As we reported earlier in Part 2 of this series, North Miami Beach City “Attorney” Joe Geller has completely screwed up a Charter Amendment process that the city’s residents have been waiting on for ten years.

Despite the fact that the Charter Review Committee spent countless hours over a two month period to compile their recommendations on Charter Amendments for presentation to the City Commission, Joe cavalierly composed a Resolution comprised of three separate Amendments combined into only one question to place on the ballot for the November 3, 2026 election.

As we’ve explained in both Part 1 and this morning’s Part 2, his curt approach to a consequential matter by condensing three issues into a one-question Amendment is troublesome in and of itself.  The even bigger issue is that he waited until the last possible minute to revise the Resolution, while giving the recipients of his revised Resolution almost no time to diligently review what is one of the most important pieces of municipal legislation in a decade.

It should come as no surprise that Joe Geller’s revised Resolution R2026-103 Ballot Questions was literally an abomination, nothing more than a poorly typed and formatted incoherent word salad, most of which a person with even above average intelligence would be hard pressed to understand.  Questions 3, 7, and 8 are especially perplexing, none of which makes any sense at all.

Even the Word edition of his document entitled, NMB City Charter Proposed Amendments for November Special Election Ballot(66131034.2), defies comprehension.

Raise your hand if you understand this gibberish:

Having received these revisions at 9:26 pm the night before the final document had to be submitted to the Supervisor of Elections, the Chair of the Charter Review Committee, Mubarak Kazan, sent an email to city officials first thing in the morning at 6:34 am, with a multitude of concerns.

First, he believed that Question 8 was not approved by the Commission, and therefore should be removed altogether “if the Commission did not vote for it.”

Mr. Kazan was even more concerned about major issues, about which he wrote:

“After reviewing the 2026 Charter questions, I must express my deep concern. This version falls exactly how I expected: remarkably short of expectations; in fact, except for QUESTIONS 5, 6 and 7, I have never encountered anything so quite unclear compared to the previous two successful Charter Review sessions this city entertained in previous years of 2009 and 2016. 100% pass rate in 2009 for 7 questions and 80% pass rate in 2016 for 11 questions. A total of 20 questions made it on the ballot in 2016, compressed into 11 ballot questions that took up 3 pages. Very clear even if you did not like some of them. I am attaching those two years files of questions for Mr. Attorney to take a look at, how questions were posed to the voters. Presently, QUESTIONS 1, 2, 3 and 4 lack transparency, are confusing, and appear almost guaranteed to fail.

Key issues remain unresolved. For example, where is the requirement for the oath of office to be taken within two business days following the declaration of election results? Additionally, I cannot find any explicit language specifying that if an elected official is absent for 120 days—beginning from the day after the last official regular scheduled meeting—their seat is forfeited. This should be a separate and a sole question all by itself and not tucked in with several other questions. “120 days” is not mentioned anywhere. How would the voter know it is 120 days of absence and not 60 days or 360 days of absence?

In my opinion, more than half of these amendments are convoluted and difficult to interpret. QUESTIONS 1 through 4 are tangled and obscured, making it impossible to proceed with confidence.”

Charter Review Committee member Barbara Kramer also sent an email first thing in the morning at 7:39 am to the City Commission, asking them to “direct your Charter officers to be available throughout the day in the event that revisions or additional changes to these Charter amendments are requested by any Commissioner or Charter Review Committee member.”

Mrs. Kramer also added:

“This is of the utmost importance. It is difficult to believe that we are in this position, working against the clock at the eleventh hour with no margin for error, to finalize ballot measures that must be submitted to the Miami-Dade Elections Department by the end of the day today. Given the significance of these proposed Charter amendments, there is simply no excuse for not having the necessary staff available to ensure they are drafted accurately and completely.”

To the best of our knowledge, the only Commissioner who responded to Mrs. Kramer’s email was Fortuna Smukler.  Other Commissioners may have weighed in by phone or text, but we have no knowledge if any of them did.

We do know that Commissioner Smukler was absolutely incensed at Joe Geller’s joke of a work product, which she did not receive until 9:26 pm the night before.

12:45 pm on July 24, 2026, Commissioner Smukler did not pull any punches in her scathing email stating:

“I received this last night as I got home and went straight to sleep. I woke up on the later side this morning only to be bombarded by calls and messages about an awful car accident at the intersection of 163rd street and 35th Avenue prohibiting me from going to work. This is why we do not wait for last minute to do important things.”

After explaining that it would be more than an hour before traffic would clear and she could get to her office computer, she wrote:

“I personally will not have reasonable time to review the charter amendments. Obviously I am not aware of the time frames and opinions of my fellow commissioners. Regardless, we should have had this with ample time to review and I would have liked the opportunity to hear their final opinions. We should not have to make last minute decisions once again, especially since the charter review committee finalized on May 20th and today is July 24th.

If the city does not get a consensus of approval to send to the elections department by the deadline of today, and it needs to be properly submitted so that there are no issues, then we will have to have a special election for this. If we have to have a special election, i personally will insist that the cost of this come out of the pockets of Greenspoon Marder LLP for their lack performance.“

Commissioner Smukler closed her email with a massive truth bomb:

“I wish more time was spent by the attorneys office with the charter amendments then in my opinion was spent helping with the petition of Stronger NMB.”

After waiting all day for a response from Joe Geller, who obviously went MIA as usual, Barbara Kramer and Commissioner Jay Chernoff received this text from Joe at 2:07 pm:

Since, unlike Joe Geller, Barbara was at work and not able to answer the phone when Joe called her.  She did, however, finally respond by email at 2:40 pm, advising Ms. Smukler, Joe Geller, and the Manager’s Office about the specific problems with several of Joe’s proposed ballot questions.

Mrs. Kramer also expressed her extreme angst with the way the entire process was being handled, and wrote:

“I can’t tell you how disappointed and frustrated I am with this entire process.

Not only did I take time away from my home and personal life to volunteer for what I believed was a very important assignment, but I also feel that the tremendous work produced by such a dedicated group of residents has been largely undermined. The fact that I have felt compelled to spend so much time writing multiple emails about this process is, in itself, deeply troubling.

The City Attorney knew as early as May 20 what changes and additions the Charter Review Committee wanted to place before the voters on the November ballot. During the weeks that followed, substantial work could have been completed in drafting and refining the ballot language.”

City “Attorney” Joe Geller COMPLETELY IGNORED the changes to the ballot questions that were suggested by both Charter Review Committee Chairman Mubarak Kazan and Committee Member Barbara Kramer.

He also COMPLETELY IGNORED Commissioner Smukler’s email.

Before the end of the business day on Friday, July 24, 2026, North Miami Beach City “Attorney” Joseph S. Geller submitted his extremely flawed Resolution R2026-103 to the Supervisor of Elections for inclusion in the municipal ballot on November 3, 2026.

We are told he allegedly had verbal approval by a majority of the seven elected officials, who apparently could not care less about the Charter of the city they allegedly represent.

We happen to know for a fact that Commissioners Fortuna Smukler, Phyllis Smith, and Lynn Su DID NOT APPROVE THIS DISASTER OF A RESOLUTION.

Which means that the remaining four, Michael Joseph, McKenzie Fleurimond, Daniela Jean, and Jay Chernoff, gave Joe the green light.

Then again, why should they care as long as they get their exorbitant paychecks?

You might want to remember those four names in case you ever see them on a ballot again in the future so you can vote for their opponents!

Just saying.

Stephanie