As you may have heard, North Miami Beach mayor Michael Joseph has been having a running, and very public, feud with City Manager Darvin Williams.  He’s been throwing a three-month long temper tantrum because all six of his colleagues on the dais voted to hire Mr. Williams, and he was the lone “no” vote.  Obviously, Michael is taking this very personally.

Yeah, he’s that self-centered.

As usual, Michael Joseph did what he always does when he doesn’t get his way — he whips up an imagined controversy and then runs to the media.

In the first of our recent four-part series, Michael Joseph’s bag of dirty tricks is overflowing, we wrote about how he summoned his Surrogate Army of “victims” to attack Mr. Williams.  As soon as they filed their complaints he contacted The Miami Times to tip them off with a “BREAKING NEWS” story.

In Part 1 we we told you about The Miami Times’ latest article, North Miami Beach City Manager Darvin Williams faces lawsuits, EEOC complaints, which reported that “North Miami Beach City Manager Darvin Williams is being sued for more than $1 million by an elected official in Opa-locka and for backpay and other damages by a former assistant city manager in NMB. Williams is also facing complaints of discrimination and retaliation in two separate complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).”

The Miami Times article also mentioned a lawsuit filed by former North Miami Beach employee Marline Monestime, who had previously applied for the position of City Manager in November of 2025, and who was now suing the City and Mr. Williams for firing her.

According to her lawsuit, Ms. Monestime claims that in response to “an external investigation by ALGO Law Firm, P.A., and its findings, conducted at the request of the City’s Mayor and Commissioners,”  that “Defendant Williams instructed Ms. Monestime to vacate her office and work with Public Works immediately to find alternative office space at the close of the meeting with Human Resources.”

Ms. Monestime’s lawsuit also alleged, “The investigation, which was ostensibly intended to be independent, was materially influenced by Defendant Williams, who was provided with an ‘executive summary’ to review, and then met with the investigators during the pendency of the investigation, reviewed its findings as they were being developed, and provided commentary—all as reflected in the invoices submitted to the City by ALGO Law Firm, P.A.”

According to Ms. Monestime’s complaint, Mr. Williams presented her with a “separation letter from the City terminating her employment on or about February 27, 2026.”  She further stated that:

1. The City characterized the termination of her employment as an “organizational decision” and offered her two weeks of pay plus accrued paid time off and sick time.
2. The City did not characterize her termination as a disciplinary action or identify any cause for her removal.

Throughout the remainder of the complaint, Ms. Monestime alleges that she was classified as a Civil Servant and that her termination was in violation of the City’s Civil Service Rules, as well as a violation of 42 U.S.C. §1983, a federal code that covers “Civil action for deprivation of rights.”

You can read Ms. Monestime’s entire federal lawsuit here:  COMPLAINT

Apparently, Marline Monestime had issues with my coverage of her employment, firing, and subsequent lawsuit against the City of North Miami Beach.

On June 23, 2026, I received an email from Hillary Frontado, the Client Experience and Marketing Manager of FairLaw Firm.  Attached to that email was a copy of a letter from Brian H. Pollack, Esq., also of FairLaw Firm, which was entitled, “26-0623 Statutory Demand For Retraction of False and Defamatory Statements (Monestime), the original of which was sent by Certified Mail.  I received and signed for the original letter several days later.

According to the Demand Letter, I had published three statements that Ms. Monestime’s lawyer claimed were “false factual assertions about Ms. Monestime,” as follows:

1. In Part 1 of this series, I wrote, “You will recall that Monestime was Michael Joseph’s hand-picked candidate for the job as a reward for covering his ass during the Algo Law Firm’s public corruption investigation.”
2. In Part 3, I “place[d] Ms. Monestime among employees who ‘filed complaints accusing Darvin Williams … of discrimination.”
3. And, in Part 4, I wrote, “In essence, Marline Monestime was responsible for not only the loss of $3.2 million in ARPA funds, but also the draining of another half million dollars from the city’s reserves.”

Mr. Pollack’s letter continued by advising me that, “None of the statements identified above involves protected opinion on matters of public concern.”

The letter continues with a lot of lawyerly stuff, including the citing of case law, Florida Statutes, and US Code, which you can read for yourself by clicking here:  26-0623 Statutory Demand For Retraction of False and Defamatory Statements (Monestime)

Lawyer Pollack ended his letter with three demands that need to be complied with “within five (5) business days of receipt of this letter,” as follows:

1. Permanently remove each of the three categories of statements identified above from VotersOpinion.com and any associated social media or mirror sites under your control;
2. Publish a correction of equal or greater prominence that accurately identifies the nature of Ms. Monestime’s federal lawsuit; and
3. Confirm in writing to this office that the foregoing has been completed.

Since Ms. Frontado’s email ended with, “If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us,” I did have questions and I responded to her that same day by email.

I wrote, “First and foremost, it has never been my intention to make false and/or defamatory statements against anyone. If I ever unintentionally or inadvertently do make statements that are false and/or defamatory, I immediately address the issue and make any and all necessary corrections.  That being said, I would like to address the three statements in my blogs that you pointed out.”

The first matter I addressed was my comment in Part 3 where I included Marline Monestime with the North Miami Beach employees who filed complaints against City Manager Darvin Williams for discrimination.  As soon as I reread that column I immediately knew that I had erred by including Ms. Monestime’s name since she absolutely did not accuse Mr. Williams of discrimination.

