Less than two weeks after removing Miami City Attorney Vicky Mendez from her position earlier this month and demoting her to a transitional, ceremonial post, commissioners could name a permanent replacement on Thursday. And Interim City Attorney George Wysong is the recommendation from a selection committee made almost entirely of land use and zoning lobbyists.
He basically already has the job. An item about the city attorney selection on the commission meeting agenda for Thursday has been withdrawn.
Nothing against Wysong, who is, by all accounts, a really nice guy with a wealth of institutional knowledge and a long career at the city of Miami. But he’s had a long career at the city of Miami, which means he has stood by and allowed Mendez and the criminal commissioners conduct themselves in, at the very least, an unethical and unprofessional manner. He’s either complicit or he tolerates that kind of crap.
He was part of the team effort to cheat petitioners out of the recall of Commissioner Joe Carollo in 2020. In a chain of emails obtained by Political Cortadito, Wysong conspired with Mendez to keep the recall from moving forward, and opined on the strictest reading of the law, which he didn’t have to do.
“It is important to note the timing of the start of the petition period was entirely up to the chairperson and the committee that gathered the first signature,” Wysong wrote in the Jan. 30, 2020, memo, a month before the petitions were due. “The fact that the petitioner’s poor planning may cost them a day of petition gathering is on them.”
Read related: Miami city attorneys conspired, created ‘cheat sheet’ to stop Joe Carollo recall
Mendez loved this interpretation of the deadline, which is not the first one she got, and made sure it was added to the recall “cheat sheet.”
Some political observers, Ladra included, fear that he represents the status quo. By choosing Wysong — who has spent his entire career at the city of Miami — the selection committee could be saying it doesn’t want to change a thing about the city attorney’s office. They like things the way they are.
“It’s unfortunate that people would see it that way,” said Commissioner Damian Pardo, adding that Wysong can already retire and is not beholden to the mayor or commission.
“This is a chance for George to establish his own leadership style and his own priorities. He is fully vested and can freely act and make the changes he wants to make,” Pardo said. “Right now, what we need in that position is good leadership, stability and fairness. And I think all these are things George Wysong represents.”
Maybe the real problem here is the selection committee. Why are a group of mostly lobbyists making the recommendation for for the next Miami City attorney? How was the selection committee members selected? When? This didn’t come up during a public meeting, did it?
Nope. It was done in the shadows.
According to City Clerk Todd Hannon, the commissioners did not have to appoint members of this selection committee in public. They made their appointments directly through a Human Resources liaison, Hannon said. The members of this selection committee are:
- Rafael E. Andrade, a Miami Beach-based attorney and lobbyist
- Jose A. Villalobos, a lobbyist at Akerman and a former city attorney in West Miami under then Mayor Rebeca Sosa
- Neisen Kasdin, lobbyist and managing partner at Akerman and former mayor of Miami Beach
- Yolanda Cash Jackson, lobbyist at Becker & Poliokoff, which represents the city in Tallahassee
- Jay Solowsky, litigator at Krinzman Huss Lubetsky Feldman & Hotte and Vice President of the Brickell Homeowners Association (he sued the Florida Department of Transportation on behalf of the city in 2013.
Why not Melissa Tapanes?
Pardo on Wednesday defended his appointment of Kasdin, a former mayor of Miami Beach who he doesn’t view as a lobbyist. “He’s an old friend of 35 years. He’s really smart. He understands municipal law. He understands municipal government.”
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He’s also a lobbyist who has advocated for David Beckham‘s soccer stadium and the Miami Boat Show’s manatee-killing test drives. Most recently, he’s represented a property owner seeking land use and zoning changes in the city’s Design District, according to the city’s own database of registered lobbyists.
Of course, it’s not the fault of the selection committee that there were only two applicants for the job who interviewed with the selection committee on Friday.
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Wysong graduated from St. Thomas University with a law degree in 1993 and hired the very next year as an assistant city attorney. Five years later, he was named legal counsel to the police department and he was still there when the U.S. Department of Justice began to investigate the agency after 33 police shootings from 2008 to 2011, including the fatal shooting of seven Black men. The federal review found that Miami police violated constitutional rights with “excessive use of deadly force,” and the department was placed under federal oversight that ended in 2021.
Last May, he was promoted to deputy city attorney, overseeing, among other things, land use issues.
No wonder the lobbyists like him.
Selection board of lobbyists choose George Wysong for Miami City attorney added by Ladra on
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