Joe Carollo came into office last November promising  that he was only going to serve one term and that he was going to clean up corruption.he was going to clean up corruption.

In the six months that he's been in office it appears that contrary to his intentions, Carollo has allegedly attempted to treat his District as his personal fiefdom and engaged in using city employees to get even with people who he believes are his enemies and/or didn't vote for him by using city employees to issue retaliatory code violations.

There have been numerous rumors of Carollo walking the street with code enforcement officers pointing out possible violations, which if true would be clear violations of the City Charter that prohibits City Commissioners from directly involving themselves in the day-to-day operation of city departments and directing city employees as to what to do.

The news that Carollo had spent City Special Event money to finance food and drinks for parties held at a number of assisted living facilities and nursing homes in his District in May, during the height of the Special Election for a new District 5 County Commissioner, where Alex de la Portilla, a Carollo pal who was in the race showed up was obviously a classic political move by Carollo to help round up votes for de la Portilla.

Here's the portion of the Miami Herald story that recounted what happened.

      "The three facilities are located in Carollo's city district and also

      in the county district sought unsuccessfully by Diaz de la Portilla.

      They are regular stomping grounds for candidates and elected

      and places where it would be criminal for a Miami

      politician to show up without, at the very least, some pastelitos.

      So on May 16, Carollo's office visited Myers Senior Center with

      worker.

      The following day, Carollo and his office visited the Little Havana

      Activities Center with 250 servings. This time, when Carollo arrived,

      he says Diaz de la Portilla was already there scooping healthy

      helpings of arroz onto styrofoam plates.

      "I did not ask Alex to come," Carollo said Wednesday."

Of course he didn't.

For those who know Carollo, one can only imagine what he would have said and done if found out that his arch enemy Tomas Regalado had pulled a similar stunt when Regalado's son was running against him last year.

Carollo would have gone batshit ballistic is what he would have done, and somebody would have had to use a tranquiler gun to calm him down.

Like I've said, when it comes to political skullduggery there is no such thing as coincidence, and when it comes to hypocrisy, guys like Joe Carollo couldn't survive without it.

Which is why Carollo can look you in the eye and tell you he's only going to serve one term, and then turn around and take money and support from the likes of Marc Sarnoff.

Why would he need a scorpion like Sarnoff around if he was so politically savvy?

But Sarnoff is around, and he's the first guy who has his hand - actually he has his hand, his arm, and is probably figuring out a way to stick his head up Carollo's ass, so that every time Carollo opens his mouth, you'll see Sarnoff's evil grin as he pops his head out, like one of those creatures in horror movies that enhabits the body of someone else.

Then of course there's Alex de la Portilla.

He, like Sarnoff started showing up at 9 AM on the mornings when the Commission was in session, and headed straight into Carollo's office where he, Sarnoff, Carlos Gimenez Jr., and on occasion Carlos's wife would all huddle behind closed doors doing whatever it is that people who all think that they're the one's who have their hand up a politican's ass do during Commission meetings.

The photo above of Alex de la Portilla standing in the doorway of Carollo's office I took on January 11th, when he was returning from a trip to the bathroom.

All of them to one degree or another are vying to see who can stick their hand higher up his ass and make him their personal sock puppet.

So, it's understandable that Carollo would support de la Portilla in his efforts to get elected as the County Commissioner for District 5, and now that he's lost that race, the rumor is that Carollo is planning to appoint de la Portilla as the new Executive Director of the Bayfront Park Management Trust, which will turn that office into a swamp of political intrigue, scheming and skullduggery.

Jack shit!

ROUND TWO CAROLLO VS MIRO

And now of course, there's round two of the fight between Carollo and his fired aide Steve Miro with the counter charges from Carollo and his staff in this morning Herald about Miro making "sexually inappropriate comments" and trying to give himself a 500.

Let's for the sake of argument agree that Miro is a creepy guy who made people uncomfortable, said sexually inappropriate things, and tried to give himself a 500 raise.

