As the second in a series, here are some hot takes from the two North Miami Beach candidates’ forums, moderated on Oct. 13 by the most worthy citizens Saundra Douglas and Lorenzo Hall of Washington Park and on Oct, 20 by Alison Robie and her friends and neighbors. Stay tuned right here for recordings and videos from the estimable Mubarak Kazan and Keith Myers, creator of the NMB transparency portal.

Early voting for the Nov. 8 election starts Monday, Oct. 24 and runs through Sunday Nov. 6 and runs 7 am-7 pm. If you don’t vote absentee by mail, North Miami Beach residents go in person to Northeast Dade-Aventura Branch Library at 2930 2930 Aventura Blvd, Aventura, FL 33180, or the North Miami Public Library, 835 NE 132nd St, North Miami, FL 33161.

On Nov, 8, vote at your assigned precincts, which you will find here.

Now let’s get right down to it, shall we?

Again, eight candidates are running for four-year terms in three seats: Districts 2, 4 and 6. Again, here they are:

GROUP 2 COMMISSIONER:

Jay Chernoff (commissioner 1989-2007), Hubert Dubé and incumbent Paule Villard

GROUP 4 COMMISSIONER:

Hans Mardy and incumbent Fortuna Smukler

GROUP 6 COMMISSIONER:

Wrendly Mesidor, Phyllis Smith (commissioner 2007-2020) and Mark St. Vil

Now for my takes.

It’s the garbage, stupid. North Miami Beach residents are fed up with privatized sanitation, with fewer collections, less recycling and bulk pickup, and garbage piling up in such oft-overlooked neighborhoods as the benighted and isolated Highland Village neighborhood on the southeast. Coastal Waste and Recycling is handling it now, replacing Waste Management. Usually, these privatized services start with good service and loss-leader rates and the – Pow! – sticker shock as they keep the contracts. All candidates on the forum would prefer that the city to take it back, just as it recently did with the water system. But, as former city manager Esmond Scott discovered, squeezing the toothpaste back into the tube is no easy task. You’ve got to hire employees and rent or buy new sanitation trucks to replace the ones you gave up when you privatized. So. Is City Manager Arthur H. Sorey III up to this task? And, if he is replaced with a new manager, will this task be part of the job description.

It’s the police, stupid. No, I am not calling you stupid, dear reader. It’s just a saying. One senior resident at the end of the meeting brought up a great point: Stop playing politics with the police and let them do their jobs. Morale in the ranks is low. Ex-Chief William Hernandez retired early, and his replacement Richard Rand followed quickly, sensing that micromanagement from commissioners and the city manager would make their jobs harder. And so it did Staffing is down in the PD, and taxpayer money shouldn’t be wasted on overtime for special vanity events for commissioners (here’s looking at you, Paule Villard) when such moneys would be better deployed for crime prevention in Highland Village or professional development for de-escalation training and dealing with people who are mentally ill or autistic. This doesn’t mean instituting a warrior culture over community policing. That’s what led to George Floyd in Minneapolls. Police deserve not worship, but intelligent respect. They do not deserve micromanaging from city managers at the quiet behest of commissioners. Guarding the taxpayers’ purse and using it to the good is the No. 1 priority.

Six of these candidates are at least defensible. Two are not. As a whole, I found great and electable virtues in six of the eight candidates.

In my opinion, Paule Villard and Hans Mardy have no business on the already-nuclear dais. I know Stephanie keeps beating the Paule Villard drum well past the point of obsession. And Lord knows, Paule has her fans and her persona as a lovable, generous Mama to the community who listens to citizens and cares deeply about strapped seniors. She loves giving stuff away at raffles, as in “Let’s Make a Deal” iPad giveaway at the September 7 town hall meeting. She missed the August 31 one because she could not pass up a junket to Denver with fellow commissioners Michael Joseph, McKenzie Fleurimond and Daniela Jean. (Wouldn’t one commissioner do to check out the Denver water plant and present a sister city certificate?) She also engages in shameless self-promotion at taxpayer expense and loves taxpayer-paid junkets with an aide at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas (Why? For what?), and needless $225,000 Publix card giveaways restricted to people with cars to ensure reelection and thereby secure favorable pension and insurance. I’m sorry, but it stinks on ice. She didn’t even show up at the Oct. 20 forum, perhaps because Channel 10 was hot on her tail with a crew after the expose on her self-promotional Publix giveaway. She kept looking at her phone and reading aloud from it during the Oct. 13 forum, maybe or maybe not getting coached via text by someone – maybe McKenzie Fleurimond in the back? Bad form, in any case. She and fellow commissioner and endorser Daniela Jean were also conspicuously absent at the September commission meeting when Fortuna Smukler were giving out keys to the city for six volunteer food distribution groups that serve without taxpayer money. (She said she was getting over a cough. I was there and did not hear any coughing.) She might say the Publix card giveaways are not at taxpayer expense because it’s from ARPA money. Of course, that’s baloney. Taxpayer expense is taxpayer expense, federal, state, or local. I know this is piling on and Stephane has a Paule obsession, but come on, just say nope.

Hans Mardy is too hot-headed to sit on a dais that has already gone nuclear. And it’s not just his unfortunate Oct. 20 comment suggesting competing slates of Port-Au-Prince versus Tel Aviv. (Smith, Chernoff and Smukler happen to be Jewish.) Outgoing incumbent Barbara Kramer, on brand, jumped up and screamed “Shame on you!” and walked off looking visibly ill. Fortuna Smukler moved her seat because she would not sit next to an Anti-Semite. Hans Mardy walked out in mid-meeting because he said Smukler’s husband called her trash, which we could not confirm. Anyway, even if we allow that some of this was political theater, haven’t we enough of that already?

