The good news is that it’s gotten a lot easier to get public records from the North Miami Clerk’s Office.
The bad news is that North Miami’s children still have no pool to swim in this summer.
I shall explain.
First the good news.
Well, the sorta good news.
I requested a public record of North Miami Police Officer Jodlyn Antoine’s salary from March 27, 2014, the day he was placed on administrative leave, through December 14, 2014, the day he actually began his unpaid month-long suspension.
My request was fulfilled!
What I received was a “Process History Report” of Antoine’s salary for the period of March 29, 2014 through January 3, 2015.
Close enough.
You can click on the link to see the entire breakdown of income and deductions. But the bottom line is that Antoine’s gross pay for that nine month period was $57,098.70. This works out to an approximate salary of $6,344.30 per month.
You might remember that Antoine was placed on administrative leave on March 27, 2014, when the State Attorney’s Office began an investigation into possible criminal charges against him.
On May 14, 2014, the SAO closed its file, but the internal affairs investigation was still ongoing.
The IA investigation was concluded on June 6, 2014.
A Notice of Disciplinary Action was issued to Antoine on July 18, 2014 – MORE THAN ONE MONTH LATER.
The Notice of Disciplinary Action was not signed by Police Chief Leonard Burgess until September 12, 2014 – NEARLY TWO MONTHS LATER.
A Last Chance Agreement, between the Police Department and Antoine, signed on September 12, 2014, didn’t go into effect until December 14, 2014 – MORE THAN TWO MONTHS AFTER THAT!
In essence, Jodlyn Antoine’s paid administrative leave was drawn out by Chief Lenny FIVE MONTHS LONGER THAN NECESSARY!
During that time, Antoine was being paid to sit home to the tune of $6,233.30 per month, or a total (and unnecessary) cost to the taxpayers of THIRTY ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED SIXTY SIX DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS!
Apparently no one at City Hall seems to give a rat’s ass that taxpayers were royally screwed.
Again.
The only person directly responsible for the wasted $31,166.50 is Police Chief Leonard Burgess.
While he had no choice but to send Jodlyn Antoine home on paid leave during the State Attorney’s Office’s investigation from March 27, 2014 through May 14, 2014, he had absolutely no excuse for keeping Antoine on paid leave an additional five months.
Chief Lenny absolutely ignored the fact that taxpayer money was being flushed down the toilet.
He also ignored the disposition panel’s recommendation to terminate Officer Jodlyn Antoine, but that’s another topic I won’t rehash here.
When this fiasco (and a multitude of others, including Chief Lenny’s lying about being the subject of a previous internal affairs investigation) was brought to the attention of City Manager Aleem Ghany, he personally assured me that he was going to either terminate or demote the Chief.
As we all know, that never happened.
What this amounts to is piss poor leadership at the very top of both the Police Department and the City of North Miami.
But, I did get my public records. Praise the Lord for that.
And that was the good news.
The bad news is that summer vacation is more than halfway over and North Miami’s only swimming pool is still closed.
According to my sources, the pool was supposed to open yesterday, but they’re waiting on a part that’s still stuck in Jupiter.
That’s Jupiter, Florida. Not the planet.
That part won’t be delivered to North Miami until July 17th.
And then the pool won’t be ready until August, just in time for the kids to head back to the classroom.
Like I said … piss poor leadership.
At the top.
And, finally, the WTF news of the day is:
North Miami has ONLY ONE POOL?
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
Chief Leonard Burgess should have to pay back the $31,155.50 to the City of North Miami, the taxpayers’ money that he wasted. It’s almost as if he stole the money to give to Officer Jodlyn Antoine. Obviously, he doesn’t give a damn because it’s not his tax dollars. Instead, he chose to keep a pathetic excuse of a police officer on the force.
The city should have sent somebody to Jupiter to pick up the part for the ONLY city swimming pool. There is absolutely NO excuse why the residents didn’t have that pool available the day school let out.
OMG! He stole the money, then gave it to Antoine? That makes him Robbin’ Hood, right?
This is the reason why the property tax millage rate is among the highest in the County. Between the Andre Piere’s, Marie Sterils, and the Brutus’s, they piss away so much of the taxpayers money and they suffer for it, like not having a swimming pool. Its too bad that many North Miami voters allow this to keep happening and not give a shit by never voting in their City election.
The swiming pool will be open sooer than expected because at this nights City Council meeting someone is going to Jupiter to get the filter and they will open the pool as soon as the filter is attached. The City Manager would like to fire the Chief but there is a problem there that he will not tell me. But the other two I wanted fired have been fired and we have a new deputy City Manager and a new City Attorney.
Wow, someone figured out they didn’t need a rocket ship to get the part from Jupiter? Impressive!
Aleem told me flat out that he was going to either fire or demote the Chief. He never did it, then he denied ever telling me that. That’s total BS. If he had no intention of taking care of the Chief problem, he should have just said nothing. Instead, he implied that I was lying, when in fact, he either lied to me or he just has no balls. I don’t know which it is and I don’t care. I do know I gave him way too much credit.
I can’t believe Ghany is still CM. I really really really can’t believe Burgess is still chief. There’s nothing else to say. The next council meeting should be a good one.
The City Manager is a moron. He knows he needs to fire Chief Leonard Burgess and he doesn’t do it because he’s either letting a certain council member influence him or he’s just caved to the pressure from all the phone calls he got from Chief Lenny’s friends begging for his job.
Either way he has no balls which means he can’t do his job and unfortunately he needs to go too. Who wants a manager who won’t step up and do his job properly.