Who can resist making fun of North Miami Beach Faux Councilwoman Phyllis Smith’s foot-in-mouth disease?  I mean, seriously.  Phyllis is a one-woman parody of, well, herself.

At a special meeting of the city council called for Thursday, August 25, 2016, however, she was anything but funny.  In fact, her erratic behavior that night proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Phyllis is not only a complete moron, but she appears to be seriously deranged.  I’m not joking.

For starters, that was the second time in as many months that Phyllis has stormed off the dais in a fit of anger.

You will remember that at the July 19, 2016 council meeting, the Mayor decided to change the seating arrangement on the dais.  Councilwoman Beth Spiegel was upset and had to leave.  But then Phyllis couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to grandstand, as usual and followed suit by storming out of the chambers.  Not to be outdone, her little friend and partner in crime, Frantz Pierre, also then seized that moment cause a ruckus and also walked out, leaving the meeting without a quorum.

Since no city council meeting can be held without a quorum of five members, and there was critical legislation that had to be passed as soon as possible, it was necessary for a special meeting to be called for the following Tuesday, July 26, 2016.  There was a quorum at that special meeting, but Phyllis still refused to move to her new assigned seat.

Phyllis Smith’s obsession with where she sits is nothing new.

When Mayor George Vallejo was first elected in 2011, at his very first meeting on June 7, 2011, he decided to arrange the seating on the dais.  As chair of the meeting, he had the authority to do so, but Phyllis went ballistic.  She raised holy hell because she wanted to sit next to the Mayor.  This wasn’t because she liked him.  In fact, she despised him, and still does.  But since all meetings are televised and Phyllis is an extreme attention hog, she saw that as the perfect opportunity to be constantly on camera.

In order to get through the meeting, the Mayor agreed to discuss the issue at the next regular meeting.

Phyllis spent the next two weeks calling everyone and their mothers, pleading with them to convince the Mayor to let Phyllis sit next to him.

At the following council conference on June 21, 2011, Phyllis demanded that the council be allowed to vote on the seating arrangement issue, and asked the city attorney to draft a resolution for a future meeting.

At the July 19, 2011 meeting, Phyllis sponsored three different seating resolutions for the council to vote on:

Option A: Designates location of Councilmembers’ seating on the dais by Campaign Seat Number with Seat 2 sitting at the Mayor’s far right and Seat 7 sitting at the Mayor’s far left.

Option B: Designates location of Councilmembers’ seating by seniority.

Option C: Designates location of Councilmembers’ seating at Mayor’s sole discretion.

Despite Phyllis’ incessant pleading, whining, haranguing and nagging her colleagues that night (or perhaps because of it), none of the resolutions passed.

In any event, even though she threatened to bring up this issue again, Phyllis sat where she was told and proceeded to spend the next four years trying to make the Mayor’s life a living hell, including voting against almost everything he proposed.

Just for spite.

Yes, she’s THAT petty.

Fast forward to Thursday, August 25, 2016.

A regular meeting of the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) was scheduled for 6:00 p.m.

Immediately following the CRA meeting, a special council meeting was called for 7:00 p.m. for the purpose of passing a single piece of legislation regarding the city’s health insurance policy for its employees.

The CRA meeting ended at 6:30 p.m., and the council had to wait thirty minutes before the special meeting could officially begin.  Phyllis apparently had left City Hall after the CRA meeting and was expected to return.  As usual, however, she arrived late, this time by thirteen minutes.  The council had no choice but to wait for her since there were already two out of seven council members absent and they needed five for a quorum.  Councilwoman Beth Spiegel was away on vacation, and Councilman Tony DeFillipo had surgery only that morning and was unable to attend.

The meeting started at 7:15 p.m. and should have taken only about 15 minutes at the most to wrap up.

You can watch it in its entirety here:

Instead of having an uneventful and productive meeting for a change, at 7:22 p.m., Phyllis just had to cause problems.

As usual.

She started with, “I apologize to everyone.  I don’t even know how we have a special meeting.  Why is it that we have a special meeting for this?”

Since Phyllis never reads the Agendas or any of the attached material, it had to be patiently explained to her that, because open enrollment for the employees begins next week, the council had to vote to approve the new policy immediately so it would become effective on October 1, 2016.

Phyllis then launched into one of her infamous nonsensical tirades, which I have transcribed in its entirety – verbatim and unedited – just to showcase how obviously insane this woman has become.  She was never normal to begin with.  But her behavior has only gotten more and more erratic the longer she remains parked in that chair.

I dare anyone to make any sense whatsoever of her lunatic rant.

