Last week, in what has become a disturbing recurring process, the Miami City Commission held a Special Commission meeting that was limited to three "DISCUSSION ITEMS," proposed by the Mayor's new protector and BFF, commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla.

The first of those items was labeled as a, "Discussion Regarding Homeless Issues," and had to do with what the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust had been doing with the homeless population within the city limits since the beginning of the pandemic.

Chronic homelessness in the city of Miami has been a decades-long problem and a failure to come up with viable solutions to do more than allow homeless people to drift through the city as constant participants in a street to jail to street dance came to an unsatisfactory end when a court case filed on behalf of a homeless man named Pottinger by the ACLU resulted in a  set of prohibitions limiting the city's ability to treat homeless people like vagrants that they could summarily lock up whenever they wanted to.

The city recently succeeded in getting the court to undo that decision, because an unintended consequence of that court ruling created a situation where other cities and even the county dumped their homeless people inside the city limits.

Although the decision is now under appeal, the fact of the matter is that the city with a persistent chronic homeless population of approximately 500 - 1000 still does not have any viable solutions for what to regardless of how the appeal is decided.

I first wrote about some of these issues on January 21st, in a long, detailed story that explored some of the many problems associated with the problem of homelessness in Miami, and I knew then that while other stories would capture my attention I would be returning to the problems of homelessness and more specifically to the activities of Ron Book and the Homeless Trust sooner or later.

It looks like that time has come.

The discussion at last week's commission meeting took it's usual course of bouncing from pillar to post as several of the commissioners chose to ignore the central point of the discussion that focused on dealing with the testing and tracking of homeless people during the current pandemic to veer off to expound on their pet peeves from homeless people peeing and having sex on the street to the question of why were homeless people from elsewhere even allowed to come to Miami to begin with.

At the end of the "discussion," nothing was resolved, and the best that Ron Book could come up with over the failure to answer questions about how the Homeless Trust had dealt with testing the people on the streets of Miami was that he would provide all of the commissioners with an interim report within 48 hours of how the Trust had dealt with the homeless people since the pandemic arrived.

LONG ON PROMISES, SHORT ON DELIVERY

I don't know whether Book will deliver his report in the 48 hours he promised, or whether he'll blow off the city commissioners like he's done in the past, but I now see I need to spend a lot more time looking at how the Homeless Trust operates than I have up to now.

On January 17th, I sent the below email to the Trust.

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

I've come to be a big believer in th fact that folks who choose not to sweat the small stuff - especially those entrusted with managing taxpayer money - are seldom to be trusted when it comes to the big stuff, and while some might see this failure to update the organization's website as inconsequential, I believe from a lifetime of experience that it reveals a lot about both the management and transparency of the Homeless Trust, and goes a long way to explaining why the Trust has not had an audit since 2003.

I believe that whether it was intended from the beginning to be a piggy bank, that over the years the Trust, with a hand-picked board of directors, a political operator like Ron Book as it's chairman, and a political operative like Victoria Mallette as the Executive Director that the Homeless Trust has indeed become a very big piggy bank.

Mallette, for those who don't already know, is the sister of Kelly Mallette, one of Ron Book's two partners in his lobbying firm.

As Miami Herald reporter Doug Hanks pointed out in a 2015 story about Book and the Homeless Trust, Victoria Mallette in 2015 was hired at a salary of $142,000 to be the Executive Director of the Trust.

We can expect that in the 4 years since, she has received suitable salary increases to allow her to maintain parity with her other high-priced social agency peers who have proven that while the poor may be with us forever, the people running these agencies will never be poor.

- Miami Herald

Having the sister of one of his lobbying partners as the gatekeeper watching the hen house, so to speak, only further reveals what kind of operator Book is, and while he and his sycophants like to boast about his being the unpaid Chairman of the Trust, the fact is that when you're raking in millions of dollars in lobbying fees as one of the top lobbyists in the State of Florida, claiming that you're selflessly running a milti-million dollar public agency for free is what young people today would call a side-hustle, and with a side-hustle you dont have to collect a salary to make money from being a chairman of a group like the Homeless Trust.

But money at some point is not what drives guys like Book.

Rather, the accumulation of power and influence is what often drives someone like Book, and as the Chairman of the Homeless Trust, an agency that goes through roughly $60 million a year, provides a lot of opportunities to weld power and influence, and along the way to receive non cash rewards and benefits that no normal person, even your basic rich person could buy.

