02-10-2011, 07:33 PM
As the saga continues to unfold in City Hall between the Mayor and the Chief of Police, I’ve been repeatedly asked who I think should be removed. My answer, here on the webzine, and in person, has always been the Chief should be fired, and the Mayor should be removed from office.
Recently though, I was asked if I could only choose one, who would it be? My answer was simple and quick: The Mayor.
In one short year, Miami, always a city on the edge of a catastrophe, has managed to find itself teetering on the edge of an abyss, largely as the result of consistently bad decisions made by Tomas Regalado.
He brought in Carlos Migoya as City Manager, and elevated Miguel Exposito to Police Chief, and both of them managed in their own way to knife him in the back and screw over the city for the favor, creating havoc as a result of their presence that will continue to last long after the average citizen forgets their names.
The morale within the ranks of City employees is probably at an all-time low, in large part as a result of watching day and and day out as nitwits and political potted plants like Angel Zayon waltz in and out of the MRC building, often spending less time in the building than the FedEx delivery man.
The finances of the city are in the toilet. It’s estimated that today, the city is burning through $800,000 a week in money is does not have.
The image of the city is such that Miami was just given the dubious distinction of being the 2nd most miserable city in the country to live in, which goes along with being one of the country’s most rude, vain and angry cities to boot.
The Mayor has also managed to demonstrate just how quickly ignorance, incompetence and naked cronyism can corrode the tenuous fabric that serves as the sinews that keep a city together and working.
At almost every turn he’s demonstrated the principal of, “Stupid is, as stupid does.”
But all of that is just atmospherics, for what’s coming down the pike for the Mayor and the City.
There is now a real push to dig up enough evidence to get Regalado charged, arrested and removed from office for conspiring with the gamblers who own the video gaming machines that have been the focal point of all the machinations and friction between the Mayor and the Chief of Police.
Remember that I revealed - and I’m still the only one that has written about this even though other news organizations know what I know and more - that at the core of ALL of this was a conspiracy between City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, City Manager Carlos Migoya, POlice Chief Miguel Exposito and Police Internal Affairs Major Al Alvarez, who used to be Sarnoff’s Sgt-At-Arms driver.
There is no hard evidence that the video gaming machines was at the center of any scheme to trap Regalado, but there is ample evidence that because he was the principal supporter, and had long-standing relationships with several of these gaming machine owners that if they didn’t suspect directly that they might be able to position him to make a wrong move that would let them use it against him, Regalado managed to ensnare himself with his efforts to postpone the raids, and his comments afterwards that:
"That's not true, I never asked the city manager
to stop. I was concerned about the municipal
election, two commissioners and one issue,
and I said 'can't they just wait one or two days?'"
That’s what’s at the core of the Miami Herald lawsuit filed on Monday to get cellphone records.
IT’S THE CELL PHONE BOSS, THE CELL PHONE!
Since early January the discussion inside the ballpark has been about whether or not, on leaving the City Manager’s office, Regalado was dumb enough to start calling some of his gambling machine owner friends to warn them that raids were coming.
That’s a key to tagging Regalado with corruption, because if, after learning about the pending police raids the phone records revealed that Regalado had reached out to these video machine owners, that could then become the “smoking gun” needed to get a real investigation started.
Why is the Herald involved, and why didn’t a law enforcement agency like the FBI or FDLE undertake this search for cell phone records? My understanding is that the FBI has little if any respect or trust for Expositio given his past antics, and I first alluded to the phone records and the FDLE in a piece I wrote on January 10th, the Monday after Exposito’s press conference announcing that he had turned over all his records on the video game case to the FBI:
If Esposito had been really serious about
seeking an investigation on Friday with his
press conference, he would have announced
that he had turned the documents over to
the FDLE, not the FBI.
Why? Because the FDLE has the tools and skills
to do the real investigative work to see whether
the Mayor had been in contact with his alleged
gambler pals, and to go looking for the strings
to pull, which could lead to interesting places.
The FDLE might very well be working quietly on this, but then, like the FBI, they might figure that letting a newspaper be the entity that manages to reveal the cellphone information might be a more prudent way to go.
In any event the argument by City Attorney Julie Bru that was cited in the Miami Herald article about the lawsuit is just bogus nonsense that she first attempted to use with me when I initiated my own public records request for the cell phone records of Commissioner “Ethics” Sarnoff at the beginning of last December.
