You could tell right away that newly elected Miami Beach Mayor Philip “Fix It Phil” Levine got a little high on his sudden rush to power.
He was quick to tell Commissioner Ed Tobin that it was his turn to control the meeting right after he was sworn in last week and actually got giddy when someone handed him the gavel.
“How fun is this? I got a gavel,” he said, like a little kid with a new toy.
Then, on his first day on the job, he fired a sitting commissioner’s aide because the man had supported his opponent.
Now it looks like Levine wants to micro manage every commission committee.
A resolution on next week’s commission meeting would make the mayor “a fourth voting member on all city commission committees” and also give him the authority to appoint both the chair and vice chair of these committees rather than have them appointed by the members, as it is currently done. Wait, does that mean he can appoint himself chair or vice chair? Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if that came next.
This is from a guy who never served on a city committee in his life. Now he wants to serve on all of them. Well, four of them.
There are three committees now. The Finance and Citywide Projects Committee, which is chaired by Vice Mayor Deede Weithorn (still, it hasn’t been taken away from her yet, as threatened), the Land Use and Development Committee, which was chaired by former Commissioner Michael Gongora and will now likely be given to Commissioner Michael Grieco for being a good boy, and the Neighborhood/Community Affairs Committee, which is chaired by Tobin. Levine also wants to add a fourth committee on flooding issues, a subject that was so good to his campaign and which everyone agrees is a good idea.
But many people think that Levine being on all four committees is not and that this move amounts to nothing more than a power grab.
Political observers I trust (a little) say it will have the effect of increasing the powers of the mayor while diminishing the power and stature of the commissioners. Levine critics leftover from the campaign say that’s intentional and that this is exactly the kind of thing they were worried about because he could be pre-empting the public commission process, eroding at the checks and balances that a committee system is supposed to create.
For one thing, anything passed unanimously by committee is going to get approved at the commission meeting because it already has four votes.
Secondly, commission committee meetings are not video-taped or broadcast live to the citizen audience. They are often had in a conference room, away from any public scrutiny. And many committee recommendations are passed without further discussion by the commission, which will sometimes boot a controversial item to a committee first.
Levine is sooooo pro transparency, right? Is that why he wanted to push this change through the consent agenda? Really? Really? Thank God, at least one commissioner still has some voice left and some sense. Weithorn said she had already asked the city clerk to take the item off the consent agenda and put it on for discussion.
“It goes against my long standing tradition of trying to be transparent. I think it’s important we discuss it and let people know what’s changing,” Weithorn told Ladra Friday.
“I don’t understand what he’s trying to fix. The mayor can already sit on whatever committee he wants,” she added.
Weithorn said that throughout the years, mayors have come into commission committee meetings on issues that were controversial or important to them. And she is not sure it is a good idea to increase the membership. “With four voting members, the quorum is now three. I had a hard time getting two people there sometimes,” she said.
“There are questions I have. I want to ask him what is his intention.”
So does Ladra. Better luck to you, Vice Mayor. Because in what is becoming an obvious trend, neither the mayor nor his chief of staff, Alex Miranda, nor City Manager Jimmy Morales returned my calls.
Commissioner Michael Grieco did, however, and said he didn’t have worry much about the item.
“It doesn’t really raise any eyebrows with me,” Grieco told me. “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he said, but then quickly added some history he just happened to know, adding that he was told the amendment would revert the system back to the way it was before it was changed in 2003. First he’s heard of it my you-know-what.
“Maybe he just wants to be on a bunch of committees and wants to be involved,” Grieco said.
But that level of involvement in everything is exactly why others are concerned.
Mayor Philip Levine has control issues with committees added by Ladra on
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