The members of the North Miami Beach City Commission violated so may rules, resolutions, ordinances and laws at their Thursday night meeting, it would be impossible to enumerate them all in one blog post.  Then again, considering that currently only two out of seven on that dais were duly and/or legitimately elected to the seats they occupy, it’s hardly surprising that they have no clue what they’re doing.

Apparently, they can’t even figure out how to fire anyone properly.

Aside from Tony DeFillipo and Barbara Kramer, both of whom were elected by a majority vote of North Miami Beach registered voters, Phyllis Smith and Frantz Pierre narrowly “won” their seats back by absentee ballot fraud.  Neither of them were legitimately “re-elected,” and both of whom should be recalled from office.

Beth Spiegel, Fortuna Smukler and Ingrid Forbes were appointed by their colleagues on the dais as seat fillers until November, at which time the electorate will be able to exercise their right to actually choose their legitimate representatives.

In the meantime, however, this rogue group of mostly unelected individuals will have way too much time to make major decisions that will impact the lives of the 43,000 plus residents of North Miami Beach, who presently have no voice at City Hall.

Judging by this group’s record of misconduct and poor decisions, it’s going to be a long, treacherous five months indeed.

Item 11 of the Commission Meeting Agenda for June 28, 2018 was posted for the “discussion on removal/termination” of City Attorney Jose Smith and City Manager Ana Garcia.

Thirty minutes into the meeting, this item was placed on the table for discussion, and the next six hours became a train wreck of epic proportions.

Because it was literally excruciating to watch all of it in one sitting, we couldn’t begin to document the entire disastrous evening in one column.  For now, we’ll report on the coordinated attack on the City Attorney during the first half of the NMB Circus disguised as a commission meeting, and we’ll cover the lambasting of Ana Garcia in a second installment.

Appointed Mayor Beth Spiegel started by passing the gavel to the fraudulently re-elected, and recently appointed Vice Mayor, Frantz Pierre (minute 25:30 of the video), and promptly moved to terminate City Attorney effective immediately.

Ms. Spiegel first briefly referenced Resolution R2016-82, which outlines the due process procedures for the removal of charter officers.  According to this Resolution, the Commission “recognizes that requiring its members to carefully consider a motion for removal, and affording the Charter Officer a meaningful opportunity to respond, makes the removal process more transparent and equitable to everyone concerned and is in the public interest.”

Although she claimed she wanted to fire the City Attorney without cause, in the next breath she proceeded to chronicle a laundry list of personal grievances against the City Attorney, including her claims that he attacked her on a “perceived slight,” charged her for public records, disrespected and interrupted her, and told her she was lying.  Spiegel then bemoaned that Jose Smith made poor litigation decisions, including the “removal of a duly elected commisdioner.”

You will recall that the fraudulently “re-elected” Faux Commissioner Frantz Pierre was officially vacated from his seat on January 17, 2018 for his failure “to attend a meeting of the City Commission for a period of one hundred and twenty (120) days,” according to Section 2.5 of the North Miami Beach City Charter.  Unfortunately, the matter ended up in court, where a final outcome has still not been decided.

Apparently, however, Appointed Mayor Spiegel seems to believe that the City Attorney’s enforcement of the City Charter’s attendance requirement is a reason to fire him.

As a result, Spiegel directly blamed Jose Smith for the city’s “being in the papers because we did not have a quorum.”

The fact that Jose Smith had no way of knowing at the time of the impending resignations of Commissioner Marlen Martell and Mayor Vallejo, and therefore was not at all responsible for the lost quorum, seems to have escaped the Appointed Mayor.

Another item Spiegel brought up was a November 4, 2015 email Mr. Smith sent to Joe Centorino of the Miami Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, claiming that “he violated Councilwoman Smith’s attorney client privilege.”

Newsflash:  Phyllis Smith is not and never was the client of City Attorney Smith.  His only client is the City of North Miami Beach, a/k/a the People of North Miami Beach.  All correspondences between the City Attorney and any other elected official, public official and city employee, as well as other public agencies, including the Commission on Ethics, is a matter of public record.  By disseminating a public record, Mr. Smith in no way violated any such “attorney client privilege.”

Ms. Spiegel was further upset that Jose Smith shared that email regarding Phyllis Smith with “Stephanie Kienzle, the local blogger, who blogs under VotersOpinion.com, and he disseminated that to the city council the next day, 24 hours later.”  She added, “I’m sorry, I don’t want my  City Attorney communicating with a blogger before he communicates with me as a council member.”

We again remind Ms. Spiegel that Jose Smith is not her  City Attorney, any more than he’s Phyllis Smith’s City Attorney.  His only client is the City of North Miami Beach, a/k/a the People of North Miami Beach.  As such, all correspondences between the City Attorney and the world at large is a matter of public record.

And finally, on an even pettier note, Ms. Spiegel referenced a “Facebook sponsored ad” (actually a now-defunct Facebook Group and not an ad, as Ms. Spiegel claimed) entitled NMB in the Know, which was created anonymously and for the purpose of slamming Beth Spiegel.  Her beef is that Jose Smith had the audacity to go “on that Facebook sponsored ad and LIKED  an erroneous, false posting about me.”  Several people, including this blogger, had tried to explain to her that Jose Smith was new to Facebook at the time and clicked the “LIKE” button merely to note that he read the post, and not because he approved of its content.  When Jose learned that clicking “LIKE,” in fact, meant approval by the reader, he quickly “UNLIKED” the post.  That should have been the end of it.  Apparently, she’s still taking that mistake personally.

