Once again, a pathetically small amount of voters made a major decision for all 40,000 residents of North Miami Beach.  Out of 20,000 registered voters, only 2,092 of them showed up to choose two individuals to sit on the City Council and enact legislation for the entire city.  That’s a whopping 10.46%, folks.  If you didn’t vote in yesterday’s election, you have officially earned the right to STFU for the next four years about these two seats.

As you probably have heard by now, there are two candidates in each race who will face each other in a runoff election scheduled for May 21, 2013.  For the low cost of ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS, courtesy of the taxpayers, we get to watch frontrunners Tony DeFillipo and Beth E. Spiegel campaign for two more weeks against two also-rans, who didn’t receive anywhere near the two top vote getters in their respective races.

Hillel Hellinger received 309 to Tony’s 990 votes, or less than one third!  MIRAMAR RESIDENT Yvenoline Dargenson scared up 558 nods, or about 60% of Beth Spiegel’s total of 931 votes.

Since Jean D. Berrouet for some unknown mysterious reason received 305 votes in Group 2, with a 4 vote difference between his and Hillel’s take, there was an automatic ballot recount this afternoon at the Miami-Dade County Elections office in Doral.  The BREAKING NEWS is that the recount resulted in one additional vote for Hillel and a loss of a vote for Berrouet.  With a spread of six votes, it is now official according to the Elections Department that Hillel is in, Berrouet is OUT!  Good riddance!  Now he can get back to making those disgusting gangsta videos in his tax-sheltered “church” property.  Just saying.

In the end, though, we are still looking at a runoff that should never have happened.  Here is my analysis and opinion, some of which you probably won’t agree with, but I’m gonna publish it anyway.  Because it’s my blog and I’ll write what I want to.  So there!

In all seriousness, though, even though every American Citizen who is qualified to run in North Miami Beach (QUALIFIED!  YA HEAR THAT, DARGIE, BABY? MIRAMAR residents are NOT QUALIFIED!) has a right to throw his or her hat in the ring, that doesn’t mean everyone should necessarily run for office.  Far be it from me to tell someone not to run, but just because one has a right to do so, that doesn’t mean it’s the prudent thing to do.  It certainly doesn’t negate one’s responsibility to do the right thing for the city.  One really needs to examine his or her motives for running, weigh it against one’s chances of getting elected, and then make a decision that’s not only in the best interests of the city at large, but also of themselves and their families.

Let’s take Margie Love, for example.  I like Margie.  I think she’s one of the sweetest, kindest and most considerate human beings on the face of the planet.  By the same token, I think she’d make a lousy council person.  This is not an insult, because I know I’d make a lousy council person, too.  Which is a very good thing because I have no intention of ever running for office.  Ever.  You should be happy about that, too.

The decision to do anything of significance, like running for office, is all about knowing your own strengths and weaknesses.  To use just one example, Margie is not really up to speed on budget issues, which knowledge is a necessity in order to make prudent decisions from the dais.  Margie has a huge heart and enough compassion to earn her the title of “Mother Teresa of NMB.”  But, the fact that Margie spent $24,219.00 of HER OWN MONEY on a race that she just had to know she wasn’t going to win only proves she has way more heart than common sense.  Even scarier, I heard she plans to run again next time.  A word of advice to Margie: Please stick with your very successful RAPP group and continue saving children and animals.  They need you and will appreciate you far more than the fickle crowd that shows up at council meetings to kvetch.  Just saying.

Another contender who helped cause this runoff is Jaime Miller.  I bet could have even gotten more votes than him.  How scary is that?  Jaime was encouraged to run by former-former-former mayor Jeffrey Mischon, who sat in the head chair for sixteen or seventeen years, while barely having to run for re-election until the day he decided to step down.  He was practically an icon in this city and everyone knew his name.

The problem is, other than the park he named after his wife and a few of us old timers who still have our memory cells intact, Jeff Mischon’s name recognition factor registers only about a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10.  When he pushed Jaime Miller into the race like a prize horse, I bet Jeff was counting on his fan base to get out the vote and put him into the winner’s circle.  What Jeff most likely didn’t realize is that his fan base has dramatically decreased over the years due to death, relocation or attrition.  In other words, Jeff, you’re old news, yesterday’s headlines, and way more than five minutes ago.  It’s long past time you move over and let the next generation have their moment in the sun.  Throwing a complete unknown into the race, and one who has never even made an appearance at a council meeting, was just plain stupid.  You humiliated the poor guy for your own ego, and threw an added monkey wrench into the election for no good reason.

As for Hillel Hellinger, here’s a guy who publicly admitted … to a REPORTER no less … that he’s “only in it for the benefits.”  WTF?  As the Examiner so aptly put it, “It becomes even shadier when Hellinger blames the current administration for using the council as a way to “benefit their personal finances.”  On the one hand, he disparages the council for receiving any benefits, yet goes on to admit he’d love a piece of that pie.

Here’s the thing, though.  Being a North Miami Beach council member isn’t quite as lucrative as Hillel seems to believe.  Nostalgic for the good old days, one of my readers wrote, “I remember when NMB council members had unlimited benefits and 100% reimbursement for any and all out of pocket health care, which every one of the previous council was entitled to and most took advantage of.  Cosmetic surgery for elected officials and their spouses and kids, braces for their kids, porcelaine veneers for teeth, vision (lasik eye surgery), tummy tucks, breast implants, nose jobs. Everything was reimbursed and the public will never know because of HIPAA laws.”

I’m not quite sure what “benefits” Hillel thinks NMB elected officials receive now, but it’s nowhere near the package that former administrations (and a couple who sit there now) gifted to themselves.  But, if he ran for the “benefits,” he was obviously running for the wrong reasons.  Perhaps he should look up the definition of “public service” and get a clue.

