The Miami Beach commission will appoint someone later this month to fill the seat of Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who was forced to resign when she ran for Congress by a Republican law aimed squarely at the Democrats in the race to replace U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
City commissioners should reject the GOP measure’s calculated retroactive effect and respect the voters’ wishes by appointing Rosen-Gonzalez for the remainder of her term.
And, naturally, they should reject the allegedly fixed appointment of former commissioner Joy Malakoff, who already tried to get back in the city’s employ with a $50,000-a-year job overseeing the general bond monies.
Is this a second swipe at putting her in control of those funds? Or is someone getting a guaranteed fourth vote on the commission?
Florida’s resign-to-run law only applied to state and local officials until last year, when the legislature approved a measure that would extend the limits to federal seats. This was, of course, after Ros-Lehtinen announced her retirement of a District that was expected to, and eventually did, go blue. So they made the law include candidates who were elected under the old law and many observers believe it was squarely aimed at Rosen Gonzalez, who was the only Dem who had announced by then.
That was unfair already. The Miami Beach city commission has the rare opportunity to right a wrong, and send a message to Tallahassee, by keeping Kristen where she belongs.
Read related: Kristen Rosen Gonzalez wins in Miami Beach race
She may have lost the Congressional race — nobody expected her to win against Donna Shalala, who was sworn in Thursday, same day that Rosen Gonzalez’s resignation became effective — the former commissioner is a good public servant who has said some stupid things and once trusted the wrong guy. Those episodes have gotten way too much attention from all the good she has done in only three years, much of that against a block of political opponents who worked against her.
Still, she was able to bring paternal leave to city employees, outlaw plastic straws and bags and proposed and passed a city law to protect hotel housekeepers from sexual harassment.
She brought the an energy home improvement program to Beach homeowners and the Common Threads program to teach teens about obesity and eating healthy. She got Bell Isle their park, brought affordable solar to the Beach and helped a condo association get the parking lot they needed.
She also championed the next generation of leaders, forming the Miami Beach Youth Commission and the Miami Beach Youth Job Fair. She brought free test preparation for high schoolers and free drug education for teens and their parents.
In between those things she helped hold the line on over development in mid beach, successfully lowered the density and height of many projects and had uncomfortable trolleys retrofitted for senior citizens.
Several active residents and homeowner association members want to see her appointed to serve out her term.
You might think this is a no brainer. Rosen Gonzalez was elected to a four-year term by voters and should be first on the list of potential appointees. But there’s one problem: She votes her conscience. She belongs to nobody.
There are at least two commissioners — Ricky Arriola and John Elizabeth Aleman — who would feel better with their old ally back and some say the fix is in with Mayor Dan Gelber on their side so he can have a fourth vote.
Read related: Ex Miami Beach elected Joy Malakoff got, then dropped juicy $50K city job
Mayor Dan Gelber
Gelber, who wants everyone to see him as a super Democrat and ran on an ethics campaign, should do the right thing and reject the GOP agenda by leading the charge to appoint Rosen Gonzalez to her seat. It would really be a signal to his independence from the former regime that some think he is beholden to. It would be the ethical thing to do. Especially after his role in the bonds job fiasco where he voted to waive the two-year waiting period to hire Malakoff, even after she donated to his campaign.
If Gelber votes for Malakoff again on Jan. 29, Miami Beach voters should ask why.
Appointments already stink because they raise the possibility of cronyism. With Malakoff it’s practically guaranteed cronyism. After all, she is not going to vote against the commissioners who bring her on.
It’s only one more year. If the mayor or anyone else wants someone other than Rosen Gonzalez in that seat, wait for the election, like the voters intended.

