A disturbing pattern of corruption, cover up, and retaliation is rapidly emerging as yet another North Miami employee lodges a complaint for being fired for blowing the whistle.

Lawyers for the newly terminated Assistant Budget Director Terry Henley sent a letter on September 21, 2018, to City Attorney Jeff Cazeau, which exposed serious problems with the city’s proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2018.

The big question is “When will elected officials wake up and smell the coffee?”

According to William R. Armlong, Esq., Mr. Henley was offered “hush-money” to “go quietly away as City Manager Larry Spring and [Deputy Manager Arthur] Sorey push through what looks like a $70 million balanced budget, but one that really conceals $7 million to $20 million in deficits.”

The letter describes in great detail a series of events beginning on August 27, 2017, when the now-former Assistant Budget Director “began alerting Messrs. Spring and Sorey to the precariousness of the City’s financial situation.”

He was ignored.

Henley again warned the City Manager and his Deputy on June 13, 2018 of a “$22 million deficit in the development of the FY 19 Preliminary Budget.”

Again, he was ignored.

Mr. Amlong recounted how Spring and Sorey had been taking money from the city’s “water plant revenue and storm water funds to plug the gaps in the budget – similar to the use of restricted funds that occurred at the City of Miami during Mr. Spring’s tenure as its Chief Financial Officer, which gave rise to the City of Miami’s being hit with a $1 million securities fraud judgment by the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

Hmmm.  Now, where have we heard that before?

Oh, yeah.  Right here at VotersOpinion!

On February 24, 2016, the day after the Council made its final decision to hire Larry Spring, we wrote:

Mayor Smith Joseph called Mr. Spring to the podium for a grilling about his position as the former CFO at the City of Miami during an SEC civil securities investigation.  Mr. Spring was never charged with any crime (although a former budget director was).  Nevertheless, Aleem Ghany hired him as North Miami’s Finance Director despite his being under that cloud of suspicion.  Although the Mayor challenged Mr. Spring to convince him to vote for him, he didn’t appear to be reassured.

Undeterred by his questionable background, Larry Spring was hired by a 3-2 vote, with the approval of Council members Philippe Bien-Aime, Scott Galvin and Carol Keys.  Mayor Smith Joseph and Councilman Alix Desulme smartly voted no.

More recently, in “It’s Miami, Bitches!” Al Crespo on “irrepressible scalawag,” North Miami City Manager Larry Spring,  we reposted a scathing column by blogger Al Crespo, in which he wrote:

He was the CFO when the city falsified its comprehensive annual financial reports in 2007 and 2008, and sold $153 million of municipal bonds to investors. During his years as CFO, the city fraudulently transferred millions of dollars from restricted capital project funds into the general operating fund to conceal declining fund balance that resulted in what became known as the SEC case that cost taxpayers millions in penalties and attorneys fees.

Spring’s tenure as the City’s Chief Financial Officer also included the attempt in early 2011 to bribe then embattled Chief of Police Miguel Exposito to resign.

By mid-summer of this year, Deputy City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey seemed to be getting annoyed that Terry Henley kept harping on Sorey’s fraudulent proposed budget.

According to Mr. Amlong’s letter, Sorey told Henley that if any problems arose, he would be “the fall guy on this one.”  Sorey then did what he always does – point a finger right back at his accuser by accusing Henley “of attempting to sabatoge” him.

On August 9, 2018, Mr. Henley again tried to alert Spring and Sorey that “the budget called for spending $11,056,405 that the City did not have (or have any reasonable expectation of getting through normal revenue streams).”

Sorey responded by ordering him “to paint a rosier picture” of the proposed budget by including $1,357,140 in imaginary revenue that “had already been accounted for in prior years” as well as $1,682,717 of “nonexistent ‘surplus’ money.”

By August 25, 2018, Henley alerted Larry Spring that there was still a $4.9 million deficit.  In response, Spring told Henley “to free up $3 million in the unallocated reserve to use for such general-fund purposes as payroll.”

Interestingly, Resident Budget Watchers have complained to VotersOpinion that this “unallocated reserve” was set up for non-existent employment positions that were created and budgeted for, but never filled.  One such imaginary position has been on the books for three years, and the funds budgeted for that position has been used to cover shortfalls in previous fraudulent budgets.

William R. Amlong, Esq. closed his letter advising Jeff Cazeau that his client was “fired so shortly after he vehemently objected to the cowboy-style budgeting approach embraced by Messrs. Spring and Sorey.”

Furthermore, Mr. Amlong stressed that Henley’s firing “for incompetence is inconsistent with his record of performance over five years of holding progressively more responsible positions with the City.”

Mr. Henley is demanding to be reinstated with back pay and attorneys’ fees.  If the city refuses, his lawyer will “move immediately to Circuit Court” since this is “a winning whistle-blower case.”

On Monday, September 17, 2018, North Miami held a Special Meeting 2nd Budget Hearing, and approved what appears to be a fraudulent budget.

On Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at a Regular Council Meeting, the spending spree will begin.

As is typically the case in North Miami, this current fiscal and legal fiasco was completely preventable.

