I don’t know about any of you, but I’ll be happy to say buh-bye to 2013. Not only has it been a tumultuous year for me personally, but there was plenty of upheaval in both North Miami Beach and North Miami to keep this blog going for one more year. I shouldn’t complain, though. Bad politicians make for good columns, and there were certainly enough of them to go around.
This will be the first of several year end reviews of our fair cities. I’ll start at the beginning and work my way through 2013 over the next week or so in order to review the old and ring in the new.
Since January 1, 2013, when I wrote a New Year’s Day column, some things have changed and some things have remained frustratingly the same. Still languishing in the courts are the trials of former North Miami Mayor Andre Pierre’s nephew, Ricardo Brutus, who was arrested in March of 2011 for the felony of unlawful compensation and again in May of 2012 for five other felonies including the unlawful practice of law without a license, grand theft in the third degree and organized fraud. Trial hearings for both cases are set for January 21, 2014. The wheels of justice continue to creak on.
Here in North Miami Beach, I’m happy to report that Councilcritter Frantz Pierre is still up to his old tricks and should provide plenty of fodder for this column in the year to come and possibly beyond. His term is up in May of 2015, but there’s always the hope that it will end prematurely by way of an arrest warrant. I’m still working on that.
Councilwoman Phyllis Smith, however, has surprisingly redeemed herself. For starters, she has definitely toned down her incessant bloviating. While her constant yapping and hilarious Phyllisisms made for humorous columns (for which I thank her), Phyllis has finally taken the advice of her handlers and almost always thinks before she speaks. As I’ve said many times, despite her delivery, I have consistently agreed with her voting record most of the time, and I’d much rather have a representative who looks out for the best interests of the residents, than one who looks out only for his own best interests. I could put up with the occasional Phyllis outburst any day of the week, but I have zero tolerance for corruptocrats, such as L’il Frantzie P.
Over in North Miami, the only constant in 2013 is that controversy continues to swirl around the fiasco known as Biscayne Landing. From Andre Pierre’s questionable association with developer Michael Swerdlow and the ever present Cherubin Brothers, to the continuing saga of contamination problems, if nothing else, 2013 only further proved that Biscayne Landing will forever remain the sordid legacy of Andre and the heart of corruption and ineptitude in North Miami.
By far, though, the best example of a WTF moment in North Miami was when Island TV named Andre Pierre “Person of the Year,” proving for once and for all that in some circles (including our very own State Attorney’s Office) there is no such thing as a corrupt politician.
Speaking of corruption, NMB’s L’il Frantzie P started off 2013 by attending the Presidential Inauguration on our dime. I hope all the taxpaying residents of North Miami Beach had a moving experience attending vicariously through The P Man since you paid for the trip.
I started off 2013 still at war with North Miami Beach City Attorney Darcee Siegel. In February, I accused Lawyer Barbie of complicity in stalling the Marina Palms development by deliberately circumventing Council approval in hiring outside council. Despite what I believed were her best efforts to derail progress, Darcee eventually redeemed herself a few months later during election season. I’ll explain later.
While I continued to lament North Miami Beach’s lack of Code Enforcement throughout the year, diligently stood on Myron Trial Watch, and noted the start of election season in North Miami and NMB, the Tree Huggers were gearing up for war against any and all development in North Miami Beach. Serial Litigant and Blatant Hypocrite Charles M. Baron, Esquire, led the charge by filing a lawsuit to stop a hotel from being built on West Dixie Highway in the interest of “Saving Greynolds Park.” He recruited folks from all over the country to write letters to the Mayor and Council protesting growth and development, including one man from uber-white, filthy rich Naples, who wanted to make sure that NMB would remain forever stuck in perpetual ghetto-hood. Not to worry, Mr. J. Anthony Davis. North Miami Beach is in absolutely no danger of becoming the Naples of the East Coast. Not by a long shot. Mr. Baron also decided that the First Amendment should be abolished when he threatened to sue me for hurting his feelings. I smacked him back. Of course. Hey, Chucky! Empty threats … sticks and stones …same diff.
In North Miami, the big news (because public corruption is just too boring a topic for the media) was that following her gracious acceptance of a Key to the City a few months earlier, Kim Kardashian got her jollies by riding with the NMPD for a night. Across the pond, the Mail Online reported Kimmie as saying, “It’s still really scary. That was so exciting, it made me hungry.” Escorted by North Miami Police Officers (who Mayor Andre obviously believed had nothing better to do with their time), Kimmie later padded her already substantial caboose with a Big Mac at the local McD’s. This was Andre Pierre’s proudest moment of 2013.
Speaking of Andre, and his Super Star Criminal Laywer Benedict P. Kuehne, both got smacked by a ruling for a complaint filed with the Florida Elections Commission over Andre’s Myron-like bus bench advertising scheme. Pierre was fined $8,000.00, which was actually a gift, all things considered.
Speaking of NMPD, despite initial protests to the contrary, two of North Miami’s “finest” did leave for the greener pastures of Opa-locka. Of course, this could only happen in a city like Opa-loca, which hired a former scandal-ridden NMB City Manager that no one else wanted. As I reported in Behind Closed Doors in Bakerville:
“Within the span of a week, Kelvin Baker:
- Hired a new police chief.
- Then denied hiring him.
- Also denied the job was available.
- Then called a presser announcing the appointment of a man he denied hiring for a job he denied existed.”
And that, my friends, is how former North Miami Police Commander Jeffrey Key became Chief of Opa-locka. Officer Peter “Internal Affairs R Us” Cruz soon joined him. The entire North Miami Police Department breathed a collective sigh of relief.
But no worries. Opa-locka’s newest recruits soon found their jobs worthwhile after City Manager Kelvin Baker put them on Skivvy Watch, making sure that the good residents of their fine city don’t hang their underwear in public view. Because, as you know, crime is absolutely non-existent in Opa-locka. The entire North Miami Police Department had a collective LOL.
The end of March marked the beginning of heated election seasons in North Miami Beach and North Miami, both of which deserve at least one column each, so I’ll end this one now.
In the meantime, Happy Last Minute Christmas Shopping!
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