Nor is my objection to his platform of changing the commission to district rather than at-large. That is a good debate to have, but requires a majority and charter referendum. No, the underlying problem is one of temperament, opportunism, and cheap shots, saying Smukler has “done nothing” and such without providing a coherent alternative.

Now for some impressions of the other six candidates:

Group 2:

Jay Chernoff is campaigning for transparency, frugality and civility on the dais. The latter is a tough call when Sorey and City Attorney Hans Ottinot crowd important stuff like a $1.6-million building purchase for a senior center on the consent agenda. Former North Miami Mayor Andre Pierre used to pull that stunt a decade ago, and it smells like rotten fish to anyone with a brain. Chernoff was on the commission 19 years and brings a working knowledge and willingness to work with commissioners with whom he might disagree. (Incumbent Barbara Kramer in Group 6 left that reservation and lost her cool in early 2021 when the new majority of four rammed through Sorey and Ottinot as a fait accompli without a proper search).

Hubert Dubé is a master electrician by trade and fed up with the corruption like many others. He seems like a good man and is campaigning for better transportation, a strengthened infrastructure, and reducing unnecessary expenses and events. He is offering integrity, if not policy sophistication.

Paule Villard is as Paule Villard does. (See above.)

Group 4:

This election is Fortuna Smukler’s to lose. (See above re Hans Mardy.)

Group 6:

This run for the wide-open seat to replace Barbara Kramer gets intriguing. In different ways, each of these three candidates has good things to offer. And, as a non-North Miami Beach resident, I have no dog in this fight. So here goes:

Phyllis Smith, 76, came into this race reluctantly after venerated and venerable ex-mayor Jeffrey Mishcon kept urging her to come out of retirement and run. In the last two weeks, she has rediscovered the fire in her belly and knocked on doors all over town wearing her yellow “Smith” shirt. Like Smukler and Chernoff, Smith, a Realtor, is pushing for an honest, transparent government. In the Oct. 20 forum, she curbed her famous tendency to ramble and stuck to her points. Like Chernoff, she is a walking encyclopedia of the city and its ways. This knowledge and her hard work and honesty are her biggest strengths. Her challenge will be to look forward and move with an evolving city and, if she wins, work to create a stable, honest environment as a likely one-termer, looking forward rather than back. City manager Sorey seems to pick on her, which some might find a strength. Expect her to focus on money the four basics: pipes, police, public works, and parks.

Attorney Mark St. Vil, 32, is, to all appearances, clearly accomplished, confident, ambitious and sophisticated. Ambition comes in many shades – sometimes for its own sake, which is dangerous, and sometimes for a greater good, which is admirable. St. Vil seems to tilt toward the latter, though a conscious and genuine application of humility always helps. He offers a “forward-looking” agenda stressing simple points: career-focused and financial literacy initiatives for the young; community-based policing; affordable housing for all; and better communication for the city’s seniors. As flashing 8-by-14-foot billboards demonstrated on the same truck at the recent Publix food giveaways, he is running on the slate with Paule Villard and Hans Mardy. One challenge if he wins: Will St. Vil break the predictable 4-3 vote and buck and fight the excesses and lack of transparency of the current city administration and the machine? He clearly has smarts. Voting for him is a leap of faith for independence. If his opponent Smith wins, she can borrow from his ideas and give him credit. That would be a step toward needed ecumenism in this troubled city. If St. Vil wins, pray for independent judgment, a swing vote, and calling out BS.

Wrendly Mesidor, 30, is in the marketing field and new to politics. His is a winning, “community-focused” personality, and is gaining confidence after entering the race as a self-described “underdog,” stressing small business support, community safety, and more events for youth. His opponents may be formidable this time, but we want him to stick around and sense a bright future if he stays in the city.

A word about the machine. In this town, developers call the tune. That’s also true in near-twin city North Miami. A few years ago, elections were bought and paid for by Dezer Development through proxies. That is still true but now there are many more developers in play. Plus, incumbency has its virtues. Donations are good insurance when you have to appear before them. Commissioners and city attorneys remember things. And with all those developers around, is it any wonder that ex-North Miami Mayor Andre Pierre phased out of his immigration law practice to act a kingmaker linking developers, governments, elected officials and everyone else? Someone unelected and unappointed has to call some of the shots. That is the way down here.

More recently, the city has gotten in over its skis. Case in point: the Arthur Snyder Tennis Center-Diefenbach Preserve fiasco, where Fleurimond led the charge to redevelop the center into high rises with green space. Sorey and Ottinot met with the Spanish Monastery leadership and developer Alan Macken earlier in the summer and the city threw a $67,000-plus party August 25 to “reimagine” the 10-plus acre property as four 25-story towers – with walkable greenspace and commemorative plaques, of course – only to discover the whole plan was illegal under the County Code of Ordinances.

One can go on. And, yes, one can get cynical. But this is the Magic City, in all its lovable craziness. Just a few weeks ago, Hurricane Ian devastated the west coast, making some of us think of leaving Florida for good as global heating and melting Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheet portended disaster amid our preapocalyptic St. Vitus dance of high-rise development and new, rich, NIMBY homebuyers building to their lot lines and flooding their neighbors as investors crowded out renters with impossible hikes. Then the weather turned fine, the fresh air and beaches beckoned, and we decided perhaps to stick around after all to see how things turn out.

So, as long as you’re here, don’t give up! Vote! And don’t just vote for yourself. Vote for your neighbors, the folks in Highland Village or Washington Park or Uleta. Vote for your kids or others’ kids or the lonely old person upstairs or whoever buys your house or takes your apartment when you finally leave this earthly coil or just vamoose to higher ground.

Mark Sell