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EMILIO GONZALEZ HAS HIS OWN CHALLENGE COIN, JUST LIKE THE PRESIDENT, AND JUST LIKE TRUMP'S COIN, THE TAXPAYERS PAID FOR THIS SELF PROMOTIONAL BULLSHIT
NUMBER 103 - OCTOBER 6, 2018
One of the reasons that politicians can't seem to quit running for office is that they get addicted to all the free stuff - starting with money - that they either get to spend to make themselve look important, give away to their family, friends and campaign donors or receive as bribes and gifts for all the money they give away. Keep that in mind when Alez Penelas announces he's running for office again.
It's a rat race of greed and gluttony, and the biggest rats almost always manage to stay in front of the pack.
In the City of Miami, there are all kinds of wondrous funds available not only to elected officials, but also to folks like Colonel Klink, to spend for those odds and ends that a modern public official now seems to believe is both his/her due.
In an effort to try and keep some handle on where taxpayer money in Miami goes, I periodically submit requests for documents like check registers and P Card registers, because Miami's politicians have been known not only to screw the pooch, but to then send it to the beauty palor for a little vaginal steaming and anal bleaching, all on the public's dime.
What's a P card, you ask? It's a private city issued credit card that a handful of top officials - including the Mayor, members of the City Commission and City Manager receive so that they can cover emergency expenditures.
I got a copy of the January thru August P Card expenditures a few weeks back, and a quick perusal set off the usual alarm bells. One of the first things that caught my attention was an expenditure identified as, "City Manager - City of Miami Coins."
I originally stated that there were three purchases of coins. In fact, there was six, totalling $2,928.22.
Here's a screen grab that shows 3 of those purchases.
After a little digging I discovered that Colonel Klink had had these coins made up so that he could give them to visiting dignitaries, as a momento of their meetings.
This is pretentious bullshit of the first order!
Colonel Klink is a government bureaucrat who's demonstrated that he's such a weak and ineffectual manager that he can't keep Commissioner "Coco Loco" Carollo from continuing to treat city employees as his personal staff, and has been not-so-secretly padding the city's payroll with a new level of administration in order to give jobs to a group of mostly Cuban political operatives so that they can hang out at City Hall until the next campaign or opportunity comes along.
In short, Miami's City Hall is beginning to look like a parking lot for former campaign staff, or the family of campaign staff and other Cuban big shots needing a tied-me-over job.
In order to get all the information that I could before writing a story I submitted a public records request.
I can pretty much gauge the level of embarrassment that one of my public records requests is causing by how long it takes the city to respond.
After 3 days I knew that Colonel Klink didn't want me to see what this coin looked like, so I was fortunate in that among all the people that I talk with on a regular basis, one of my Crespogram readers just happened to have a photo of the Colonel's coin - which is above.
So, every time you hear a phony like Joe Carollo bleat about how every dollar is important because the city's going broke, just remember that $2,928.22 of taxpayer money - and that's only up to the end of August, because the Colonel could have already ordered another batch in September - are being spent by Colonel Klink so he cas pass out these "Challenge Coins," to feed his ego.
It's Miami, Bitches!
JUDGE RULES AGAINST CAROLLO IN LAWSUIT OVER STRONG MAYOR. NEXT STEP IS THE 3RD DCA
As widely anticipated, Judge Miguel De La O, issued an opinion that rejected the claims made by Commissioner Joe Carollo in his lawsuit against the referendum ballot issue that would allow Francis Suarez to become the Strong Mayor of Miami.
In large part the real reason that this lawsuit failed is based on the fact that it was Carollo's own refusal to seriously challenge this issue back in the Spring when the Suarez campaign committee first filed their paperwork that allowed this issue to end up on the ballot.
If you will recall, back then, Carollo instructed the City Attorney to draft ordinances that would have detailed every conceivable way that the city could be managed, from strong mayor, to dictator, and then, after she did that, when those draft ordinances showed up on the agenda of the next commission meeting Carollo said, never mind.
Given Carollo's raging ego, and the history between him and Suarez and his father, who he caused to be removed from office as a result of a lawsuit he filed back in the day, there is every reason to believe that one of the reasons that Carollo chose to go this route was that he envisioned that this lawsuit would allow him to crow over the fact that be had bested both Daddy and Baby Suarez in court.
There were ways - and there still are ways to stop this process - but it would take real leadership, and some political courage, which are both non-existent in the current membership of the Commission.
Sadly, the screwing that the citizens will get if Suarez becomes Strong Mayor is not their fault, it will be the fault of Joe Carollo for not taking care of business when he had every opportunity to do so, and to Manolo Reyes, Keon Hardemon, and Ken "Sellout" Russell for sticking their thumbs up their asses and going along with Carollo instead of challenging Suarez early on.
A tip of the hat to Jesus Suarez, who was the lead counsel on Carollo's behalf. It's always enjoyable - at least to me - to watch a smart lawyer at work, and even though the judge might have ruled against him, he did a 1st class job in arguing this case.
Next stop will be the 3rd DCA.