Read Full Story

For the past three years, select electeds in Miami Beach have used a city non-profit to “provide assistance to worthy and qualified community needs and projects.”
But it looks like a slush fund of special interest money to dole out for political favors and even votes.
One Miami Beach, Inc., a 501c3 formed by resolution in 2014 at former Mayor Philip Levine‘s request, has raised almost half a million dollars through last year — much of it from vendors and contractors and lobbyists with business before the city — and it has used the funds to buy computers at Nautilus Middle School, team uniforms at Miami Beach High, movie tickets and art classes and paella parties for seniors and more than 1,500 frozen turkeys for the holidays.
Many of these bribes, er, gifts to the community were right before the elections in 2015 and 2017. What a coincidence!
It’s not like Levine hasn’t done this kind of thing before. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate was caught red-handed, while in office in 2014, directing funds from city vendors and contractors to a shady political action committee. Relentless for Progress was even mocked for its initials, RFP, the same initials used in procurement to solicit “requests for proposals” on government projects. Levine had to hastily distance himself from and eventually dissolve the PAC.
Then, when nobody was watching, he turned around and formed this slush fund, er, non-profit — giving donors another outlet.
The resolution says the mayor is the chairman and appoints two other commissioners as members. Levine appointed former Commissioners Joy Malakoff and Jonah Wolfson, who was his partner on the shady Relentless PAC (photographed right). When Wolfson’s term was up, Levine replaced him with his new BFF, Commissioner Ricky Arriola.
After newly-elected Mayor Dan Gelber was sworn in, he became the chairman and he appointed Commisssioner Micky Steinberg to replace Malakoff, who did not seek re-election but was offered a $50,000 “community outreach” contract with the city last week that she turned down days later after it raised a bunch of eyebrows. Gelber also wants the funds to be used primarily for “educational enhancements” and not “willy nilly.”
Related: Ex Miami Beach Commissioner Joy Malakoff gets, then drops juicy $50K city job
But we wouldn’t even know about this shady non profit if it weren’t for Commissioner Michael Góngora, who had asked about it at last week’s meeting. He said that since the non-profit was operating as a fundraising arm of the city’s, that expenditures ought to be brought to the commission for approval.
“Only three of the seven members ever control the use of those funds. I’m concerned about raising money as a commission but I never have a say in how those monies are dispersed,” Góngora said. “If it’s going to be the official 501c3 for Miami Beach, we should at least know what the organization is doing.”
Gelber, who doesn’t seem the most transparent anymore, tried to shut him down. “It’s not quite public money… it’s not any public money at all,” he said.
Commissioner John Elizabeth Aleman said she agreed with Góngora. “I don’t question the expenditures. They were noble and worthwhile. But it was not transparent to me,” she said. And then she basically admits that the whole idea was to shake down city bidders and vendors.
“We thought there were city of Miami Beach procurement contracts that could have an element, a good will in them, to benefit the community, the schools,” Aleman said, adding that, sure, alumni and others could also donate. “But we were looking for something more consistent that could be counted on at a certain level each year.”
Oh really?
Arriola got defensive, which made him look guilty right away.
“I just take exception because I know what’s going on here. There’s a hint of something nefarious. Phil, Ricky, Joy using this… all the money came from Philip and I,” Arriola said.  “I’m not stupid. There’s a nefarious inference when comments have been made in the past about One Miami Beach and Mayor Levine and I just take exception when it’s us donating our salaries to it. Pretty much 100 percent of the funds came from us, even though it’s your pet projects that we’re donating our salaries to.”
But Ricky is either really bad at math or a liar. Because while he may have felt generous in 2016, giving his $34,750 salary and benefits package to One Miami Beach, Inc., that was not where all the non-profit’s money came from. And he didn’t do it any other year. It appears that Levine did give two years worth of salary and benefits for a total of $97,275.
Arriola lied to everybody at that commission meeting Feb. 14 and everybody watching it on TV or online. That’s a violation of a county ethics ordinance.
Related: Levine and Wolfson on defense for shady PAC
But the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust ought to look into more than just that. Because the reason Arriola lied was the donations that are there from many contractors and vendors who are prohibited from giving campaign contributions precisely because they have dealings with the city. Was this a legal loophole around that? This sure looks like another pay-for-play scheme, just like the shady PAC.
Among the contributors:

$40,000 from four development companies at One Fisher Island
$17.500 from David Mancini and Sons, real estate developers and pipeline specialists
$10,000 from Terranova Corporation
$10,000 from Lanzo Construction
$6,300 from Boucher Brothers, who run most if not all the city’s beach concessions
$5,000 from Beach Towing
$5,000 from Treemont Towing
$5,000 from Laz Parking
$5,000 from lobbyist and Levine pal Alex Heckler

There are some questionable disbursements, too. Who got the 100 tickets for the Florida Grand Opera? More than $6,000 of computer equipment for we-don’t-know-who and one hell of a TV for $1,000 for North Beach Elementary, both at Best Buy. A $5,000 donation (?) to the Miami Beach Housing Authority, it says for “housing,” and $106 worth of racing gloves, purportedly, for a turkey giveaway.
Then there is the thousands that went to different animal hospitals, from Doral to South Miami, for “animal welfare,” Levine’s latest fetish, including $10,000 to the Alton Road Animal Clinic for “kitten medical treatment.” Is that one really sick kitten or many kittens?
But maybe the most glaring issue is at least seven different paella and centennial parties at senior centers that are absentee ballot hubs conveniently right before the elections in 2015.
Investigators can start by talking to Gloria Campos, who was paid or reimbursed at least a couple of thousands from One Miami Beach and apparently helped with the paella parties.

