As promised in our previous blog, this one is all about McKenzie Fleurimond, the North Miami Beach Commissioner who was the cause of the hellish nightmare the City’s residents and employees have endured for the past twenty-six months., almost to the day.

The trouble started when he conspired with his criminal colleagues on the dais, Michael Joseph, Paule Villard, and Daniela Jean, to hire Hans Ottinot, inarguably the worst and most corrupt “lawyer” in all of South Florida, and things got progressively worse from there.

At the April 18, 2023 Commission meeting, McKenzie made an even bigger fool of himself than usual every time he opened his mouth to speak, which was often and long-winded.  This is someone whose complete lack of self-awareness is only exceeded by his inability to read a room.

McKenzie single-handedly stopped the December 20, 2022 meeting by walking out and breaking quorum to stop his pet “lawyer” from getting fired, and then boycotting meetings for three months until Court ordered to show up on March 21st.

Every single time North Miami Beach Criminal Commissioner McKenzie Fleurimond opened his mouth at the April 18, 2023 meeting, which was pretty much every five minutes, he continued to prove just how little he knows about anything.

As we reported in our previous column, right after the Pledge of Allegiance, four and a half minutes into the meeting, Commissioner Jay Chernoff made a motion to rescind last month’s vote to fire ex-City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey without cause, and moved to fire him with cause.

Jay started by saying, “The information that I have continued to receive concerning the massive amounts of misspending and poor judgment by the former City Manager through the date of his last meeting has created changed circumstances that have caused me to reconsider my vote.  For these reasons, and because I was on the prevailing side, I make a motion to reconsider the vote to terminate the City Manager, Arthur Sorey, with cause.  I make that motion.”

Mayor Anthony DeFillipo asked the City Attorney for direction then seconded the motion for discussion.

Commissioner Phyllis Smith was surprised but only too happy to vote again to fire him with cause.

McKenzie, who was chomping at the bit, couldn’t wait to speak.

As usual.

Of course, he asked the City Attorney to “reiterate and further clarify” what he meant, and then he pretended he had absolutely no idea what Jay meant.

He said, “I’m not sure what conversations, or what Commissioner Chernoff was privy to in addition to what he was privy to last time he made his vote.”

Suddenly, McKenzie had absolutely no recollection whatsoever of the lengthy discussions at the previous Commission meeting about all the fraudulent and abusive spending on the Purchasing Cards (P Cards) by the Manager, his staff, and the elected officials.  He may have attended the meeting, even if only by Court order, but he certainly wasn’t paying attention.

He continued, “However my main concern is we voted on it.  I believe that the vote should stand, but in addition to that, is the legal battle that we’re opening up ourselves to.”

McKenzie then brought up the lawsuit in Hallandale Beach, which McKenzie referred to as just “Hallandale,” and which we already explained is a completely different set of circumstances than Duke’s should he try to sue North Miami Beach.

He then said something about a “cost benefit analysis” and how “we should really take a moment to think about the legal battle and the costs not only for legal fees, but in the event that Mr. Sorey, if he chooses to go to court, which I’m saying that he will or he won’t, I don’t know that (Oh, sure you don’t!), but if he chooses to go to court, not only the cost of the legal fees, but in addition to that if he were to win, what kind of an award that he may receive that can further put the City in a financial bind.”

Oh, that is so precious!

Suddenly, Mr. Big Spender McKenzie is concerned about putting the City “in a financial bind?”

Let’s not forget, folks, that McKenzie’s personal, taxpayer-funded City “Attorney,” Hans Ottinot, cost the City the sum of $2,221,615.21 in “legal fees” in just 23 months.

Let’s not forget that McKenzie is responsible for Hans hiring Sham Lawyer Luis E. Suarez to go after Mayor DeFillipo to the tune of an unauthorized $200,012.76!

Let’s not forget that McKenzie personally used his taxpayer-funded P Card 171 charging a total of $33,778.90, plus the $4,396.39 spent on him by Duke and his staff, putting the City in a further “financial bind” of $38,175.29!

Let’s not forget that McKenzie was personally chauffeured approximately 55 hours by Sergeant at Arms Officers costing an average of $63 per hour for an approximate total cost to North Miami Beach taxpayers of $3.465.00!

And, yet, all of a sudden McKenzie wants his colleagues to “really take a moment to think” about firing Duke Sorey for cause so as not to “put the City in a financial bind.”

Is McKenzie really that disingenuous or just plain stupid?

Well, considering this is a moron who actually thinks a super majority of five is three, we’re guessing the latter.

He may not be as dumb as his former colleague, ex-Criminal Commissioner Paule Villard, but McKenzie is not far behind.

Nevertheless, McKenzie persisted.

He continued, “Fiscally, I mean if you’re talking about fiscal responsibility, I’m not gonna debate that, because you may have some information that I’m not privy to.  Or I didn’t have a conversation with whoever you had — Finance Director, Manager, I’m not sure.  If you even want to iterate those things now that made you switch your vote or that made you reconsider your vote, but I would ask that my colleagues do consider that, um, we terminated that manager, we’re moving forward and I think we should just move forward.”

Jay responded with, “In response to my colleague, the difference between then and now was I was worried about that litigation, clearly, being let go and how the city would come out with a lawsuit if we had one.  Since that time I’ve learned of massive misspending that was approved by that Manager and that’s what has caused me to make that motion.”

Commissioner Fortuna Smukler said that Duke Sorey told her that he never approved payments to Sham Lawyer Luis E. Suarez, and she later found out they were in fact, approved and mailed from his office.  She also brought up when she asked about money paid to political operative Lesly Prudent‘s company, Lespri Enterprises, Inc., which Duke also denied.  Fortuna emphatically stated that this was “another issue that I was right here, a month ago, lied to.  Or misinformed, whichever word we want to use.  But I was not told the truth!”

