Miami City Manager Art Noriega got a pass Thursday after he explained, to use the word loosely, his wife’s business dealings with the city, while City Attorney Victoria Mendez was removed of her position at the commission meeting on the spot. After commissioners voted 4-1 for Mendez to step down — she will still stay on in “a transitionary role” through June — the new Acting City Attorney George Wysong moved into her seat. Only Commissioner Joe Carollo voted against the change.
“I was born in Allapattah, raised in Flagami and lived in Flagami for 44 years,” Mendez said, thanking God, her family and her colleagues — and choking back what some say were crocodile tears.
She rattled off a number of alleged accomplishments that may nor may not be true, particularly the saving of “millions in catastrophic litigation,” because it was not compared to the millions of dollars she has cost the city in needless litigation.
“As the longest-serving full-time city attorney, the longest-serving female city attorney, the longest-serving Hispanic city attorney for the city of Miami, nothing of what the two new commissioners and their serial litigant backers have done to me and my family today and since March of 2023 with the media and bogus litigation will ever take that away from me,” she said, reading from a statement that her office did not provide to Political Cortadito.
She once again blamed Little Havana businessman Bill Fuller and his partners, who sued the city claiming city officials targeted their properties for code enforcement violations on the order of Carollo — because Fuller et al had supported Carollo’s opponent in the 2017 race — in an effort to shut their businesses down.
Fuller and partner Martin Pinilla won a jury award of $63.5 million last summer in a civil suit that claimed Carollo violated their First Amendment rights when he weaponized the city against them for political payback.
Read related: Jury says Miami’s Joe Carollo abused power to violate 1st Amendment rights
The move to basically demote Mendez, who has been with the city for 21 years, was brought by Commissioner Damian Pardo, who had joined his colleagues in January to extend her contract only through June. On Thursday, Pardo — elected on an anti-corruption platform — said that he couldn’t wait another two months.
“For the last couple of commission meetings, the city attorney has been at times insubordinate and at times disrespectful,” Pardo said at the meeting. “I don’t think that’s the conduct becoming in that position.”
When she asked for examples of her insubordination, Pardo told reminded her that she pointed her finger at Commissoner Miguel Gabela and called activist, podcaster and award-winning documentary filmmaker Billy Corben a “vile little man.”
Mendez shot back. “Isn’t it really because you don’t like my opinion in regards to the LED issues,” she asked him, in a sort of insubordinate way.
Pardo made it clear that it was not just about her bad behavior, but also about her bad decisions and bad advice.
“I don’t have confidence in the information we receive,” from the city attorney, he said, adding that it was important because the city was in the midst of a lot of litigation, including the redistricting lawsuit that was the subject of yet another shade session Thursday afternoon.
Commissioner Gabela, the other reform-minded member of the commission elected in November, agreed. “I don’t trust you,” he told Mendez, adding that it wasn’t personal. But it’s not convincing when he starts talking about how the city attorney worked to get him removed from the ballot after the city commission drew him out of the district during redistricting.
And also because Gabela has been trying to fire Tricky Vicky since Day One.
Read related: New commissioner moves fast to fire Miami City attorney Victoria Mendez
“I’m in the hot seat because, unfortunately, you’re upset at me for doing my job,” Mendez told him. “I was only doing my job. Whether you were a candidate or not, I was only doing my job.”
Well, it’s not her job now. Or is it?
While Mendez was removed from her position as city attorney, she will stay in a transitionary role through the beginning of June, which means she is eligible to retire with a pension of more than $8,300 a month, for almost $100K a year, according to The Miami Herald.
So, they’re leaving someone they don’t trust, an obviously disgruntled employee, in the department to do whatever she wants? Not smart.
Wysong will only have the job until April 22, which is when Deputy City Attorney John Greco comes home from vacation and takes over as interim city attorney. But even his reign is short lived, because city commissioners want to choose a permanent replacement at the next meeting on April 25.
Human Resources Director Angela Roberts told them that only three of the 13 candidates that had applied were eligible. Commissioner Joe Carollo, the sole vote against letting Mendez go, said that he was not satisfied with that number.
“For a city this size,” Carollo said, “for the flagship city of Florida, only three people wanted to be city attorney in this city? I find that difficult to comprehend.”
Is he joking? Nobody wants to touch that dumpster fire. Wysong only applied because he’s already there. Whoever the other two are, they should be vetted very thoroughly and given a mental health test.
Carollo wanted to advertise more and give potential candidates an extension, but the other commissioners said it was time to move on. Reyes said it was hard to find eligible applicants because the candidate needs to be an expert in municipal law, and he wasn’t thrilled with the interim appointment since Wysong has applied for the permanent job and that could give him an advantage.