Read Full Story

Last week, Dan Gelber became the mayor of Miami Beach. This week, he is using his new political platform to back former Miami Beach Commissioner Deede Weithorn‘s bid for state rep in District 113.
This is Gelber’s first endorsement since his victory Nov. 7, but with 82% of the vote, it probably won’t be his last. Ladra is certain that he’s already gotten calls from congressional candidates in District 27, which include Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez and State Rep. David Richardson, whose seat Weithorn is running for.
Gelber will also co-host a campaign kick-off event for Weithorn Wednesday at Meat Market on Lincoln Road.
Read related story: Miami Beach elections end as expected with Gelber, Gongora, Samuelian
“I have known Deede for years and she is uniquely qualified to represent our community in the State House,” said Gelber, who served in the legislature for a decade including as Democratic Leader of the House before he became a state senator.
“She has proven herself a wonderful steward of public dollars, which is something we need desperately in Tallahassee,” Gelber said. “And most importantly she is unafraid to stand up against the wrongheaded ideas that are often born in Tallahassee.”
The election is next November.
Read related story: Will La Gwen’s retreat cause more musical chairs?
Weithorn — who has been running for 113 since 2015 when Richardson was supposed to run for Gwen Margolis‘ senate seat but then didn’t because she didn’t retire — was equally effusive.
“Dan has a distinguished record of public service and I’m proud to call him my mayor,” she said. “It means a lot to me that he was willing to come out in support of my candidacy so soon after winning his own race.”
It certainly gives her kick-off some ooomph.
And Ladra is certain that Comeback Commissioner Michael Gongora will also endorse her — but he only won with 65% of the vote.

Read Full Story

There were no surprises in the Miami Beach elections, which ended Tuesday with Mayor Dan Gelber getting 82% of the vote against three nobodies who each got single digits and former Commissioner Michael Gongora coming back to the dais, as largely expected, with 65% over restauranteur Adrian Gonzalez, who got 35%.
In the other race, Mark Samuelian, who lost his first bid two years ago, came in with 68% over Rafael “Wild Willy” Velasquez, who still got 32% despite having whipped out his penis last month in an ill-fated effort to woo Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez.
It’s still gonna be awkward for Rosen Gonzalez because she had openly helped Velasquez, but at least she doesn’t have to worry about his willy on the dais.
She also doesn’t have to worry about Mayor Philip Levine messing her up anymore. Levine decided not to run for re-election because, as he announced last week, he is running for governor instead. God help us all.
Read related story: Michael Gongora, Mark Samuelian lead Miami Beach Commission money race
Ladra hopes that this means there is a change in the climate at City Hall, where Levine led with fear and intimidation. Gelber may be his own man or he might be, as some suggest, Levine’s hand-picked successor (after Ricky Arriola tanked in the polls). But he was a senator once and is the son of the great former mayor Seymore Gelber so Ladra expects a lot from him.
Samuelian, too, has a lot to live up to after being endorsed by nearly every former elected in the city. But he lucked out when former Commissioner Michael Grieco — who eventually resigned as part of a deal with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office for his PAC’s illegal campaign contribution — dropped out of the race (more on that later).
Can Miami Beach leave all this nastiness in the past and start new with three new electeds on the dais? We still have Arriola and a couple of other Levine puppets doing his bidding up there, but will Gelber make them moot?
The election ended Tuesday as expected but the real political machinations have just begun.

