Four prominent South Florida cities, Tamarac, North Miami, North Lauderdale, and North Miami Beach, are inextricably linked in such an insidious web of deceit that it would take at least ten columns to untangle the corruption.  And even then, we would barely scratch the surface.

But, we’ll do our best to compile the unscrupulous deeds of certain public officials in order to warn you of the debauchery you are up against.

When Mike Gelin announced his candidacy for District 2 Commissioner of Tamarac in April 2018, residents had no idea of the trouble looming on the horizon.  His impressive credentials and stated intent to serve the residents of his district got him elected.

Unfortunately, he made the mistake of teaming up with Tamarac’s resident Lunatic Commissioner, Marlon D. Bolton who, despite lying on his resume, was elected in 2016 and has been the City’s train wreck in progress ever since.

The following year, Mike Gelin made headlines in Virtual Office could have backdoor for city deal, when he launched yet another North Miami scandal by submitting a fraudulent bid to be the “Brokerage and Consulting Services for the City’s Employee Benefit programs.”  Although Gelin’s firm, Gelin Benefits Group, LLC, was located in Fort Lauderdale, he committed perjury by swearing on oath in a Local Business Preference Affidavit that his business had a “permanent office” in the City of North Miami, in order to earn extra points in the bidding process.

To make matters worse, Gelin’s one year Online Virtual Office Agreement for the rental of a “virtual office” had expired on September 30, 2018 – eight months before he submitted his proposal to the city!

The Miami Herald reported, “The company’s website lists a Fort Lauderdale address and makes no mention of North Miami. And it’s not clear that the company has any tangible presence in the city.  What it does seem to have is a “virtual office” — the right to an address and a mailbox in an office suite in a North Miami strip mall known as Causeway Square.”

Furthermore, “The Herald asked Gelin to provide a current version of the lease or invoices that would show his company has utilized a conference room at the North Miami address, but he declined.”

Then again, Gelin was no stranger to bad press having previously made negative headlines in the Miami Herald two months earlier at a police award ceremony for “hijacking a celebration to air personal grievances.”

According to the article, Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Joshua Gallardo “was about to be praised for his work in the arrest of a gang member wanted for murder,” when Mike Gelin took the microphone and grandstanded, “You probably don’t remember me but you’re the police officer who falsely arrested me four years ago.  You lied on a police report. I believe you’re a rogue police officer, you’re a bad police officer and you don’t deserve to be here.”

After the incident, Law Enforcement Today ran an article entitled, Criminal city commissioner attacks arresting officer during awards ceremony — ‘You are a bad cop.’, featuring Gelin’s mugshot.

The article’s author, Mitch McKinley, wrote about Gelin, “Watching him summon up the courage to pick up that microphone and puff out his chest in a moment of ‘I am a Commissioner, so I can get away with this’ only exemplifies that the most courageous thing he has ever done in life is publicly talking smack to a man who puts his life on the line every day.”

The Law Enforcement Today article goes on to describe Gelin’s arrest and his jackass behavior.  We urge you to read it.

Once Gelin was exposed as a fraud, North Miami elected officials rejected all proposals for an Agent of Record for Employee Benefits Programs and the entire process was scrapped.

But not before Mike Gelin’s ties to shady North Miami political operatives were uncovered.

And yet, no one is a bigger jackass than Gelin’s comrade on the dais, Commissioner Marlon D. Bolton, who is the malignant tumor of Tamarac.  From the moment he was elected in November 2016, Bolton put a plan in place to take over the City, starting with his harassment of former Mayor Harry Dressler, whom he falsely accused of attacking him with a racial epithet.

Since there were no witnesses to Mayor Dressler’s alleged incident, we have no doubt that Bolton made it up – the same way he continuously harasses the current Mayor, Michelle Gomez, by falsely accusing her of having “fake friends who sent emails” and “falsifying public records.”

Bolton made Mayor Dressler so miserable, he decided not to run for re-election.  When then-Commissioner Gomez filed to run for Dressler’s seat, Bolton urged Mike Gelin to run for her seat, and vigorously campaigned for him.

Within days of the November 2018 election, the law firm of Levi Williams, P.A. was appointed as special counsel to investigate complaints against Marlon Bolton filed by five City Employees, two Tamarac residents, as well as Broward residents involved in the 2018 election for allegations that he created a hostile work environment, as well as campaign violations.

