The good news is that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to run for office, especially in the Village of El Portal.

The bad news is that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to run for office, especially in the Village of El Portal.

In fact, once elected, it appears that an El Portal Councilperson isn’t even required to understand, much less comply with, the municipality’s own Code of Ordinances, the Miami-Dade County’s Code of Ethics, or Florida Public Records laws.

Councilperson Vimari Roman, for example, who seems to be relying on the “legal” opinion of the Village’s second-rate municipal lawyer, has managed to violate all three in the last month alone.

That we know of anyway.

We imagine she’s been doing it long before she had the misfortune of getting our attention.

Then again, if Norman Powell is giving her advice, we’re not surprised.  This is the same municipal lawyer who’s unclear on the concept of “free speech,” as well as the difference between fact and opinion, and then files SLAPP suits against bloggers who dare write the truth about him.

For example, it’s a documented fact that El Portal Interim Village Attorney Norman Christopher Powell was arrested on a concealed weapons charge on February 13, 2018.  Ironically, his adult son was arrested less than a year later on January 2, 2019 on the very same criminal charge.  Mysteriously, in both arrests, the prosecutors entered a nolle prosequi several months after the respective arrests because they were unwilling to pursue the cases.  It’s good to be a Powell, eh?

Based on the undisputed documented fact that Norman was arrested on a criminal charge, it is our unambiguous opinion that he’s ethically-challenged.

Due to the documented fact that Norman is suing not one, but two bloggers for publicizing his arrest, among several of his other ethically-challenged actions, it is our unambiguous opinion that his Douche Nozzle of the Year Award was well deserved.

See how that works?

Meanwhile, the other ethically-challenged El Portal public official, Vimari Roman, has plenty of problems of her own.

Vimari got her feelings hurt after we posted El Portal: South Florida’s shadiest little Village just got a whole lot shadier! on June 22, 2020, and we called her out for pretending not to know that Norman Powell’s contract was not negotiated by outside counsel representing the Village’s interests.

In Jorge L. Fernandez v The City of Miami, the former City Attorney sued his employer for what he claimed was a breach of contract regarding a severance package described in a “term sheet” that he prepared and presented to the City Commission.  This “term sheet” was part of a memorandum in which he evaluated his own performance for the purpose of requesting a pay increase.  While his then-current contract included an optional severance package at the discretion of the City Commission, his new contract included an unconditional severance.

The 11th Judicial Circuit Court deemed that that the “term sheet” included in the contract was “ambiguous” and ruled against the Plaintiff.

Fernandez then filed an appeal with the Third District Court of Appeal, which affirmed the lower court decision in a ruling which noted that:

There was no independent legal review, on behalf of the City, of the proposed changes. There was no suggestion by Mr. Fernandez that such a review would be appropriate. There was no disclosure during the Commission meeting that the memorandum from a Commissioner describing Mr. Fernandez’s job performance had actually been authored by Mr. Fernandez.

As a public officer in a local government, Mr. Fernandez was subject to Florida’s statutory declaration of policy that such officers are “agents of the people and hold their positions for the benefit of the public.” As the City Attorney responsible for advising and protecting the City of Miami in legal matters, Mr. Fernandez was required to “represent his client and handle his affairs with the utmost degree of honesty, forthrightness, loyalty and fidelity.”

Mr. Fernandez’s attempt to reap the benefit of his own breaches of those duties should not be countenanced, as the trial court found. The final judgment and orders on attorney’s fees and costs are affirmed.

The Plaintiff then turned to the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled the “Third District’s sound decision to stand,” with the explanation that:

As the Third District explained, the statutory “right to negotiate compensation . . . is not a license to ghostwrite a memorandum for a Commissioner suggesting material changes that redound exclusively to the benefit of the municipal attorney without proposing or suggesting any independent legal review.”

The major reason for the rulings of both the Appellate and Supreme Courts was the fact that the former Miami City Attorney never advised his client (The City Of Miami) with whom he was negotiating his employment contract, to hire outside counsel to represent its own best interests.

