More employee flight from city of Miami: ‘Nobody wants to work here’

More employee flight from city of Miami: ‘Nobody wants to work here’
  • Sumo

The city of Miami has an employee flight problem. It begun two years ago when Commissioner Joe Carollo forced the resignation of former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez and, like a virus, has had several mutations and variants since.

New acting planning director Jeremy Gauger, who was the deputy and had taken over after Francisco Garcia left a year ago, left last month to become the director of building zoning and planning in the Village of Key Biscayne. Gauger worked in the private sector, at Arquitectonica, before that. FYI.

Read related: The Purge: Top city of Miami officials fall like dominos in power shift

Alan Dodd, the former public works director, is now Public Works Director in Fort Lauderdale, where he worked before coming to the city’s resiliency department in 2018. He left in September but, las malas lenguas say, he came back to take Sylejman Ujkani with him. Ujkani was the program manager overseeing spending of the $400 million bond. He also left last month.

Alan Dodd and Jeremy Gauger are among the city of Miami employees who have fled.

And las malas lenguas say the special events guy, Film and Cultural Administrator Vicente Betancourt is on his way out. He is among many city officials who are dusting off their resumés and throwing out lines because the city is just too dysfunctional.

“There is a lot of drama,” one of the ex employees told Ladra.

Quite a few current city employees are said to be refreshing their resumes. Municipalities have realized it is a perfect place to poach public employees from a city that is basically a dumpster fire on an electric scooter.

Read related: More key city employees leave Miami like it was the sinking SS Joe Carollo

“Nobody wants to work here,” said one City Hall source. “We get no support, everything is an uphill battle.”

No support means they have an absent mayor who is more concerned with his national status as a future game show host than running the city and a commission so keen on fighting among themselves to reward their cronies that they have no time left for public service.

Often, doing a good job means you get demoted or fired, as in the case of former Police Chief Art Acevedo, who was rooting out corruption.

8 Responses to "More employee flight from city of Miami: ‘Nobody wants to work here’"

  1. So what do you expect from a third world banana republic (apologies to third world banana republics)

    Miami is a cesspool and poster child for govt corruption

    But that’s what the Cubanitos who run that city keep voting for

    So, just deserts

  2. City of Miami employees are almost all massively overpaid. (Anyone else catch parks employees and police officers sleeping on the job?) There is no Adult Supervision. It is just AN ONGOING CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE.

  3. City policemen and City Parks Dept workers are caught sleeping on the job frequently. In fact, firemen get paid $80+ per hour sleeping or awake. The City diverts $800 Million per year from the taxpayers to City employees… Nice gig if you can get hooked up.

  4. Almost every City of Miami employee is massively overpaid. Why would they want to leave? Corrupt Planning Director Fransisco Garcia was making $250,000. He was being paid to rubber stamp illegal projects for developers ie campaign contributors to elected officials. Disbarred corrupt lawyers make $80,000 to $125,000 working to corrupt elected officials… No supervision. Many City employees nap on the job.

  5. Still wondering why anyone would vote for Carollo. We need more honest qualified commissioners to balance the votes. Maybe, then we can get things done

  6. Wow… This is a real stretch. I have several very close friends who work at City of Miami. A couple of them even have said moving on from their County (talking about a hideous place to work) jobs was the best decision for their careers. Professionally, people just move on to (allegedly) greener pastures, so the underlying “reading” you are making about it is non-sense. And as to Art Acevedo rooting out corruption? That’s, at the very least, an overstatement. Talking about a showman… I think that, instead of talking to the ones who have gone, you should talk to the ones that have stayed. Perhaps then you’d have a better understanding of what City of Miami employees think about the organization.

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