“I knew that October 1 was the deadline the thing is that, um, heh, ya know, I had no choice but to come back because we didn’t have a quorum and I thank my colleagues, but I’m jamming in a lot of things in a very short amount of time and, um, I just, ya know, we have a lot of special meetings in this city and, ya know, I just that to me is something we need to work on so, um, what I’d like to say is that there’s different services I’m not an insurance person, but I know as far as the state goes that the state gives, um, about a hundred and fifty dollars a person for preventative medicine and some of the things that are like, almost like, let’s say a silver slipper but for everybody for young people and old people so she has another benefit that I think is phenomenal that you can go out of state I think that is absolutely phenomenal, but, um, we had a issue and nothing personal with you but about having a broker once before and so the fact that she was able to do this research and do it quickly so we could meet our deadline I understand.  But those two things just made the balance not quite what I had in mind for balance as far as insurance goes.  So I hope I’m making myself clear in the fact that I know we need it by October 1^st and I, I mean if I couldn’t get back here because I had to deliver something if I couldn’t get back here, you would have had no choice but to wait.  So that kind of thing is making me a little crazy, but, in that aspect I do think that there’s no choice but to give our employees insurance I’ve taken insurance in some here.  I’ve taken it and I pay for it myself.”

Someone off camera made a remark, but it wasn’t loud enough for the microphone to pick up.  Phyllis looked over to her right and said, “Did you want to say something I didn’t hear? … Share it with everyone.”

Apparently the person did not wish to repeat it, so Phyllis resumed her diatribe with, “No that was that was the two issues that I had because I know that it does that two to three weeks for anybody to give you a bid that …”

At that point the Mayor cut her off and said, “Councilwoman let’s talk about, I don’t want to hear about special meetings, let’s talk about the…”

THAT’S WHEN PHYLLIS LOST IT COMPLETELY!

At 7:26 p.m., thirteen minutes after she entered the chambers, she huffed and puffed, gathered her stuff, got up and harrumphed, “Well, then I’ll leave because you don’t need me!”

The Mayor said, “Councilwoman!”

And Phyllis yelled, “NOPE!”

She stormed off the dais yelling, “You know what?  You don’t want to hear about the special meetings…”

And her voice trailed off as she left the room, leaving everyone stunned, but not before Councilwoman Marlen Martell exclaimed, “You are ridiculous.  Enough is enough!  Wow, she needs meds!”

YA THINK?

At that point there was no quorum, and the meeting came to a screeching halt.

The Mayor announced, “Once again we have lost quorum when we have important business to do, and important outside experts and consultants and staff that come here and somebody leaves the dais, Councilwoman Smith leaves the dais, leaves us without a quorum and we cannot finish the business.  I think this is a conversation for the ethics commission.”

The staff member presenting the insurance proposal said, “We do have a real dilemma now.  We run the risk of our employees being uninsured.”

The Mayor sarcastically chimed in with, “The employees she cares so much about.”

He then stated that they will have to call another special meeting even though, contrary to what Phyllis falsely claimed, the council has only had one other special meeting this entire year.

In fact, in the five years and three months that Mayor Vallejo has been in office, there has been a grand total of eight special meetings prior the one called for Thursday night.

The first one held on May 24, 2011 was for the purpose of swearing in the newly elected council members, including the fraudulently re-elected Phyllis Smith and Frantz Pierre.

Since that time, there have been an average of less than two special meetings per year!

At that point, the frustration in the room was palpable as everyone began pacing and milling about around the room, obviously trying to figure out what to do next.

You can watch the non-activity in its entirety, or you can fast forward thirty minutes, when the meeting was able to resume, thanks to the Hero of the Day, Councilman Anthony DeFillipo.

Having had surgery just that morning, Tony got out of bed and had someone drive him to City Hall, where he painfully hobbled in on crutches and took his seat at the dais.

Finally at 7:50 p.m., a full 24 minutes after Phyllis stalked out, there was a quorum.

HALLELUJAH!

At 7:51 p.m., the Mayor announced, “The meeting will be called back to order now that we regained a quorum.  Let the record reflect that Councilman Anthony DeFillipo has come in even though he just had surgery this morning, and has come in today to make sure that we have a quorum so that we can pass this important legislation, which is gonna save our taxpayers a quarter million dollars this year, and is going to provide a vastly superior health insurance product for our valued employees.”

He turned to Tony, placed his hand on his shoulder and said, “Councilman, it’s obvious that you care for the taxpayers and you care for these good employees.  Thank you for making it here!”

