On October 13, 2022, the Voter’s Council of North Miami Beach’s held its election season Candidate’s Forum, and as usual, North Miami Beach Criminal Commissioner Paule Villard made a fool of herself.

You can watch the entire two-hour forum here.

Here are the highlights of The Paule Villard Clown Show.

When the candidates were given time to introduce themselves, Paule read a statement from her phone that was obviously written by the same Public Affairs employee who performs the ridiculous circus-like “Announcements” at Commission meetings.

Paule clearly practiced reading that speech for at least several days ahead of time, yet she still tripped up from the get go when she almost forgot her own name.

At minute 10:20 she began, “Good evening.  My name is, um, [looks at phone].  My name is Paule Villard, and I’m a Commissioner in the great City of North Miami Beach.”

The Criminal Commissioner spent her allotted two minutes reading the NMB public service announcement, in which her scriptwriter included big words and complicated phrases, such as “capital improvement projects,” “revitalizing,” “infrastructure,” and “centrally located,” to make her sound intelligent even though she has absolutely no idea what they mean.

Paule wasn’t nearly as entertaining as the City’s Public Affairs Circus Clown, which is to say she lost her audience after her opening sentence.

But, hey, she wants you to vote for more of the same corruption.

The first question asked of the candidates was if they would ask for a state audit of the City’s books for transparency purposes to eliminate any possibility of corruption.

Paule’s opponent, Jay Chernoff, simply said he would be 100% behind such an audit.

Before responding, Paule was openly looking down at her phone at the response someone was clearly texting to her.

At minute 26:26 she finally responded that the City already has an auditor and that everything is wonderful and transparent.

Of course, the last thing Paule would want is a state auditor breathing down her neck and auditing her abuse and misappropriation of taxpayer money.

The moderator then asked the panel what the most important issue the candidates would like to address if elected, to which Jay responded that the Commissioners need to get along and stop fighting.

This, of course, would be easily accomplished once Paule Villard, who is the cause of almost all of the City’s problems, is permanently off the dais.

At minute 30:10, Paule said she wanted to bring back sanitation because, “I know how important it is for people to have a job.”

Because according to Paule Logic 101, people who work for private sanitation companies don’t have real jobs.

We’re not sure what she thinks those employees actually do, but unless they are sucking off the government teat for their paychecks, they don’t count.

The next question was, “What steps will you take to make NMB more accountable?”

Jay, of course, pointed out that the obvious problem is the current City Manager and his staff, which would also be easily resolved if Paule were ousted.

Looking down at the incoming text message on her phone (minute 37:12), Paule clumsily responded, “To make our City accountable, we have to make sure that the Manager, you know, uh, uh, responsible for all the employees, and, and ensuring that we have a balanced budget, and every money [sic] that is, uh, being spent is accountable for, and, uh, you know, we leave it up to the Manager and ensuring that we have transparency, accountability, productivity in our City, and, and, ensuring that our, uh, uh, uh, budget is balanced.”

Her stupefied response, of course, did not even remotely answer the question, but we must consider the source.

Her disjointed non-answer couldn’t help but remind us of the long-winded, nonsensical spiels uttered by McKenzie Fleurimond on the dais at every single Commission meeting.

By this time it was becoming noticeably apparent that someone was texting her the answers to the questions, which is why she was intent on staring at her phone.  Nevertheless, she still managed to mangle her responses beyond comprehension.

When the moderator also noticed what Paule was doing (minute 38:19), she loudly announced that everyone on the panel must put their phones away.

Paule immediately objected, claiming, “My information is in my phone.”

Which was code for, “McKenzie’s texts are in my phone.”

When the moderator asked her what she meant by “information in your phone,” Paule pretended that her “notes” were on her phone.

“Notes” in response to questions not yet asked.

The moderator looked exasperated until someone in the audience suggested that the candidates be given paper and a pen on which to write notes.  The moderator agreed.

Paule was not a happy camper.

A woman in the audience, who we believe was one of Paule’s daughters, piped up, “I have a question.  So if the information is already on their device …”

The moderator cut her off immediately and said, “We’re gonna answer questions from the audience a little later.”

At minute 40:43, none other than McKenzie “Point of Privilege” Fleurmond, interrupted with, “I have a question.”

To her credit, the moderator raised her voice and said, “No, no questions right now!  I will shut this down.  I told you when the questions will come up.  Okay, please follow the guidelines that we have set for this forum.”

Even after that clear directive from the moderator, Paule had the audacity to raise her hand in protest, but the moderator cut her off at the pass, too.

She advised everyone that she makes the rules and everyone there had to abide by them.

And yet, the always annoying McKenzie just couldn’t help himself and attempted one more time to speak.

The exasperated moderator put her head in her hands and ignored him until she calmed down enough to speak.

At minute 47.45, the moderator announced that the next question was for Commissioner Villard.  She asked, “You were on the news for using a gift card distribution as a campaign tool and timed it as absentee ballots were being delivered in mailboxes.  Residents are angry.  You used hardship to highlight yourself.  How do you respond?”

