Everybody knows that South Miami is the solar energy capital of Miami-Dade. The city has made it mandatory for newly constructed homes to have solar panels. Any existing home that gets repairs or renovations to 75% or more of house is also mandated to be fitted with solar panels.
The city also makes it easier for people to voluntarily get solar panels — and actually encouraged them to do so in letters and on 
the city’s website — through Ygrene Clean Energy Florida, a program that makes it easier for people to finance solar panels and other energy saving home improvements through what could be described as Ygrene’s predatory lending branch, the Property Asseseed Clean Energy program. Payments for the loans — which could be up to almost $40,000 — are added to annual property taxes over a 20-year period, in essence, becoming a lien.
City Manager Steven Alexander — who was also the first town manager in Cutler Bay until he was fired in 2012 — was pivotal in securing (before he left) an interlocal agreement called the Clean Energy Green Corridor between South Miami, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay, Miami Shores and the city of Miami in an effort to provide energy efficiency resources to residents. He signed it as town manager of Cutler Bay. It helps the governments pretend 
they’re addressing climate change and look greener.
But Alexander was also looking at a different kind of green. The kind that goes in his pocket.
The city manager, who is leaving in May at the end of his contract, was a lobbyist fo Ygrene Energy Fund Florida before and after he joined the city — and, one could argue, maybe all along.
Alexander was first hired as a “temporary” manager on Dec. 14, 2012, for $75,000 through May 31, according to a city resolution, although he may have officially started in January of 2013.
A month later, on February of 2013, he renewed his lobbyist registration for Ygrene Clean Energy Florida in Miami-Dade County.
In May of 2013, he registered to lobby Miami Beach Commissioners and administrative staff on behalf of Ygrene, stating on the form that he was paid $8,000 a month for statewide lobbying. He continued to work in South Miami on a month to month basis.
In July of 2013 he was offered the permanent position at South Miami, making $180,000 a year.
On Aug. 1 of 2013, Alexander was sworn in.
On Aug. 7, he filed an outside employment request with the city clerk, stating that he was working for Ygrene as a “government 
consultant” working “variable” hours on “irregular” days and that it would last “several months.” Very vague, but sounds like lobbying. That “request” was signed by then Mayor Philip Stoddard and only Mayor Stoddard on Aug. 22.
But by then, Alexander had already been been working for the city for seven months while representing Ygrene “statewide” without having to file an outside employment request because he was a contractor and not a city employee. Think that’s a conflict of interest anyway? Alexander likely did, too. That’s why Ygrene was not on his resume when he applied for the permanent job.
And emails from Alexander’s first week in August show that he was intricately involved in planning a press release — Ygrene’s idea, and boy where they were pushy with it — to be sent out by the city of South Miami about its “revolutionary new program,” which would provide 100 percent financing “with no up-front costs” for both commercial and residential property owners to pay for a buffet of energy efficiency and renewable upgrades.
In one of the emails, on the morning of Aug. 5, Jennifer Korth, grants and sustainability director for the city, asks Alexander if the mayor should contact Danny Mangan, another Ygrene representative, “or Joe Spector directly?”
Alexander answered within seven minutes: “No, I sent a response to Joe.”
Mangan later sent Alexander a “revised version” of the press release and thanked him for his help.
“Typically, the monthly payments on home and business energy improvements cost less than the monthly savings, returning 
money to your pocket right away,” says the media release, which quotes both his bosses, Ygrene Clean Energy Fund Vice President of Operations Joe Spector — listed as the principal of Ygrene on the Miami Beach lobbying form — and Stoddard.
“The city of South Miami is proud to be a founding member of the Green Corridor PACE program,” said Dr. Philip Stoddard, mayor of South Miami. “Home and business owners in South Miami are now using our Green Corridor PACE program to finance solar panels, windows, or insulation to reduce or eliminate the monthly FPL bill.”
Sounds like such a deal, right? But what he didn’t say is that the PACE program would put a lien on your property and that you can’t sell your home if you don’t pay the loan off. People have been complaining about the little surprise to consumer advocates and the Attorney General’s office lately. They feel hoodwinked.
And if you think the press release was a sales pitch…
On Sept. 1, only a month after Alexander was sworn in as permanent manager, Spector and Stoddard sent a joint letter to South Miami residents telling them about the recently launched program “to make it easier for homeowners like you to obtain 100% financing to protect your home from hurricanes, save energy, lower utility costs and make your home safer and healthier.
