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 has been the self-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, 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 liar 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
I’ll be damn!! That’s some seriously impressive truth!! I just hope people take the time to really digest the bullshit artist Jay Chernoff really is!! My have we been fooled! WTF is wrong with him? Time for a change; I’m voting Whitney Padote!! Thanks for the tip on Jays DISASTROUS voting and personal finances. He in NO WAY should be administering our city. I see why we have a 12 million dollar deficit which he voted for and OWNS.
Get this train wreck out of here!!
You have to remember that we were desperate to get rid of the corrupt Paule Villard, and Jay was willing to run. We had almost no expectation that he would win, and he didn’t do much to help his own campaign. At least a dozen or more of us worked our asses off to get him elected. He never would have won without us. I can’t believe how ungrateful he is now.
Jay Chernoff also voted for an exorbitant severance package for former City Manager, Mario Diaz, who voluntarily RESIGNED! NUTS!
What taxpaying residents appreciate that type of reckless spending?
I’ll take my chances with Whitney Padote. His background alone could save us millions., unlike Jay, who spent millions on no-bid contracts, idiotic maneuvering, thank you FUND$ to a former manager and a no vote to bringing the legal department in house.
Thanks for bringing up Mario’s golden parachute and Sleepy Joe’s continued, undeserved employment, both courtesy of Jay’s generosity with other people’s money.
I actually forgot about both of those blunders while writing this blog. Voters need to be reminded of them, too!
Hey Steph, Jay also hasn’t paid his water bill to NMB either. He owes several thousand $ in delinquent water and solid waste fees. With his three foreclosures and delinquent utility bills, is this the guy you want to handle the city’s funding??? Jay has recently been driving a new car with lots of bells and whistles. He can’t pay his bills but he can afford an expensive set of new wheels. This shows you where his priorities are. If he is re-elected, he will do the same thing with the city’s budget, voting for $$$ give-aways and grants, being the 4th vote needed to approve all the give-aways Michael Joseph, McKenzie Fleurimond, and Daniela Jean can dream up.
Jay voted to spend $100,000 to hire an independent law firm to investigate allegations against Mayor Joseph by city staff. After a thorough investigation, including interviews with city staff, the law fim verified that the mayor did use inappropriate language on city staff, ordered them to issue funds without the proper backups, and other violations of city ordinances. Commissioner Smukler made a motion to censure the mayor for his misconduct and a vote was taken by the commission. Of course the mayor would vote to not censure himself, and of course his two ethically-challenged colleagues on the commission always vote lock-step with the mayor. This was expected. What was not expected, was Jay would vote NOT to censure him. Jay was again the 4th deciding vote. The giveaway that that was going to happen was when Jay got out of his seat during the commission meeting, walked over to the mayor and patted him on the back and whispered in his ear “I got your back” before the censure time came up. When the vote took place about ten minutes later, and it was Jay’s turn to vote, he waffled a bit on voting NO and the mayor turned to him and stated “You’re Changing Your Vote Commissioner?” The funny thing is that the mayor blurted out a Sunshine Violation when he stated that. There was no previous vote taken so it was obvious the mayor’s expectations were based upon Jay’s pat on his back and Jay’s whispered words in his ear. Corrupt to the core, both of them.