In fact, in a January 3, 2019 letter to Sunny Isles Beach Mayor George “Bud” Scholl from Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust Executive Director Jose Arrojo regarding Section 2.11-1 of the Ethics Code relating to the “recommendation and retention of outside counsel when reviewing the terms and conditions of employment of municipal employees,” he wrote:

Which brings us back to Norman Powell.

When he prepared and negotiated his own employment contract with the Village of El Portal, the Interim City Attorney never advised his client (The Village of El Portal) with whom he was negotiating his employment contract, to hire outside counsel to represent its own best interests.

More importantly, as noted by the Third District Court, Norman’s proposed contract included “material changes that redound exclusively to [his own benefit] without proposing or suggesting any independent legal review.”

Norman apparently wasn’t aware that the Third District Court of Appeals had already ruled in Fernandez v Miami that by not disclosing to the Miami Commission that he negotiated his own contract, City Attorney Fernandez did not “represent his client and handle his affairs with the utmost degree of honesty, forthrightness, loyalty and fidelity.”

In other words, by doing the exact same thing, Norman engaged in self-dealing, as well as a conflict of interest.

Norman, however, was very well aware of Jose Arrojo’s opinion, because he was the municipal lawyer for North Bay Village when his letter was included in its January 8, 2019 Regular Commission Meeting Agenda for Item 15(D)(1)  “DISCUSSION ON VILLAGE ATTORNEY.”

But this isn’t about Norman … per se.  [Wink, wink.]

This is about El Portal Councilperson Vimari Roman who, as it turns out, was the only person who “helped” Norman when he drafted his own proposed employment contract that he presented at the May 19, 2020 Administration & Finance Committee meeting for approval.

While Councilperson Vimari Roman, who is not a lawyer, and who was not in the position to advise the Village Attorney how to be a lawyer, had no business “representing” him and submitting his contract for approval at the A&F Committee meeting.

As it turns out, that was the least of Vimari’s ethical, and possibly legal, problems.

In our column, El Portal: The Saga of Norman Powell’s “All-Inclusive” Contract Continues…, we reported that the very next day after we outed her for lying about there being no outside counsel hired to negotiate Norman’s contract, Vimari read a “statement” near the end of the June 23, 2020 Council meeting, (hour 4:11:57 of the video).  In her “statement,” Vimari made several false accusations and told outright lies about this blogger, two of her own colleagues, and a Village employee.

In fact, Vimari’s “statement” was remarkably similar in pattern to Norman’s alleged defamation claims against two bloggers who routinely expose corruption in local government.  It sure seems as if Vimari used an attack strategy right out of Norman’s own playbook.

Let’s examine that pattern.

Norman Powell Attack Strategy #1:  Make false accusations against your adversaries.

Vimari Roman started off by saying, “A wise person once told me that smart people don’t respond to BS.  And although I agree with that statement, I also believe that when certain actions are taken against your professionalism and to defame your character, then at that point, that BS needs to be addressed.  Therefore, I am making this statement in response to a recent blog that twisted the facts to defame my character, the character of our attorney, and our mayor.“

First of all, if by “defame her character,” Vimari is referring to the fact that we transcribed word for word everything she said at the May 19, 2020 Administration & Finance Committee meeting, then she apparently learned the definition of “defamation” at the Norman Powell School of Miseducation.

Norman Powell Attack Strategy #2:  Recite a laundry list of your own accomplishments.

The same way that Norman did in his lawsuits against two local bloggers, North Bay Village’s Kevin Vericker and Yours Truly, Vimari just had to brag about how “engaged” she was in the Village before she even ran for office, and how “wonderful” she’s been since she first got elected.

Blah, blah, blah.

Norman Powell Attack Strategy #3:  Falsely accuse your adversaries of conspiring against you.

Vimari then went on to attack an “unnamed” employee of the Village of El Portal under the guise of “holding our staff accountable and making sure that our tax dollars are being well managed.”

