It might have been a slow news week, but in North Miami there’s always something to dish about.

Here are some of my random thoughts.  Yes, it’s long.  But it’s Sunday.  And it’s raining.

So sit back, relax, and let me entertain you.

And the winner is …  Oh, never mind.

After an embarrassing moment at the December 16, 2015 council meeting when the decision to un-hire the previously hired Valria Screen prompted Mayor Smith Joseph to announce that “North Miami is the laughing stock of the county,” the council wasn’t taking any chances this time around.

Or so they thought.

At last Tuesday’s meeting, despite the thorough and painstaking process undertaken by a carefully appointed selection committee (or maybe because of it), the North Miami Mayor and Council decided to scrap the entire list of applicants for the City Attorney position, and start from scratch.  The council is once again inviting aspiring city attorneys to submit an application by January 29, 2016.

According to the Miami Herald, Scott Galvin was the lone vote against the proposition, stating, “I don’t have faith that this body is going to stick to the game plan when we’ve just shown that we are not going to stick to the game plan if it does not fit our needs.”

Ya think?

Galvin was outvoted.

And you know what happens next, right?

Moving right along.

The “Duke” of North Miami

Next up on the Agenda was a discussion on how to choose a permanent City Manager.

A grand total of sixty two individuals want the job.

One such hopeful is none other than Chief Lenny’s old buddy and current Interim City Manager Arthur Sorey, who is apparently willing to risk his heretofore guaranteed pension for the prestige of assuming the at-will/at-risk position as North Miami’s CEO.

Memo to Art Sorey:  Read Aleem’s resume.

Here’s the thing.

There are some incredibly qualified (and even some over-qualified) candidates for the city manager position.  At least a dozen or more of them have far more impressive credentials, educational backgrounds and experience than Arthur Sorey.  If the Mayor and Council are serious about hiring a city manager who can fix North Miami’s multitude of problems, it would behoove them to think outside the box … and the city.

After years of being mired in layers upon layers of incompetence, corruption and cronyism, the last thing North Miami needs is an administrator with insider ties to the endless parade of politicians, lobbyists, parasites and freeloaders who have sucked the city’s resources dry for their personal gain.

In 2010, when former Councilwoman Marie Steril scammed the City of North Miami out of a home for her mama, Arthur Sorey also tapped into the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) in order to buy a home.

On July 16, 2010, Arthur H. Sorey III purchased a home from the City of North Miami for $174,900.00, a previously foreclosed property which the city had obtained in 2009 for $95,000.00.  Mr. Sorey obtained a mortgage in the amount of $131,902.00 from a private company for the bulk of the purchase.  However, as it did with Marie’s mother, the City of North Miami took back a Purchase Money Mortgage from Sorey for $50,000.00.

Per the INTEREST-FREE Promissory Note attached to the Purchase Money Mortgage, if the borrower does not default on the loan, or “has not provided false information in support of the application for loan, or has not otherwise violated the City of North Miami Home Investment Partnership Program,” this $50,000.00 loan will be “partially forgiven in the amount of $3,346.67 each year, over a Fifteen (15) year period, until fully forgiven at the conclusion of Fifteen (15) years.”

Here’s the thing.

In 2010, Arthur Sorey worked for the City of North Miami as a “Budget Administrator.”  According to the Fiscal Year 2009-10 Budget for the City of North Miami, this Class Number 223/Pay Grade 31 position earned a minimum of $53,580.00 and a maximum of $79,435.00.

But, here’s the really weird thing.

According to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s website, in 2010 the median household income was $52,200.00.

Furthermore, according to the City of North Miami’s Qualifications Application, this program provides “housing for lower income households at or below 80% of the area median income per the income requirements of the HOME regulations.”

I find it curious indeed that Mr. Sorey was able to purchase his home and obtain an NSP loan from the City of North Miami if he was earning a minimum of $53,580.00 per the city’s own budget, when “80% of the area median income” of $52,200.00 in 2010 was $41,760.00.

Somehow Mr. Sorey was able to participate in this City of North Miami home purchase program despite the fact that he earned at least $11,820.00 over the maximum allowable income limit.

Even if Sorey was able to lower his taxable income (such as increasing his pre-tax deduction amount from his gross pay) for the purpose of qualifying for the program, the fact that a city employee was able to benefit from a city sponsored program still doesn’t pass the smell test.  That the reigning political class helped a favorite son of North Miami get a first home may or may not have been illegal, but it sure stinks of the “self-dealing” that happens all the time in North Miami.