Although I’ve never met him, I have high respect for Sandy Bohrer, the Herald’s lawyer, and I’m sure that he will be basing part of his argument on the same 1992 informal Florida Attorney General Opinion that I found and provided Bru last month:
"However, in light of the fact that public funds
are being used to lease the cellular telephone
equipment and to pay the charges for calls made
on these telephones, the city is under an obligation
to insure that these funds are being properly spent
to satisfy a public purpose.[8] This office has
suggested, in light of the Florida Supreme Court's
decision in O'Neill v. Burns,[9] that some degree of
control should be retained by the public authority to
assure accomplishment of the public purpose.[10]
Thus, it may be prudent for the city to maintain
records of the service supplied by the cellular
telephone company in sufficient detail to enable
the city to satisfy this requirement."
I just didn’t have the money to file another lawsuit - I’m still waiting for an answer to my lawsuit against the Miami Parking Authority over the “lost” list of City-Wide Parking decals - when I discovered that Sarnoff’s “Cousin Neil” Bayer was illegally using one last month. So I’m happy to see the Herald step up to the plate, because if they win then Sarnoff is going to have to give me his cell phone records, along a few other folks who I’m more than a little interested to see who they spend their days yacking on the phone with.
WHY IS TONY CRAPP NOT DANCING WITH THE ONE WHO BRUNG HIM?
Forget everything that I and everyone else has written about the fight between the Mayor and the Chief of Police. Ignore the arguments, the claims of insubordination, the name calling, everything!
Here’s the single question that everyone needs to focus on today: Since Chief Miguel Exposito is arguably the biggest enemy that Tomas Regalado has in city government today, why hasn’t Tony Crapp saved his patron, his mentor, his meal ticket for all these years from this problem by just firing Exposito.
No other reason required. Just get rid of the guy who’s giving your guy heartburn! Protect the guy who made it possible for you to become the City Manager of Miami?
Even if Crapp is being allegedly being blackmailed over his problem keeping his weenie in his pants, that’s something that can be dealt with. This is Miami, *****es!, after all.
No, the whispers that I’ve gotten are that Tony Crapp has seen the hand writing on the wall is trying to work out a deal to turn on Regalado - for the ultimate betterment of the City you understand - and that he’s just trying to make sure he’ll be around when the dust settles.
These are a truly scummy group of people. I’ve been saying now for sometime that all of these guys have done so many dirty deals over the years, and know so much about each other that they are in effect standing around in a circle, each holding the other’s balls, and saying, “If you squeeze mine, I’m going to squeeze yours harder.”
It looks like maybe somebody has decided to try and squeeze real hard and fast in the hopes that the pain will deter a squeeze back.
Let’s hope so, this standing around is getting tiresome, and somebody in the City of Miami had better start worrying about the real problems, like running out of money, before it all goes to shi
Recently though, I was asked if I could only choose one, who would it be? My answer was simple and quick: The Mayor.
In one short year, Miami, always a city on the edge of a catastrophe, has managed to find itself teetering on the edge of an abyss, largely as the result of consistently bad decisions made by Tomas Regalado.
He brought in Carlos Migoya as City Manager, and elevated Miguel Exposito to Police Chief, and both of them managed in their own way to knife him in the back and screw over the city for the favor, creating havoc as a result of their presence that will continue to last long after the average citizen forgets their names.
The morale within the ranks of City employees is probably at an all-time low, in large part as a result of watching day and and day out as nitwits and political potted plants like Angel Zayon waltz in and out of the MRC building, often spending less time in the building than the FedEx delivery man.
The finances of the city are in the toilet. It’s estimated that today, the city is burning through $800,000 a week in money is does not have.
The image of the city is such that Miami was just given the dubious distinction of being the 2nd most miserable city in the country to live in, which goes along with being one of the country’s most rude, vain and angry cities to boot.
The Mayor has also managed to demonstrate just how quickly ignorance, incompetence and naked cronyism can corrode the tenuous fabric that serves as the sinews that keep a city together and working.
At almost every turn he’s demonstrated the principal of, “Stupid is, as stupid does.”
But all of that is just atmospherics, for what’s coming down the pike for the Mayor and the City.
There is now a real push to dig up enough evidence to get Regalado charged, arrested and removed from office for conspiring with the gamblers who own the video gaming machines that have been the focal point of all the machinations and friction between the Mayor and the Chief of Police.
Remember that I revealed - and I’m still the only one that has written about this even though other news organizations know what I know and more - that at the core of ALL of this was a conspiracy between City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, City Manager Carlos Migoya, POlice Chief Miguel Exposito and Police Internal Affairs Major Al Alvarez, who used to be Sarnoff’s Sgt-At-Arms driver.
There is no hard evidence that the video gaming machines was at the center of any scheme to trap Regalado, but there is ample evidence that because he was the principal supporter, and had long-standing relationships with several of these gaming machine owners that if they didn’t suspect directly that they might be able to position him to make a wrong move that would let them use it against him, Regalado managed to ensnare himself with his efforts to postpone the raids, and his comments afterwards that:
"That's not true, I never asked the city manager
to stop. I was concerned about the municipal
election, two commissioners and one issue,
and I said 'can't they just wait one or two days?'"