According to the 99-page Final Investigative Report dated December 30, 2019, the “investigation involved multiple events from July 2017 to present in various locations including: City Hall, the Caporella Aquatic Center, and the Tamarac Library.”  Between November 26, 2018 and April 9, 2019, the special counsel interviewed seventeen witnesses, including the complainants.

Throughout the Report, witnesses attested to Bolton’s bullying, outrageous racist and anti-Semitic remarks, unfounded accusations against his colleagues and employees, uncontrollable spending, unreasonable demands, violations of campaign laws as well as the City Charter, and threats to fire City employees, even though he has no right or authority to do that.  Employees and residents also complained of his constant “intimidating,” “abusive,” “derogatory,” and “nasty” demeanor.

Suffice it to say, Marlon D. Bolton is a horrible excuse for a human being, with a sense of entitlement as big as his overblown ego.

In fact, as reported by REDBROWARD.com on March 30, 2021, Marlon Bolton Wanted To Be the Jamaican Donald Trump.

Apparently, Bolton was an egotistical ass clown long before he managed to con unsuspecting Tamarac voters into electing him to office.

According to blogger Tom Lauder’s article, “Back in 2005, Marlon Bolton told a Jamaican newspaper he wanted to be the next Donald Trump.  The Kingston Gleaner published an interview with Bolton, owner of Zahni, a modeling agency in Jamaica. ‘I thought I could become like Donald Trump within a year,’ Bolton said.”

Regardless of what you think of Donald Trump, pretty much everyone can agree that Bolton lives in an alternate universe where he believes he’s a Very Important Person.  The truth is, as blogger Tom Lauder noted, “These days, Marlon Bolton is just a Tamarac City Commissioner.”

But a very dangerous – and costly – Commissioner at that.

In a March 1, 2021 Broward Beat article, Commissioners’ Power Grab Is Costing The Public, reporter Buddy Nevins wrote:

“Tamarac, once one of Broward County’s best run city halls, is degenerating into a honey pot for City Commissioners.

Commissioners are raiding city coffers while Tamarac is still coping with the unknown fiscal impact of the covid virus and its job recession.

The money grab approved by commissioners includes:

• • Allowing each commissioner to hire up to three paid ‘community engagement liaisons.’
  • Handing commissioners $15,000 apiece for ‘travel expenses’, which they can use for anything because they don’t have to show receipts.  The new ‘travel expenses’ could be increased in the future to match inflation.  There is additional money for trips farther than 100 miles from the city.
  • Giving each commissioner a $25,000 slush fund to be spent without taking competitive bids, as long as the vague goal of economic development is met.”

Got complaints about commissioners feeding at the public trough? Too bad. Tough luck.

Part of the new law allows commissioners to limit the time the public can speak at meetings. They can also toss from meetings anyone who makes ‘disruptive(,) impertinent or slanderous remarks or who shall become boisterous while addressing the City Commission.’

What exactly is impertinent, disruptive, or slanderous? How do they define boisterous? The definition of those terms is left to commissioners…at the meetings.

This is plainly a naked power grab.“

If all of this sounds familiar, it should.  This raping of the public coffers was taken right out of North Miami’s playbook, where elected officials have the highest salaries, benefits, and pensions in Miami-Dade County, six figure slush funds, and personal assistants at their beck and call, while ignoring the running multi-million dollar deficit the City has been dealing with for the last six years.

As of today, only seven months into the fiscal year, North Miami is in the hole for $4,642,264, with no end in sight.

But we digress.

The Broward Beat article also noted, “Commissioners were aided by controversial Miami-Dade County Attorney Hans Ottinot Sr., who was hired late last year.  Although formally holding the title of interim city attorney, Ottinot apparently has lost no time in helping to remake Tamarac’s government by drafting these new laws.”

REDBROWARD’s Tom Lauder has been on a roll lately exposing all of Commissioner Marlon Bolton’s corruption, not only in Tamarac, but also his insidious infiltration of the City of North Lauderdale … by way of North Miami.

On March 23, 2021, REDBROWARD reported in North Lauderdale Deputy Clerk Operates Website Shilling for Tamarac Commissioner Marlon Bolton, that within an hour of winning the November 2020 election, Bolton’s hand-picked North Lauderdale Commission candidate, Regina Martin, made a motion to hire former North Miami employee Anthony Bonamy as the City’s Deputy Clerk.  He was the number two ranked applicant for the position.  Bolton, who did not identify himself as a Tamarac Commissioner but as a pastor at a North Lauderdale Church, attended the meeting and spoke at public comment by urging “the Commission to hire candidate number two ‘whoever that is.’ He said, “number two should go forward.'”