Ms. Spiegel wrapped up her tirade by stating she lost confidence in “her”  City Attorney.  Although she claims she’s not asking that he be dismissed for cause, but that he just be dismissed, it didn’t stop her from airing her grievances against him and accusing him of wrongdoing.

As expected, Faux Commissioner Phyllis Smith hijacked the rest of the session and continued the trashing of Jose Smith for no other reason than to hog the spotlight and make an even bigger fool of herself.  In the interest of maintaining our own sanity, and preventing our eardrums from bleeding, we will refrain from listening to, and reporting on, her screeching diatribes any longer.  Feel free to watch the Phyllis Phreak Show at your own risk.

When interviewed, Jose Smith said of Ms. Spiegel’s comments, “It was vindictive and retaliatory.  Not only was it unnecessary, it was also false and defamatory.  She wanted to humiliate me on TV for resisting her bullying over the years.”

The Appointed Mayor’s trashing of City Attorney Smith in such an unseemly manner was eerily reminiscent of the time then-Councilman/Convicted Felon Myron Rosner took vicious pleasure in publicly berating and humiliating former City Manager Keven Klopp in 2008 from the dais before making a motion to fire him.

At that point, the North Miami Beach City Commissioners proceeded to violate yet another one of their own resolutions by not following the proper procedure regarding ex parte disclosures.

Again.

Because the attempted firing of the City Attorney and City Manager was deemed to be a quasi-judicial matter, each of the commissioners were required to state for the record the names of everyone with whom they discussed this issue, as well as the specific details of those communications.  This procedure is known as “Jennings disclosures,” per Jennings v. Dade County, 589 So. 2nd 1337.  When asked by the City Clerk to disclose those communications, each of them reiterated a list of names.  However, they failed to disclose any details of those communications.

You will recall the time Charles Baron, Esq., joined by Friends of Oleta River, et. al., sued the City of North Miami Beach to stop the development of a proposed hotel in the area of Greynolds Park.  Long story, short, this lawsuit eventually ended up in Appellate Court, after which the City lost in part because “due process was violated regarding full disclosure of the substance of ex parte communications as required by a city resolution.”

According to the Opinion of Appellate Court Judges Jeri B. Cohen, William Thomas, and Monica Gordo, the North Miami Beach council members violated their own “Resolution No. R95-24 because they failed to disclose any substantive details of their ex parte communications.”

Resolution No. R95-94 specifically states that council members must disclose not only the identity of the “person, group or entity making the disclosure,” but that such disclosure shall be part of the record on file with the city … available for public inspection prior to the public hearing on the matter.”  Furthermore, and even more importantly, the Resolution states, “Persons who have contrary opinions to those expressed in any ex parte communication shall be given reasonable opportunity to refute or respond to the communication.”

In the case of Friends of Oleta River, Inc., et. al., v. City of North Miami Beach, the Appellate Court opined in favor of the Petitioners, asserting that while each “council member stated that they had spoken to individuals,” they “did not disclose the subject matter of any ex parte communications,” and therefore, the “Petitioners were not given the reasonable opportunity to respond to the communications.”

The Appellate Court, in fact, specifically quoted the Petitioner Charles Baron, who said, “Now, when you all just say, ‘Yes, I spoke to somebody ‘, that does not disclose one iota of those conversations.  So how can you rebut, how can anybody at the meeting here rebut what was said in those conversations?  It is totally impossible.  You are violating your own code.”

By way of the Appellate Court decision, the Judges agreed with Mr. Baron, and declared, “The record evidence does not demonstrate that [the North Miami Beach City Council] followed its own disclosure requirements as provided in Resolution No. R95-24.”

By the same token, the so-called Jennings Disclosures made by the North Miami Beach Commissioners on Thursday, June 28, 2019, absolutely did not follow its own disclosure requirements as provided in the city’s own Resolution.

In light of the fact that the North Miami Beach City Commission failed miserably to comply with its own Resolution regarding ex parte communications, the entire meeting should be declared null and void.

In other words, “control, alt, delete.”

Just saying.

Considering this newfangled, appointed-not-elected NMB city commission has absolutely no clue about parliamentary procedure, due process, or proper Jennings Disclosures, they need to nullify the June 28, 2018 commission meeting and try it again.

In the hopes of getting it right next time.

However unlikely.

In the meantime, we concur with City Attorney Jose Smith’s statement, “No other city humiliates their Charter Officers like that. They are allowed to exit gracefully, with their dignity and integrity intact.  The deliberations were embarrassing not just for the elected officials but for all residents and business owners alike. It felt like a firing squad in a 3rd world country.  That was the point of the Resolution [R2016-82]: to allow for a smooth, elegant exit.”

Furthermore, Mr. Smith expounded, “In my lawsuit for breach of contract, wrongful termination, defamation, and for whistleblower retaliation, I will name and depose by videotape (under oath) each and everyone involved in this lynching to see who orchestrated it, and the motivations behind it. The truth will come out. Additionally, I will help (financially and otherwise) defeat every incumbent who played a part in this illegal “charade” because they shamelessly betrayed the public trust and the residents who elected them.”

The only Commissioner who did not participate in this illegal charade is Anthony “Tony” DeFilippo, who is currently running to be your Mayor.

As for the rest of them … well, let’s just say this swamp is in dire need of draining.

Just saying.

NMB residents deserve better.

Stephanie