He must have been joking, right?
In his State of the City address Tuesday, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez talked about transparency and public trust.
He should just apologize.
When Miami Mayor Francis Suarez delivers his State of the City address on Tuesday, he should open with a general apology to the residents and business owners who have had to put up with not just the crappy conditions of streets and parks and services, but also the corruption that permeates the dais, the city attorney’s office and even his pay-to-play deals with developers and other business interests.
Everybody is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
By other shoe, Ladra means the tired, old, stinky loafer that is Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, who would follow his BFF, mentor and role model, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, anywhere.
He was absent from the redistricting process when the Miami City Commission disenfranchised black and Coconut Grove voters by dividing their districts and diluting their votes. He let Commissioner Joe Carollo carve up the Grove so he could put his own house into District 3 and he let Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla take his only real challenger out of District 1. Mayor Francis Suarez didn’t say ni pio.
But now he wants to be involved? Now he wants to work?
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.
That clock that Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago wants to put somewhere downtown was manufactured by a company that held a fundraiser for his BFF Miami Mayor Francis Suarez‘s now-abandoned presidential campaign in June.
Lago brought up the Masion F.P. Journe clock again during a discussion in a commission meeting last month, where he sought direction on where to put it. Where the sun don’t shine was not an option. The mayor liked a corner on Miracle Mile and Ponce de Leon Boulevard. Commissioner Melissa Castro wondered out loud if it was in front of Crema, which apparently the mayor has some financial interest in (more on that later).
