Miami commissioners hang on to hundreds of COVID19 relief gift cards

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In these “unprecedented times,” we keep hearing from our electeds, as the COVID19 pandemic and economic crisis stretches into 2021, people need help paying the rent, staying in business and/or feeding their families.

So why are city of Miami commissioners sitting on somewhere between $700,000 and almost $1 million in COVID relief grocery and/or Visa gift cards?

Only Commissioner Manolo Reyes has given out all the cards allotted to his office through the $4.7 million grocery gift card program, Assistant City Manager Fernando Casamayor said at last week’s meeting, adding that there was still $700K in unspent aid.

But when he gave the individual unused balances for each commissioner — who got the original allocations proportionate to poverty index for their district — it’s closer to $929 million:

• Alex Diaz de la Portilla in District 1 has $191,000
• Ken Russell in District 2 has $279,000
• Joe Carollo in District 3 has $99,000
• Jeffrey Watson in District 5 has $360,000

They were all surprised that they still had cards left.

Or it might be a matter of paperwork. Each commissioner must submit a sworn affidavit signed by each resident that receives a card testifying that they have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. They also need to get a copy of the resident’s ID. Without that documentation, the city won’t be able to get reimbursed with CARES money through Miami-Dade County.

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Originally, commissioners were supposed to get the documentation by Dec. 30th, until the deadline to use the CARES funding was extended through September. But on Dec. 20, before they knew that extension would come, Assistant Human Services Director William Porro sent commissioners a memo warning them about the deadline, telling them what they had left.

It shows that of the 25,147 gift cards delivered to commissioners — and each got an allocation proportionate to the district’s population and poverty index — only 8,434 data entries had been made. That means that either 16,713 cards were still in commissioners’ hands on Dec. 20 — or the affidavits hadn’t been submitted yet.

But that was just the first two allocations, totaling $3.5 million. Commissioners transferred the unused portion of the small business relief funds, which turns out to be $1.2 million — because that program must have also been completely mismanaged — for a third batch around Dec. 26.

So there are even more cards out there? How many in total?

The news that so many thousands of cards are still available caused an ugly gift card grab as Carollo led a charge to take some of the cards still held by Russell and ADLP. He and Reyes sounded like the seagulls in Finding Nemo.

Mine! Mine! Mine!

“If anyone did not utilize the entire batch, they go back into the pot. Some who were able to get theirs out quicker should not be punished for that,” Carollo said, exempting Watson and District 5 because he was appointed in December and the poverty level there is the highest in the city.

“Then we divide it by four,” Carollo said, adding that commissioners should decide “as they see fit” if some of those funds should go back to business assistance. He also wanted to have the remaining funds split up according to the same poverty index numbers, which means that Watson would get the highest amount, at 26%, Carollo got 16.2% and ADLP got 15.9%.

Read related: Miami city could sue for their fair share of federal CARES COVID19 relief cash

Of course, Reyes was all for a redistribution of the wealth. “Since I was so efficient, why don’t you give it all to me?”

Reyes distributed his cards quickly because he already has a network through the senior meal assistance program he started last April, delivering hot meals to 240 homebound residents every day. His staff also worked with workforce and public housing and scheduled events at parks to get cards into constituents’ hands.

“We had a real strategy” said Esteban “Steve” Ferreiro, his chief of staff.

As the original deadline approached on Dec. 31st, the commissioner had events on the 27th, the 28th and 29th. “We didn’t want to lose the reimbursement capacity,” Ferreiro said, adding that staff manually entered the data from each card’s recipient into a database. “It was labor intensive. But we did it because we were told we wouldn’t get reimbursed without it.”

Russell likely had issues because of staffing: He lost his No. 2 to the county around the same time. And the Dean delayed the distribution in his district when he returned the $250 Publix gift cards for $100 Visa cards that his constituents — who don’t shop at the pricey grocery chain preferred and plugged by Congressman Matt Gaetz — could use at any corner store.

But sources told Ladra that Crazy Joe is taking applications and building a database of the requests before he decides who gets the cards and who doesn’t. Leave it to Carollo to make COVID19 aid a political quid pro quo. Bet you don’t get a card if you signed the recall petition. Remember, he has that list, too.

The discussion on the gift cards seemed to be wrapped in something else. Maybe it’s the rift between him and ADLP. Maybe he knows something we don’t. Maybe he’s fishing.

Because when Crazy Joe didn’t get his way Thursday, he made a live public records request from the dais for a report on each commissioner’s gift cards program.

“A list of everyone that got a card, and the amount, from each district official,” Carollo told the staff. “Then I want you to give me the breakdown as of the December 30th, how many affidavits you have in the total amount, what those affidavits come to in dollars and compare to the cards you gave commissioners.

“If there’s a deficit, put the deficit, what you never got back. So we know if there are outstanding affidavits that have to be given or outstanding cards that weren’t used yet,” he said, adding that the breakdown should be by the dollar amounts on each card, per vendor, per commissioner.

The insinuation is that something is amiss. What’s he fishing for?

Read related: Miami-Dade’s Carlos Gimenez hoards COVID19 CARES money, irks cities

Yes, Ladra piggy-backed on that public records request and is hoping to get the information this week. Carollo gave city staff five days — or until Friday.

Diaz de la Portilla later told Ladra, via text, that his office had 542 cards left and had yet to be allocated cards from the third batch distributed.

At the meeting Feb. 11, ADLP advocated for each commissioner to keep his cards to distribute in the district. “We shouldn’t treat one commissioner different than other commissioners. Fair is fair,” he said.

Carollo laughed a sinister laugh. “It is. But there are penalties sometimes,” he told ADLP. “You know how Monopoly goes, right? You don’t pass go. You don’t get $200.”

But even a broken clock is right twice a day — and, this time, Diaz de la Portilla was right: It wouldn’t be fair to the residents, which is where this money was intended to go, to redistribute the cards.

The people who live in districts 1 and 2 aren’t responsible for the laziness or excuses of Diaz de la Portilla and Russell and/or their staffs. They shouldn’t be punished for the politicos‘ procrastination.

The gift cards program is on the agenda for the Feb. 25 meeting.

Maybe by then, the remaining gift cards have made it into the hands of those who really need them.

Because even if there’s nothing amiss, it is still criminal that people may have actually been hungry and anxious, not knowing where their next meal was coming from, while commissioners sat on $700K+ in aid.

  Alex Diaz de la Portilla, CARES funding, COVID19, Joe Carollo, Manolo Reyes