After conducting an alleged national search to replace former City Manager Aleem Ghany, the city received applications from a total of 56 individuals from all over the country, many of them with stellar resumes.  Instead of giving any of them serious consideration for the position, the Mayor and Council did what they always do – scour the bowels of City Hall under the misguided belief that hiring from within is better than hiring an actual professional to fill the most important job in the City of North Miami.

We tried to warn them.  In fact, back in February 2016, we cautioned:

In a perfect world, the Mayor and Council would hire someone from the “outside” with absolutely no political ties to anyone in North Miami.

In municipalities with a manager/council form of government, such as North Miami, the city manager is the most powerful employee on the payroll. He or she is considered to be the Chief Executive Officer of the municipality.

As such, the city manager is the single most important employee in the entire City of North Miami. The individual who fills this position must be experienced, intelligent, honest, of good character and sound judgment.

The city manager, who will be responsible for a multi-million dollar municipal budget, must be able to demonstrate a fiduciary responsibility to manage money.

Because of the shortsightedness of the Mayor and Council, their chickens are now coming home to roost.

Instead of doing the right thing, the elected officials chose to appoint Larry Spring, whose verifiable history of fiscal incompetence and ethical malfeasance was publicly established.

Instead of cleaning house, the newly minted City Manager retained the same incompetent batch of miscreants who had been mismanaging the city for years.

For some incomprehensible reason, instead of giving a pink slip to the man who was his competitor for the City Manager job, Larry Spring decided to make Duke Sorey his Deputy.

Arthur “Duke” Sorey was already infamous for his fiscal mismanagement, as evidenced by his being sued by his first mortgage company for foreclosure, as well as by Capital One Bank (USA), N.A. for non-payment of a small credit card bill that he refused to pay.

Deputy Duke was also exposed for his questionable home purchase/loan through the city’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

Sorey then went on to negate the intention of North Miami’s Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP) by hiring even higher salaried employees under the Friends & Family Plan, thus increasing the payroll instead of reducing it by 30% as planned.

Larry Spring also retained the incompetent Police Chief Leonard Burgess even though he had more than enough reason to fire him.

You will recall Chief Lenny’s tenure as Chief of Police was a hot mess, including his refusal to fire a serial predator cop, lying about his own past sexual harassment charges, fudging of crime stats, failure to alert the public about dangerous suspects on the loose, and refusal to issue press releases about armed home invasions in Keystone Point and Griffing Park Estates.  In the end, Chief Lenny was forced to resign when the police department failed it’s accreditation assessment.

Larry Spring then appointed Gary Eugene as the Chief of Police whose tenure was disastrously interrupted when the questionably hired Police Officer Jonathan Aledda unjustifiably shot an unarmed black man who was helping his autistic patient.

Even though neither was at fault for the shooting, Chief Eugene and his newly appointed Commander Emile Hollant were both scapegoated by then-Assistant Chief Larry Juriga, who was still smarting at being passed over for appointment to Chief.

With Gary Eugene conveniently out of the way, Juriga convinced Larry Spring to appoint him as Interim Chief until a permanent one could be hired.

Despite all of Larry Juriga’s baggage, including his part in the department’s loss of accreditation, and his gouging the city for a quarter million dollars over a laughable “redneck” discrimination complaint, Spring chose him over 22 applicants, most of whom were infinitely more qualified than Juriga.

Most baffling of all, however, is Larry Spring’s hiring, and retention, of former Miami Assistant Police Chief (and former husband of NMPD’s Assistant Chief Franzia Brea) Adam Lucious Burden as the city’s “Police Consultant” at a part-time salary of $113,100.00!

As we previously reported, Burden “is so unqualified as a ‘police consultant,’ he couldn’t even get hired as the police chief for tiny North Bay Village when he recently interviewed for the job.  Then again, City Manager Larry Spring owes him big time for saving his ass from getting indicted during the City of Miami SEC scandal.”

Larry Spring initially hired Burden to oversee the police department under the guise that he had no confidence in Gary’s ability to lead.  Eugene has been gone since July 7, 2017 – over fourteen months ago – yet Burden is still on contract with the City of North Miami!

Why?

If Larry Spring is so convinced that Larry Juriga was the right choice, why is there still a “Police Consultant” overseeing the police department?

Yeah, we’re still shaking our heads over that one.

In the meantime, Terry Henley should steel himself for what will undoubtedly happen next.

We have already witnessed the public trashing of “fall guys” Chief Gary Eugene and Commander Emile Hollant over the Jonathan Aledda shooting.

By the same token, Terry Henley should be prepared to have his life, career and reputation annihilated by Larry Spring and Duke Sorey in an attempt to justify his retaliatory firing.

City Manager Larry Spring and Deputy Duke Sorey have already proven beyond all doubt that they are absolutely unfit to be running the City of North Miami and administering its multi-million dollar budget.

The retaliatory firing of Assistant Budget Director Terry Henley for exposing their bogus budget and collusion to cover up its deficiencies, is just more proof of Spring’s and Sorey’s incompetence and corruption.

If this latest unmasking of fraud and corruption doesn’t compel the Mayor and Council to fire Larry Spring, North Miami residents need to send them a clear message by voting them all out of office and replacing them with representatives who will make the right decisions.

North Miami residents deserve better.

Stephanie