If North Miami Beach residents are embarrassed that their always inappropriate, and fraudulently re-elected, “commissioner” Phyllis Smith represents them on the dais, they should be positively mortified that she was the face of North Miami Beach in Monaco last March.

Just imagine the crème de la crème of Europe gentility,  cringing in horror while watching Phyllis stuffing food into her mouth and shoving leftovers into her oversized handbag as if it were her last meal on earth.

Imagine how His Serene Highness Prince Albert II  suffered in polite silence every time Phyllis held him hostage by her nonsensical bloviating as he searched desperately for the nearest escape route.

Oh, the horror!

It’s bad enough that Phyllis Smith stole absentee ballots to “win” the election, but the fact that she stole tax dollars to subsidize her European vacation is an absolute travesty.

In August of 2016, the City Council passed Resolution R2016-52, approving the acceptance of a donation of a piece of art worth $3,319.00 from Stéphane Bolongaro, “a reputable French artist known for his sculptures.”

Like Phyllis, the artist is also not the sharpest knife seeing as how he didn’t realize NMB wasn’t Miami Beach.

But, I digress.

After the city accepted the gift of the sculpture, the artist felt compelled to invite the Mayor to visit his art show in Monaco.

The artist then followed up this invitation with details of the offered trip:

The invitation was discussed at the October 4, 2016 Council meeting, and of course, Phyllis was the first one to “volunteer” to go on the trip.

Despite the fact that none of the other elected officials deemed it appropriate to accept this “gift” (which City Attorney Jose Smith advised was allowed as long as they reported it as such), Phyllis didn’t hesitate to pack her bags and go off on a seven day vacation across the pond.

She also dragged along Chief of Staff Nicole Gomez to keep her company on the week-long trek through Europe.  Poor Nicole!  Just imagine being forced to squeeze into a seat next to Phyllis for an interminable 11 hours and 48 minutes straight while flying 39,000 feet in the air absolutely no escape route.  And then doing it all over again on the way back.  We hope she received combat pay for her act of valor.

As embarrassing as it was to have Phyllis Smith represent the City of North Miami Beach in Monaco, residents were also forced to subsidize a trip that was 100% fully paid for by the artist, Stéphane Bolongaro.

According to the Form 9 she filed as required by Florida law, Phyllis reported receiving a total gift of $7,000.00, claiming $1,000.00 for food.

And yet, Phyllis also submitted a Travel Expense Report to the city and was reimbursed the amount of $544.00 for food.

Can anyone say “double dipping?”

Furthermore, Phyllis attached an itemized breakdown of the $7,000.00 to her Form 9:

Aside from billing taxpayers for food she already received for free, Phyllis mysteriously reported a miscellaneous gift in the amount of $1,900.00 without disclosing a description of the gift.

Since the nature of that gift is a public record, on October 11, 2017, I made the following request to the North Miami Beach City Clerk:

“With regard to the attached Form 9 filed by Phyllis Smith, and her declaration of the sum of $1,900.00 for “misc. gift,” and pursuant to Article I, section 24 of the Florida Constitution, and chapter 119, F.S., I am requesting an itemized breakdown of this $1,900.00.”

After I was advised that the city did not have this information, I responded with, “Please understand that you probably need to get this information directly from Phyllis Smith.”  I also noted that if Phyllis refused to respond, I will have no choice but to file formal complaints with the both the Miami-Dade County and the Florida Ethics Commissions, as well as the Florida Elections Commission.

On November 13, 2017, over a month after I first made the public records request, the Clerk advised that an answer would be forthcoming “within the week.”

Earlier this evening, I finally received this response (fittingly highlighted in Phyllis Smith Screaming Yellow):

Um, yeah.  Seems legit, right?

I immediately wrote back and asked how much each item allegedly cost.  Let’s see how long that takes.  I’ll get back to you on that.

Faux “commissioner” Phyllis Smith was not legitimately re-elected in May, 2015.  She “won” the election in a runoff by 75 votes, even though more than 100 of them were due to absentee ballot fraud.

Phyllis’ opponent, Michael Joseph, filed a lawsuit after obtaining affidavits from over 100 voters who stated they requested absentee ballots from the elections department, but never received them.

When many of those affiants attempted to vote in person on election day, they were told they already voted by absentee ballot.  Others simply didn’t cast an absentee ballot, yet their votes were mysteriously counted when the results were tabulated.  Some folks who did receive their ballots in the mail claimed that they were personally picked up by a third party, who promised to deliver them to the elections department.

All of which is illegal.

Then again, if every corrupt politician got what they deserved, more prisons would have to be built.

Regardless of all the illegally cast absentee ballots, Michael Joseph still should have won in a landslide.

It’s appalling that Phyllis Smith, who is nothing but a liar and a cheat, received even one legitimate vote.

Are North Miami Beach residents embarrassed by Phyllis Smith yet?

If not, they should be!

Stephanie