I’ve already written extensively why Jean D. Berrouet is unworthy of anyone’s vote, but he still managed to get 305 people to punch his number anyway.  I could be wrong, but my guess is that those 305 voters know all about his shady dealings, racist friends and family members, and general ignorance of our government, and decided to vote for him because he’s Haitian.  Identity Politics at its most blatant.

Group 4 had its own “Jaime Miller” in the person of Rene Alfonso.  Here was another clown who had never attended a council meeting, was never appointed to a city board or committee, and who has only lived in North Miami Beach for a little over two years.  In other words, he has absolutely no ownership of the city whatsoever.  Even I could probably have gotten twice the votes he got without campaigning, and I’m not stupid enough to run for office.  The people who urged Rene to run for the sole reason that they don’t like Beth Spiegel HAD to know he had no chance in hell of getting elected.  But they should have known that any vote for Rene Alfonso was a vote for NON-RESIDENT Dargenson.  Talk about insanity personified!

After being roundly defeated by both Beth AND North Miami Carpetbagger Hans Mardy in 2011, Muriel Kemp should have known not to try this suicide mission again.  I think Muriel is one of the few contenders of the latest bunch who would be a good council person if given a chance, but her decision to face Beth again was not her best one.  I’m especially annoyed that she kept at it after seeing that Dargenson was being backed by Pierre and his Shady North Miami Election Machine, knowing full well that, like Alfonso, NON-RESIDENT Dargie would be the only one to benefit by the votes garnered by Muriel.

Again, I am not saying that anyone should not run for office, but, folks, please be smart about it.  Politics is a lot like football.  There is a strategy to running for office, and sometimes it’s better to take one for the team than to let the other side win.  With people like Frantz Pierre and his Circle of Corruption in North Miami playing in this game, a distinct line between Good and Evil has been drawn.  Even if we’re only up by a field goal, it is a line of defense we must hold until the end of the fourth quarter.  One quarterback sneak could be a game changer.  If we let Sneaky Pee bring in a relief player, our entire season could be shot to hell.

The big difference is that the future of OUR HOME TOWN, (as opposed to Dargenson’s) is infinitely more important than even the Super Bowl.  The stakes are much higher.  After the Super Bowl, all records are wiped clean and we’re all undefeated.  If we lose NMB to the Corruptocrats, our permanent defeat IS the end game.  We might as well move to Texas.  (Go, Cowboys!)

With two weeks, and a potential trial, left to go, our future is still uncertain.  With Tony DeFillipo the undisputed front runner, his runoff campaign will hopefully be smooth and successful.

In Beth Spiegel’s case, however, her race won’t be a given.  Dargenson still has the face the music in court starting with a deposition on Monday that she can’t avoid, despite her lawyer’s transparent attempts to spare her the humiliation.  It will be interesting to see if her coached responses in an uninterrupted deposition will hold up any better than her sputtering on the stand.  The thing about telling lies is that it’s awfully hard to keep track of them when asked to repeat them.  Over and over and over again.  Unless you’re a certified pathological liar or live in an imaginary world of your own creation, eventually your lies catch up with you when under interrogation.  Oh, to be a fly on that wall come Monday.

The way I see it, Beth and Tony are the best choices for City Council.  I know both of them extremely well and it is my opinion that both of them truly define the meaning of “public servant.”

I have said it before, but it bears repeating that Beth has sacrificed a major part of her personal and professional life to the mostly thankless job of being a municipal legislator.  Of all the council members on that dais, I believe Beth has put in the most time researching the legal aspect of each and every piece of legislation to be considered.  She can tell you at any given moment, right down to the page number and the sentence, exactly what’s in every Ordinance and Resolution that’s brought before the Council.  Beth is also on the Police and Fire Pension Board, and she doesn’t miss a trick.  Her ONLY agenda is to save the city money and make life better for the residents of North Miami Beach.  I’ve heard some residents complain that she’s not the “warm and fuzzy” type, and my response is, “Where’s that rat’s ass I could give?”  I would rather have a straight shooter, who is intelligent, knowledgeable and intent on working for the best interests of her constituents, than someone who is in permanent campaign mode, but has no clue how to interpret a budget.  Beth asks the hard questions that far too many of the city’s financial “experts” have gotten away without answering for far too many years.  Personally, I love watching them squirm under her interrogation at council meetings until she squeezes the truth out of them like an old tube of toothpaste.  Beth takes no prisoners and that’s one of the many reasons she gets my respect.  And my vote.

Tony has been weaned on public service, and he truly understands what it means to represent the people.  His father was a respected (and sometimes maligned) councilman and his uncle was a North Miami Beach police officer.  Tony is well known by residents in each and every neighborhood of our city and has his finger on the pulse of our community.  He is keenly aware of the needs of all our city’s residents and understands on a gut level what will work to fix the many problems we face as a city.  As the face of the new generation of NMB residents, Tony is equipped with the knowledge, the energy, the determination and the desire to put our city back on the map of Miami-Dade County, and make us a force to be reckoned with at County Hall.  None of the other candidates even came close.

So, folks, there you have my opinion for what it’s worth.  I’m sure some of you will disagree with some or even all of what I wrote, but I’m okay with that, too.  Feel free to chime in below in the Comment Section.  Or not.  But that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

In conclusion, even though I’m nobody special, it is with great pleasure and humility that I wholeheartedly, and not surprisingly, endorse Beth E. Spiegel and Anthony “Tony” DeFillipo for North Miami Beach City Council.

ON MAY 21, 2013, PLEASE VOTE RESPONSIBLY!

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”

Click here for complete election results:  Municipal Elections 2013 – Results