Take for instance the Miami Heat.

Book claims that he has never represented the Miami Heat as a client, but that didn't stop them from giving him him 2 championship rings that he's always eager to pull out and show people.

If, as Book claims he got those rings because of his being a loyal fan of the team, then there are a lot of people in Miami who would deserve to get championship rings.  

ROPE-A-DOPING YOUR WAY THROUGH LIFE

One of the things I've learned over the years that I've watched and written about politicians and lobbyists at play is that anytime a lobbyist is asked a direct question about something that he/she is supposed to be a subject matter expert on, and they start getting confused about the numbers and start mumbling you can almost bet the house that they are rope-a-doping the person asking the questions.

So it was at the commission meeting last week when Commissioner Diaz de la Portilla started trying to drill down on Ron Book's claims about the number of homeless people that the Trust had tested for the virus, and when they hade been tested.

I don't necessarily expect you to watch the whole 37 minute video from last week's commission below, although I did try to winnow it down to a reasonable length, but besides Book's stuttering confusion over how many homeless people were tested, at what locations  those tests took place and what percentage of those approached refused to be tested, the thing that caught my attention was Book's claim that the reason that the Homeless Trust had not been able to start testing until the week of April 14th, was because he could not obtain any test kits.

It seems to me after looking at this tape that Book's argument for not starting to test homeless people on the streets until April 14th was that he did not attempt to purchase tests, even though he obviously had money in the bank to purchase tests in March, but instead started calling around trying to get some other agency to GIVE him tests to use.

If so, then this represents a very misguided and mismanaged effort to provide responsible leadership at the beginning of this crisis.

Tests were available for purchase as early as mid March, and given that the number of tests that Book would have needed to have on hand to test the homeless people on the streets would probably have cost the Trust less than what they pay their PR agency for bullshit press release about how good a job they're doing.

There are any number of questions that the members of the Miami City Commission should have been trying to get answers to at the last meeting instead of worrying about who was having sex with who in a pup tent in Overtown.

But I'm going to make up for their incompetence by devoting myself to getting answers to a lot of questions that someone should have been trying to get answers to for a long time now.

The Ron Book might think that he can keep protecting the internal workings of the Trust from public view, but those days are going to come to a screeching end.

Here are my first collection of public record requests to the Homeless Trust. There will be a lot more to follow, but we're going to take it step by step.

On January 28th, I received this informative response to an inquiry I had made to the County Attorney's office about the oversight of the Trust and it's finances.

While the county attorney claims that the Homeless Trust is, "not required" to have it's books audited, you would think that a public agency that in 2017-2018 had an operating budget of $63 million dollars, and a cumulative total budget over the last ten years of at least a A HALF BILLION DOLLARS, would be audited on a regular basis.

In fact, when I had first posed  this question to Ms. Cathy Jackson, the director of the county's Audit and Management Services Department earlier in January, she informed me that the county had not audited the Homeless Trust's books since 2003.

The idea that a municipal government would allow a supposedly public agency to receive and spend as much as A HALF BILLION DOLLARS with absolutely no independent financial oversight, and run by a guy whose criminal behavior has included allegations of bribery of a public official, insurance fraud and multiple counts of campaign finance violations to which he pleaded guilty, is almost mind blowing even in a county as corrupt as Miami-Dade.

But it is Miami, and we do what we can, and my other request in my January 17th email was for for a copy of the Trust's current list of board of directors.

Today is May 11th, and I've yet to receive a copy of the updated list of Board of Directors.

The reason I asked for an updated list is because the version of the Board of Directors that is posted on the Homeless Trust is at least 3 years out of date, and includes two individuals, former Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, and former City Manager Danny Alfonso ceased being members when they left the city and  the list also shows Francis Suarez as being a city commissioner.

May 11, 2020

Mr. Ron Book

Ms. Victoria Mallette

Miami-Dade Homeless Trust                                                 NUMBER 1

Via - email

Good Morning,

This is public record request under the provisions of Florida Chapter 119, aka, Florida's Public Record Act.

If for any reason you chose to not comply with my request you are required by law to provide me with a written response as to why you are claiming an exemption to the provisions of the law, and to do so with enough specificity that I can proceed to Circuit Court and let a judge decide whether your claim of exemption is valid.