At 7:53 p.m., two minutes after the meeting resumed, the resolution passed UNANIMOUSLY!

Because of Phyllis Smith’s incessant need to cause a scene, her blatantly obvious antagonism toward Mayor Vallejo, and the apparent deterioration of her already tenuous grip on reality, a council meeting that should have taken only 15 minutes from start to finish, ended up going on for 47 minutes.

Councilwoman Barbara Kramer took the opportunity to profusely thank Tony DeFillipo for coming in, and that it meant so much to the entire city, and especially the employees.

The Mayor then took the opportunity to speak, and boy, did he get his frustration off his chest.  I strongly urge you to watch his heartfelt statement.

I have also transcribed it here in its entirety.:

“I’m sorry, Tony.  I know that we gotta get you back home.  But I have to address this because this is now the second time, the second time that Councilwoman Smith abandons her post on this dais, throws a fit of anger, and leaves her post on this dais, and has left this city council without a quorum to do important business.  Let me make clear what the stakes were because what I find incredibly hypocritical and just flat out unacceptable is that before she left, Councilwoman Smith sat here and insinuated, and in an attempt to disparage the administration, that we have been having too many special meetings, in order to insinuate as if things were not being done properly.  I’m gonna set the record straight for the public that’s listening and for this video, which will live on in posterity, we’ve had TWO special meetings this year.  TWO!  The first one was required because SHE walked off the dais and left this city council without a quorum in order to pass the first tax rate cut that has happened in a long time in this city in order to pass the millage rate, important legislation that had to be passed, and therefore, the city had to call a special meeting, spend money on advertising, recall the budget experts and the other consultants that were here, and the staff, which probably cost a thousand dollars an hour to have to do this.  And that was a cost that happened because of the irresponsible and unethical conduct of that councilwoman.  Number one.  Meeting number one.

“Tonight, the same thing happened.  She stormed off the dais, left us without a quorum, and this meeting was called, just for the taxpayers that are listening, the reason this meeting was called as a special meeting was that the original plan, as explained by our staff twice tonight, was to not go out and rebid the insurance this year for us to not have to change insurance carriers again.  But, when the staff took a look at it and our insurance broker approached them [that] the current insurance carrier said the best we can do, the lowest increase we can give you is a 13% increase.  THIRTEEN PERCENT OF FOUR MILLION DOLLARS!  Our staff, our talented staff, that is on a win streak and producing results for you, the residents, said, ‘You know what?’ in conjunction with our insurance brokers, said, ‘Let’s take another shot at this and see if there’s not some way that we can get something better for the residents.’

“They went out to market on a rush basis.  They found a new insurance carrier willing to write it at EIGHT PERCENT LESS than what the cost was gonna be.  Instead of a 13% increase, a 5% increase.  Not only is it gonna save the city over a quarter million dollars, but the product that we’re going to provide for our employees is superior.  It’s a better insurance product, with a larger insurance company, that insures our employees and their families anywhere they are across the country.  Something that they don’t have right now.

“So, tonight when we had to pass this, which was the reason why we called a special meeting, it’s no big deal to call a special meeting.  You just advertise it.  We came here because we felt it was important because there was a time deadline to pass this resolution to authorize them to sign with the new insurance carrier so that come October 1^st, our valued employees would have a superior insurance product and you, our valued residents and taxpayers, would have a quarter million dollar savings.  Let me put that in perspective.  That quarter million dollars will pay for two fully outfitted policemen, with police car, equipment, training and everything else.

“So, Councilwoman Smith’s irresponsible action today almost cost the city the ability to take $250,000.00, which could be used for something else.  And I want to send a special thank you to you, Councilman Anthony DeFillipo, because he is here with his foot bandaged up after having a surgery this morning.  He came here because it was that important to him.  And I hope that you remember about who cares about the position here and about this city.

“I’m sorry to have to say it that way, but when somebody repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly behaves irresponsibly, I have to address it.  Thank you very much.”

Phyllis Smith not only screwed with the employees and residents of North Miami Beach, but also wasted over thirty minutes of their lives that they’ll never get back.  This woman is filled with a false sense of power and self-importance unlike anyone has seen since the days of Myron Rosner.

This insanity must stop.  Phyllis Smith needs to be muzzled before she pulls this shit again.  After hearing what the Mayor had to say, I have a feeling he’s finally had enough, too.

In the meantime, however, the next time you see Tony DeFillipo, please thank him for his generous and selfless service to the City of North Miami Beach.

The employees and residents truly owe Tony a great big round of applause for being the Hero of the Day, and certainly, the Man of the Year!

Stephanie