After more than five years of patiently tolerating his “colleague” on the dais, North Miami Beach Mayor George Vallejo finally had enough of Phyllis Smith’s running off at the mouth with “misinformation,” innuendoes and outright lies.

At the last city council meeting on October 4, 2016, during the the second reading of Ordinance No. 2016-9, Quorum Required/Ethical Duty to Remain at City Council Meetings  – the very ordinance designed to prevent Phyllis from deliberately breaking quorum again – she lost whatever self-control she ever possessed.

At hour 1:27 of the video, Phyllis vehemently objected to the ordinance using the excuse that she left the August 25, 2016 special meeting because she was sick.  This, as everyone knows, is a BLATANT LIE.

She fumed when the Mayor told her to stay on topic, gathered her things, jumped out of her seat, and spat out, “Well, then I’ll leave because you don’t need me!”

When the Mayor tried to reason with her, she huffed, “NOPE!” as she stormed off the dais like a petulant, spoiled brat.

Now that she was finally being called on the carpet for breaking quorum, and forcing the council to pass an ordinance requiring her to stay in her seat and vote, she came up with the bogus excuse that she wasn’t feeling well.

Even more ridiculous, she actually expected that lie to fly.

For nearly seven minutes during discussion of the ordinance, Phyllis launched into her first of several incoherent rants of the evening while she told one bold faced lie after another.

As always, I took the time to transcribe word for word her staggeringly stupid tirade, which you can read in its full disjointed glory by clicking here:  Phyllis Insane Rant #4,297

For the sake of brevity, however, I’ll simply recap a few of the more egregious lies that Phyllis spewed while she held the audience hostage with her bloviating.

PHYLLIS SMITH LIE #1 DEBUNKED:

Phyllis tried to argue that, if passed, the ordinance would violate HIPPA laws.  The ordinance, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with HIPPA laws.  The Mayor rightly pointed out that the only correct legal advice, especially with respect to HIPPA laws, should come from the city attorney.  Not Phyllis.

Accordingly, City Attorney Jose Smith explained, “There is nothing in the ordinance, in any way, shape or form, that requires anyone to disclose any HIPPA protected information, which essentially means medical issues that anybody would have as an excuse to leave.  All you would need to do is say that you have a medical emergency and that you need to leave.”

The Mayor then clarified, “So what was said publicly here a few minutes ago is, in fact, not correct as it relates to this ordinance.  That clears up one item of misinformation.”

PHYLLIS SMITH LIE #2 DEBUNKED:

The Mayor then addressed Phyllis’ claim that “she spoke with the people at ethics and that they had no idea how to enforce this ordinance.”  Turning to City Attorney Smith, the Mayor asked him about his communications with the people from the Miami-Dade County ethics commission.  Since Mr. Smith – and not Phyllis – “is the city attorney who is drafting the ordinance,” the Mayor asked him to “shed some light on what the truth is about that matter.”

Mr. Smith said, “I spoke several times with [ethics commission executive director] Mr. Centorino, who was here.  Mr. Centorino was very helpful in putting this ordinance together.  And, while he would hope that he never has to enforce it, he said that if somebody brought a charge that could be documented, that he would enforce it.”

Mayor Vallejo then announced that Phyllis’ remark “would be another piece of misinformation that is now clarified for the record.”

PHYLLIS SMITH LIE #3 DEBUNKED:

Phyllis also claimed several times that “there’s a full blown investigation” of the employees’ health insurance plan.

In response to that comment, Mayor Vallejo asked for clarification from the staff.

City Manager Ana Garcia spoke first, emphatically stating, “There is no investigation at all going on in regards to how we procured the insurance, be it legally, illegally, or unethically.  On the contrary, we went through the proper steps of procurement to be able to get [insurance agency] Brown & Brown to assist us.”

City Attorney Jose Smith added that there were “allegations made by a former employee of the HR department,” which was being investigated by an independent attorney from Palm Beach with expertise in employment claims.  Mr. Smith noted that the investigation will be completed within the week, but emphasized that “it has nothing at all to do with the insurance company, or the brokerage, or anybody else.  It has to do simply with the allegations made by a former employee against the HR director and others in the department.”

And the Mayor said, “Okay.  Another piece of misinformation corrected.  Thank you!”

