It must have been one hell of a Commission meeting over in Opa-locka Wednesday night.
After three years of dealing with the wackiest body of elected officials in Miami-Dade County, Kelvin Baker just couldn’t take it anymore, and resigned as City Manager.
He kept telling the Commissioners that there wasn’t enough money for all the things they wanted to buy, but they wouldn’t listen. Even though they kept on ignoring the problem, hoping it would solve itself, when it all hit the fan, they blamed it on the messenger.
I almost feel bad for him.
Okay, not really.
“As part of his resignation, Baker will be given approximately $75,000 in severance, half of which will be issued Thursday,” according to the Miami Herald article just posted.
If the Commissioners have named an interim City Manager, it was not mentioned in the article. Time is of the essence to find a replacement, however, as budget season is fast approaching.
Oh, dear. This is going to get ugly.
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
Stephanie, in June is where every department’s internal budgets from the past year are compiled, the general audits are started and a wishlist of next year’s funding is done. By July, the preliminary budgets are done based on the estimate of revenue from the property appraiser’s office (released sometime between July 1st-3rd). Then the politicians are brought in to have preliminary meetings so they will know what’s up. By the time August comes around, these budget hearings are supposed to be choreographed and non-surprise meetings (sometimes it is a surprise to the public like this year how high the taxes people paid and how much spending is actually being done).
The point is, this city manager left in the middle of this process…
“Going to get ugly” is the understatement! It’s already UGLY and perhaps more “mess” is going to hit the fan… Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it…BAM!
Just a question…where do they find these animals/brainless to run government?
The answer to Walter’s question is “from the City of North Miami Beach” where he was appointed as that City’s manager by an equally brainless City Council, one of which (the one in YELLOW) is still serving on the current City Council.
Not only did she select him, she made the motion to give him $40,000 more a year than the previous 16 year tenured City manager who retired. His $200,000 annual salary, thanks to Councilwoman Smith, made him amongst the highest paid city managers in the county for a city the size of NMB. The amazing thing is that he was never a city manager previously, and of course, we all know how that turned out.
Baker is also the guy that signed over $2.6 million in checks to pay fraudulent invoices for work that was never done claiming he didn’t realize what he was doing. Boy is that an understatement.
Stephanie, do you know if he had the NAACP there for the meeting like he did in NMB?
The ironic thing is that the City of Opa-Locka already has a $2 million budget shortfall, and now the taxpayers of Opa-Locka are having to reach back into their pockets to pull out another $75,000 that they don’t have to give Baker a going away present. This after him working there only 3 years.