The question then becomes, why didn't Carollo do something at the time that he learned of these activities, which in the case of making comments to one of Commissioner Russell's adies occurred in February?

Where was the decisive, take no prisoners, man of principles Joe Carollo then?

It was only when Miro turned on him that we now find out about all this other shit.

When Carollo talks about having to deal with sleazy corrupt people, he must be looking in the mirror, because no standup guy would allow a guy with the baggage that Miro is now accused of having to stay close to him for a hot minute after he found out.

Real leaders lead by example, and Carollo is not a real leader.

But, and here's the big but, as batshit crazy and duplicitous as Joe Carollo is, the people who are really responsible for the shit that has been going on inside City Hall start with Emilio "Colonel Klink" Gonzalez, who as City Manager, is another empty suit who talks a lot of shit, but obviously doesn't have the balls required to do the right thing.

staff. Ignorance is not a defense in this kind of situation, nor is inaction.

Again, leaders lead by example, and if this desk jockey, political ass kisser who likes to pose and preen as this ex-military tough guy didn't do the right thing then, it was because he was a political coward.

You can only be an effective city manager in a city like Miami if, like Frank Rollason, the former City Manager of North Bay Village has often said, "You can't do the job if you're afraid of being fired."

It's true that Carollo has gained a reputation as being this batshit crazy tough guy, but that's because no one has ever done what you do to guys like that, you draw a line in the sand, and then proceed to pick up a two-by-four and hit him as many times as it takes to make him understand that that line is one he's not going to cross anymore.

And if she refuses, then you go public on her ass.

Sometimes, the only way to do the right thing is to do the right thing, regardless of hat that takes!

But, above and beyond everyone else, the real coward in all of this is Mayor Francis Suarez.

After Suarez won his election with 85% of the vote last November, and after his father came out in support of Alfie Leon, who had come in 2nd in the District 3 race against Carollo, Suarez was asked on the Sunday morning WPLG talk show with Michael Putney whether he would support Leon.

He declined, saying that he was going to remain neutral because he would have to work with whoever got elected.

That was a mealy mouthed, weak-ass response, because Suarez knew that if Carollo got elected, no matter what Suarez would to to appease him, Carollo would cause him trouble, which he has.

When you're a newly elected mayor, with a million dollars in the bank, and have just won with 85% of the vote - regardless of how inherently rigged that election was - and you know there's a guy like Joe Carollo just itching to get on the City Commission to fuck with you, the last thing you do is decide not to support the candidate that's running against him, and which in fact is the candidate that your supporters initially got to become a candidate to take Carollo on.

With Francis Suarez's open support, and his money - although there's some evidence that some of his money was spent on Leon's runoff campaign - there is every reason to believe that if Suarez had gone out and campaigned for him, Leon would have beat Carollo.

That, for me is the single most relevant argument for why Francis Suarez should not be allowed to become a Strong Mayor.

He's as weak as dish water, and incapable of making really tough decisions, even when not doing so work against his own self interests as they have in this case.

I would expect round three to reveal accusations by folks in the community - there has been at least one ethics complaint filed against Carollo, and perhaps one or two more are out there as well - and there is no doubt that Miro has a lot more info on Carollo that will probably find its way into the pages of the Herald, because all you got to do is look at the players involved and you can see how they all intersect, and who the leakers will be.

Unfortunately the one thing you won't see - in fact the two things you won't see - are the other members of the City Commission turning on Carollo - Russell doesn't count, because he and Carollo are already enemies - but the others won't act until the blood is the water is so thick it will be like Taffy - and the other thing you won't see is Katherine Fernandez-Rundle move against Carollo.

No matter how much Carollo has bad mouthed her over the years, she'll let him slide because his base of old Cuban voters is part of her base too.

But, in the meantime, go out and buy some extra popcorn, because there ought to be a few good laughs, and a lot of batshit craziness to keep even the most jaundiced political observers happy.

That's the way it is in It's Miami, Bitches!

Alez de la Portilla at the door of Joe Carollo's office on commission day, January 11th, where he joined other regulars, Marc Sarnoff and Carlos Gimenez