Whew! That was a close one!
An assistant city of Miami attorney issued a report Thursday that said his boss and colleagues did nothing wrong when 
they accepted comp tickets to downtown Miami’s Ultra Music Festival, at least for the past two years in a row.
Even though the Auditor General said that the city officials — including Assistant City Attorney Veronica “Little Miss Ultra” Diaz, who is running for judge — may have committed a misdemeanor by accepting the gift tickets, Assistant City Attorney George Wysong wrote a memo to say the charter’s language was outdated and actually referred to old, canceled franchised transportation services, whatever that is.
“The language is simply archaic and does not relate to the acceptance of concert tickets,” wrote Wysong, who we’ve never heard of before but may have been chosen to review this practice because, apparently, he was the only one in the office not to go to Ultra.
Read related story: More on ultra bad judicial candidate Veronica Diaz
But the language, I am told, is less than 20 years old. Not archaic by any standards. And it says this:
“Every officer, official or employee of the city, including every member of any board, commission or agency of the city, is expressly prohibited from accepting, directly or indirectly, from any person, company, firm or corporation to which any purchase order or contract is or might be awarded, any rebate, gift, money or anything of value whatsoever, except where given for the use and benefit of the city.”
Where is the reference to old, canceled franchised transportation services?
Maybe, actually, this opinion is written this way because Wysong’s old boss, former Miami City Attorney Julie Bru, got some of those tickets, too. And who knows who else? And it makes his whole office look bad.
Well, call me crazy, but I’ll just wait to see what the independent investigation by the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust says. Because I know they are looking into the gifting of tickets not just to the attorney’s office but to other city officials as well. And because it seems to me that this report was timed specifically to coincide with the election to help Little Miss Ultra get elected.
And on the very same week that the absentee ballots arrive. How convenient!
Auditor General Theodore Guba said that the only justification that Diaz and others who accepted the gifts would have is that there was a “public benefit” for it. Note the words “given for the use and benefit of the city” in the charter.
And that’s the justification Ladra got from Diaz herself when I asked her about the Ultra tickets.
Read related story: Veronica Diaz lied — Not endorsed by Mayor Tomas Regalado
“How else would I know that they were adhering to the agreement,” she asked. Oh, I don’t know. Maybe by talking to the dozens of Miami Police officers assigned to the event whose jobs are to ensure public safety. And also — but I’m not an attorney or anything — wouldn’t those tickets and that purpose for those tickets be expressly included in the contract?
Really? Really?
So, let’s get this straight: Little Miss Ultra and her colleagues needed the $850 VIP tickets to monitor the event and make sure that the concert organizers were following the agreement with the city to a T. All of them, we guess, had to be there. Not just Diaz. Bru, too. And another staffer from the office named Maria.
That is some crack vigilance!
Oh, and I guess they all needed dates because they each got two tickets with the exception of Bru. She only accepted one and then went on an email campaign to try to buy another ticket for her girlfriend (because perhaps she knew accepting two for “public benefit” was crossing a line). And would it be safe to say that this entourage of concertgoing city officials needed escorts to protect them from the wild and drug-crazed party animals at the event? I mean, it is such a grueling assignment.
Oh, and I guess that they were needed there in addition to the Bayfront Trust board members, all of whom also got tickets? Because we needed 8 or 9 — or, heck, make it an even 10 — people to monitor this event?
Oh, and I guess they needed to monitor the rowdy VIP section, and not the general area where a majority of the concertgoers were pressed together and where the masses nearly trampled a security guard to death and while a young man overdosed on something.
What was Diaz monitoring in the VIP section, anyway? How dry the martinis were?
How interesting that as she and her boyfriend, shady attorney Ben Alvarez, were sipping their martinis in the VIP section, a woman was nearly trampled to death.
Why does that not make it into Wysong’s report? And — again, a non attorney asking a question — doesn’t that make the city more liable that this happened despite such stringent safeguards as the entire Bayfront Park Trust and several members of the city attorney’s office monitoring things?
And speaking of reports… since Diaz and several other staffers from the city attorney’s office was at Ultra to “monitor” the event and make sure they were adhering to their agreement, where are the reports they all produced about what they observed?
Ladra called the city attorney’s office this morning to ask for the work product. I’m still waiting for a call back. But how much you wanna bet there isn’t any?
Let’s hope the Ethics Commission finishes their investigation before the work product is created.
Miami City Attorney: ‘Our free VIP Ultra tickets were a-ok’ added by Ladra on
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