By not disclosing that a borrower was her mother, Marie Steril got away with defrauding the city even though HUD fined North Miami approximately $154,000.00.

Although Arthur Sorey may or may not have committed fraud when he participated in the city’s NSP program, the fact that he was an insider certainly didn’t hurt.

Considering a political insider for the position of city manager may have its benefits, but hiring a member in good standing of the kleptocracy is not the way forward for North Miami.

Just saying.

Moving right along.

Drinking the “Bur-iga” Kool-Aid

In an article published in the January, 2016 issue of the Biscayne Times entitled Not So Safe After All, reporter Erik Bojnansky interviewed the victims of an armed home invasion that occurred last October in the Keystone Point neighborhood of North Miami.  As the article mentioned, Keystone Point is supposed to be one of the safest, and most affluent, areas of North Miami “where waterfront homes often sell for more than $1 million.”  Residents pay an extra tax to have surveillance cameras and security personnel in the guard gates at the entrances to Keystone Point.

On the night of the home invasion, it seems that the video cameras intended to record the license plates of vehicles passing through the guard gates weren’t working.  In typical “It-Wasn’t-Me” fashion, no one is taking responsibility for for this security failure.

The president of 50-State Security passed the first buck, claiming that “all of their records were provided to Miami-Dade County, which oversees the Keystone Point special taxing district.”

Not surprisingly, the communications manager for the county in charge of the camera system told the Biscayne Times that “his department doesn’t monitor images captured by special taxing district security cameras,” promptly lobbing a Hail Mary to the North Miami Police Department.

Dropping the ball altogether, North Miami Police Department’s newest “spokesman for the NMPD,” Commander Angel Rivera, who said, “We got this shit covered.  Oh, look!  There’s a puppy!”

Yeah, Police Chief Leonard Burgess and his appointed spox-peeps do a lot of deflecting these days, especially when asked direct questions.

In this instance, when asked specifically about the surveillance camera screw up, Commander Rivera (obviously drunk on yummy “Bur-iga” Kool-Aid) ignored the question, insisting “that the police are on top of bringing to justice the home invaders.”

Throughout the interview, Rivera did the usual and customary dance, insinuating that alerting Keystone Point residents about an armed home invasion in their neighborhood would compromise the investigation.

Blah, blah, blah.

Rivera also used a typical diversionary tactic by refusing to discuss the broken cameras, instead pointing to NMPD’s New & Improved Lower Crime Stats.

As the Biscayne Times reported, “He notes that serious felony crimes (murders, assaults, robberies, burglaries, rapes) committed in North Miami in the first half of 2015 were 6.5 percent lower than the first six months of 2014. Less than two percent of North Miami’s serious crimes were committed in Keystone Point. (Rivera did not provide detailed crime statistics for North Miami or Keystone Point by deadline.)”

Quick!  Whip up that batch of fudge!

Keystone Point residents are understandably upset, not only because their sense of safety has been violated, but also because they were never notified about this armed home invasion by the police department.

Although the victims had high praise for the “response time” once the police were alerted of the crime, it was the victims’ ability to track their stolen electronics to an apartment building in Hialeah that helped move the case along.  Still, NMPD detectives could do nothing about it without an apartment number.

Yeah, how lame is that?

Nevertheless, Commander Rivera “insists that the tip wasn’t dismissed.  Neither was the evidence collected from items left by the thieves.  “We continued to investigate all leads,” he says.”

Unfortunately, Councilwoman Carol Keys, who lives in and represents most of Keystone Point, and who also said that “the police did an excellent job responding to the crime,” defended the police department’s decision not to alert residents about the home invasion.  Keys told the Biscayne Times, “You don’t go around scaring people by sending a bunch of e-mails.”

I guess it’s okay to keep residents in the dark about violent crimes in the interest of not scaring them, because, well, the government knows what’s best for you.  “Here, have a glass of Kool-Aid!”

Just saying.

And, finally …

Vote Often and Vote Twice!

Lest you still think voter fraud is not a real problem, think again.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of absentee ballot fraud yet to be presented in the Michael Joseph v. Phyllis Smith lawsuit, which case has been unduly delayed by lawyer Joe Geller, far too many people still insist that voter fraud does not exist.  Once that case finally goes to trial, quite the opposite should be proven.

