In what seems like a poetic turn, the Miami Beach Commission aide fired by newly elected Mayor Philip Levine on his first day is also a member of the city’s Charter Review Board — and he’s recommending an amendment.
After Alex Fernandez read in the Miami Herald that Levine had told the reporter, via text since he doesn’t speak to them either, that the charter under “specifically powers of the mayor,” gave him the power to fire any commission aide he wanted, he tweeted that the mayor maybe ought to read his own charter before he starts yapping his mouth. My words, not his.
His were: “Seems @votelevine doesn’t know that there is no “powers of mayor” in City Charter.”
Fernandez quoted the section in question, Sec. 4.02. — which is titled “City manager—Functions and powers,” not “specifically powers of the mayor” — and in particular paragraph (d) to read as follows about unclassified employees, such as himself:
(d) To appoint and remove at will, all other officers or employees in the unclassified service of the City, except the Mayor and City Commissioners, or those individuals appointed by the Commission, the employees in the Mayor’s Office who are in the unclassified service for whom the Mayor shall be the appointing authority, the unclassified personnel in the Legal Department who shall be appointed and remo
ved by the City Attorney, and the unclassified personnel in the City Clerk’s Office who shall be appointed and removed by the City Clerk.”
I mean, even the City Clerk and City Attorney get to remove their own staff but commissioners, elected to represent them by the same voters who elected Levine, get no say?
It’s actually not even very clear.
Even one of the mayor’s supporters, Rick Kindle, took to twitter to question if Levine has the power to fire Fernandez. “I agree. Mayor Levine doesn’t have power 2 fire Commission staff, per Charter,” Kindle wrote after the debate erupted Tuesday night. “Did City Atty sign off on the paperwork for Alex’s firing? I think Mayor Levine not given correct advice.”
I think he’s going to get what he wants, though. Maybe it just has to be finalized by City Manager Jimmy Morales, who is apparently taking the same runaway-from-them-stance now with the media that his new boss has. “No comment. Happy Thanksgiving,” Morales texted Ladra after she called him at his office and cell phone Tuesday.
Fernandez — Weithorn’s appointee to the board and can be there since he is an “unclassified” employee, or was anyway — thinks maybe it should be clarified. He sent an email to the Charter Review Board chairman suggesting an amendment be taken up at the next meeting Dec. 4. This proposed change would take the power of firing commission aides out of the mayor’s purview and put it where it belongs, with each equally elected commissioner.
Current language gives the mayor authority over his staff and the commission staff. The new language suggested by Fernandez would give the mayor, any mayor, power only over his own staff and give commissioners authority over their own. What a concept!
Bet this is not what Levine had in mind when he campaigned on change.
But Miami Beach does not have a strong mayor — not yet, anyway — no matter how much Levine wants to act like it, and he may have a harder time booting Fernandez from the board than he did from the City Hall staff. Fernandez, who has worked for Vice Mayor Deede Weithorn for almost two years, was told he was fired Tuesday morning and everybody knows that it is because he supported former Commissioner Michael Gongora in the mayoral election. Fernandez wrote a letter he sent, reportedly at his own expense, and for which he was slapped with a bogus campaign complaint by Levine.
I mean Levine may be able to do it. He has the two thirds votes he would need in his pocket, I think. But he may not want to.
Because city rules allow Fernandez the opportunity to speak to the commission on the matter and put this obvious political retaliation out in the open in a public meeting that would be recorded and hopefully covered by the media.
I mean, we know how much Levine likes to hear anyone disagree or criticize him. I’m certain that his new Chief of Staff Alex Miranda won’t get back to me on this either, after ignoring every email I have sent him so far.
Yet, if does decide to fire Fernandez from the board, maybe the other sensible members of this charter review body will see that today it’s Fernandez, tomorrow it could be one of them. And make the change. We’re on a roll with change.
And it’s obviously needed.
Beach ‘Mayors powers’ charter change proposed after firing added by Ladra on
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