Read Full Story

Thank you, Kristen Rosen Gonzalez. Thank you very much.
The Miami Beach Commissioner and congressional candidate made the right choice over the weekend when she risked her political future and accused Democrat activist Rafael Velasquez, a progressive commission candidate that she had supported, of sexually harassing her earlier this month.
She could have stayed quiet. She could have let Velasquez, who she had endorsed and helped raise money for, get elected next week. She would have had another “friendly” on a hostile dais where three mayoral puppets already vote against her on a regular basis.
But woulda coulda does not equal shoulda.
“I could not help him get elected. I could not raise more money for him,” Rosen Gonzalez told Ladra late Monday, after she had given news interviews to several television stations.
Read related story: Kristen Rosen Gonzalez to challenge Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Despite the fervor taking over the nation after the multiple accusations and fallout against Hollywood filmmaker Harvey Weinstein making it easier for women all over the country to make #metoo outcries of their own experiences, it was not an easy decision for Rosen Gonzalez, who is running for Congress in District 27 to replace the retiring U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (she announced before the veteran lawmaker announced her retirement).
She may have taken a political risk when she made the accusation about Velasquez public in a Politico story posted Sunday.
About two weeks ago, she said, Velasquez paid her a visit and said he was in the neighborhood canvassing for votes. She said she didn’t feel comfortable with him in her home that evening and suggested they go to a nearby restaurant, Café Avanti. There, she said, she had two glasses of wine and he had two mojitos.
“He began to say things that were delusional, that his next step would be governor of Florida,” she said. “He said over and over he loved me and I told him no, I’m helping you with your campaign.”
Velasquez scoffed at her recollection and said he made no such comments. “People say she’s crazy,” he said. “I really didn’t believe it until now.”
During the drive back to his car, she said, Velasquez grew more excited, exposed himself and tried to place her hand on his exposed crotch.
“He took it out. I tried not to look. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. And I can’t forget it. And that’s the worst part,” she said. “I have felt guilty and horrible and ashamed about this and I wasn’t the one who did anything wrong. He put me in a situation, and it’s like what do I do?”
Velasquez said her story doesn’t add up because, just this Friday, she was still talking to him about the campaign and his opponent.
“Are you feeling good,” she asked him in a text message reply to him.
“Yes. We got this!” he replied, adding an emoji of a clenched fist.
“Nobody is voting,” she told him hours later, noting that only 600 people had returned absentee ballots.
“She was my friend until Friday. I really don’t know what happened,” he said.
Rosen Gonzalez said she understood it sounded strange, but it took her time to consider what happened. And, in the end, she realized she needed to speak up.
“I was going to stay quiet, but if he whips out his willy with a strong middle-aged woman like me, I am worried about what he will do to younger girls when he is a man of influence and power,” she said. “I do not think he should be elected to any office, and this is a man I believed was an authentic soul.”
Immediately, before a second victim came forward with her own Rafael “Wild Willy” Velasquez story, Rosen Gonzalez was questioned and scrutinized. Someone on Facebook implied she deserved it for being a single woman who dates. Someone suggested she was slutty. It was reminiscent of the way some people say rape victims ask for it with the clothes they wear. People questioned why it took her so long to report it. As if 10 days should be characterized as “so long” in this type of abuse. Because that’s what it is. Abuse.
And that is why it often takes women a long time, often years and sometimes decades, to report these sexual assaults, as evidenced by the delay in outcries from other victims against Bill Cosby, Bill O’Reilly and Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump. It is evidenced in the thousands of #metoo stories that have flooded the internet after one woman, thank you, accused Weinstein.
Often one woman’s outcry leads to another. And then another. Frances Alban is the second woman to accuse Velasquez. The publicist came out Monday with her own “Wild Willy” experience: He groped her in a group photo last June and sent lewd texts afterward. She, too, kept the text messages and showed them — complete with a little purple devil emoji — to the Miami Herald.
Seems the soon-to-be divorced Velasquez has a penchant for emojis.
Thank you, too, Ms. Alban, for your courage. Otherwise, people might not have believed Commissioner Rosen Gonzalez. And that is another reason why we should be grateful. Because every time a woman fingers her sexual harasser, another woman is emboldened to do the same.
Velasquez has said that the commissioner is crazy and that he never pulled it out in her car. Is he going to say that he never grabbed Alban’s ass either?
Where is Rafael Velasquez’s right hand? Is Sen. Annette Taddeo one of his victims?
How much you wanna bet Velasquez has more victims by the end of the week? Because this type of behavior is usually serial and if he’s so bold as to whip it out unsolicited in the passenger seat or grab a lady’s ass in a public photo op, then he’s likely committed other abuses also. Which is another reason why it was important for Rosen Gonzalez to speak.
“This was very hard for me to do,” Rosen Gonzalez told Ladra. “I’m embarassed about the whole thing. People are saying it took me 10 days to report. But even right after he did it, it took me time to process. We didn’t speak for three days until I just asked him, almost automatically, ‘Are you knocking?’”
She meant knocking on voters’ doors. She had been helping him and advising him on his campaign for months. She had real hopes that he would win. Rosen Gonzalez is often voted down on the commission and now that former Commissioner Michael Gongora is set to win his commission race and former Sen. Dan Gelber would be the mayor, she hoped to have more allies, including Velasquez.
“I had invested a lot of political capital in this guy. I raised money for him. I had his sign in front of my house. I introduced him to people,” she said. “But then I thought, ‘Do I get him elected so he can support me or do I stop future victims from being abused.’ I just couldn’t empower this guy,” said Rosen Gonzalez, shown here with Velasquez in this photo.
That made the decision easier. And she has been pleasantly uplifted by the amount of support she has gotten, even from high ranking members of the Democratic Party who have abandoned Velasquez’s campaign and called for him to withdraw from the race.
“The fact that he’s lying about it now is the worst part,” Rosen Gonzalez said.
No, Commissioner, the worst part is that he could still be elected. The momentum is there and early voting has already started. Unless voters strongly reject Velasquez, Rosen Gonzalez may find herself in the position of serving on the dais next to her abuser. That’s far worse than serving next to Samuelian, who she’s campaigned against and is aligned with her enemies,.
But, hey, at least he hasn’t whipped it out on her.
So, we should all thank the commissioner. Because she really gains nothing political from this except a lot of grief for the next year one way or another. She did this because it was the right thing to do.
Courage is contagious. Pass it on.

