The Opa-locka Mayor and Commission are finally looking to replace their ethically challenged and fiscally irresponsible … and questionably intelligent City Attorney, Vincent T. Brown.
Item 4 on the agenda for tonight’s Regular Commission Meeting authorizes the issuance of a request for proposal for a new attorney. The proposed Resolution also calls for a a committee to review and recommend a firm to serve as the Opa-locka City Attorney.
This move is a no-brainer considering the fact that he’s been bankrupting the cash-strapped city by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to his cronies and pocketing over a million dollars as payment for his bad legal advice.
As we’ve already reported, in the case of Universal Waste Service of Florida vs. City of Opa-locka, et. al., Vincent Brown hired Holland & Knight to defend the city, which has billed a total of $143,919.88 from March 6, 2017 through May 7, 2018. The city has still not released the firm’s legal bills for June, July or August, 2018, which will easily add another $50,000.00 to the already outrageous bill.
On top of that, City Attorney Vincent T. Brown and former City Manager Yvette Harrell hired another one of his comrades at the high-priced Florida firm of Berger Singerman to defend them personally in this lawsuit. So far, this firm has billed the city a total of $73,217.27.
This lawsuit has been in the court system for twenty five months now, and there is no end in sight. To date, all of the city’s motions to dismiss have been denied, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars have been wasted.
Vincent Brown also convinced the former Mayor and Commission to pass a Resolution to hire Kozyak Tropan Throckmorton to defend a class action lawsuit against the city filed by “aggrieved residents, businesses, and City water customers in order to obtain much needed relief and recovery from the City’s flawed and corrupt water billing system,” who are represented by none other than the formidable dynamic duo of Michael A. Pizzi and Benedict P. Kuehne, who take no prisoners.
So far, Brown has authorized payments to KTT for legal bills in the amount of $188,785.08, including “breakfast and lunch meetings” at various local restaurants, including Sacha’s, Dunkin Donuts and Panera Bread.
And that’s not including the outside counsel’s December, 2018 bill to the nearly broke City of Opa-locka, which we have yet to receive.
Not surprisingly, Opa-locka has so far paid only $1,080.00 of those mounting fees.
The good news is that by tonight, Vincent T. Brown will most likely be looking for another job.
Unless the Mayor and Commission fall for Brown’s latest ploy to save his job.
On January 4, 2019, Vincent Brown issued a memo, and attached legal opinion, in which he’s claiming that it is illegal for the Mayor and Commission fire his firm, The Brown Group, LLC., and he’s threatening a lawsuit if they go through with it.
Brown’s basing his “brilliant” opinion on the 2nd Amended Law Firm Agreement (see page 70 of the Agenda) that he quickly pushed through last September while the corrupt Myra Taylor was still Mayor.
This Amendment calls for a one year contract beginning March 5, 2019 at a present monthly rate of $19,800.00, or a preposterous $237,600.00 a year.
His fee alone, however, is less than half the city’s 2019 budget of $507,874.00 for the Office of City Attorney, which is over $100,000.0 more than it costs to run the City Manager’s office.
For good measure, Brown also included a clause stating that as soon as the state oversight board completes its work, his fee will increase to a preposterous $22,500.00 a month, or $270,000.00 a year.
Unfortunately, the firing of Vincent Brown won’t help Opa-locka’s other ongoing problems, not the least of which includes the pending payout of a whistleblower judgment won last November by Miami Lakes Attorney Mike “Pitbull” Pizzi (and this blogger’s lawyer) on behalf of former Finance Director Charmaine Parchment.
On top of that loss, Brown also just lost an appeal that will cost the city another $121,000.00.
The Opa-locka Mayor and Commission need to give Vincent T. Brown the boot tonight while they still have enough money to keep the lights on.
They should also not be cowed by his threat of a lawsuit.
He hasn’t won a case yet.
UPDATE: The Opa-locka Commission voted to fire Brown on Wednesday night.
Pop some corn and read all about it here: Wanted: A winning, less-costly city attorney
Stephanie
Enough is Enough
Abolished this city and force a takeover by the City of Miami Gardens along with incorporating the area between NW 47 Avenue to NW 57 Avenue from the Palmetto Expressway to the county line. The City of Miami Gardens can increase their city council from nine members to eleven members which includes two new districts – Historic East Opa Locka / Bunche Park District and Historic West Opa Locka / STU, FMU, and Opa Locka Airport and Industrial Park District. It will eliminate most of top heavy administrative and overpaid directors of Opa Locka. Allow the good administrators of Miami Gardens to conduct and interview the remaining city employees to see who to keep and who to dismiss. Major cost savings and better delivery of municipal services to a better municipal entity. Do the same thing with El Portal, Biscayne Park, Florida City, and North Bay Village.
This tirade is lacking facts. The cost of legally representing a City who’s being sued by everyone and their cousins due to corruption, mismanagement of funds, etc should probably be higher than this. And if you have to pay a firm $100k to defend a multimillion dollar lawsuit then it’s a no brainer. Moreover, The writer of this “blog” should really do a comparative analysis on what City Attorneys make in Miami Dade County and it’s municipalities and then consider the discount Opa-locka has been getting. And to be honest, you seem really proud to have Pizzi as your attorney which is ironic because he makes the bulk of his money these days off of suing Opa-locka and/or representing its former employees and politicians. Furthermore, a lot of the documents you refer to are public record… you should pull one to see what it actually says. I’ve always hope Opa-locka got it together but it’s thought processes like this that keep it where it’s at, there’s not a whole fact nor logical notion in sight. People just spew what they’ve heard or read somewhere based on god know what and that doesn’t make it true or offer information to base solutions on.
Also note: “per diem” is billed by most attorneys for meals on the date of depositions and/or hearings. This is money for meals ….
Thank you for sharing.
We refer you to the Miami Herald article (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-gardens/article224085860.html), which delves even deeper into the public records that I did receive and review, and which you infer that I didn’t bother to read. Your insinuation is incorrect.
Furthermore, we have no need to defend Mr. Pizzi, whose record speaks for itself. For purposes of transparency and disclosure, we do state that he is our attorney.
Thank you again for your comment and for reading this blog.
Perhaps you could give the readers a break down and comparative analysis of what City Attorneys in Miami Dade County make. Also could you be so kind to show us the billing records of Mr. Pizzi that show he makes the bulk of his money suing Opa-locka and/ or representing its former employees and politicians. Please just the facts.
Have a wonderful day.
Unfortunately, I cannot find a database of city attorney salaries in Miami Dade County, but I did find a link stating that the average city attorney in Florida makes $99.6k (https://www.lawcrossing.com/salaries/q-city-attorney-l-Florida-jobs.html).
Mr. Pizzi’s billing records are private since he is not a public servant. Invoices billed to any government agency are public and available by public records request to the individual municipalities. I do not, however, believe that he has billed the City of Opa-locka since he has not represented that city as far as I’m aware.