We have been keeping very close tabs on the shady political committee, Stronger NMB, which is being used to push an even shadier petition for a Charter Amendment that backers hope to place on the ballot for this November’s municipal election.
As we first reported in Who is behind the newest shady PAC infiltrating North Miami Beach? The usual suspects, of course!, this political committee (PAC) was formed on March 10, 2026 by a Tallahassee political consultant named Christian R. Cámara, who is also the Registered Agent, Chairperson, and/or Treasurer for numerous political committees in Florida.
We also told you that according to Stronger NMB’s Statement of Organization of Political Committee, the real political operatives behind this shady political committee are North Miami Beach residents Ariel E. Vasquez and Edouard St. Hilaire, and North Miami resident Ketha D. Otis.
Interestingly, Ariel E. Vasquez, who is the pastor at 3rd Day Church, has filed to run for office in the North Miami Beach 2026 Municipal Election in an attempt to unseat Commissioner Phyllis Smith.
The alleged purpose of this petition is “to create six single-member commission districts with staggered terms and to retain an at-large Mayor, providing fair, neighborhood-based representation.”
However, as we already revealed, the real purpose is to keep Criminal Commissioners Michael Joseph, McKenzie Fleurimond, and Daniela Jean from being termed out of office on November 7, 2028, and allow them to start their Charter mandated two four-year terms all over again.
This Term Limit Charter Amendment will also give anyone who is currently in office in North Miami Beach do-overs as well, due to a single sentence strategically placed in the middle of page 2 of the petition, in the hopes that most people won’t read the entire verbose proposed Amendment.
This hidden gem reads, “For purposes of the term-limit provisions of this Charter, the calculation of consecutive terms for the Mayor and Commissioners shall commence with the general election held in 2028, and service prior to that election shall not be counted.”
As we already explained, even if an elected official has served two full four-year terms and is slated to be termed out by November of 2028, their record of service will literally be wiped out of the books and they will get do-overs. This is nothing but a shameless power grab by the three Criminal Commissioners on the dais.
But, more importantly, we followed the money trail and, as usual, most of the funds being funneled into the Stronger NMB political committee came from other political committees via even more political committees, and so on and so on and so on.
However, as much as they tried to hide who donated to the group of seemingly unrelated individuals who filed the PAC’s Statement of Organization, we were able to discover the names of the deep pocket donors who are funding this petition. What we can’t figure out is why they are involved and what they have to gain by participating in what will inevitably result in the final nail in the coffin of North Miami Beach.
Some of these names will not surprise you, but others will come as a complete shock. On the surface they seem to be “friends” of some of the elected officials who are not on Michael Joseph’s Team Apocalypse, yet they are secretly working as double agents against the very people who trust them to do right by the city.
We are once again reminded of the old tried and true adage, “There are no friends in politics.”
There are only transactional acquaintances.
We will start with the direct donors to Stronger NMB. According to its report of Contributions through June 19, 2026, the PAC raised a total of $92,919.59. Its largest donors ($2,000.00 or higher) so far are:
- A PAC by the name of Communities First Project PC, which contributed $44,810.00
- Coral Gables Developer Michael D. Wohl contributed $9,000.00
- Shady North Miami political operative and aspiring NMB City Manager Lesly Prudent gave $5,208.96
- Coral Gables Developer Rogelio Tovar contributed $5,000.00
- Fun Land USA 2 Corp, owned by James Bien-Aime of Weston, Florida (No relation to disgraced and soon-to-be-deported ex-North Miami “Mayor” Philippe Bien-Aime) gave $2,604.48
- A St. Petersburg, Florida company called Power Design, Inc. also contributed $2,604.48
- Melbourne, Florida accountant Alan Jotkoff gave $2,500.00
- LifeLiv Foundation, Inc., the ironically named company owned by North Miami Beach funeral home CEO Evans St. Fort gave $2,000.00 (It’s worthy to note that the company’s check was posted on June 1, 2026 even though the company folded on September 23, 2022. Seems legit, right?)
- Edgar Gonzalez, owner of GT Used Trucks, Inc., gave $2,000.00
- Nebu Chacko, president of Equicare Health Inc. in Port St. Lucie, Florida (of all places) contributed $2,000.00
- North Miami hair stylist Lunie Pierre gave $2,000.00
We are stymied as to why anyone from Port St. Lucie, Melbourne, or St. Petersburg would donate big bucks to the political committee of a pissant city like North Miami Beach from hundreds of miles away. We can’t help but wonder what their ulterior motive would be.
Then again, the contributions that came in, directly and funneled indirectly, from political and other operatives in Coral Gables, which we will divulge in Part 2, were equally as mysterious.
The rest of the contributions to Stronger NMB ranged in amounts from $250.00 to $1,562.81 from random people, only four of which claim to reside in the City of North Miami Beach.
