After giving all his former supporters the middle finger as a “Thank You” for dragging him across the proverbial finish line in the 2022 North Miami Beach municipal election, Jay Chernoff’s only successful act on the dais been the destruction of his former “Nice Guy” persona.

Right out of the box on March 21, 2023, Jay’s first screw up was his tie-breaking vote to fire EX-City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey without cause.  Despite his attempt to walk back that decision, his pussy-footed act gave Duke’s legal team the ammo they needed to force the city into settling his bogus lawsuit for another $260,000.00 of taxpayer money, on top of the millions he had already squandered on fraud and abuse in the two years he mismanaged the government.

Then there was that time at the April 15, 2025 meeting when Jay voted to bypass the required bidding process to renew the trolley vendor’s contract for a total of five years at a taxpayer-funded annual cost of $1,922,088.00.  According to the Proposal attached to the Agenda, the city’s staff recommended that the Commission vote “to extend the Operations and Maintenance agreement with ProKel Mobility for an additional five years with two, one-year renewal options beginning April 30, 2025.”  Assuming the no-bid contract remains in effect for the full seven years, taxpayers will end up spending a minimum of $13,454,616.00 — if nothing goes wrong.

Other than the city illegally entering into a no-bid contract in the first place, that is.

Chapter III, Sec. 3-3.14 of the North Miami Beach Code of Ordinances specifically states, “All contracts, when the sum is in excess of fifty thousand ($50,000.00) dollars, shall be awarded by the City Commission to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder meeting specifications.”

Then again, with Sleepy Joe Geller as the City “Attorney,” no laws shall go unbroken.

But despite the demands of the residents and despite the blatant violations of Ordinance No. 2016-12 and Ordinance No. 2018-11 taking place at that meeting, Jay Chernoff went along with the pack and voted for the ProKel no-bid contract.

Jay managed not to do anything stupid for almost another year until the March 26, 2026 meeting, when a majority of the Commission had the opportunity to pass a Resolution censuring Mayor Michael “Contempt of Congress” Joseph, a/k/a the Devil on the Dais, a/k/a mayor Michael Joseph, for a plethora of his abominable behaviors.

Instead of taking constructive criticism and trying to work things out with his friends and supporters, Jay did a 180 and transformed into a nasty backbiter, lashing out at anyone and everyone — and very publicly on Facebook!

On September 2, 2026, Jay responded to criticism by viciously attacking NMB resident, and his long time friend, Bruce Lamberto, who spent countless hours at the polls during the 2022 election drumming up votes for him.

Then on September 20, 2026, Jay decided to go after his colleague on the dais, Commissioner Fortuna Smukler, in a pathetic attempt to berate her for not endorsing him this time around.

As expected, the comments were brutal!

Apparently, Jay is quite nervous about losing his seat, and of course, the cushy, taxpayer-funded salary and benefits package worth $99,922.00 that he’d never be able to earn if he had a real job.

In fact, Jay is so nervous that he had his campaign strategist send out a hit piece mailer against one of his opponents, Whitney Padote, that is beyond laughable.

Whitney is Civil Engineer with an MBA from the University of Miami’s College of Engineering.  He has also worked for both the City of North Miami Beach and the City of North Miami as a GIS Coordinator and Capital Project Manager, respectively.

Whitney also doesn’t bring any baggage to his campaign, but for some weird reason Jay thought it was a great idea to attack him and not his other opponent, Jasmine Rivera, who is deep in the pocket of Big Development and running on a fake dark money slate (more on that scam in a future blog) with carpetbagging “candidate”/patholotical Linda Joseph and the completely clueless Ariel Vasquez.

What, you may ask, is Whitney Padote’s “crime” according to Jay Chernoff?

It seems that eight years ago, Whitney was a registered <gasp> REPUBLICAN!

Unfortunately for Jay, this is not the flex he thought it would be.

Any Democrat who plans to vote for Florida gubernatorial candidate David Jolly, who was a registered Republican eight years ago, but refuses to vote for Whitney Padote because he was also a registered Republican eight years ago, is nothing but a hypocrite plain and simple.

Ironically, both candidates left the GOP in 2018 to become Independents, and both candidates became registered Democrats this year before running for office.

Sorry, Jay.

Whatever dollar amount your PAC spent on that mailer, it was a complete waste of money.  Whitney Padote is more squeaky clean than you ever were in your adult life.

Jay, on the other hand, has more than enough baggage to warrant a hit piece or two.

For example, Jay’s home been in foreclosure three times since 2020, the most recent one just two years ago.

Despite the fact that he’s a 68-year old adult man, he had to have his own mother bail him out by giving him a Mortgage for $127,115.64 to get U.S. Bank Trust National Association off his back.

Or the fact that he has not paid his real estate taxes for the years 2024 and 2025, and there are two Tax Lien Certificates filed on his home, each of them accruing compounded interest of up to 18% per year.

Certificates must be redeemed within two years of the delinquency or the owners risks losing their home.

With respect to his 2024 certificate, there are only about 6 months left before the investor (bidder) can force a public auction of the home.

There should be little doubt in anyone’s mind why Jay is so desperate to win in November by any means necessary.

Maybe he should have remembered who got him elected four years ago instead of aligning himself with Mayor Contempt of Congress in the hopes of getting re-elected.

And maybe, just maybe he shouldn’t have kicked all his now-former friends to the curb while he was sucking up to the Devil on the Dais.

Just saying.

Stephanie