That’s what’s at the core of the Miami Herald lawsuit filed on Monday to get cellphone records.
IT’S THE CELL PHONE BOSS, THE CELL PHONE!
Since early January the discussion inside the ballpark has been about whether or not, on leaving the City Manager’s office, Regalado was dumb enough to start calling some of his gambling machine owner friends to warn them that raids were coming.
That’s a key to tagging Regalado with corruption, because if, after learning about the pending police raids the phone records revealed that Regalado had reached out to these video machine owners, that could then become the “smoking gun” needed to get a real investigation started.
Why is the Herald involved, and why didn’t a law enforcement agency like the FBI or FDLE undertake this search for cell phone records? My understanding is that the FBI has little if any respect or trust for Expositio given his past antics, and I first alluded to the phone records and the FDLE in a piece I wrote on January 10th, the Monday after Exposito’s press conference announcing that he had turned over all his records on the video game case to the FBI:
If Esposito had been really serious about
seeking an investigation on Friday with his
press conference, he would have announced
that he had turned the documents over to
the FDLE, not the FBI.
Why? Because the FDLE has the tools and skills
to do the real investigative work to see whether
the Mayor had been in contact with his alleged
gambler pals, and to go looking for the strings
to pull, which could lead to interesting places.
The FDLE might very well be working quietly on this, but then, like the FBI, they might figure that letting a newspaper be the entity that manages to reveal the cellphone information might be a more prudent way to go.
In any event the argument by City Attorney Julie Bru that was cited in the Miami Herald article about the lawsuit is just bogus nonsense that she first attempted to use with me when I initiated my own public records request for the cell phone records of Commissioner “Ethics” Sarnoff at the beginning of last December.
Although I’ve never met him, I have high respect for Sandy Bohrer, the Herald’s lawyer, and I’m sure that he will be basing part of his argument on the same 1992 informal Florida Attorney General Opinion that I found and provided Bru last month:
"However, in light of the fact that public funds
are being used to lease the cellular telephone
equipment and to pay the charges for calls made
on these telephones, the city is under an obligation
to insure that these funds are being properly spent
to satisfy a public purpose.[8] This office has
suggested, in light of the Florida Supreme Court's
decision in O'Neill v. Burns,[9] that some degree of
control should be retained by the public authority to
assure accomplishment of the public purpose.[10]
Thus, it may be prudent for the city to maintain
records of the service supplied by the cellular
telephone company in sufficient detail to enable
the city to satisfy this requirement."
I just didn’t have the money to file another lawsuit - I’m still waiting for an answer to my lawsuit against the Miami Parking Authority over the “lost” list of City-Wide Parking decals - when I discovered that Sarnoff’s “Cousin Neil” Bayer was illegally using one last month. So I’m happy to see the Herald step up to the plate, because if they win then Sarnoff is going to have to give me his cell phone records, along a few other folks who I’m more than a little interested to see who they spend their days yacking on the phone with.
WHY IS TONY CRAPP NOT DANCING WITH THE ONE WHO BRUNG HIM?
Forget everything that I and everyone else has written about the fight between the Mayor and the Chief of Police. Ignore the arguments, the claims of insubordination, the name calling, everything!
Here’s the single question that everyone needs to focus on today: Since Chief Miguel Exposito is arguably the biggest enemy that Tomas Regalado has in city government today, why hasn’t Tony Crapp saved his patron, his mentor, his meal ticket for all these years from this problem by just firing Exposito.
No other reason required. Just get rid of the guy who’s giving your guy heartburn! Protect the guy who made it possible for you to become the City Manager of Miami?
Even if Crapp is being allegedly being blackmailed over his problem keeping his weenie in his pants, that’s something that can be dealt with. This is Miami, *****es!, after all.
No, the whispers that I’ve gotten are that Tony Crapp has seen the hand writing on the wall is trying to work out a deal to turn on Regalado - for the ultimate betterment of the City you understand - and that he’s just trying to make sure he’ll be around when the dust settles.
These are a truly scummy group of people. I’ve been saying now for sometime that all of these guys have done so many dirty deals over the years, and know so much about each other that they are in effect standing around in a circle, each holding the other’s balls, and saying, “If you squeeze mine, I’m going to squeeze yours harder.”
It looks like maybe somebody has decided to try and squeeze real hard and fast in the hopes that the pain will deter a squeeze back.
Let’s hope so, this standing around is getting tiresome, and somebody in the City of Miami had better start worrying about the real problems, like running out of money, before it all goes to shi