Copyrighted:  2011,2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

The question of whether City Manager Emilio "Colonel Klink" Gonzalez built an illegal deck at the back of his house, and then abused the power of his office by having employees in the city cook the books - including notarizing a document that was alleged to have been used as part of the scheme to make the construction "legal" - should by all accounts take about a half of a day.

All the bullshit about whether the Manager was denied due process because he was absent from the commission meeting is beside the point, because the evidence of whether the deck was built illegally does not rest on whether the Manager was present at the commisison meeting where this allegation was raised,, but whether city employees were pressured into doing the deeds required to legalize the construction.

Any comments made by the Manager are actually irrelevant as to whether the plans submitted to the building department were doctored, as was alleged, or whether a city building inspector actually visited the property and certified the construction had taken place when the permit stated that it had, or whether the deck was built illegally without permits as Commisisoner Carollo alleged.

All of those questions are questions that need to be asked and answered by the employees involved, and not by the Manager.

The issues surrounding the allegations of wrong-doing center on the behavior of  small handful of city employees, and whether they were pressured to carry out orders that were alleged tp have been done illegally.

Only after that independent investigation would comments from the Manager be relevant.

So, the decision by the Mayor to veto a decision by the City Commission to have the Independent Auditor conduct an investigation to get answers to those questions, and to be able to use the subpoena powers of the commission as part of that investigation is the kind of move that raises very serious questions of an attempt by the Mayor to invoke the power of the veto as a way to try and hinder this investigation.

If the Manager is innocent, then he should step forward and ask the Mayor to withdraw his veto and allow the investigation to go forward, because all of the nonsense about seperation of powers that the Mayor has chosen to use as a defense of his veto action - even if it were accurate - should never get in the way of seeking the truth.

Truth and honesty are two items always in short supply at Miami City Hall, and this is one instance where the mayor needs to step back and let the investigation run it's course.  

Here is the Mayor's veto, and the legal opinion issued by the City Attorney's office challenging that veto.