Opponents claim the signs going up are illegal

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After his arrest on public corruption charges in the giveaway of a public park to a private school for more than $300,000 in campaigns contributions and gifts — vacations, accommodations, food, booze — disgraced Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla was suspended from office.

Then, officials found even more graft.

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The battle cry is “Joe must go.” The aim is to remove Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo from the Bayfront Park Trust, where he is chair, because of what downtown residents say is an abuse of his power and mismanagement of Maurice Ferre Park, which is also under the trust’s purview.

In the same 24 hours as U.S. Marshalls posted seizure papers on the door at his Coconut Grove home — in connection with the $63.5 million judgement against him for violating the first amendment rights of two Little Havana businessmen (more on that later) — there’s a petition for Carollo’s removal from the Trust, begun by Downtown Neighbors Alliance President James Torres, who ran for commissioner in District 2 but lost. Torres and many other downtown residents — and anybody with a brain and a conscience — think that the new D2 commissioner, Damian Pardo, should chair these important boards that govern public parks in the heart of the district.

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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, which still has to approve the large sign being erected at the Perez Art Museum Miami in Maurice Ferre Park. Why it is being erected without clearing this hurdle is interesting. Perhaps the sign companies that contributed funds to certain city commissioners’ campaigns also touched state legislators and they’re not worried.

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There’s a growing list of people who think Miami Mayor Francis Suarez ought to resign his position in light of the exposé published this week by The Miami Herald, with details about just how much he blurs the lines between his private, for-profit life and his, ahem, “public service.”

Former Miami Police chiefs Jorge Colina and Art Acevedo — who wrote a scathing memo about corruption that is supposedly being investigated by the Broward State Attorney’s office — have joined the chorus. But the first one to publicly call for his resignation was newly-elected Commissioner Damian Pardo, who ran on a platform of rooting out corruption.

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Voters in Miami’s District 2 rejected 9-month Commissioner Sabina Covo, choosing financial advisor and human rights activist Damian Pardo, who was hit with a flurry of negative attacks in the last week by a political action committee funded with dark money.

Interestingly, it may have backfired. Because while Covo won in the mail-in ballots, Pardo got more early votes and Election Day nods, leading to a 53% victory. In the low turnout election, that translates to a difference of 263 votes.

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