In addition, while Florida statute does not provide a clear cut time limit for complying with public record requests, the court in Tribune Company v. Cannella, 458 So 2nd 1075, 1078-1079 (Fla 1984), determined that a custodian of records has the, "limited reasonable  time allowed the custodian to retrieve...and delete those portions of the record the custodian asserts are exempt."

THIS IS MY REQUEST:

I want a copy of any and all documents that either you Mr. Book, or you Ms. Mallette signed in calendar years 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 where you were required to certify that all actions taken by you were lawful and in compliance with statutory or contractual provisions.

THIS IS A STAND ALONE REQUEST, and not subject to computation regarding time limits with any other public record record requests that I will be making to you.

If copies of these documents are mailed electronically, please email them to me.

Thank you,

al crespo

May 11, 2020

Mr. Ron Book

Ms. Victoria Mallette

Miami-Dade Homeless Trust                                                  NUMBER 2

Via - email

Good Morning,

This is public record request under the provisions of Florida Chapter 119, aka, Florida's Public Record Act.

If for any reason you chose to not comply with my request you are required by law to provide me with a written response as to why you are claiming an exemption to the provisions of the law, and to do so with enough specificity that I can proceed to Circuit Court and let a judge decide whether your claim of exemption is valid.

In addition, while Florida statute does not provide a clear cut time limit for complying with public record requests, the court in Tribune Company v. Cannella, 458 So 2nd 1075, 1078-1079 (Fla 1984), determined that a custodian of records has the, "limited reasonable  time allowed the custodian to retrieve...and delete those portions of the record the custodian asserts are exempt."

THIS IS MY REQUEST:

I want a copy of any and all copies of contracts and/or agreements between the Homeless Trust and companies or agencies that provided the Trust with tests for the COVID-19 virus.

THIS IS A STAND ALONE REQUEST, and not subject to computation regarding time limits with any other public record record requests that I will be making to you.

If copies of these documents are mailed electronically, please email them to me.

Thank you,

al crespo

May 11, 2020

Mr. Ron Book

Ms. Victoria Mallette

Miami-Dade Homeless Trust                                                  NUMBER 3

Via - email

Good Morning,

This is public record request under the provisions of Florida Chapter 119, aka, Florida's Public Record Act.

If for any reason you chose to not comply with my request you are required by law to provide me with a written response as to why you are claiming an exemption to the provisions of the law, and to do so with enough specificity that I can proceed to Circuit Court and let a judge decide whether your claim of exemption is valid.

In addition, while Florida statute does not provide a clear cut time limit for complying with public record requests, the court in Tribune Company v. Cannella, 458 So 2nd 1075, 1078-1079 (Fla 1984), determined that a custodian of records has the, "limited reasonable  time allowed the custodian to retrieve...and delete those portions of the record the custodian asserts are exempt."

THIS IS MY REQUEST:

I want a copy of any and all copies of contracts and/or agreements between the Homeless Trust and hotels, motels, or any other entities providing housing for homeless individuals during the current pandemic. The time frame for this request would be from February 1, 2020 through May 8, 2020.

THIS IS A STAND ALONE REQUEST, and not subject to computation regarding time limits with any other public record record requests that I will be making to you.

If copies of these documents are mailed electronically, please email them to me.

Thank you,

al crespo

MAY 11, 2020

Mr. Ron Book

Ms. Victoria Mallette

Miami-Dade Homeless Trust                                                   NUMBER 4

Via - email

Good Morning,

This is public record request under the provisions of Florida Chapter 119, aka, Florida's Public Record Act.

If for any reason you chose to not comply with my request you are required by law to provide me with a written response as to why you are claiming an exemption to the provisions of the law, and to do so with enough specificity that I can proceed to Circuit Court and let a judge decide whether your claim of exemption is valid.

In addition, while Florida statute does not provide a clear cut time limit for complying with public record requests, the court in Tribune Company v. Cannella, 458 So 2nd 1075, 1078-1079 (Fla 1984), determined that a custodian of records has the, "limited reasonable  time allowed the custodian to retrieve...and delete those portions of the record the custodian asserts are exempt."

THIS IS MY REQUEST:

This is a request for copies the audits of the Homeless Trust for the fiscal years 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18.

If you operate on calendar years, I want the 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 audits.

THIS IS A STAND ALONE REQUEST, and not subject to computation regarding time limits with any other public record record requests that I will be making to you.

If copies of these documents are mailed electronically, please email them to me.

Thank you,

al crespo

https://www.crespogramnews.com/may-11th---ron-book-and-the-homeless-trust.html