Read Full Story

Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine has been pushing for the Ocean Drive ban on alcohol sales past 2 a.m. since Memorial Day weekend, saying that this is the only way to curb the crime in that area.
But the cops seem to disagree. Last week, the Miami Beach Police union joined other groups and business leaders by endorsing a no vote against a referendum on Tuesday’s ballot that would end alcohol sales at outdoor bars on Ocean Drive at 2 a.m. instead of 5 a.m. They know these are not the problem hours for their officers. They know this change will not curb crime in a 15-block area that has become an envied icon in the travel and tourism industry. They know the mayor has no study to show otherwise.
So why is Levine really doing it? What’s his real motivation? It ain’t public safety. So could it be the oldest answer in the book? Could it be money?
Close to $1 million has been raised by his political action committee, including $200K from the business partner of Hollywood filmmaker Harvey Weinstein —  an ultrawealthy oligarch with business ties to a Russian tycoon involved in the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation — since Levine got the alcohol sales ban on the November ballot.
Read related story: Miami Beach is late with study on impact of alcohol ban referendum
Yeah, yeah. We know the mayor is a millionaire who pretty much self-funded his first run for office in 2013. We know that he’s already given at least $2.5 million to his political action committee, All About Florida. But he’s running for governor now — and insiders expect an announcement soon, maybe this week — so that’s a much more expensive race. He’s going to need outside money.
And Levine has experience walking the fine line in legal fundraising and dark money. Remember the Relentless for Progress political action committee? He and then Commissioner Jonah Wolfson were forced to shut the shady PAC down after people joked that the initials stood for “requests for proposals” because they solicited funds from developers and vendors doing or wanting to do business in the city. So he’s not shy about making the asks.
This new shady PAC, All About Florida, only raised $4,000 from March to May. Then Levine secured the vote on June 7 from the city commission to put the alcohol sales ban on the ballot. And the money started pouring in — with $125,000 coming that very day from auto mogul Alan Potamkin, Royal Caribbean Cruises CEO Richard Fain and retired real estae developer Gerald Robbins, who is related to Levine’s business partner, Scott Robins, who himself gave another $100,000.
Since June 7, the PAC has received about $882,000 in donations from property owners and business interests that could arguably benefit from this 2 a.m. Ocean Drive liquor sales ban. These donors either own properties and venues that get to stay open until 5 a.m. in other parts of the city and in Wynwood — which has become another nightlife hub competing with South Beach — or they may want property values in the area to suffer, as indicated by an economic impact study commissioned by a business group, so they can swoop in and scoop them up cheap.
Read related story: Miami Beach — Levine and Wolfson on defense for shady PAC
That’s the same amount given by Russian billionaire Leonard Blavatnik, who is heavily invested in the Faena district in Mid-Beach. Blavatnik, whose company Access Industries, who normally donates to GOP capaigns and is involved in everything from chemicals to music management and the film industry. Blavatnik has partnered with Harvey Weinstein, who has been disgraced recently as a serial sexual assailant, and Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Vladimir Putin currently tied to the investigation of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Brother Alex Blavatnik, who has his own project in North Beach, gave $25,000. Alex Blavatnik helped Levine’s mayoral campaign — and got some pretty useful zoning variances the year after.
Many other real estate investors and developers gave him $25,000 or $10,000 checks.
So is he doing it for them?
Or is he doing it for his own business interests? Levine himself owns 29 properties that could benefit from this, like his Sunset Harbor property benefited from the first pump stations, sitting high and dry while the rest of South Beach flooded. Eleven of those are purchases he made recently in Wynwood, which has been increasingly competing with South Beach for nightlife clientele, and where people can drink until 5 a.m.
One thing is pretty certain: He ain’t doing it for the safety of Miami Beach residents.
 

Read Full Story