Read related: New report on furniture buys by Miami Manager Art Noriega is still 90K short
The city manager fared much better than Tricky Vicky. Art Noriega finally got to present his long and terribly unsatisfying excuse for providing his wife’s business with hundred of thousands of dollars of furniture purchases. Oh, wait, I mean “the company my wife works for,” which he said several times as if Michelle Pradere Noriega and her sisters weren’t going to inherit their parents’ company.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I adhered to the guidelines,” he said, acknowledging that it was “impossible to prove that.”
But he also didn’t really try. And he promised to never do it again, saying the city would stop purchasing from Pradere. But if he did nothing wrong, why cut the vendor off? It seems like it’s at least $1.2 million too late.
This second report and presentation from the manager — full of “uhs,” and “ums,” and “I don’t knows” — comes three months after he promised at the Jan. 11 meeting to address it publicly at the very next commission meeting. He withdrew the first report only hours after sending it after The Miami Herald pointed out that his numbers didn’t match those of the WLRN exposé that broke the story about his wife’s company getting $440,000 from the city for office furniture, including his own office remodel at half a million dollars and $57,000 to refurbish Commission Chair Christine King‘s office.
He was about $200K short in the report.
In Thursday’ report, Noriega was still almost $100K short with his total figure of purchases from Pradere since he was made manager. He also presented another total — $767,339 in office furniture purchased from his wife’s company from 2010 to 2019.
“Ten [years] is a nice even number and a nice way to frame it,” Noriega said. Sure is a nice way to “frame it” when going back one year further to 2009, the report would have to include the $569,865 spent with Pradere remodeling the offices at the Miami Parking Authority, where Noriega was executive director before he became city manager, mostly thanks to former and disgraced Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla.
Noriega tried to made it seem as if the WLRN and Miami Herald articles got it wrong. “There were line items that I think were misinterpreted,” he said, and proudly showed one slide where the Herald had to correct that a $7,500 chair was really the price for 12 chairs.
He also tried to make it seem like he went to the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics Trust to get an opinion. But he did so after he was caught and the commission’s executive director, Jose Arrojo, told him they don’t do after-the-fact opinions. Just investigations, which is apparently happening. Noriega should have gone to the Ethics Commission in June of 2020 instead of writing his own “I promise” recusal letter that is not worth the paper it was printed on.
The manager also defended against things that he’s not accused of, which comes off as distraction and deflection from the real issue, which is influence.
Read related: Miami’s Art Noriega still has some ‘splaining to do re wife’s work in city
“I’ve never taken a penny from outside employment outside of my job. What I earned, I earned the hard way,” Noriega said, although the conversation was not about his outside employment. It didn’t stop him from pontificating. “I never had a reason to work an outside job. I never had the opportunity to work an outside job. I never had the time.”
All the while, Mayor Francis Suarez, who barely makes appearances at these meetings for proclamations, sat stoically next to the manager.
The whole dog and pony show was a bit disingenuous. It’s almost like Art’s not even trying.
In the end, the commission took no action against the city manager. Carollo cited the recusal letter that Noriega apparently provided in 2020. That’s really what it comes down to, he said.
But the recusal was half-assed, obviously, if his subordinates are going to buy the furniture from his wife’s company.
“It looks bad. It looks real bad,” said Commissioner Manolo Reyes. “This is a distraction that we don’t need. We have so many things to do.”
Pardo also said that he was disappointed he got the slideshow presentation Wednesday night, only ours before the meeting. “I don’t think that transparency is here, or the urgency,” people were looking for.
“The overwhelming concern is that this is the way we do business.”
Noriega said some of the purchases were COVID-related. “We had to redesign the space people worked in,” he told commissioners. “Staff handled the actual purchasing. I didn’t influence it but I certainly new when it happened.”
Pollster, activist and District 2 resident Fernand Amandi said Noriega’s excuses were ludicrous.
“The manager insults the intelligence of every resident and every city professional by stating that he has not personally benefited financially from over $1 million spent on his wife’s family’s furniture company,” Amandi said during the public comments session at the beginning of the meeting. The message sent to the community, he said “is unethical, unprofessional behavior is tolerated and rewarded.”
Then he turned to Spanish. “Todos estamos prestando atención en como votan ustedes hoy.” Translation: We are watching how you vote on this.
But Noriega may not be getting away totally free. He acknowledged that the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust — which had informed him that they do not issue opinions after an alleged ethics violation is made (duh!) — has opened an investigation and asked for a sit-down.
Noriega says he will get back to them with some possible dates.
Hopefully, it’s not three months down the road.
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