The executive director fired from the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency last month was just the first casualty of Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla‘s wrath — and/or graft.
ADLP was made chairman of the Omni CRA in February and immediately started to retaliate against employees who may have cooperated with authorities in the investigation into ghost employee Jenny Nillo, his longtime lacky. Since former Executive Director Jason Walker was asked to leave the day after Diaz de la Portilla was named chair, every CRA employee has been chased off — except for one.
Anthony Balzebre, the assistant director who helped pivot the organization’s focus to small affordable housing projects and worked to initiate most if not all the reforms recommended by the grand jury that had once cast the Omni CRA as the poster child of bad CRAs? Gone.
Adam Old, the former director of planning and policy, who got super good at finding pockets of money (read: grants) and, in his effort to help Overtown property owners, was talking passionately about “rehabilitation of naturally occurring affordable housing” before anyone else in town? Gone.
Isiaa Jones, the in-house counsel who came from the city attorney’s office with experience in real estate contractual transactions who took the team’s vision and molded it into partnerships? Gone.
Read related: Omni CRA head ousted by Miami city commissioner who hired ghost staffer
This is the team that turned the ship around.
All three were asked on a Thursday to resign by a Friday in mid March. They were expecting it — everyone else was, too — but maybe not so soon. After all, they had worked with Diaz de la Portilla before, when he was chairman until Nillo was fired. And there’s a lot going on. Somewhere around 30 or 40 projects in the pipeline, like the Wynwood Works mixed-use, mixed housing project depicted here.
But they only lasted one week with the new executive director.
That is now Humberto “Bert” Gonzalez. He was an assistant director at the CRA before, having worked there for seven years under former Commissioner Marc Sarnoff until he was fired by Walker in 2017 because he wasn’t very good at his job. Sources say Diaz de la Portilla doesn’t know Gonzalez is a slacker, but he doesn’t care. Gonzalez was hired as a dig at Commissioner Ken Russell, who used to be the chair of the CRA and because he is exactly what Diaz de la Portilla wants: an unabashed yes man.
“Bert is an experienced independent consultant with a demonstrated history of working in the government administration industry,” reads the thumbnail profile on the CRA website. “Skilled in Nonprofit Organizations, Budgeting, Government, Sales, and Event Management. Strong consulting professional with a BBA focused in Marketing from Florida International University.”
It is a cut and paste from his LinkedIn page, which shows that Gonzalez has been selling automated garages, fences and parking systems since 2019 after he applied for, but did not get, a job as director of Margate’s CRA.
Left from the original staff are Frances Llop-Noy, the project development specialist who manages the grants, Maintenance Supervisor Javier Rivas-Plata, Jesly de los Santos, a legal assistant, and receptionist Jessica Yance.
For now.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla is investigated on ghost city employee at Omni CRA
There doesn’t seem to be any replacements for the three executives who were chased away. And there’s a lot of work for Llop-Noy to absorb.
Will Nillo come back? Unlikely. The longtime lackey — she’s been with the family since big brother Miguel Diaz de la Portilla was a county commissioner — was unceremoniously fired after she was stopped by police picking up ADLP’s dry cleaning and it was learned that she was a ghost employee at the CRA. She was making $53,000 a year as a “community liaison,” basically keeping eyes out for Diaz de la Portilla, he said.
Anyway, she’s still employed with the city. This time the commissioner’s district office. She was never charged with theft for the wages she stole as a CRA ghost employee. So Diaz de la Portilla hired her back right after Walker fired her. Makes one think: What’s she got on him?
What’s at stake? Millions. And future affordable housing stock.
Read related: ADLP power grabs Omni CRA from Ken Russell in Miami — again
Even though most of the $66.5 million Omni CRA budget — which, by the way, was approved by the Miami-Dade Commission on Tuesday — is already tied up in ongoing projects and debt service on finished projects like the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center and the Port tunnel, there is still about $10 million a year in programming and operating expenses to play with. Plus a $2.8 million reserve.
Then there is the effort to develop the Miami-Dade School Board property into 10 acres of taxable property that would include affordable and workforce housing as well as parking to be shared by the School Board and the PAC. This is still in formation — which means they can still stick their hands in, or out, as it were.
Diaz de la Portilla has already requested a list of city-owned properties within the CRA district, so he could be looking to create a new project, now that he has a CRA staff he can manipulate and manage. Maybe something anchored by self-storage via Raul Nuñez and his lobbyist, Carlos Lago.
They may have talked about it over lunch at Morton’s on a recent weekday.
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Alex DLP ‘s employee starts drinking beer and wine before 7 am? Then drives a taxpayer owned vehicle? And never shows up at a official office? Alex DLP is screwing taxpayers. Again.
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Did Bertie Gonzalez help Bill Riley and Alex DLP steal the Miami City Park just north of the City of Miami Cemetery? Or was that scam too sophisticated for Bertie?
Next will be the grifter Marc Sarnoff wanting a job and a paycheck. Nightmare time.
Alex Diaz de la Portilla will have his hands full with Bertie Gonzalez. They can compete to see who steals the most. Will anyone from the City be watching?
Word is that Frances is the lone survivor at the CRA. Someone start calling the ghostbusters.
Is there no adult supervision?
Joke right? Alex DLP hired Bertie Gonzalez?
Alex DLP is always screwing the taxpayers… And is Alex still living illegally outside his district?
”Jose I prefer Sympathy for The Devil (Stones)”
The Stones have put out some incredible music with Sympathy for The Devil being one of them as you know it was written by Jagger and Richards .
I was not sure if Jagger was part of writing this song because he did not write all their hits so looked it up .
“Sympathy for the Devil” is a song by The Rolling Stones, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards ”
He was spotted in Sarasota a couple years ago as he bought his GF a beautiful house there .
Bert AKA “Bertie” Gonzalez is a creep. He was a bagman for Marc Sarnoff. Doesn’t the City do any due diligence? Forcing the taxpayers to pay Bertie is a crime.
Bert Gonzalez is an idiot and he is a criminal. No way he graduated from FIU. Bert barely speaks English and his Spanish is Cuban slang. Watch Alex and Bert steal the taxpayers money…
Jose I prefer Sympathy for The Devil (Stones)
Please allow me to introduce myself I’m a man of graft and theft…
Botelleros Y Empujadores De Campaña Todos a La Ciudad !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Didn’t AC/DC do a song about this ?
Maybe I got the lyrics wrong .
‘AC/DC – For Those About to Rock.’
Oh yeah, yeah
Whoa, oh oh
We roll Banana Republic style in Miami
To the sound of developers paying us under the table
Yeah yeah yeah
Oh
Stay quite and count your bribes is our motto
We give gracias for what we have received from special interest .
We are the Caribbean political junta
We’ll do what we want when we want with the DA’s help.
Hail, hail to those in Miami who continue reelecting us .
Cause lining our pockets is what we are all about.
We have no loyalty to any country , city nor our people
We’re just living for bribes .
For those politicians like us in Miami about to betray the voters, WE SALUTE YOU
For those politicians like us in Miami about to rob the voters , WE SALUTE YOU
We party big at Key West and bill Miami for it.
Like a bolt right out of the blue Caribbean sky
The sky’s alight with our corruption
We tell our victims to just look at Latin America’s political corruption but don’t look at us in Miami.
For those politicians like us in Miami about to betray the voters, WE SALUTE YOU
For those politicians like us in Miami about to
rob the voters , WE SALUTE YOU