Phyllis spoke next and also rebutted McKenzie’s Hallandale Beach cautionary tale, and then claimed that there are three employees willing to testify the kind of hostile environment they have been working under.  She also said she was shocked to learn that one of the employees told Duke about a certain Resolution, and “his answer was ‘eff the Resolution!’”

Phyllis then turned to McKenzie and said, “With all the research I did, I’m surprised, to my fellow Commissioner, that you don’t see these blatant, blatant abuses to our residents, and to our improvement to make the best City we can, by doing things that actually downgraded our City.”

McKenzie, once again, as usual, had to jump in and blather on with his typical nonsense.

At minute 17:23 McKenzie bloviated,  “Just to clarify the Commissioner’s statement about caring about the residents, etc.  My statement was clear about the cost benefit of going to court and some of the other case that I’ve seen when Managers have sued as a result of termination with cause, um, we’re not attorneys.  We don’t know what his rebuttal will be.  We don’t know what his case will be.  We don’t know any of that.  If he decides to go to court.  Alright so it’s not up to me to make a declaration as to whether or not there’s people who are willing to testify or not, that’s, I’m not a lawyer.  Right.”

He just plays one on the dais.

He continued, “I don’t know what testimony you’re referencing or what information you have from employees you’ve spoke to that I have not spoken to.  Okay, um, so.  And, and as far as that’s concerned you may have a resolve based on interviews or some conversations that you’ve had, um, that I have not had.  So your decision apparently would be different than mine, or your conclusions.  So, um, like I said, I mean if the votes are here to do it it’s gonna happen.”

How does it feel, McKenzie?  Not so much fun anymore now that the shoe is on the other foot, eh?

And he continued, “I just wanted to make my statement and, um, you know, we’ll deal with whatever costs I guess, um, that, you know, we’ll have to deal with.  And if, if, if the cost is half a million dollars then it is what it is, right?  Uh, that’s basically what, what that’s what you’re saying.  So, um, for me the minimum was the Manager’s severance and his sick and leave time.  That’s the minimum cost to get rid of what many people, uh, on this dais, so several people on this dais have said was a problem.  I would rather spend my time working with this Interim Manager and seeking to find a way to build upon, um, what we’re doing here tonight, which is running our meeting and trying to find ways to work with this attorney to build with him what, you know, I hope is a better future or a more unified front for the City of North Miami Beach.”

Like the “unified front” you and your three co-conspirators had when you completely ignored Tony, Barbara, and Fortuna?  Hypocrite!

“I don’t want to belabor this issue with Duke Sorey.”

Except that’s exactly what you’re doing, McKenzie.

“I think we dealt with it.  Minimum payment was his severance and his, um, what he says [unintelligible] his leave and sick time.  And we put that behind us and we move forward as a City.  We move forward as a City.  So that’s my statement and I hope that, you know, um, that you guys will consider that.  Thank you.”

Tony ignored him and went on to another topic, which was that he had documented proof dated March 23, 2023 “in reference to invoices submitted for payment without permission from this Commission” to Sham Lawyer Luis E. Suarez, it was auto approved by Assistant City Manager Kemarr Brown on behalf of the City Attorney’s Office.

The Mayor explained that in a previous Commission Workshop, the administration was directed not to issue anymore payments to Sham Lawyer Suarez, and their directive was ignored.  “In my opinion,” said the Mayor, “the former City Manager’s Office acted inappropriately and lied to us while they were sitting right there in that chair!  And the next day after the meeting, mailed out checks to these lawyers while they said they did not know anything about it and were not mailing any money to anybody, was nothing but a crock of baloney!  And it’s time we start uncovering the truth in this City!  I’ve had enough!”

AMEN TO THAT!

Fortuna also added for the record that she had asked Duke Sorey many times “how are we getting money for this event, that event, and he was like, ‘Oh, that Commissioner is getting it all sponsored.’  Wow, okay, that’s wonderful.”

She blew that lie out of the water by explaining that when she reviewed Francisco Medranda’s P Card expenditures, she “just found out that just one event had over $5,000.00 of charges for that event.”

“So again I was lied to.  You know what?  I don’t appreciate being lied to and I didn’t appreciate being lied to on the dais right here last month as well.”

Let’s face it, folks.  Duke Sorey is a pathological liar.  Always was, always will be.

And the truth is finally coming out now.

Mayor DeFillipo called the question, and the motion passed 4-2, and applause erupted in the audience.

No blog about the New Majority would be complete without mentioning once again the Ordinance that Criminal Commissioner Michael Joseph and his three co-conspirators pushed through with their usual 4-3 majority.  This Ordinance was specifically designed to enable the four to stop all debate on an item in order to push through their agenda by “calling the question.”  Robert’s Rules of Order, which the City had adopted by Ordinance in 1957, requires a super majority of five votes to call the question before voting.  Michael’s Ordinance did away with the super majority requirement and allowed the “calling of the question” by a simple majority of four.

We can’t help but remember that time in 2013 when Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Read invoked the nuclear option “to prevent the minority party from using a filibuster” to block Obama nominees, which only empowered Republicans to do the same thing in 2017 when they pushed through Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.  (See: If you don’t like the Supreme Court, blame Harry Reid)

The moral of that story is to think things through before you act.

Unfortunately for Michael Joseph, now that his “nuclear option” of an Ordinance is on the books, the tables are turned.

If they choose to, the New Majority on the dais can simply “call the question” whenever Motor Mouth McKenzie tries to filibuster to block a vote.

And we’re loving every bit of that irony.

The meeting continued, but McKenzie was not done beclowning himself.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Stephanie