Florida legislators pass anti ethics bill to protect pals, themselves, their graft

Could be up to the new sheriff to fight corruption

The Florida Legislature last month passed a bill that will severely hamper ethics investigations. Just what Miami-Dade needs!

This self-serving bill will not only prohibit local ethics agencies, like the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics, to initiate investigations on their own, but will also require complaints to be filed only by people with “personal knowledge” of any violation. In other words, people involved in the shit.

Anybody with any sense knows that this will drastically decrease the number of complaints that get filed. That’s the intention. It is all about self-preservation. The bill passed in the Senate 26-4 (Democrat Sens. Lauren Book and Shevrin “Shev” Jones did not vote) and in the House 79-34 — mostly along party lines. Many are calling for Gov. Ron DeSantis to veto the bill. But everybody knows he is going to sign that puppy.

Proponents say they are trying to avoid the baseless complaints that are filed, usually during election time. And Ladra must say, there are people (read: consultants and/or attorneys) who abuse the system. How many campaigns budget for an ethics complaint because some psychic consultants just know that there is a violation coming? Because if not, they’ll make one up.

But that can be addressed separately. One of the provisions of Senate Bill 7014 provided penalties and a deterrent in that “a complainant is liable for costs plus reasonable attorney fees for filing a complaint with malicious intent against a candidate for public office.” Why not just leave it at that?

This “personal knowledge” addition shackles the Ethics Commission, which is already limited in scope and jurisdiction. Ladra has had plenty of issues with their inability or unwillingness to go after repeat offenders for what seem like obvious violations at almost every commission meeting. Just ask them.

Then came the case against former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, arrested last September on a slew of felony charges, including money laundering and bribery, in a quid pro quo case where he gave away a public city park for more than $300,000 in campaign contributions to his political action committee and food and booze and accommodations at Brickell’s East Hotel.

That started as an Ethics Commission investigation that was self-initiated. They also investigated the ghost employees in his office and the abuse of his city car. So, ADLP was apparently keeping investigators busy.

Remember the Ethics Commission case against then-Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez for lying on TV about his side business as a loanshark? That was also self-initiated. Hernandez was found and fined $4,000 — which he later tried to pay with 28 Home Depot buckets of pennies, which the Ethics Commission rejected and then turned around and sued the mayor.

There are other, lesser known cases that are also self-initiated.

Like the one against Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Lt. Jairo Rodriguez, currently in charge of the Port Miami Fire Stationeries 39, who agreed earlier this year that there was probable cause and entered into a settlement agreement for violating the Exploitation of Official Position, Conflicting Employment, and the Prohibition of Outside Employment sections of the county ethics ordinance after an investigation had found that he used his position in procurement to buy equipment from his own company, Fire-Tec1.

“He intentionally used his official position on four different occasions… to purchase thousands of dollars in equipment,” a press release from the Ethics Commission states. His role as president of Fire-Tec1 “conflicted with his County employment and impaired his independence of judgement in the performance of his public duties.”

He was also cited for failing to report his outside employment, although he lists himself as founder and president of the company on LinkedIn.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Lt. Rodriguez will be required to pay a $13,000 fine and investigative costs of $3,500. He will also be issued a Letter of Reprimand.

It doesn’t seem like much, right? A slap on the wrist, in this case. But at least it’s something. It’s a public record to remind us of his behavior if Rodriguez is ever up for fire chief or runs for office. It stops him in his tracks and could serve as a deterrent to others who are doing or thinking of doing the same.

And that’s better than nothing.

Thankfully, there are two candidates for Miami-Dade Sheriff that have talked about bringing back an anti-corruption unit, which the Miami-Dade Police Department had until Congressman Carlos Gimenez, then the county mayor, dismantled it in 2013, a year after his campaign was implicated in absentee ballot fraud. One of the greatest disappointments in La Alcaldesa Daniella Levine-Cava was that she didn’t reinstate the unit when she was elected.

Miami-Dade Police Maj. John Barrow, a Democrat, and retired MDPD Maj. Mario Knapp, a Republican, have each said they would make an anti-corruption unit a priority of the new sheriff’s office — which has basically forced every other candidate to do so if they want to stay in the race. Especially now that the legislature has basically sidelined the Ethics Commission. Especially in this atmosphere of steeped corruption.

Barrow, an 18 year veteran at MDPD, says the unit would work with the State Attorney’s Office and the the Ethics commission to “root out corruption and help restore residents’ faith in their elected leaders and local government.

“Being responsible for the public safety of Miami-Dade doesn’t just mean keeping crime off the streets,” Barrow said in a statement. “It means keeping crime out of local government, protecting our tax dollars and honoring the public’s trust — that is what this county deserves.”

Knapp, a 30-year veteran who led the on-scene operations center at the collapse of the Champlain Towers in Surfside, told Florida Politics that he also would create a public corruption squad because local law enforcement needs to better confront abuses of government power.

“If there is an allegation that someone is corrupt,” he told Florida Politics, “then there needs to be an independent vehicle ready to investigate.

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“Everyone is tired of these politicians whose names we’ve known for the last 20, 30 years, and they’re in and out of the circuit from city to city, and yet there’s all kinds of allegations against them and no one to investigate,” Knapp said. “Miami-Dade residents deserve to know there’s a unit willing and able to do that and let the cards fall where they are.”

Although he used the word “independent” and the sheriff will be an elected leader not an employee of the county mayor’s, the Miami-Dade Commission will still have to approve the budget for the Sheriff’s Office. How independent can they really be?

Of course, the Ethics Commission budget is also set and approved by the county commission.

Instead of making it more difficult to make complaints, the legislature ought to be providing ethics boards with more funding and more teeth.

Alex Diaz de la Portilla, ethics, Ethics Commission

Florida legislators pass anti ethics bill to protect pals, themselves, their graft added by Ladra on March 26, 2024
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