Former Palmetto Bay Councilman David Singer has likely gone too far in his war against the village council and mayor comparing them to Adolf Hitler in a Facebook post Thursday and likening the removal and euthanizing of about 20 “aggressive” Muscovy ducks from Coral Reef Park to the extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust.
On the eve of Passover.
“I heard today that Mayor Karyn Cunningham, Vice Mayor Leanne Tellum and Village Manager Nick Marano were looking for a final solution to the ducks in the Village of Palmetto Bay,” Singer posted on one of his Facebook community pages, What’s Happening in Palmetto Bay, with a photo of Hitler, a swastika on his arm. “You know who else was looking for a final solution?”
Some people think his post was offensive.
“He’s a schmuck,” said Councilman Steve Cody, who beat Singer in 2020.
“It shows an incredible insensitivity,” Cody said, adding that it’s ironic because Singer is Jewish. “You would think he would know better. But he’s so determined to make his point and make it any way he has to that he doesn’t care.
“I find it disgusting,” Cody told Political Cortadito. He was so incensed, in fact, that he wrote an email with a screenshot of the post to Singer’s employers, developers Jeffrey and Michael Berkowitz. Subject line: “You need to have a sit down with David Singer.”
My late wife was a Cuban Jew. My 4 children are Jewish. My two (and soon to be three) grandchildren are Jewish. I was raised Irish Catholic, but my godfather, Dick Cunningham, was part of the Third Army that liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimar, Germany in April 1945. I am old enough to remember the parents of kids I grew up with who survived the Holocaust and who bore numbered tattoos on their forearms. I am offended for what Singer wrote and posted on all of their behalf’s.
This is all the reverence that Singer can muster for the millions who perished and the too few who survived the Nazi atrocities — to compare all of that incalculable suffering to the removal of 20 nuisance waterfowl from a public park.
You damage your brand and the legacy you are hoping to pass down to your children and grandchildren by continuing to associate with this man. David Singer is the dark and sick and twisted lens through which the leadership of this community are beginning to view your company.
And as you give him license to narrow cast his Facebook Live “Gloves Off With David Singer” from your offices (his guests freely talk of the “show” being performed from an interior space), you allow him to infect the body of your company like a heart worm.
How long can your company tolerate this parasite before the damage is irreversible? Not long, I fear. How long will you tolerate it? That is entirely up to you.
Good luck to you both, but I can promise you this isn’t going to end well for either of you or for Berkowitz Development Group.
— from Steve Cody’s email to Jeffrey and Michael Berkowitz
Even Singer knew he went too far because, not long after the post, he changed the photo to one of three chickens with their heads cut off.
His sister told him to change it, Singer said. But the Facebook post also has some critical comments.
“The village manager was talking about this being a final solution and since I lost my family, I lost my whole family to the Holocaust, when someone is talking about a final solution, that is what pops into my brain,” Singer told Ladra.
Many people in Palmetto Bay are upset with the fact that the city has hired a trapper to snatch the ducks from the park — where they reportedly chase children and knocked one over (which was called having fun in the park in my day) — and have them euthanized. There was a “candlelight vigil” for the ducks this week, covered by CBS4 Miami. The village is a bird sanctuary, pro-duck residents say.
Singer said he has asked for the reports about the injured child and has gotten nothing. “There is no backup to what they are saying,” he said, adding that the trapper is catching the ducks during the day and breaking their wings in front of children.
Of course, there’s no backup to that, either.
Read related: Eugene Flinn tries for Palmetto Bay mayor a third time with rematch
Cody says Muscovy ducks are exempt from sanctuary status and that the vigil was a political stunt. Singer, former Mayor Eugene Flinn — who lost against Cunningham in November — and others are “trying to boot strap it as an election issue for 2024,” he said.
The ducks can’t be relocated, Cody explained. “Federal law says they are a nuisance species. If you have an aggressive one, you have to euthanize,” he told Political Cortadito. He blames the people who feed the ducks for making them aggressive and said if people left them alone, they could stay.
He said there would be a workshop soon with the residents to see if they can find another way to address the issue.
“This is what should have happened before they started hunting the ducks,” said Michael Rosenberg, who founded the Pet’s Trust.
“I would encourage everyone attending that meeting to bring in well researched facts about the Muscovy ducks,” Rosenberg said, adding that there are studies that show that native species — runoff by the Muscovy ducks — are likely to return after they are gone.
Ladra would encourage a fence, maybe. To keep the people away from the ducks.
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