Although Bolton pretended not to know who Anthony Bonamy was, REDBROWARD reported that Bonamy listed Bolton as a reference on his application, listing him as a “faith leader,” and not as an elected official.

Lauder’s article also revealed:

“Bonamy’s friendship with Marlon Bolton raised red flags at North Lauderdale City Hall.  In December, City Clerk Elizabeth Garcia-Beckford voiced her concerns about Bonamy.  She specifically mentioned his relationship with Marlon Bolton.

Garcia-Beckford told Commissioners she was concerned about Bolton being listed as a reference and the fact Bolton spoke on the matter regarding the hiring of Bonamy.  Garcia-Beckford stated any clerk needs to be unbiased towards all members of the Commission.  She feared Bonamy’s relationship with Bolton could jeopardize his future relationships with North Lauderdale leaders.”

As if that wasn’t enough of a conflict of interest, the article went on to report that last summer Bonamy created a website called the Tamarac Post, which was nothing more than a site for “puff pieces about [former Broward Commissioner] Dale Holness and Commissioner Marlon Bolton.”

At the end of his article, Tom Lauder wanted to know …

Who is behind the Tamarac Post? Who is funding the Tamarac Post?

Why does Marlon Bolton promote a phony website shilling for himself and his allies on the Tamarac Commission?

Why is Marlon Bolton so interested in the hiring process of another city?

While Bolton’s and Bonamy’s “Tamarac Post” was nothing but Fake News, it should be noted that the actual community news site, Tamarac Talk, reprinted Lauder’s article with permission on that same day with the headline, Tamarac Commissioner Marlon Bolton’s Connection to Phony Website Promoting Himself.

In a follow up article on March 30, 2021, North Lauderdale Deputy Clerk Anthony Bonamy Repeatedly Performed Political Consulting While Employed As Government Worker, REDBROWARD reported:

“From North Miami to Broward, North Lauderdale Deputy Clerk Anthony Bonamy has performed political consulting while working on the taxpayers’ dime.  Last week, REDBROWARD exposed Bonamy’s ownership of The Tamarac Post website and its ties to controversial Tamarac City Commissioner Marlon Bolton.  Bonamy’s website shills for Bolton and Bolton’s political allies.  Bonamy’s role in Tamarac politics appears to violate his employment contract with the City of North Lauderdale.

North Lauderdale leaders were so concerned with Bonamy’s “political career” and his use of Marlon Bolton as a professional reference, they prohibited him from performing any political consulting work while employed by the City.  North Lauderdale had good reasons to be concerned about Bonamy.  According to campaign records and published reports, Anthony Bonamy performed political consulting work while employed by other local government entities.”

None of this, of course, should surprise anyone.

The Circle of Corruption may have started in North Miami a decade ago, but like a cancer, it has spread and metastasized in Tamarac, North Miami Beach, and now North Lauderdale, which has never been on our radar until now.

Ironically, Tamarac’s former City Attorney, Sam Goren, who served the City for over fifteen years, and who abruptly resigned after Clown Commissioner Marlon Bolton called him “untrustworthy,” is currently the City Attorney for North Lauderdale.

As Tamarac Talk reported, “Goren, a founding partner of Goren, Cherof, Doody & Ezrol, PA, has over 40 years of municipal law experience and represents cities such as Tamarac, North Lauderdale, and Pembroke Pines.  He serves as General Counsel for the South Florida Regional Planning Council, the North Lauderdale Water Control District, the Housing Authority of the City of North Lauderdale.  His service resulted in the Broward League of Cities naming a Presidential Award after him.  However, despite Goren’s extensive legal experience, Commissioner Bolton still did not believe he was acting in the city’s best interest—though he could not specify any reason for this belief.”

Of course, he couldn’t.  Bolton is a first-class moron who is so delusional about his own lack of intelligence, he thinks everyone around him is as stupid as he is.

In any event, once Mr. Goren left Tamarac, Bolton and his crony Mike Gelin saw the perfect opportunity to hire the stunningly incompetent Hans Ottinot as Interim, and then permanent-but-not-really-permanent City Attorney.

