really did screw this up because she's not very good at her job but it's kind of Crazy Eyes' fault because Martell was the only candidate she could find who promised to fire the police chief.   But Mayor Crazy Eyes does not take responsibility for anything ever and has been sending nasty emails around about Martell.  

 I'm guessing we'll hear more about this next month and the mayor will try a move.  

Kevin Vericker

June 20, 2018

In Unity, Nothing Is Accomplished

If there was a theme, besides cognitive dissonance, at last night's commission meeting it was that at long last the Commission has managed to find better ways to ignore what's happening right before their eyes.  By 11 o'clock, the commission was simply repeating how happy they were now that they were unified and calm.  It was totally delusional but that seems to be where they are at.  

Okay, so a summary of last night's meeting, Tuesday June 12, 2018.  

It started promptly at 7:30 PM (Special note:  from now until further notice, commission meetings will start at 6:30 PM.)  The mayor led the pledge of allegiance, then presented an award to our previously unknown FPL Liaison and the commission recognized the long, valuable service of our police dispatcher who is retiring.  

During Additions and Deletions, the mayor put an item under new business regarding Village Clerk Yvonne Hamilton's employment.

The mayor wants to fire Ms. Hamilton and at that point believed she had three votes to do so.  This was following her now long standing tradition of pulling these moves late at night at the end of the meeting.  

Spoiler Alert:  It didn't happen.  At midnight, when the subject finally came before the dais, the mayor realized that she did not have the three votes she thought she did and so instead spent a few minutes ranting about how she, the mayor, had, unprovoked and illegally, given Ms. Hamilton a negative performance review and that further, Ms. Hamilton had not signed some bullshit called a "loyalty oath"  (Special note:  The mayor may have been referring to the "Honor Code" in section 38.37 of the Village Code but since that mentions ethical behavior, well, we don't have to get Dr. Freud out of his comfortable grave to explain that slip.)

Freudian Slip

After some soothing from Norman C. Powell, it was agreed that the Clerk will enter discussions about an employment agreement which the mayor pretended was what she was hoping for all along.  

Back to the meeting and the jam packed agenda.  

Well, it wasn't that jam packed.  It was mostly the mayor detailing her recent trip to Boston to attend a meeting of mayors where she learned all sorts of interesting things like inclusion, communication matters, meet residents where they are, residents expect honest answers.  Basically, all the things she has failed at and why she is so terrible for the village.  

The mayor then went on to ask the Village Manager when the streets will be repaved ("Maybe next year?  But no commitments." replied the manager.  I suspect the new manager will be the mayor's next target) and a few other things.  

Throughout the meeting the mayor continued her rambling monologues and elaborate self justifications but in complete fairness to Crazy Eyes, she did not lose her place on the agenda until 9:30 when she began reading off an item that had already been voted on, and then kept sequentially synched almost to 11:57, when she failed to call a vote on a motion to extend the meeting until 12:30  so the meeting technically was over. 

(Don't believe me?  Why should you?  Check the video at 4:26:00 and you will see that after Commissioner Alvarez was reminded via text that there was a motion needed to extend the meeting, Mayor Kreps made the motion, then had to explain that in spite of the extra dais communication about not firing Ms. Hamilton, she was still going to discuss it and then never took a vote to extend the meeting which means everything from 11:59 PM on was illegal.)  

Norman C. Powell - Incompetent or Playing a Long  Con Grift?

Which brings us to the next administration member, former strip club lobbyist and now North Bay Village Attorney Norman C. Powell, currently raking in the paper at a base of $204,000 plus bonuses to keep the dais out of jail.   

The question is:  Is Norman Powell the worst Village Attorney imaginable or is he is the best grifter we've seen in North Bay Village's history?  

Powell's services are terrible.

Let's start with the smallball - the above mentioned failure to be an effective parliamentarian.  Not a great mishap but had the mayor succeeded in her plan to fire Hamilton, it would have been illegal anyway because the meeting was illegal and that's the sort of thing that leads to expensive lawsuits and leads to increased billings from Norman Powell.  So, incompetent or grifter?

Let's get a little bigger.  Regular readers of this space know that there was a bogus accusation placed against Commissioner Eddie Lim, Finance Director Bert Wrains and former Village Manager Frank Rollason, alleging that they had conspired to steal $15,000 from the Village to pay for a personal home improvement for Rollason.  The whole allegation was quickly disproved but Powell has attempted to keep it alive for no good reason.

