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NUMBER 90   -  SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

JOE CAROLLO WAS FLAT OUT LYING WHEN HE TOLD THE BAYFRONT PARK TRUST BOARD THAT THE CITY NEEDED $3 MILLION FROM THE TRUST TO BALANCE THE CITY'S BUDGET

At the last board meeting of the Bayfront Park Trust, Trust Chairman, and City Commissioner who looks good in a Nun's habit, Joe Carollo, made a motion to transfer $3 million from the Bayfront Park Trust bank account to help the city balance its budget. Here is how he introduced the motion, which you can hear in the audio taped version of the meeting above:

          "In order for us to truly balance the books for the general fund,

          the city of Miami would be greatly appreciative, and is looking

          with baited breath that the Trust can provide $3 million dollars

          of the reserves that we have...I will pass the gavel to Christina

          and make a motion for $3 million dollars be given to the City of

          Miami's General Fund reserves, from our reserves here,

          I said, General Fund reserves, General Fund..."


In effect, Carollo led the board members in attendance at the meeting to believe that the city could not balance the 2017-2018 budget without a donation of $3 million dollars from the Trust.

The only problem with this proposal was that it was a lie.  

Both the 2017-2018 budget, and the proposed 2018-2019 budgets were balanced, and the $3 million dollars Carollo wanted to give the city was not needed to balance any budget. If the city needed money to balance any budget, they had plenty of money in their reserve accounts to do that.

And not only did they not need the money but the city DID NOT request through any formal request or documentation that the Bayfront Park Trust donate $3 million dollars for that purpose.

This was all part of a scheme concocted by Carollo where the $3 million upon arrival in the City Of Miami's bank account would become fungible and consequently not traceable as those dollars made their way to their eventual recipient.

And who was, or is that eventual recipient?

There are a handful of people who know where this money will end up, but none of them are willing to say anything either in public or private because this is just another example of the hocus-pocus that goes on with the city's budget when it comes to spreading money around as rewards or payoffs to make various individuals and groups happy at budget time, and in this case the persistent rumors within City Hall all focus on a belief that the money from the Bayfront Park Trust will be used to as a sweetener to finance part of the contract negotiations now going on with the AFSCME union.  

AFSCME is the same union whose Executive Board member Mary Lugo was cited in the recent Close Out Report issued by the Ethics Commission involving  Carollo's use of Code Enforcement officers and Lugo to do his bidding.

Lugo in March was appointed to the Bayfront Park Trust as an At Large Member, and as such she has become a reliable voter of any and all schemes that Carollo cooks up.

In less than a year as the Chairman of the Trust, Carollo has turned the Bayfront Park Trust bank account into his personal piggy bank, not only through this effort to give $3 million to underwrite a sweetened deal for the AFSCME union, but also when he got the Trust Board to agree at the last meeting in June to donate $10,000 to fund a 4th of July party at Jose Marti Park featuring a fireworks show, which is in his Commission District, and which until this year had never staged a 4th of July party or fireworks display.

This was a party that Carollo should have paid for from his Commission Event Fund, but as the Miami Herald first reported in June, some of the money from that account went to finance food and drinks for parties held at a number of assisted living facilities and nursing homes in his District in May as a way to generate campaign support for his pal Alex de la Portilla, who was running in the Special Election for the District 5 County Commission seat.

Carollo likes to talk a lot about standing up against waste and corruption, but when he uses Bayfront Park Trust money to finance a 4th of July party in his District, and when he bamboozles the members of the Trust Board into supporting the transfer $3 million from their bank account to supposedly help the city balance their budget, when in fact the budget DID NOT need balancing, then Joe Carollo is behaving just as sleazy as any of the people he claims to be standing up against when he talks about stopping waste and corruption.

It's Miami, Bitches!

VIDEO CLIP OF THE DAY - OH, FOR THOSE FUN DAYS WHEN CITY ATTORNEY VICTORIA MENDEZ MOSTLY LIED ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF PUBLIC RECORDS.  

City Attorney Victoria Mendez chastising Bill Fuller's attorney after he alleged that the city had engaged in selective enforcement on several code violations on one of his client's properties.

This from a city attorney whose staff was too stupid or lazy to verify the complaint of a lawsuit they filed against Fuller last week, resulting in the case being tossed, and then admitting at this latest hearing that a legal document they sent out contained the wrong date.

Gross incompetence used to be grounds for firing people. Not in the city of Miami where gross incompetence, like lying, has become an ingrained part of how the city is run.

A LOT HAPPENED AT THIS MORNING'S STATUS HEARING INVOLVING THE CAROLLO V. SUAREZ LAWSUIT. IT'S NOT NECESSARILY GOING TO BE A WALK IN THE PARK FOR EITHER SIDE, AND AS USUAL WITH THE LOCAL NEWS MEDIA, I WAS THE ONLY ONE TO SHOW UP SO THAT YOU COULD LEARN WHAT  HAPPENED