After we dissected the contributions made to Stronger NMB, we moved on to its largest donor, and here’s where it got really interesting.
The Registered Agent for Stronger NMB, Christian R. Cámara, is also the same Registered Agent for Communities First Project PC, which he formed on June 8, 2018. Since its existence, this PAC has received $661,655.00 in contributions through July 1, 2026, and has paid out a total of $602,471.65 in contributions. This political committee’s activity over the years appears to be active only during campaign cycles, which ramped up quite a bit during the 2024 election.
Oddly enough, however, the largest contributions and expenditures by far started in November of 2024, with the most activity taking place during a twelve month period between July 2025 through June of this year.
As we mentioned above, Communities First Project PC donated a total of $44,810.00 to Stronger NMB. These donations were received as follows:
- April 9, 2026: $11,500.00
- May 2, 2026: $16,560.00
- June 18, 2026: $16,750.00
We then looked at the contributions this PAC received since the beginning of this year just to get a general idea where all that money originated. We did find some very interesting observations.
The first name that pops out, of course, is Dezer Family Holdings, Inc., which contributed $10,000.00, and another $5,000.00 through the Dezer family’s company, Gilco 1 Sub Parcel 2, LLC., for a grand total of $15,000.00
Dezer lobbyist Ron Book, of course, donated $5,000.00.
A Miami-Dade County political committee, South Florida Vision, donated a grand total of $7,500.00. Note: Keep this PAC in mind as more will be revealed!
Coral Gables Developers David R. Brown and Stephen Rosenthal of the firm Coral Rock Development, who are partners with Michael D. Wohl (who donated $9,000.00 directly to Stronger NMB), donated a grand total of $9,350.00.
North Miami political players Lesly Prudent and Jean Monestime contributed a total of $4,250.00 via their various companies, Lespri Enterprises, Inc., Jean Monestime, LLC, Jemo Enterprises, LLC, and Toumo Group, Inc.
As an unintended but humorous side note, Toumo Group, Inc. is also listed as a contributor on the June 30, 2017 Campaign Treasurer’s Report for the Francis X. Suarez campaign for Mayor of Miami, as were Andre Pierre and Mike “Michael” Joseph.
A large contribution of $4,100.00 came from McPhillips Law Firm, PA, in Coral Gables on May 13, 2026. While we cannot say for sure that this donation was meant for the benefit of Stronger NMB, we have already noted above a lot of money seems to be flowing from individuals and firms in Coral Gables. The dots do seem to point in that direction.
Interestingly, Communities First Project PC received $3,100.00 from a political committee in Doral, Florida Bold Leadership, which listed its May 18, 2026 contribution to Communities First as “polling.” We cannot determine whether or not this payment was for the benefit of Stronger NMB. For now.
Even more telling than the source of contributions to Communities First Project PC is how they spent the money they received.
You won’t believe the names that are about to drop!
Pop some corn and stay tuned for Part 2.
Stephanie
I can hardly wait.
Lobbyists and politicians crawl into the same bed, then screw the public every chance they get. The public gets none of the pleasure, just the consequences.
The lobby problem is bigger than people realize. It’s only going to get worse if the Commissioners don’t wake up and get rid of the people who are smiling to their faces and stabbing them in the back.
Its interesting that MJ and AP, both Democrats, contributed to Suarez’s campaign, who is a Republican. Proving that principles don’t matter,
You will be even more surprised when I expose the rest of the story.
I’m curious about something. Is Ron Book being retained by NMB for lobbying services? If so, he should not be using some of that fee paid to him by NMB taxpayers only to turn around and donate $5,000 to that PAC supporting extended term limits for certain candidates. He should remain neutral and stay out of it. It feels shady to me if that’s the case.
Ron Book has his fingers in a lot of things he shouldn’t be touching. I’m pretty sure he’s still the lobbyist for NMB. But this isn’t his first conflict of interest rodeo. He needs to be held accountable for his actions. Unfortunately, so far he’s Teflon Ron.
Ron Book receives $60,000 a year from the City of NMB every year for “Lobbying Services: in Tallahassee.” He always justified, in his annual 5 minute speech before the City Commission, that it was money well spense, that didn’t happen. There is no tangible evidence that he has ever accomplished anything for the City of NMB as he has the same arrangement with every city in Miami Dade and Broward County raking in millions each year with his same schpiel to each city. Previously he billed the City $80,000 a year until screams from the residents to our Commissioners got him to reduce the amount. He has been collecting huge sums of money from NMB for over 30 years.
Thanks for that info. I was about to make a PRR for it, but you answered my questions before I did.
Last year MJ had $400,000 transferred from the General Fund to the former City Manager’s office so he could hand out $$$ to his lobbyist buddies, who in turn would rebate a portion of each payment back to pay for the new Bronco he drives. His puppets, Marlene and Andy, made sure the payments were made and in return. they collected big, fat, paychecks for their corrupt efforts.