On February 9th, I wrote a story in response to the dust up that had occurred between Commissioners Hardemon and Carollo at the January 17th commission meeting that prompted the meeting to be abruptly adjourned.

My story dealt with the challenge that Carollo had made to Hardemon to reveal how much money City Manager Emilio Gonzalez had supposedly raised for Hardemon's county commission campaign, and in my story I revealed that Carollo, himself no slouch to twisting arms and leaning on deep pocket donors, had received $40,000 in two checks, one for $25,000 and the other for $15,000 from former commissioner Marc Sarnoff's PAC, Truth Is The Daughter Of Time on December 11th and 12th.

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At the time that I wrote my story I assumed that because of the closeness of the donations and the transfer of money to Carollo's ECO, Miami First, that the money had come from donations made to Sarnoff's PAC by 29 NE 11 Street, LLc, owned by Marc Roberts, and CG Summer Investments LLC,  and Doral Court Rental Investments, owned by developer David Martin, both long time Sarnoff donors.

The reason that I wrote my story was not because I had discovered that these two guys might have funneled $40,000 to Carollo thru Sarnoff's PAC, but that Carollo had failed to account for that money in his December 2019 financial report.

Carollo also failed to report those donations in his January and February reports.

To understand what I mean, here is the portion of Sarnoff's conations from his PAC that I included in my February 9th story that shows the $40,000 in donations to Carollo's ECO.

It was in response to that failure, and the discovery that one of Sarnoff's principal lobbying clients was on the agenda to get a sweetheart deal at Thursday's commission meeting that prompted me to revisit everyone's financial reports again, and in doing so, I discovered that Sarnoff had altered his financial reports without submitting any kind of letter of explanation to the Secretary of State's, Division of Elections.

Here is the portion of Sarnoff's conations from his PAC that I made a screen grab of on March 8th.You will see that the two donations totaling $40,000 above have disappeared, and the total has been adjusted.

It is reasonable to assume that this change came about as a result my February 9th story, and moreover, a re-examination of the donations that Sarnoff received shows that on August 20, 2019, he received $40,000 from IKE Smart City LLc.

In addition to highlighting the $40,000 that Sarnoff received from IKE Smart City LLc on August 20th, I also highlighted two other donations from IKE Smart City LLc totaling $15,000, and another $8,000 from a company called Orange Barrel Media.

The reason that I included Orange Barrel Media is that they are the parent company for IKE Smart City LLc, and they are the first lobbying clients that Sarnoff registered when he signed up as a lobbyist at the City of Miami.

How does all of this come together?

At Thursday's commission meeting, there is a Resolution and an Ordinance that is custom written to benefit IKE Smart City LLc, that would allow the city to forgo issuing an RFP for proposals to put Information Kiosks on the city's sidewalks, by piggybacking off of a contract with the city of St Louis.

Here's the evidence that connects Orange Barrel Media and IKE Smart City LLc.

Sarnoff had previously represented Orange Barrel Media in Coral Gables, where the same strategy was used to get around issuing an RFP. In that case, Coral Gables piggybacked off of a contract that Orange Barrel had with the City of San Antonio, Texas.

The person who first discovered and reported on the relationship between Sarnoff, Orange Barrel Media, Alex Diaz de la Portilla - whose brother Miguel is also a lobbyist for Orange Barrel Media - and the scheme to put kiosks on Miami's streets, and who did a far more in-depth dive into the dealings among these guys was Frank Alvarado in the Broward Bulldog.

Frank is the real expert in keeping track of Sarnoff, and you really, if you weren't aware of this story already, need to take the time and read it.

IN CONCLUSION

Marc Sarnoff has never gone away, and as I reported last December after he was appointed by his pals on the city commission - read that as the guys he helped get elected by giving them money and raising money from other people too - he'd managed to ding the city for over $340,000, and more to come to "negotiate" the lease agreement between the city and Jorge Mas for the Melreese Golf Course/Beckham Soccer Stadium/BILLION DOLLAR DEVELOPMENT DEAL.  

So, on the one hand Sarnoff is working on behalf of the city commission, and on the other hand he's taking big bucks, and passing out big bucks to these same commissioners from lobbying clients who want favors from the commissioners - such as Orange Barrel media's desire to evade and avoid having to go through an RFP process.

And to top it off, when I caught him giving $40,000 to Carollo, which Carollo obviously had an interest in not reporting because he's in desperate need now of money to try and fight off this Recall effort against him, he made those $40,000 in donations disappear from his financial report.

If I was with the FBI, I might want to get subpoenas and seize all of the documents related to this deal, and all of the text message between Sarnoff, Carollo, Alex and Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, as well as the bank records to see where that $40,000 really ended up.

It's Miami, Bitches!

https://www.crespogramnews.com/march-9th---caught-in-the-act.html