In addition to absentee ballot fraud, another serious problem is double voting.  A recent Sun-Sentinel article, Reports of voters twice casting ballots probed in Broward, Palm Beach counties, claims that in Palm Beach County there were at least 14 individuals who voted twice, and in Broward there were up to 18 double votes cast.

Although Brian Corley, the president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, stated that “he doesn’t think the number of people who vote twice is large enough to sway the upcoming presidential election in Florida,” he does admit that even “one is too many.”

Part of the problem, as the article notes, is that many Florida residents also have homes in other states, and they have registered to vote in both.  According to the Sun-Sentinel:

A 2004 Orlando Sentinel investigation found more than 68,000 people were registered to vote both in Florida and either Georgia or North Carolina and identified 1,650 cases in which those voters cast ballots in Florida and also in another state in the 2000 and 2002 elections.

A few months ago, [data analyst Andrew] Ladanowski examined the voter rolls of Florida, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina. In several instances, residents appeared to have voted in person in another state and then mailed absentee ballots that were counted in Florida, he said.

Brian Corley wants to put an end to this practice, stating that he “wants to see more enforcement to send a message that violating voter fraud laws will not be tolerated.”

This particular problem could be stopped if Florida would participate in a national database of voter registrations, or the Electronic Registration Information Center.  So far only “fifteen states and the District of Columbia use the registry, which can identify voters who have moved or are ineligible to vote for other reasons.”

Closer to home, there have been reports of rampant voter fraud in North Miami, particularly during early voting at the public library’s precinct.  Although the Miami-Dade County Elections Department runs the polling stations, over the years there have been far too many reports of inappropriate, and possible illegal, activity going on at the precincts, especially during early voting.  By now, North Miami city officials should know better than to leave the county election workers unattended.

To make matters even worse, the City Clerk of North Miami is the supervisor of city elections.  As the “supervisor of city elections,” Michael Etienne has the ultimate power to determine which candidates are eligible to run for office at the close of the qualifications period.

Unfortunately, as one of the few elected City Clerks in the State of Florida, Michael Etienne is in the dubious position of supervising his own election.

Technically, Michael is supposed to pass the gavel, as it were, to one of his deputy clerks during an election in which he is on the ballot.  But, as we have already seen during the last municipal election, Michael ran interference by abusing his official position to disqualify his lone opponent, Janet Reed.

And no one had the power to stop him.

Once the results are certified, it’s nearly impossible to overturn a fraudulent election.

In North Miami Beach, the evidence will eventually show that Frantz Pierre and Phyllis Smith conspired with each other to obtain fraudulent absentee ballots in order to win their respective seats back.  Allegedly, of course.  As a result, by the time this lawsuit, which was supposed to be expedited, works its way through the courts, Phyllis will have been occupying that seat for at least a quarter of the term.  Even if the courts rule in favor of the plaintiff, there’s no guarantee that the judge will be courageous enough to overturn the election results.

By booting Janet Reed from the race before it even began, Michael Etienne insured his despotic control over North Miami elections for another four years.

The only way to reform the election process in North Miami is for citizens to demand a charter amendment to change the city clerk from an elected position to one that is appointed.  As long as Michael Etienne (or a possible crony successor) is allowed to engineer the results of his own election in order to remain in office, the cycle of corruption in North Miami will continue unchecked.

Fraud, corruption, and cronyism are obviously nothing new in North Miami.  It’s been going on for years in one form or another, possibly since the city’s incorporation.

Obviously, there has been continuing corruption (or at the very least, questionable activity) involving the city’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program.  The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development should be called in to investigate the deals that were already made, and ensure that future projects are legitimate.

The Police Department has also had its share of problems under several incompetent chiefs of police.  Chief Lenny, however, is certainly making a name for himself as quite possibly the worst and most corrupt chief in the history of the North Miami Police Department.  The only reason he’s still employed is because the former city manager was too afraid of losing his job to make the tough decisions.  We see how well that worked out for him.  The future permanent city manager must be given free reign to hire and fire incompetent department heads without interference by the Mayor and Council.

Finally, the citizens of North Miami deserve free and fair elections.  As it stands, they are not being served.  If voters don’t have trust in the electoral process, how could they possibly trust any politician at all?

Oh, wait!  That was a rhetorical question.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”