But now, with Bolton’s cronies firmly installed in North Lauderdale government, it’s only a matter of time before Mr. Goren is run out of town and replaced by … Hans Ottinot, the useful idiot that NMB’s Team Apocalypse recently rammed through as their Interim City Attorney by a slim 4-3 vote.

For the time being, however, we’ll leave the blogging of North Lauderdale’s corruption to REDBROWARD.com to cover.  We here at VotersOpinion are more concerned that the Circle of Corruption cancer is now spreading to North Miami Beach, where things are getting worse and worse by the day.

The disaster in the making started with the hiring of Hans Ottinot.

In 2005, Hans Ottinot was the City Attorney of North Miami for 13 days before he left to completely destroy the City of Sunny Isles Beach as its City Attorney for 14 years.

When he finally “retired” from SIB, taxpayers not only shelled out a cash payment of $124, 171.15 in vacation, sick and holiday pay, but also got stuck paying the tab for legal fees and settlement costs of $8,065,261.28 under his watch for the five year period from October 1, 2013 through September 30, 2018 alone.

You can only imagine how much money Hans Ottinot will cost the taxpayers of North Miami Beach by the time he’s done ramming though the dangerous personal agenda of Team Apocalypse.

As we write this blog, Hans is attempting to circumvent the Charter of the City of North Miami Beach by illegally having the City Manager call for a “Special Meeting” for this Monday, April 5, 2021, when in fact, the published Agenda is nearly identical to the Agenda posted for the Regular Commission Meeting previously scheduled for March 25, 2021.

According to Article II, Sec. 2.4 of the City Charter, “Special meetings shall be called by the Mayor for the consideration of emergency matters upon the written request of the City Manager or upon the request of five members of the Commission other than the Mayor. Notice of such special meetings shall be delivered to members of the Commission and shall be posted on the front door of the City hall at least twenty-four hours prior to the holding of same. No business shall be transacted at any special meeting other than that for which the meeting was called.”

Alternatively, Chapter II, Article I, Sec. 2-1.2(a) of the City Charter states, “The business to be transacted coming before the City Commissioners shall be governed and regulated by an agenda prepared by the City Clerk and concluded five (5) business days preceding the City Commission meeting and posted and delivered by 5:00 p.m.“

For one thing, Mayor Anthony DeFillipo did not call a “Special Meeting,” regardless of whether or not the City Manager or five members of the Commission requested one.  The Mayor told VotersOpinion that if Interim City Manager Horace McHugh had requested, in writing as outlined in the Charter, a “Special Meeting” to consider emergency matters only, he would have happily called for one.

“However,” Mayor DeFillipo said, “The items listed on the proposed Agenda include multiple items, such as appointments, discussion items, and other matters that should be dealt with at a Regular Commission Meeting.  I told the City Manager that if he wants a Regular Commission Meeting using this Agenda, to go ahead and post it for a meeting to be scheduled in five business days, which is in accordance with our Charter.”

Instead of admitting he made a mistake, and correcting the Agenda to only include the emergency matters to be handled at a Special Meeting, he invited Hans Ottinot to give his “legal opinion.”

And we all know what his “legal opinion” is worth.

About as much as the “math skills” of his firm’s employee, Pamela Ryan, who desperately tried to convince the Commissioners that a two-thirds vote is not the same thing as a supermajority.

Even more laughable, Hans asked his “Of Counsel” lawyer, Regine Monestime, for her “legal opinion” who, in her infinite “wisdom,” sent back an email to the City Manager quoting the Charter.

As if no one else had ever read it before.

Absolutely unclear on exactly what she was asked to “opine,” she followed up with another email stating, “For your further edification, the Charter does not require written notification for the calling of a meeting pursuant to a request by five Commission members.  No such mandate is required by the Charter.  A request may be verbal.  Please note that once such request is made (verbal or written), you as the Manger are required to call a special meeting.”

It should come as no surprise that Hans Ottinot hired former North Miami City Attorney, Regine Monestime in an “Of Counsel” position.  After all, North Miami is the epicenter of the Circle of Corruption.

It should also come as no surprise that she screwed up royally during her tenure in North Miami, which eventually led to her Contract not being renewed.

