Coral Gables city manager has taxpayer-paid ‘fixer’ for political headaches

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Coral Gables taxpayers pay sweet property bills for sweet services like trash pick-up and crack code enforcement. For the last eight months at least, they’ve also been paying for the city manager’s political consultant.

Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark has old timey Gables political consultant Stan Adkins — who also runs Commissioner Pat Keon‘s campaigns — officially helping her with the long delayed annexation process in the High Pines and Ponce Davis neighborhoods. But he also seems to be unofficially helping her manipulate the commission, do damage control on bad news and even script what the mayor and employees are supposed to say at commission meetings, according to emails and text messages between them.

According to city records, Adkins has been making $4,000 a month since November, mostly it seems for PR projects for some of the most controversial or touchy city issues. That would amount to $48,000 a year, which is under the $50,000 that would require the city manager to get approval from the city commission. There is also an invoice that indicates Adkins and Associates did some flyers and door hangers for several city programs and a brochure on legislative priorities — for a total of $11,834.

Emails between Adkins and several city officials indicate that he is helping the city sell the annexation of High Pines and Ponce Davis to somebody — either the commission or the residents. He was also consulted on the selection of the logo for the city’s hurricane preparedness public outreach, a media buy of radio ads, messaging on the police vacancies and recruitment and PR for other city programs or issues — most notably the poop scoop campaign.

But it looks like he does poop scooping of another kind.

The City Beautiful’s own public information officer, Maria Higgins Fallon, keeps Adkins up with social media posts about the Gables and also sent him links to stories about Hudak’s pool party as well media inquiries.

Some emails and text messages make him out as the city manager’s personal fixer, ala Olivia Pope on Scandal, only not as pretty and no white hat.

Read related: Coral Gables manager spanked for interfering with background check

When the Sun-Sentinel published a series of stories and editorials last month about how Cathy had left Hollywood taxpayers o the hook for a $28 million giveaway grant to the Margaritaville developer, Adkins got a series of emails from Higgins Fallon, with links from the paper. No words. No instructions on what to do, because he knew what to do. Damage control with commissioners is Ladra’s guess.

Neither Adkins nor Swanson-Rivenbark returned repeated calls to their cellphones. Swanson-Rivenbark did not return text messages either.

There is no doubt that the Gables city manager needs political mentoring or advice. In fact, given her recent behavior, Ladra is surprised she has any. Maybe Adkins is losing his touch. Let’s reprise, shall we?

Swanson-Rivenbark has been hurdling one catastrophe after another since she was hired back from the city of Hollywood, where she was under investigation for mismanaging $1 million in city funds:

• Almost immediately she started hiring lackeys and cronies.
• She tried to appoint two police chiefs and was told she could not by her own city attorney.
• She covered up the spying on citizens and commissioners by a police major.
• She took it upon herself to cancel a study ordered by the commission to look at the impact of development along the U.S. 1 corridor, paying a $50,000 fee anyway.
• She seemingly intentionally planned and designed a new public safety building without talking to or involving the public safety leaders.
• She got into a pissing match with the beloved police chief, issuing an opportunistic and unwarranted reprimand from a bogus and politically-motivated anonymous complaint she later had to rescind.
• Then it was learned that she interfered with the 2015 background check of one of her lackeys.
• And now we find out that she’s been using a taxpayer paid political fixer or spin doctor.

Part of the scope of Adkins’ job description, it appears, was reviewing the script that Swanson wrote for herself, Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli and Chief Ed Hudak for the meeting in April when she was to rescind the unwarranted reprimand that she never should have issued in the first place.

“I accept the manager’s resolution and want to thank her. I respect the manager’s authority,” Hudak was supposed to say. “We both share a desire to have a government with the highest integrity. We have agreed to work together in the best interest of the city going forward.”

Adkins asked: “Has this been agreed to?”

Read related: Coral Gables manager’s petty reprimand on chief backfires on her

No, it had not. Hudak never ended up saying those words. Which apparently surprised some people. After Hudak accepted the rescinding of the reprimand, Commissioner Keon asked if that was it? Didn’t he have something else to say? Hmmm?

Now we know why she asked. She must have known about the script! What else has she and Cathy been conspiring because now we know why Keon seems to always defend the manager no matter what: They share a consultant.

Ladra doesn’t know how Keon is going to be able to look anybody else in the eye at the commission meeting on Tuesday, which should get pretty interesting now.

Commissioner Vince Lago was already going to discuss her inappropriate interference with the background check into her lackey, Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez, who may have been hired without the safety net of a full and independent vetting.

Ladra is certain that the discussion will be expanded now to include this. How could it not?

  Cathy Swanson, Pat Keon