Although she never revealed the name of the employee, she made sure to refer to the Council’s three contract employees, i.e., the “Village Manager, the Clerk, and the Attorney.”

it’s common knowledge that Vimari has no problem with the Manager or especially the Attorney.  It’s also common knowledge that she harbors a deep animosity toward Village Clerk Yenise Jacobi, whom she verbally, and very publicly, attacks every chance she gets.

At that point, Vimari issued a not-so-veiled threat to the “new members of the Council,” specifically Anders Urbom and Luis Pirela, by urging them to “understand” that their charter employees are just that – mere employees and not friends or allies.  She said, “This, unfortunately, sometimes makes it hard for the council to hold these individuals accountable because they start to play politics, especially when they are being held accountable.”

Vimari then went on to say that insistence on accountability has been “met with hostility, and suddenly the elected officials have negative blogs written about us in hopes that these tactics will prevent us from doing our jobs.  We have seen it done in the past with employees that tried to divide a small community, and if not stopped, we will continue to see this.”

She continued, “This all stems from a current employee that has assigned massive amounts of overtime for themselves.  However, when we hold that person accountable with our tax dollars, we start to see new blogs written about us.“

She was obviously referring to Village Clerk Yenise Jacobi.  For some reason, Vimari constantly accuses the Clerk of assigning “massive amounts of overtime” for herself.

Never mind that Clerk Jacobi, who is allegedly a “part-time” employee, she is also expected to attend multiple nightly Village Council and Committee meetings scheduled each month, and perform her regular duties during regular business hours.  This month alone, there are ELEVEN SCHEDULED MEETINGS, including two Budget Workshops.

Despite all the extra hours Ms. Jacobi has to work through no choice of her own, she has never gone over budget.  Vimari’s accusation is absolutely ludicrous and petty beyond words.

Vimari then went on to say, “I know that this is not the majority, but unfortunately, those couple of people who have very personal agendas also do whatever it takes to twist the facts, spread doubts and lies within the rest of the community.  They also take every opportunity to align themselves with people that will help them twist the facts, and sometimes those people are internal.“

Wow!

Vimari not only falsely accused this blogger of “twisting facts” and “spreading lies,” but she’s threw her own colleagues and employees under the bus by accusing them of leaking information to the media.

She, of course, was referring to one of our earlier blogs about the massive corruption in her “small community,” El Portal’s Dirty Little Secrets, in which we wrote about the demotion of its then-Police Chief Ronnie Hufnagel when she disputed a comment made by Mayor Claudia Cubillos regarding “the level of police oversight of the debris removal process after Hurricane Irma.”

Despite Vimari’s paranoia that any conspiracy between this blogger and an El Portal employee resulted in “new blogs about us,” if she actually read that column she would have immediately realized the Miami Herald already published the story two days earlier in a January 4, 2019 article, Beloved husky is fired from police job when his human is caught in small-town feud.

Clearly, VotersOpinion was simply following up on that story.

Either Vimari conveniently forgot that little detail, or she has a reading comprehension problem.

We suspect a little of both.

Norman Powell Attack Strategy #4:  Claim that all the facts presented by your adversaries are false and defamatory.

Once El Portal peaked our interest, we just had to follow up with two more entertaining blogs, El Portal’s “so called” Mayor gets panties twisted, denies reality and El Portal: The hits just keep on comin’.

In any event, we certainly didn’t have to conspire with anyone to write about El Portal’s corruption.  We simply read the Miami Herald, and then made our own public records request to get to the truth.

The very same truth that Vimari tries desperately to keep out of the public eye.  (More on that in a minute.)

El Portal got on our radar once again recently when the issue of Norman’s employment contract came up for discussion.  Intrigued, we posted another serious of blogs including, El Portal: South Florida’s shadiest little Village just got a whole lot shadier!, El Portal: The Saga of Norman Powell’s “All-Inclusive” Contract Continues…, and the one you’re reading now.