PHYLLIS SMITH LIE #4 DEBUNKED:

Mayor Vallejo’s final response to Phyllis is worth repeating word for word:

“I take great offense that you sit there and talk to the public and basically tell lies about me because you said something that I was not going to allow voting on the budget – and I’ll let you correct that if that’s incorrect.  You said that I said that we’re not gonna talk about it.  You said you didn’t like the way the chair runs the meetings.  That’s you’re opinion and you have a right to that opinion.  But there is no one up here that can say with a straight face that I’m not allowing anyone to express their opinion.  That’s a load of baloney!  You made an allegation that you feel the city is being steered, not best practices.  You know, those are insults to the rest of the people on the council.  Those are insults to the professional staff, but yet, you throw them out every single meeting.  I take offense at that.  You say that the chair doesn’t recognize you.  This chair has always recognized everybody here who has wanted to be recognized when they were in order.  So that is another LIE!  And then, of course, you mentioned something about money wasted – ‘the mayor wasn’t here at a budget something … no phone call.’  There was a quorum here.  The meeting could have started.  So you’re just trying to take little shots at me.  And, that’s what you’ve done for five years.  And, you know what?  They’re just not gonna happen anymore.  Because if you get up here and if you mislead the public, I’m gonna set the record straight.”

At that point the Mayor took pity on her and stopped enumerating her lies, but the point was made.

After almost ten years of having to suffer through Phyllis Smith’s embarrassing herself and the entire city with her incessant bloviating, she was finally put in her place.  It was a beautiful thing!

Any normal person would have been sufficiently subdued for the remainder of the meeting after being so severely spanked.

But not Phyllis.

In fact, it got even worse.

At one point, Phyllis had the sheer chutzpah to claim that there is a voting “bloc” of four who decide everything, insinuating that the other three merely watch them “run the city.”  She even complained that the “city is being steered.”

Ironically, she didn’t have a problem having been part of a voting “bloc” that was purposely created to render the votes of the then-mayor and one other council member completely ineffective.

Beginning in 2007, Mayor Ray Marin and Councilman Jay Chernoff were consistently out voted by the “fab five” (which, at the time included council member Myron Rosner and the newly elected Phyllis and Frantz Pierre), all of whom were rewarded handsomely for “steering the city” at the whim of their benefactor, a wealthy resident who selfishly fought against development.

Now that Phyllis is on the receiving end of the same strategy she herself employed, I bet Ray and Jay are having the much-deserved last laugh!

And because she just can’t help herself, Phyllis blurted her final lie of the evening during the Council Committee Reports.

Completely out of the blue she announced, “I actually had a 102 fever and I stood on 35th Avenue with that fever for four hours campaigning for our Mayor the first time he ran and I don’t regret it.”

Wait, WHAT???

For the record, when Phyllis stood out on 35th Avenue campaigning, IT WAS ONLY FOR HERSELF!

She never, ever, EVER  held a George Vallejo sign or wore a George Vallejo tee-shirt!

In fact, she waffled between supporting George Vallejo and his opponent depending on whose signs were in the yard of the houses she visited.

It’s not surprising that Phyllis lied about something that happened five years ago, she can’t even keep her story straight during the course of a council meeting.

This is a woman who in one breath praised the city by saying, “We have a phenomenal thing going on here,” when just 90 minutes earlier she was complaining that the city was being “steered” by the evil “bloc of four.”

This is a woman who committed absentee ballot fraud to “win” her re-election, but claims, “My conscience is clear.”

This is a woman who never fails to show up for photo-ops at city events financed by the very budgets she consistently votes against.

This is a woman who inexplicably justified not voting for the budget by complaining about “heavy dollars for senior management,” capping that comment off with a Classic Phyllisism:

“It’s not what you pay for the help, it’s who the help is.”

Then again, what else can anyone expect from a woman who came up with the moronic idea of giving out Ziploc bags of sand from North Miami Beach’s NON-EXISTENT beach in order to lure visitors!

Nothing says “Welcome to North Miami Beach” like advertising the abject failure of a previous administration’s decision to sell off its beachfront property.

And nothing says “hypocrisy” like using the city’s official logo for personal recognition without a council vote.

Yeah, she is a special kind of stupid.

I couldn’t even begin to cover all the lies and utter nonsense that came out of Phyllis’ mouth at the October 4, 2016 meeting because, even though this blog was long enough, all of Phyllis’ lies really need to be recorded for posterity.

Or, to use another hysterical Phyllisism, they “need to go on the record in pertuity.”

Stephanie