Hires fired, former Doral manager as his number two
It wasn’t public. And it wasn’t complete.
City Manager Art Noriega produced a presentation of the history of his wife’s business with the city in a slide show sent to commissioners and that was short more than $200K from the figure reported by WLRN in January, and it included only transactions since he’s been city manager.
The 15-slide document released Monday does not include the millions Pradere Office furniture sold to the Miami Parking Authority when Noriega was director there for 20 years.
After The Miami Herald reported the inconsistencies, Noriega cancelled an interview with them. Pero, por supuesto. His cover story was blown. His rehearsed lines, now moot. The city then issued a statement Tuesday admitting that there were mistakes made, but blaming technical difficulties.
“An updated presentation/report will be compiled due to anomalies in the tracking system used to retrieve purchase information, as outlined in the recently released report,” the statement reads.
Uh-huh. Anomalies.
Then on Wednesday, the city announced that Noriega has hired former Doral City Manager Barbara “Barbie” Hernandez, who was fired earlier this year over concerns she had used public resources in that western city to help benefit her husband, Dan Espino, a repeated failure at the ballot box who was appointed to the Miami-Dade School Board by the governor in November to replace Christi Fraga, who is now mayor of Doral.
It’s like he’s laughing at everybody. Or preparing to resign.
Read related: Miami’s Art Noriega still has some ‘splaining to do re wife’s work in city
Noriega’s flawed report said that the city paid a total of $228,234 to the company owned by his wife’s family since being named city manager in February, 2020 — which is almost half of the $440,000 reported by WLRN’s Joshua Ceballos and Daniel Rivero. A city spokeswoman said the search for invoices was done using only the word “furniture,” which resulted in the omission of 22 purchases.
Twenty-two!
That was a technical error? Not deliberate? Noriega didn’t know that 22 purchases were missing from the list? This is a guy who oversees a $2.8 billion budget. One would think he or his staff could do a simple procurement search.
It will be interesting to see what those 22 purchases were once the new report is complete. Did he forget another $7,528 chair? Or the $17,860 conference table?
No timeline on that new report, by the way. It might be another nine weeks.
That’s how long it took the manager to produce this bogus report with the bad data. Nine weeks and he couldn’t even get the cover story right.
Noriega told commissioners at the Jan. 11 meeting after the WLRN expose first aired that he would explain everything in a public setting at the very next meeting. Three meetings came and went y nada. The last meeting ran long and, while he said he was prepared to present his side of the story, commissioners said to wait until April so more people could be present and ask questions.
Noriega didn’t wait — he doesn’t want to answer any questions — and he didn’t present the figures publicly. He didn’t even make another video for the series he announced in December (still waiting for episode 2). Instead, he sent the slideshow to commissioners and the press on Monday — only to take it back a day later, after the Herald noted the discrepancies.
Days later, he and his wife attended the Latin Builder Association’s gala, glad-handing and smiling for the cameras, seemingly confident his name will be cleared. People who were there say Noriega did not seem like a man who fears losing his job.
Commissioner Miguel Gabela has already demanded his resignation. Commissioner Manolo Reyes says he wants to wait to get more information.
But how can we believe anything else Noriega presents?
Miami City Manager leaves gaping holes in explaining wife’s city contracts added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