Paule quickly retorted, “This is a great question because, um, the resident [sic], we have over twelve hundred residents in line to get a hundred and fifty dollars [sic] gift card.  I don’t think the residents are angry.  They were happy.  They were happy to receive the…”

The audience began to heckle Paule, but the moderator said, “No disruptions.  Let her answer the question.”

“Yes!  They were very happy to receive the, the gift card.  And another thing.  This is hypocritical to hear that people came to this platform to use those three lines for the three days, to pass out their flyers, their political flyers, to ask those people to vote for them.”

Then Paule became noticeably unhinged.

In typical Paule Villard fashion, she refused to take responsibility for her actions by blaming everyone else for her own unethical and illegal actions.

She pointed at Fortuna Smuker and said, “Most of the candidates they have three candidate [sic] altogether, Phyllis Smith, Chernoff, Commissioner Smukler in ONE BAG!  Passing it out Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  I can’t understand how for THEM to [unintelligible] AFTER the facts [sic] to say that this was for, for, um, for political thing at the same time on October twenty-second Commissioner Smukler has an event.  Is it for political when October twenty-fourth is an event is starting, when the action is starting?”

In Paule’s twisted mind, it’s perfectly okay for her to use a $225,000 taxpayer-funded City event to campaign to residents waiting for hours in line by:

Displaying her signs …

Strategically parking her campaign ad wrapped vehicles …

Her mobile campaign billboard …

And her taxpayer-funded campaign tent …

In full view of every single resident who showed up for a $150 gift card at Criminal Commissioner Paule Villard’s taxpayer-funded campaign event.

An event that was deliberately scheduled on the same day voters were receiving their absentee ballots by mail.

As Channel 10’s Glenna Milberg pointed out in her news broadcast, Ethics of city’s Publix gift card giveaway questioned amid commissioner’s campaign, “What was very visible was Commissioner Villard, her campaign signs, even logo tents at this City sponsored event with public money that may have skirted it’s own laws.”

Yet, Paule Villard had the unmitigated chutzpah to complain that small plastic envelopes containing campaign flyers for Jay Chernoff, Phyllis Smith, and Fortuna Smukler, were being distributed.

The same campaign material that Paule ordered residents to “throw away.”

Even more despicable, after the dozens of unmistakable taxpayer-funded campaign events held for Criminal Commissioner Paule Villard in the last few months, replete with flyers displaying her name and face, she is actually complaining that Fortuna was handing out flyers for a Farm Share Drive Thru Food Distribution.

The very same Farm Share event that Fortuna has been hosting every single month for over a year at ZERO COST to NMB taxpayers.

It would never occur to Paule that the same people waiting in line for 15 hours to get a Publix gift card, might benefit from a bag of Farm Share groceries.

All she knows is that Fortuna’s legitimate food distribution events are interfering with Paule’s campaign stunts.

Paule’s horrific performance at the forum only got worse from there.

The next question asked by the moderator was, “Are you happy with the money being spent on travel and events, P Cards and gift cards, as highlighted in public records requests?”

Jay Chernoff, of course, stated that he was not happy.  He explained that when he was a councilman the elected officials received $1,000 a month to spend on activities for the City.  “We didn’t have an unlimited budget like Miss Paule Villard has up here.  Yes, it’s being abused very badly, and it needs to be reigned in.”

While he was speaking, Paule had a smirk on her face as if she was about to rebut to Jay’s irrefutable accusation with an intelligent response.

There was danger of that happening.

She responded, “Yes, I am very happy with what’s going on in the City.  Um, because the P Card that is given to us, there is a limit on how much we can spend and what we can spend it with [sic].”

We’d love to know what that limit is and exactly how she is allowed to spend the money.

In the first eleven months of the last fiscal year, Paule spent a scandalous $17,395.16, or an average of $1,581.38 a month, on her taxpayer-funded P Card!

Paule, as usual, attempted to justify her outrageous illegal spending by refusing to take responsibility and going on the attack.

She spat out, “I know some of the Commissioners, because they did not used to work for the community, the residents, they used to give them seventy thousand dollars as money to spend on the community.  At the end of the year they had to return that money because they have nothing to do with the residents.”

As usual, Paule lied about the elected officials being given “seventy thousand dollars,” when in fact, the actual amount was seven thousand dollars.

Paule also laughably claimed that elected officials “had to return” unspent tax dollars instead of spending it on the residents, as if there’s something wrong with NOT spending it.

In fact, Paule Villard said she was “very happy“ to spend $12,009.56 on her personal taxpayer-funded vacations, including a luxury resort in Haiti and a five-star hotel in Las Vegas.

 

We’re still not sure how her taxpayer-funded $5,109.72 vacation to Las Vegas benefited the residents of North Miami Beach, but that’s a mystery that will never be solved.

The second hour of the Candidate’s Forum didn’t go any better than the first, during which she played the race card and lied about everything from how a Consent Agenda works and the population of North Miami Beach.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Stephanie