Mayor Claudia Cubillos
and Council
Clerk Jacobi
Council Powell
I have lived here for more than 20 years and watch the meetings and try to keep informed. I am writing because I and a lot of my neighbors are upset and angry over Village Manager Alou. We watched last night’s meeting and are appalled that she is getting a raise instead of fired her for incompetence and mismanagement. Since Alou has been manager, she has our Village in the red and on the verge of bankruptcy. How does she deserve a raise? From the get go, Alou’s incompetence was shown. In one of the meetings, we found out that the Pennoni contractor burned through all of the $500K in Village’s funds with nothing to show for it. Alou botched the Hufnagel firing and has cost us more than $60,000 in legal fees. Alou hired a cfo and is paying him $6000 a month for part-time work. When did his deal get approved? How long has Alou been paying $72,000 a year for part-time work? What are we paying for? I watched the meeting and thier presentation of the Village’s budget was horrible, uninformed, full of mistakes and no answers. Alou recommended raising our millage but it did not look like she understood what is in the budget. You all have asked her what is the total legal fees for the Hufnagel case and she had no answer. Irma was 3 yrs ago and the Village has no FEMA reimbursement. Instead, we have a new loan to save money????. The new loan is due next year. Alou put us in this mess. She hired the fema consultant and contractors that are under investigation. We can’t count on getting fema funds anytime soon. Alou’s actions forced us to take out a million plus loan to pay the contractor even though the Miami Herald and federal government warned us. The County also investigated Alou for an affair with the contractor. She got off, but this is just too much for our small town. The former chief says that she was fired because she spoke up about the problems and now she is suing the village for whistle blower. What is the new Hufnagel case going to cost us? How much has she paid the contractors under investigation? Did Alou just keeping paying them like Pennoni even after the government warned her about the investigations? The Village won’t do step plan for our police because there is no money. We are fighting with our police because Alou has just made a mess of our finances. With all this, we could not believe the complements for her “progress”. progress?? Our finances are a mess and we residents are paying for her incompetence. You all must investigate Alou’s actions and get to the bottom of them. We need a competent manager to get us out of this mess.