“The financing offered by Clean Energy Green Corridor can be used for many types of home improvement projects, ranging from hurricane protection to energy efficiency and renewable energy measures, including: Impact windows, new roofs, solar panels, heating and A/C systems, storm shutters, water heaters, pool pumps, ducting and insulation, lighting and much more.”
It almost leaves you breathless. Where do we sign up?
“You get to choose your own contractor and make the improvements you want. The project cost is repaid on your property tax bill over extended periods of up to 20 years, allowing for a low annual payment,” the letter says, in what has amounted to an outright lie as some people report their tax bills have gone up $2,000 a year. “We hope you will take advantage of this opportunity by going to www.cleanenergygreencorridor.com and getting started on your home improvement project today.”
It is signed “our local team” — Stoddard, as mayor of South Miami, and Spector, as VP of operations. It has the city seal on it and comes in a city envelope.
“PS: Apply before October 7th using the promotional code SOUTHMIAMIUPGRADE to waive the $50 application fee.”
The invitation came complete with a list of local contractors, to make it super easy, and a promotional check written to the name 
of the resident in the amount of $38,517.60″ with the words “YOUR PROPERTY MAY BE ELIGIBLE FOR” in bold on top.
Talk about a hard sell. This is Alexander delivering for Spector. Using his official position as city manager to get some awesome third party validation marketing from the city of South Miami for their program. And leads! And sales!
How much did Stoddard know about it at the time and was he being paid, too? Or were they each paid by commission?
Because South Miami is one of the cities with the fastest growing number of PACE liens, which have skyrocketed from less than 5 when Alexander became manager to a whopping 214 in 2019, according to the Miami-Dade Tax Collector’s office. That includes a 71% increase just last year from 125 in 2018.
“That’s a pretty decent jump,” said Jerry Gomez, the county’s assistant tax collector.
The issue has gotten attention from several municipalities because there are so many complaints. The controversial program was the subject of a Univision 23 special investigation in November and a Miami Herald story last week.
Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Pedro Garcia said he sees a rising concern. “The program could be good, but I worry that there is no information for the people who are going into the program,” Garcia told Ladra. “Those payments are due with their taxes. People can get into debt and lose their property.”
And at a time when several municipalities across the state as well as state legislators have begun to take measures to give consumers more up-front information and more rights as borrowers, South Miami is mum. That’s not a coincidence.
Alexander told Ladra that he had no more contact with Ygrene when he joined the city as a manager. But in the email to Korth, dated Aug. 5, he admits to having spoken to Spector. And the lobbyist registration forms from February and May 2013 don’t lie.
One might say, “Hurry, call the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust!” But, alas, that agency took almost two years to investigate a complaint into this cushy relationship and let Alexander go on his way. They believed his story, that he had worked for Ygrene only for six months between his gigs at Cutler Bay and South Miami, and found “no indication that Alexander either exploited his official position in any way to benefit Ygrene or engaged in any conflicting behavior involving Ygrene and the city of South Miami,” closing the investigation in 2015.
One of his attorneys was Dan Gelber, who later became Mayor of Miami Beach.
But it looks like the ethics investigator didn’t bother to look very hard, because they didn’t find the lobbying forms clearly dated February and May 2013, after Alexander told them the same thing he told Ladra — that he stopped working for Ygrene when he started working for the city of South Miami in January of 2013. “I’ve had no contact with them. Zero,” he said.
See? You can’t always just believe them?
It seems that Alexander was still working for Ygrene in May of that year when he filed as a lobbyist in Miami Beach. If he told an ethics investigator that he stopped working for Ygrene by January, how can we believe he wasn’t working for them last month? Over the last year, when sign-ups in South Miami increased 71%?
In fact, Ladra will bet that after Alexander leaves his manager’s post in May — and I’ve asked but not gotten what his golden parachute is going to look like — he will go back to what he knows best: lobbying for Ygrene in the next unsuspecting city. Or maybe Miami-Dade, where his wife was hired last year as assistant to Deputy Mayor and Budget Director Jennifer Moon.
Solar panels, Ygrene have made the South Miami manager some green added by Ladra on
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