We unequivocally deny Vimari’s false allegations that any “elected officials have negative blogs written about us,” due to the fact that this blogger has never been in contact with any elected official from the Village of El Portal, either in person, by telephone or via email.

We challenge her to prove otherwise.

In response to her public “statement,” we felt compelled to make a “statement” of our own.

We’d love to post an official copy of her “statement” here for your examination, however we have been unable to obtain it despite a repeated public records request for same.

It has been more than a month since we first requested a copy of her speech on June 24, 2020.  We followed up with several back and forth emails to the Clerk, copying Jose Arrojo, Executive Director of the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust.

At one point, we had to ask the Village Clerk to “remind Councilperson Roman that, as a public official and sole custodian of the above referenced public records, pursuant to Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes, as well as the Miami-Dade County Citizens’ Bill of Rights, a copy of which is attached hereto, Councilperson Roman is obligated to produce these records in a timely manner.”

In a follow-up email to Mr. Arrojo, we added, “According to Florida public records laws, regardless of whether her statement was handwritten, typewritten, or digital, the document from which she was reading is an official public record due to the fact that she made reference to official municipal business.”

Nearly two weeks later on July 7, 2020, the Clerk wrote me back with a copy of Vimari’s emailed response, claiming that her statement was “handwritten” and that she discarded it after the meeting.  She also “presumed the videotape and minutes memorialized [her] statement, and requested the Clerk to send me “the transcript of the minutes.”

First of all, in this modern day of technology, we have trouble believing that anyone actually “hand writes” anything anymore, but whatever.

More importantly, however, Vimari knows very well that the “transcript of the minutes” of the June 23, 2020 meeting would not be available until after they were submitted and approved by the Mayor and Council at the following meeting, which just happens to be scheduled for tonight, July 28, 2020.

She obviously did not want to make it easy for me.

But, that’s okay.  We love challenges.

In addition to a copy of her “statement,” we also made a public records request for “[c]opies of all building permits issued from January 1, 2019 through the current date on the property located at 112 NE 90 ST MIAMI, FL 33138.”

Later that same day, the Village Clerk provided us with a building permit for a flat roof installation issued June 3, 2016.  There was no other building permit of record.

Imagine our surprise when we discovered that Vimari never applied for a permit to convert her “unfinished” garage into a studio apartment, which she lists on airbmb.com as a short term rental.

We’re especially curious about a photo she posted in her listing of a “Brand new bathroom” she installed in “July 2019,” apparently without a building permit.

Of course, we immediately filed a code violation complaint with Village Manager Christia Alou against Councilperson Vimari Roman for renovating/remodeling her “Unfinished Garage” without a building permit, and attached our “statement.”

Like we said, we love challenges.

On July 7, 2020, we made another public records request for “a copy of the business license for the short term rental property, owned by Vimari Roman and located at 112 NE 90 Street, El Portal, Florida 33138.”

For reference we quoted Chapter 11, Sec. 11-1 of the Village of El Portal Code of Ordinances, which states, “No person shall engage in or manage any business, privilege or occupation mentioned in this chapter in the village unless a license shall have been procured from the village clerk as is provided by this chapter, which license shall be issued to each person upon the receipt of amount herein provided or as may otherwise be provided by this chapter.”

On July 27, 2020 we received the following response from Village of El Portal Building Department Coordinator Miriam Herrera:

OOPS!

Here’s the thing.

Councilperson Vimari Roman is a public official and, as such, she is subject to public criticism whether she likes it or not.  Instead of simply ignoring our blog criticizing her actions, she chose to attack this blogger in a public “statement” at a public Council meeting.

Unlike Vimari – and apparently her “legal” advisor Norman Powell – this blogger has very thick skin.

We usually don’t respond to silly barbs from even sillier public officials, but in light of her patently false “statement,” we felt compelled to defend not only her lies about this blogger, but also the lies she said about her own colleagues and employee.

And by “defend,” we mean fight fire with fire.

One should never bring a “statement” to a firefight.

Just saying.

Stephanie