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NUMBER 121 - NOVEMBER 26, 2018

PHOTOS OF THE DAY - COMMISSIONER JOE CAROLLO IS A STICKLER FOR THE CITY'S PROPERTY BEING PROTECTED - UNLESS OF COURSE, THE DAMAGE OCCURS IN BAYFRONT PARK - THEN WHATEVER HE SAYS IS JUST NOISE INTENDED TO DISTRACT FROM THE FACT THAT CAROLLO IS JUST ANOTHER LOUD MOUTHED PHONY WHO PRETTY MUCH LIES EVERYTIME HE OPENS HIS MOUTH

While these tire burns thrilled the folks lined up along the barricades, what few if any of them saw or thought about after the event was the residue of rubber that this left on the street.

A month later, burnt rubber from those tires is still on Biscayne Boulevard.

The big draw of the event was the "Village" of tents set up inside the park that featured race cars and other Formula 1 related activities.

Dead grass might not be a crime of the century, but it's indicative of the failure of the Trust - an organization which reflects Carollo's personal style of leadership, with a hand-picked board, and a staff controlled by fear and threat of firing - to demand compliance from the companies that it allows to use the park for it's activities.

As of Monday morning, November 26th, the dead grass has yet to be replaced.

It's not the most important issue facing the city, but over the last few months I've been keeping track of Francis Suarez through the photos he posts on his various social media sites because those photos revealed that he acts somewhat like a teenage girl when it comes to personal adornment.

In a number of photos he's shown wearing some sort of Red String bracelet, which when I've asked folks what that represents, I've been told  that folks wear these Red Strings to keep the, "evil eye at bay."

Really?  The mayor of Miami is worried about keeping the, "evil eye at bay?"  

If Francis Suarez should be worried about anything, keeping the, "evil eye at bay," should come in a distant second to keeping Commissioner Joe "Coco Loco" Carollo's, "evil mouth at bay."

Maybe when he's being chauffeured around he ought to have his driver take him to a mall so he can go to a Pandora's store and see if they have any charm bracelets that would be suitable for a weak mayor with a weak mind, because having publicly announced back in March that God had, "promised to guide me in service to my city through good times and bad," you got to figure that if you got the main guy as your personal advisor, then the "evil eye," probably got a memo informing it of that, and maybe suggesting that it focus its evil elsewhere.

Last month the Formula 1 folks staged at Fan Fest at Bayfront Park to let everyone know the treat they were in for if Formula 1 racing comes to downtown Miami.

The highlight of the weekend event was various race cars zipping up and down Biscayne Boulevard, and on occasion doing this:

A month after the event, Formula 1 is gone except for the dead grass left behind.  If this is a sign of how the folks at Formula 1 and the management of the Park Trust consider honoring the contract to return the park to it's original condition, then folks who live around the park can once again expect to get screwed,

NOW THAT THE STRONG MAYOR ISSUE IS OVER WITH, MAYBE WE CAN FOCUS ON SOME SERIOUS STUFF, LIKE WHY DOES FRANCIS SUAREZ WEAR AN AMULET TO WARD OFF THE EVIL EYE

The next interesting jewelry issue that came up in photos was the different wedding bands he wears.  Above he wears a traditional gold wedding band, and below he wears a Black one.

What's that all about?

In addition to the City's Communications Director and Assistant Communications Director, Suarez has his own Communications Director and Assistant Communications Director - who get paid so much money that I'm frankly bewildered why Commissioner "Coco Loco," hasn't gone into one of his patented rants about why Miami's weak mayor needs 2 people getting paid close to $200,000 to handle his communications as the political version of a concert promoter.(Thanks for the simile MS.)

Maybe these communication wizzes, as a way to earn their keep ought to start issuing wardrobe guides at the beginning of every week to allow folks to keep up with the Mayor's various sartorial decisions, because now that he won't be a Strong Mayor he can spend more time focusing on becoming Miami's Metrosexual Mayor.

It's Miami. Bitches!

Then there are the various wristbands that he wears.

COMMISSIONER "SELLOUT" RUSSELL MIGHT KICK UP HIS FEET AND PRETEND HE'S IN PALM BEACH, BUT DOWNTOWN MIAMI IS DIRTY, UNKEMPT AND STILL A LARGELY VACANT WASTELAND WHILE HE AND THE DDA PISSES AWAY TAX DOLLARS LIKE IT'S MONOPOLY MONEY

Last month, Commissioner Ken "Sellout" Russell was all breathless about  how to reduce traffic congestion in downtown Miami by reducing parking, and creating "Parklets," that would convert street parking to other uses like outdoor spaces for restaurants.

It's good to support new ideas, but the problem with Commissioner "Sellout," is that he seems to support and value ideas that tend to ignore some basic realities, starting with the fact that downtown Miami is dirty, unkempt, and in need of some serious money and effort to clean up.

Here are some photos that I took a couple weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon.

A lot of what gets done - or not - in downtown Miami is dependent on the Downtown Development Authority (DDA), and over the years I've written a number of stories about their mismanagement and wasteful abuse of tax money.

The most idiotic recent example was the decision in 2014 to spend upwards of $13 million dollars to redesign Flagler Street to make it look, as I wrote at the time, like a tacky version of an old-time railroad theme park main street. (HERE)

Four years later, and after incompetent contractors, missed deadlines, lack of oversight, and just gross incompetence on multiple levels, what has been redesigned thankfully doesn't look like the rendering above.

That's the good part. The bad part is that the job was less than half done when a time out was called, and there doesn't seem to be any effort by the DDA, the City of Miami, or Miami-Dade County to finish it, even while the DDA's Chairman, Commissioner "Sellout," sucks up to Miami Today and poses for photographs in his little "parklet."

In the meantime, here is the latest DDA Check Register. Take a look at all the ways they found to spend money, and ask yourself did any of that money make a difference that couldn't have been made if the city abolished the DDA, all those highly paid employees were fired, and the general level of incompetence that passes for governance in the City of Miami took over?

NUMBER 122 - NOVEMBER 28, 2018

A VISIT TO THE CRESPOGRAM ARCHIVES FOR A STORY ABOUT MIAMI'S THUG COP

NUMBER 123 - NOVEMBER 29, 2018

PHOTOS OF THE DAY - LESS THAN 48 HOURS AFTER MY ORIGINAL STORY, WORKERS HAD REMOVED THE DEAD GRASS, AND TRUCKS WITH NEW GRASS HAD ARRIVED AT BAYFRONT PARK - ONCE AGAIN IT TOOK THE CRESPOGRAM TO GET THE CITY OF MIAMI - AND IN THIS CASE COMMISSIONER "COCO LOCO" CAROLLO - TO DO THE RIGHT THING