After several hours of discussion and passionate public comment, the city of Miami Commission deferred making a decision on the repeal of the ordinances that allow LED billboards on city parks and a moratorium on approving any such signage for 30 days while new rules are adopted. Basically, they passed the buck to the state, […]
Rumors of Manolo Reyes’ impending death are vastly exaggerated. The Miami commissioner was diagnosed with leukemia last year, but has apparently responded well to treatment and is on the mend. And – after what he’s seen the city go through in the last couple of months — he’s also on a transparency and accountability tear. […]
Talk about awkward: Steven Miro, the former chief of staff fired by Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo in 2018, is back at City Hall this week as special advisor to newly elected Commissioner Miguel Gabela. Miro said his job would be to run the district offices and “make sure the constituent services are up to par, […]
As always, the candidates in our local elections are not the only ones who win or lose come Election Day. A bunch of influence peddlers, lobbyists, developers, consultants, environmentalists, preservationists and other special interests will float up with the winners on the ballot, or go down the losers’ proverbial drains. And this has become somewhat […]
It was bound to happen. Voters in Miami’s District 1 got a mailer last week reminding them that suspended Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla had been arrested on public corruption charges, including money laundering and bribery, in a case mostly about campaign contributions. It writes itself. And when you see it, it looks like […]
Commissioner Joe Carollo is suddenly living outside his district A U.S. District Court judge on Sunday tossed out the new same-as-the-old redistricting map passed by city of Miami Commissioners in June, saying it did nothing to remediate the racial gerrymandering found in the first version. A substitute map prepared by the ACLU, one of the […]
Beba Mann is going to have a cow. After more than two years and a prolonged legal battle between the county and city of Miami, illegal plastic barricades placed suddenly and without a public process to restrict traffic in Silver Bluff were finally removed Wednesday morning. The streets were closed in a public press event […]
Scolded for having passed a racially gerrymandered redistricting map and forced to start over after a federal judge threw it out, Miami city commissioners passed a new map Wednesday that, basically, doubled down on the gerrymandering and looks a lot like the old map. This time, it’s blatantly political. Using partisan presidential and Florida gubernatorial […]
Commissioner should at least be removed from Bayfront Board Trust A group of Miami business owners, community leaders, concerned residents and, perhaps, some former elected officials will descend on Miami City Hall at 9 a.m. Tuesday to demand the resignation of City Commissioner Joe Carollo, who was found last week to have violated the First […]
The city of Miami can stop paying Commissioner Joe Carollo‘s legal bills right now. Let him pay for his own appeal with the funds from his political action committee. Carollo, who has spent more than $2 million of the taxpayers’ money defending himself from a federal lawsuit he lost Thursday, has a neat $1,380,295 sitting […]