Apparently, in 2009 when Regine Monestime was hired as the City Attorney under former North Miami Mayor Andre Pierre’s administration, at the behest of none other than Hans Ottinot, her employment contract called for it to be automatically renewed every three years unless the Council gave her written notice of termination at least ninety (90) days prior to its expiration.

At a December 9, 2014 North Miami City Council Meeting, Councilwoman Carol Keys sponsored a “Discussion Regarding City Attorney Automatic Renewal of Employment Contract.”  She opened the discussion by saying that she had just learned of this automatic renewal provision, and that the Council needed to make a decision whether to terminate or amend the contract immediately while there was still a ninety-day window.  She said on the record, “My displeasure is, I want to know Mr. Manager, who [in] our City is responsible for notifying the Council?  It is the Council’s responsibility to approve, ratify, terminate our City Attorney’s contract.”

Councilwoman Keys continued, “This was brought to me by various emails by residents.  It’s a little embarrassing.”

Even more embarrassing is that at public comment, attorney Richard Champagne had to advise the Council, “Under this contract the City cannot terminate the City Attorney under any circumstances unless she is actually convicted of a crime involving moral (inaudible).  So two days from now, for the sake of argument, that the City finds out that the City Attorney engaged in some improper or bad act, perhaps a month ago or a year ago.  The City cannot fire her for a cause and the City would have to pay the City Attorney for three years, which would cost the City approximately $700,000.00.  And I’m not sure exactly when the City found out about this.  It appears to me that Councilwoman [Keys] is the one who sponsored this agenda item.  So I’m assuming that that’s something that was fairly recently brought to your attention.  Now I can tell the Council that the reason being that we’re here today is because the City was not being properly represented at the time that the contract was being negotiated.

Mr. Champagne went on to admonish the Council that Monestime’s contract, which he referred to as a “fraudulent and lopsided agreement,” calls for any 90-day notice of termination to be in writing and passed by a Resolution of the elected officials.  He also stated, “Now the third reason I would say to the Council that the City was not properly represented is because of this automatic renewal provision.  Nowhere else in this country would you see this automatic renewal provision.  Now that’s why we’re here at the last minute where we actually have to do something to protect the City’s interest.”

He closed with, “Now I’m also [saying] in closing that no one is entitled to a life time employment.  Not the President of the United States and certainly not any City employee.”

Ultimately, Councilwoman Keys asked Ms. Monestime if she was comfortable with the fact that the Council was going to renegotiate the terms of her contract, to which she responded, “Correct.  Thank you.”

Then-Mayor Smith Joseph announced, “She’s on record.”

Ms. Keys further stated, “You can’t say that you weren’t given legal notice by our attorney,” to which Ms. Monestime responded, “No, I cannot.”

City Attorney Regine Monestime’s contract was then renegotiated and she continued to be employed by North Miami until June 23, 2015, when she was finally terminated.

And of course, despite the fact that she was on record agreeing that she received legal notice that her contract was to be renegotiated …

On August 9, 2017, Regine Monestime filed a lawsuit against the City of North Miami for … renegotiating her contract.

Apparently, with Regine Monestime heading up the legal department, the North Miami City Council needed to act immediately to protect the City’s interest against its own City Attorney!

Which is exactly what’s going on in the City of North Miami Beach at this very moment!

The interests of North Miami Beach residents are not being protected by the erroneous advice of a City Attorney, and his two legally incompetent employees, all of whom are costing them a minimum of $660,000 a year – not including the additional fees his contract allows him to charge, or the fees of the outside counsel he’ll need to hire to do the real legal work on behalf of the city.

Nor does that $660K include the millions of dollars in future settlement payouts due to all the bad legal advice he will inevitably dispense in his (mis)representation of the City of North Miami Beach.

Wait for it.

As for Team Apocalypse and their overt power grab, North Miami Beach taxpayers should prepare to cough up more money in the coming months for:

• Increases in salaries and travel expenses, as well as fully paid health insurance policies for the entitlement class;
• Massive unaccountable slush funds, under the guise of “discretionary accounts;”
• Personal assistants to chauffeur them around town, answer their emails, run their personal errands, and cater to their every whim.
• Depletion of the City’s reserves account to pay for Publix gift cards, home repairs, and business “loans” doled out to the Friends & Family of Team Apocalypse, a/k/a their future voters.

Just like Tamarac.

Just like North Miami.

Just like North Lauderdale.

Because in the ever widening Circle of Corruption, there’s always room for one more City.

Stephanie