North Miami Beach’s Joe Geller problem has apparently been going on for a very long time.
During Commission Reports at Tuesday night’s meeting, Commissioner Lynn Su tore into City “Attorney” Joseph S. Geller beginning with her statement, “Once again, I’m raising an issue, a serious concern regarding the performance of our city attorney. I think today we have had many examples of having agenda items or you know that we are supposed to be voting on being placed on the dais on the day of.”
She continued, “The level of legal counsel being given to our us, our staff, and our residents is unacceptable. A City Attorney’s job is to advise this Commission, and not to be the eighth commissioner. Yet, at our May meeting, our City Attorney took it upon himself to declare quote unquote without objection that a citizen petition should move forward without the required Commission vote. He has no right to usurp our procedural authority.”
Commissioner Su continued her assessment of the “legal” services that Joe was providing, and she pulled absolutely no punches, reminding him that “North Miami Beach taxpayers are spending well over one million dollars a year for legal services that frankly are below subpar. We and our residents expect more and deserve better.”
Ms. Su made her sentiments clear by stating, “I certainly do not expect to have to bring this up again because our residents deserve excellence from us as well as our Charter employees and the entire staff at the City of North Miami Beach.”
POP SOME CORN AND WATCH FOR YOURSELF!
When Lynn Su indicated that this wasn’t her first rodeo expressing her displeasure at Joe Geller, she was referring to the October 21, 2025 Commission meeting. when she first brought up Joe’s, ahem, deficiencies (and we’re being nice here).
This was nine months ago, long enough for a full term pregnancy to produce results, but apparently not long enough for Joe Geller to earn his keep.
In case you missed it, during the discussion of Item 15.1 of that meeting’s Agenda, Ms. Su clearly and succinctly spelled out all the ways that Joe Geller was not fulfilling his duties as the North Miami Beach City Attorney.
She began her laundry list of complaints by stating, “Before this commission approved the CAO’s [City Attorney’s Office] contract, I gave the benefit of the doubt, understanding that leadership transitions take time, but it has now been over a it’s been a over a year and a half, and by this point, I trust that he had every opportunity to fully settle into this role. I wanted to raise several concerns based on my review from the April 16th, 2016, I mean sorry, 2024.”
Ms. Su then announced she was distributing a transcript of Joe Geller’s job interview with the Commissioners.
Immediately, the so-called “mayor,” Michael Joseph, interrupted her and exclaimed, “Oh, to clarify you said you were part of that discussion when when you hired the CAO. You were not on the Commission.”
“I was not on the Commission,” she replied.
Michael pressed, “But you said on your statement that you when we talked about the contract in your statement.”
To which she responded with, “No, I said I raise several concerns based on my review of April 16th.”
He sheepishly backed off and replied, “Yes, okay.”
Michael clearly did not want to have this discussion, as you can see by the exasperated expression on his face the entire time Lynn Su was speaking.
To her credit, she ignored him and carried on.
The first exhibit to Commissioner Su’s handout was entitled “The Requirements,” which was that Commissioner Phyllis Smith wanted the City Attorney to be at City Hall five days a week.
The next exhibit were the “fobs” which show the “entering and exiting the building” for Joe and his colleague at his law firm of Greenspoon Marder, Ahmand Johnson. The purpose of this exhibit was “so you could see the actual frequency of the attorney being present in our city,” Commissioner Su stated.
Her next point under his “Commitment on the Job” is that “there are growing concerns about the CAO’s presence, responsiveness, follow through on city matters, presence, and accessibility during the meeting.”
In addition, she added, “I’ve also heard from staff and residents that their emails and calls have gone unanswered for months. For a position of this importance, that level of unresponsiveness is unacceptable.”
Ms. Su had plenty more to say about Joe’s delaying of “contracts and resolutions” for “six months or more.”
She spoke about Joe’s less than acceptable “legal” advice, including the highly controversial no-bid contract with ProKel for the city’s trolley system.
No discussion about Joe Geller would be complete without pointing out that he falls asleep in meetings.
Shockingly, considering the fiasco we mentioned in a previous blog about the settlement of a lawsuit against the city, Commissioner Su also brought up the fact that Joe would never mention them during the “City Attorney’s Report” section of Commission meetings.
She stated, “I personally have requested a report of what the attorney had settled on. What cases and what deal what um what settlements and what cases have the attorney has been working on or have completed. I’d like to see what has been settled on, what was uh, you know, in litigation, etc., etc. I had requested that in May. I asked for a 30-day turnaround time and he said, ‘No, I can’t do it in that time.’ Two months later, still nothing. And now it has been five months, and I still don’t have that report.”
As we all now know, absolutely nothing has changed!
Finally, Commissioner Su requested that the reappointment of a City Attorney be “required annually” to “ensure that the city has an attorney physically on site to support staff and departments,” and “conduct a formal performance review establishing clear benchmarks and deliverables for Greenspoon Marder to meet.”
After visibly showing his displeasure with Ms. Su’s entire presentation and speech, Michael Joseph had to praise his Protector In Chief, Joe Geller, and defend his “honor.”
The nonsense he spewed is not worth the ink here, so you’ll just have to go watch it for yourself.
When he was done, Michael immediately tried to call on the other Commissioners for their responses, but Lynn broke in with, “I just want to clarify something really quickly.”
Michael was anxiously squirming in his seat by this time, but Lynn Su was undeterred.
She continued, “Um this calendar that I created this is from every single door, okay, okay in the city including the City Attorney’s office door, the back door, the elevator, both elevators, all of that compiled into this calendar. So, it’s not one particular door, or that I am focusing on and they entered another door. This is like all of it.”
Michael was apoplectic at at this point, and he and Commissioner Daniela Jean were exchanging glances appearing to mock Commissioner Su.
Undaunted by their attempts at ridicule, Lynn Su persisted, “I had asked IT for this and they only have a record of three months. So, these are the three months that I got and this is what we have. I believe that this is the complete version. We could also do another one which is the camera in the back that shows the cars that are parked in the parking lot. But, I’m pretty sure even if we add another 25% we are nowhere near 5 days a week.”
Lynn concluded with, “I am willing to discuss anything you have any questions on in the documents I sent over.”
Joe Geller was given the chance to respond to the accusations (hour 4:34:23 of the meeting video), and as you might expect, all of it was bullshit — especially that North Miami Beach “was going to be his number one priority.”
We already know this was the biggest lie of all.
WATCH!
Fast forward to last Tuesday night’s meeting when Joe Geller tried to sneak into the Consent Agenda a Resolution to settle a lawsuit that he never even told the Commissioners about even though the matter had been going on for over two years.
Joe also didn’t divulge at the meeting that the only reason it was even on the Agenda was because he had botched the case so badly that the presiding Judge had had enough of his antics and finally ordered him to get Commission approval at the July 21, 2026 meeting and pay the Plaintiffs by no later than August 4, 2026.
Bad lawyering is only funny in movies.
@dudja4life When you’re a really bad lawyer: #memes #lawyer #funny #comedy #meme #jasonbateman #blind #book #lol ♬ Memories Remain – Dudja
In all seriousness, Joe Geller must go!
Stephanie