Well, Eddie Lim asked Powell point blank if he (Lim) was still under suspicion and Powell, who claims he has turned over the investigation, assures Eddie he is not.  Powell is in no position to discuss this if there is a real investigation so the question is, is Powell lying about the investigation being real or is he lying about his knowledge of it?  Incompetent or grifter?

Let's go even bigger.  Village Manager Mayhem Martell hired an Assistant Village Manager who is also head of Human Resources.  Now Martell apparently has never checked the hiring policies as specified in the charter, Section 4.01, and so was not sure if her hire needed to be submitted to the Village Commission for confirmation.   Martell mentioned this at the Village meeting and inquired meekly if she needed confirmation.  Again Martell should have known this and didn't. 

When she brought it up (8 minutes and 29 seconds in), Powell just sat there as the meeting went on.

Powell either didn't know what Section 4.01 of the Charter says so here it is:  Section 4.01 Paragraph G, Section 2:  "He (my note: sexist use of pronoun but refers to the Village Manager) will submit appointments of new department heads to the Commission for confirmation."

Because of this lack of confirmation, the new head of HR, the Assistant Village Manager, is not legally confirmed to that position.  This is exactly the sort of ambiguity that causes courts to look askance when an employee claims illegal actions on the part of the employer and puts the Village in a bad position at a time when we are already in high conflict.

It's also the sort of thing that leads to very lucrative billings from the attorneys representing the Village in these lawsuits.

Three major legal errors in one meeting with big implications.

And let's add in a bold faced lie.  During the discussion about a strong mayor, which Crazy Eyes claims she wanted to know more about because "a Herald reporter asked her", Andreana Jackson at 4 hours and 9 minutes inquired if the Charter Board had discussed lengthening the mayoral term to 4 years.

The correct answer was yes, twice.  And Board rejected it

Powell does not mention that although he was there and deliberately answered a question not asked by explaining that the commission can add things to the ballot.  But never mentioned what the Review Board had discussed.

The pattern continues - the illegal vacuuming up of Homeland Security Data, his pressing the Fencemaster investigations, the leaks to NBC 6, the illegal removal of Hornsby, his approach to the police chief firing.  It's bad and getting worse.

Incompetent or master grifter?

I come down on the side of he doesn't know what he's doing, he has no experience at this, and he sees his job as being the Village paid defense attorney for a mayor under investigation.  But maybe not.

Why I think Marlen Martell will soon be fired.  

There is a truly revelatory exchange at  3 hours and 18 minutes.  It was during a break and Mayor Crazy Eyes was seething over the commission's rejection of a plan to have July 4 fireworks.  Mayor Kreps says, "I want to go out with a BANG."

Now everyone wants fireworks but the plan as presented was for fireworks between Benihana's and Shuckers, no plan was in place for residents to use the lots to watch them, no plan for police presence was in place and it's probably too late to get community funding. 

Laura Cattabriga voted against it and Connie would have none of it.

During the break, she can seen and heard berating Cattabriga who is trying to tell the mayor that sometimes they might not agree.  About two minutes into Connie's rant, Martell comes over to Connie.  Connie tries to push her away saying "I don't want to talk about it!" but Martell informs Connie that her voice can be heard through the chambers (and on the recording) and that Martell is just trying to help her.  "Your voice is sounding all the way over there.  I'm doing this to help you.  Please.  Watch your thing (points to the microphone)" and walks away.  Connie then tries pushing buttons randomly and Cattabriga gives up.

This is typical of the mayor.  There can be no disagreement that is not personal and does not require retribution.   I think she will go after Martell.

And Then The Police Chief 

Police Chief Lewis Velken spoke on the item whereby the Village is seeking police accreditation, something that was already in process under Noriega.  Velken decided to contract out the process to a consulting firm and we are at back at square one.  Now Velken may have good reason to redo the whole process but he did not discuss that.  Instead, he and the commission talked about how a "civilian" was in charge of the internal accreditation and Velken had removed him.  

Well, that's truthy.  The "civilian" in charge was a retired FBI agent with extensive certification experience so it was not an off the street temp hire.  It was a small, petty slam at the previous chief for no good reason and it was dishonest to mention one fact, he was a civilian, and not bring in the full picture.  I hate that an apparently good man, Velken, is getting caught up in the crazy.  

In her enthusiastic endorsement, Mayor Crazy Eyes thanked the new chief, proclaimed her happiness with him and hopes that he stays many years.  

I would caution Police Chief Lewis Velken that Kreps made similar declarations of admiration to Police Chief Bob Daniels, later fired, and Chief Noriega, later fired.   She doesn't understand it and it's part of her process of a hero to save her.  

So the meeting ended finally around 12:30 AM on Wednesday morning.  

