North Miami Beach Commissioner Paule Villard has hit the campaign trail with a vengeance — and the taxpayers are footing the entire bill.

Like her North Miami counterparts, the recently “re-elected” Mayor Philippe Bien-Aime and Councilwoman Mary Estimé-Irvin, Paule has created, and acted as the de facto host of, a slew of special events ever since her personal servant, City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey was hired, for the sole purpose of amassing votes for the November 2022 election.

Her latest, and costliest, campaign stunt was her $100,000 City-funded vote-buying giveaway of one thousand $100 Publix gift cards to residents who are allegedly “experiencing financial hardship and food insecurity,” using COVID-19 as a convenient excuse, according to her Resolution R2021-40.

This expensive and haphazardly organized debacle not only cost North Miami Beach taxpayers a lot more than $100,000, but the cards were inequitably distributed among income earners and according to the City’s demographics.

For one thing, there was absolutely no oversight or controls in place to ensure that only those “experiencing financial hardship” would receive the gift cards.  This was despite the fact that the City Manager insisted that recipients would be required to sign an affidavit stating they were “in need.”

In an email to the City Manager on June 5, 2021, Commissioner Barbara Kramer wanted to know “what happened to this requirement?”  She expressed concern that “2 residents that I know of received gift certificates. Not only are they not in need, but they are comfortable to say the least.”

Even worse, one North Miami Beach resident waited hours in line only to be turned away because the employee checking addresses insisted she didn’t live in North Miami Beach when she clearly did.  Apparently, no one running this event knew what the hell they were doing.

It gets worse.

A June 5, 2021 Miami Herald article, In divided North Miami Beach, Publix gift card giveaway becomes another political fight, reported, “Some questioned why the event was held on the city’s west side, an area with a large Haitian population, instead of a more central location like City Hall.”

According to Wikipedia and the U.S. Census 2019 demographic estimates, only 19.32% of North Miami Beach residents are Creole speakers, while 39.3% are Spanish speakers.

Yet, Paule made sure that the all radio advertising for this event, paid by NMB taxpayers, was directed toward the Haitian community, while completely ignoring the Hispanic community.

It gets worse.

According to the Miami Herald article, Duke Sorey claims that “between 200 and 250” of the 1,000 gift cards “were set aside for the Jewish community,” since the Orthodox Jews couldn’t attend the Saturday event.

And despite there being at least 10 synagogues located in the City of North Miami Beach, each of which is headed by Rabbis who could have distributed the gift cards to their congregation members, Paule “tapped Alan Sakowitz, an influential figure in the local Orthodox Jewish Community” to choose the lucky “winners” from his extensive mailing list/voting bloc.

This would be the same Alan Sakowitz who stupidly endorsed Michael Joseph, Paule’s fellow Team Apocalypse member, and convinced hundreds of his newsletter’s recipients that he would “support the needs of our community.”

In fact, as the Miami Herald pointed out, “That angered some Orthodox Jewish residents who said they don’t receive Sakowitz’s emails and therefore weren’t aware of the opportunity. Others questioned why Villard had turned to Sakowitz, who has used his newsletter in the past to make political endorsements in North Miami Beach.”

Or, as former North Miami Beach Councilman David Templer told the Miami Herald, he “is usually somebody candidates will go to because he is believed to control a large voting bloc.”

Obviously, Paule specifically “tapped” Alan Sakowitz, who neither lives nor works in the City of North Miami Beach, in the hopes that he’ll endorse her in next year’s election and grab all the votes from his extensive mailing list.

Neither Sakowitz nor Paule would respond to calls or messages from the Miami Herald about their exclusive arrangement.

Duke Sorey also “declined to specify how the process was handled or the extent of Sakowitz’s involvement,” according to the Herald article.  He vaguely offered, “The city worked with ‘a couple’ of people in the Jewish community.  I’m not sure how many it was, but [they were] some of the people that we’ve normally dealt with in the past.”

His dubious response did not sit well with Barbara Kramer, however.

In a second email to Duke Sorey on June 6, 2021 about this gift card fiasco, she wrote, “Mr. Sorey, the entire 4^th floor is practically brand new so who has worked with anyone from the Jewish community in the past?  I want to know the names of the people because I was told it was just one and now it’s a couple and it’s presenting to be an issue for many.”

It will be interesting to see what imaginary “couple of people” Duke comes up with — assuming he even responds to Kramer’s email at all.

What’s worse, the gift card giveaway for the Orthodox Jews was held today at Congregation Shaaray Tefilah, a synagogue that isn’t even located in the City of North Miami Beach!

This synagogue is actually located in the area of Miami-Dade County that is referred to as the “donut-hole,” which has been the subject of a proposed annexation since 2015, and which is home to a large population of Orthodox Jews.

This would be the same proposed annexation that Paule’s comrade on the dais, Michael Joseph, has been desperately trying to block because bringing in too many Jewish residents to the City would “dilute the Haitian vote.”

Yes, he really did say that!  Read it for yourself on pages 5 and 6 of the transcript of former City Manager Esmond Scott’s sworn testimony before the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust.

It certainly seems that Sakowitz was sadly mistaken if he thought that Michael Joseph would “support the needs” of the Orthodox Jewish community.

As for the 200 taxpayer-funded gift cards for the Orthodox community, not only were they distributed by a non-resident at a location outside of the City limits, but there were absolutely no safeguards in place to guarantee that the recipients of those gift cards were “experiencing financial hardship.”

This lack of oversight is evidenced by a post on Facebook by a woman and her physician husband who purchased their home in 2006 for $422,500, and who obviously don’t need a “FREE” $100 Publix gift card that should have been given to a family actually “in need.”

We’ve redacted their names so as to not further publicly embarrass them.

Needless to say, this well-off, and totally clueless, couple should be ashamed of themselves for thinking it’s “fun” to grab a “present” that was earmarked for the less fortunate.

At the April 20, 2021 Commission meeting, while desperately pushing to plunge the City coffers for $100,000 of taxpayer money, Paule and her co-conspirator, McKenzie Fleurimond, ironically repeated at least a dozen times the phrase “food insecurity,” an affliction neither of them appear to be suffering from.

As the Miami Herald noted, Paule pushed her gift card agenda by claiming, “Our city is hungry and our residents are looking for this $100.”

With all the “hungry” residents she claims to be so concerned about, we can’t help but wonder how many she could have fed with the $1,200 that she spent on the brand new Louis Vitton handbag she’s been proudly flashing at City events recently.

Then again, “donating” to the needy out of your own pocket is not as much fun as taking credit for your “generosity” with other people’s money, right Paule?

The bigger picture is that the legality of this Resolution passed by a majority of the Commission is in question.

More to come.

Stephanie