In my email to the law firm I wrote, “You are absolutely correct that Ms. Monestime’s lawsuit had nothing to do with discrimination, and I never should have included her name in that statement (Part 3).  I removed her name entirely from that sentence as well as the tag.”

The other two statements I made regarding Marline Monestime also needed to be dealt with, so I addressed them in my email to Mr. Pollack, as follows:

“As for your first point regarding my statements (Blog Part 1) that Ms. “Monestime was Michael Joseph’s hand-picked candidate for the job as a reward for covering his ass during the Algo Law Firm’s public corruption investigation,” and that she was involved in “questionable manipulations to push through the shady no-bid contract between the City of North Miami Beach and Figgers Communication Inc. at the insistence of none other than Michael Joseph,” please note:

1. 1. 1. It was common knowledge based on Michael Joseph’s own statements on the dais, as well as his actions, that his only choice for City Manager was Marline Monestime; and
      2. The information that she was involved in “pushing through” the Figgers Communication contract was take[sic] directly from the attached Investigation prepared by Algo Law Firm.

As an aside, Michael Joseph is currently under investigation with respect to his attempt to alter the video of Ms. Monestime’s interview, which is a public record; yet he did not attempt to do so with the videos of any other candidate for City Manager.

My written opinion of the situation was based on those two points. However, if you feel that my comments are misleading, false, and/or defamatory, I am absolutely willing to do whatever is necessary to rewrite or correct the offending comments, and I am more than open to any suggestions you may have.”

And finally, I needed to address his concerns about my statement that “Marline Monestime was responsible for not only the loss of $3.2 million in ARPA funds, but also the draining of another half million dollars from the city’s reserves.”

As such, I advised Mr. Pollack that this statement was “based on information I received from two confidential sources.  However, I have no problem striking that statement from the blog altogether (Part 4).  Please let me know what you would like me to do.”

I closed my email with a plea for assistance in resolving this matter by writing:

“With respect to your directive that I should publish a correction regarding the nature of Ms. Monestime’s lawsuit, I did post a hyperlink to her lawsuit, and briefly described the nature of her complaint.  Other than revising and/or removing the offending statements mentioned above, I am not sure how you would like me to publish such a correction.  Would you like me to write an entirely new blog?  Would it be appropriate or inappropriate to mention your letter? I am asking because I honestly don’t know, and I sincerely wish to make this right.  Accordingly, I am open to any suggestions you may have.”

When I did not hear back from anyone at FairLaw Firm, on the fourth business day after I received their Demand Letter, I sent a follow-up email to them, stating:

Good afternoon.

I have not heard back from you regarding my response to your letter. You did say not to hesitate to contact you if I had any questions, which is why I wrote back to you immediately.

Since your firm’s demand letter specified “five (5) business days to comply,” and I received your email on June 23, 2026, it appears that tomorrow is the deadline. I am writing to you, once again, to let you know that I have every intention of doing the right thing in order to satisfy your client and avoid an unnecessary lawsuit.

I would sincerely appreciate a response to the questions I asked so that I may resolve this issue to your client’s satisfaction.

If I do not hear back from you, I will do what I hope is the correct way to comply with your demands before your deadline.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Kienzle

Once again, I did not receive a response.

Apparently, Ms. Frontado’s statement in her letter to me, “If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us,” was just a throwaway line that was not meant to be taken seriously.

Nevertheless, since today is the deadline set by Brian H. Pollack, Esquire for me to comply with his demands, I did the only thing I know how to do … to be honest and transparent, and do the right thing.

Accordingly, I am publicly announcing that I have complied with his demands by attesting that I have:

1. Permanently removed the three offending statements from the blogs I published, and made corrections to another statement regarding the no-bid contract with Figgers Communication.
2. Published this blog as “a correction of equal or greater prominence that accurately identifies the nature of Ms. Monestime’s federal lawsuit;” and
3. Simultaneously with the publication of this column, responded in writing to Mr. Pollack’s office “that the foregoing has been completed.”

As many of you already know, I had every intention of “retiring” this blog permanently for many reasons.  Because of that I had not posted a column since June 9, 2025, and I was already in talks with another blogger who expressed an interest in taking over this website.

Then in January of this year when the news broke that Michael Joseph was involved in one of the biggest scandals in South Florida — the indictment of former Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, I was understandably sucked back into the insane drama that defines North Miami Beach City Hall.

And the rest is now history.

However, as much as I love covering the political scandals that the usual North Miami Beach corruptocrats are constantly embroiled in, this website exists as a public service and nothing more.

Unlike some other bloggers, I do this as a hobby and I do not get paid for my opinions.

Or my hilarious memes.

As such, I am not willing to end up in a lawsuit defending journalistic integrity, whether I believe it’s justified or not.  It’s not worth the hassle or the financial drain.

I’d just as soon shut this blog down and enjoy peace and quiet in the corruption-free Town of Davie for the rest of my golden years.

Hopefully, Brian H. Pollack, Esquire will be satisfied that his “demands” were met, and that this will be the end of it.

Because frankly, when it comes to the City of North Miami Beach, I literally have no more f*cks to give.

@farmingusa2.0 fuck song #nomorefucstogive ♬ original sound – 2011 honda recon

Sorry not sorry.

Stephanie