It ended the way it started, with the Mayor dominating and ranting and  getting nothing done.  

• No information on when our streets will be paved
• Another failed series of basic meeting procedures and practices
• No fireworks
• No firing of Yvonne Hamilton (my opinion: good.  I'm very thankful that didn't happen.) 
• No planning for the future. 
• No prep work for the budget. 

Mayor Kreps should leave now. 

Kevin Vericker

June 14, 2018

More Questions Than Answers

By now you have probably seen or are aware of the State Attorney's Office closeout memo on the Hornsby matter.  The Herald wrote about it here and if you prefer to read things directly, you can find the memo here.

The conclusion of Assistant State Attorney Isis Perez was that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute because two of the three principals in the investigation, North Bay Village Mayor Connie Leon-Kreps and North Bay Village Board member Ana Watson (currently facing four counts of felony fraud), did not choose to talk to her, while the third subject, Mary Kramer, local attorney and employer of commissioner Jose Alvarez did agree to be interviewed, but, you know, not recorded.

The closeout memo details the process.

Ms. Watson did not RSVP to the SAO's summons for an interview and there's nothing they can do to make her do that except insist and issue a subpoena but that costs money.  So Isis can't let it go.

Isis Perez was also unsuccessful at getting Mayor Connie Leon-Kreps for an interview but fortunately watches TV and couldn't help but notice that Her Honor said on the television that she didn't know about Hornsby's past until it was made public, so if that's good enough for Judge Judy, it's good enough for Isis.

In her only successful interview, she did score a meeting with Mary Kramer  who brought an entourage and insisted on no paparazzi or recordings which is totally what prosecutors agree to with everyone suspected of a crime.

Isis summarized the meeting by saying that Mary Kramer had indeed sought the records on Hornsby for clients that Kramer would not name and that she had no idea what these unnamed people did with that information after she found it.

In order to be fair and balanced, Isis mentions the other evidence:

• An email from Watson letting Doug Hornsby know that his failure to do her bidding would result in bad stuff where Hornsby would claim to be the victim.  Five days later the letters were sent to Hornsby.  
• Statements from Doug Hornsby that Mary Kramer had attempted to pressure him to fire Frank Rollason and was frustrated at his refusal to do so.  
• Statements from Doug Hornsby's wife about the pressure she got from the mayor to influence her husband to fire Rollason.
• A different timeline in which Doug Hornsby's wife says that she had confided Hornby's past to the Kramer and Kreps prior to the request from Kramer's office indicating that Kramer knew already.  
• A video showing a white car stopping in front of the Hornsby's house the night the poison pen letters were delivered.  (Isis Perez does not mention that the white car was quite distinctive with a black roof panel and was not checked in at the gate.)  

So in conclusion, Perez dismisses the evidence from the victims and accepts the statement made off record by Kramer that nothing untoward happened from her viewpoint and does not pursue the other two principals, North Bay Village Mayor Connie Leon-Kreps and Ana Watson.  

Our Village Attorney, Norman C. Powell, whose previous experience as a strip club lobbyist uniquely qualifies him as an expert on extortion jubilantly concurred with the Isis vindication by saying "Where is the quid pro quo?"  The quid pro quo is the action that a blackmailer wants done in exchange for not doing harm.  (Special note:  the quid pro quo may have been to fire Frank Rollason?  Evidence seems to point that way.) 

Anyway, this decision not to prosecute was actually issued on May 15 but not made public until Friday June 1 after the police chief Carlos Noriega filed his lawsuit for wrongful dismissal and a media counter narrative was called for.  In other words, it looks like the SAO hid the finding until it was needed for political purposes.  

Norman C. Powell sent out a celebratory text to the commission and  employees following the NBC 6 "reveal" of the memo.  I guess my favorite is where Mayhem Martell expresses her gratitude to Willard Sheperd who she apparently believes was the one who arranged all this.  ("What a relief.  Thank you, Willard") My second favorite is the one from David Raben, our fly Village Criminal Attorney ("Willard da man!")   I bring this up just in case you thought the job of our Village Attorney, Village Manager and Village Criminal Attorney was to serve the residents.  It's not.  It's to protect the mayor.  We just pay for it.  

So in spite of the fact that the letters were sent, the evidence that a firing was demanded as a quid pro quo, and the refusal of a key figure, North Bay Village Mayor Connie Leon-Kreps to meet with the prosecutors, Isis Perez was not able to see how any of this is a problem. 

Also, this is a nice car.

Anyone seen a car like this on North Bay Island?  Just asking for a friend.

Kevin Vericker
June 6, 2018