MIAMI M M MIRROR TRUE E REFLEC CTIONS

I NARY RETURN R N OF JO ORGE GO ONZAL LEZ THE IMAGIN

Miami Beach B is Haunted H by the Possib bility
September 6, 2013 MIAMI BEACHT The notion th hat former City C Manage er Jorge Gon nzalez will return r and retake r the City of Miami Beach B after being b forced to resign in n the wake of o a scandal over the F.B B.I.s arrest of several city y employees has haunted d the imagin nation of peo ople who either hope or r fear that he will w do just th hat. Indeed, a usually reli iable source informed me m a week ag go that he ha ad it from a very v high so ource, whom he e declined to o identify, th hat Jorge Gon nzalez would return to th he city, and that the new w city manager, , Jimmy Moralesa M Miami-Dad de County political in nsider whom m the so-c called Oppositio on shoed in nto the job b with high h expectations of refor rmwould resign after r the upcoming g elections. Gonzalez z told me ye esterday that t he had not t been notifi fied of his im mpending re eturn, and th hat he knew not thing about it. i
P 1of5 Page

MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

Why do you presume that I would be interested in returning? Perhaps, I suggested, to become a commissioner and help convert the citys form of government to a strong mayor system, so that the most powerful city officer could veto legislation and be accountable to the voters, and then run for mayor. I am a professional. I have no interest in being a politician and doing what a politician has to do to win and keep office, he said. Would he be interested in returning to the city manager job? Not the way things are now. As for Morales, He will last as long as he does what he is told. He is a politician, not a professional city manager, not even a bureaucrat, and he would do well to run for county mayor. Gonzalez took exception to the idea that he had stacked his administration with Hialeah friends, saying his hires were based on qualifications. Look whom Morales has hired. The top five or six high level hires are all from Doral. I had noted various reports that Hialeah is the reputed power center for the Cubans who run Miami. I wondered who would want to hire their enemies, noting the abundance of sophisticated and savvy Cuban Americans in and around Hialeah, my favorite figure being the late Jorge Mas, who once said he would run Miami because the Americanos were incapable of doing so. Gonzalez did not respond to my ethnic consideration, but said he could not forget how I had derided him for joking around at a Civic Circle meeting held at the Van Dyke Caf on February 25, 2010, about how residents thought they were his boss. That was not fair. I was just making a joke, he recalled. Deriding him at length for a casual statement was admittedly unfair. But jokes are only funny to the extent they are true, and there was an unintended truth to his joke. According to the city charter, a city managers boss is the city commission. And that is where the root of all evil and good seemingly lies, with the part-time city commission and mayor, if not with the five-thousand voters who elect them. Even among the voters there are perhaps no more than one hundred who can even name all the commissioners. A city manager is ultimately just that, a manager. He may disagree with the boss and get away with it, maybe even get his way, for that is what a professional manager with an apolitical semblance is supposed to do, but if he bucks the boss in the wrong way, he is likely to be fired
Page2of5

MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

no matter how much the people of the city dislike him or not. As a matter of fact, surveys indicated that the great majority of the people liked the way things were going in the city he was managing. I was among the minority that did not like Gonzalez. My disaffection started over what he called the few blades of bad grass in his lawn, and then I noticed his offices lack of oversight over the chiefs of the several feudal departments he inherited, and his rather arrogant air. I started calling him Boss Gonzalez. However, I did appreciate his achievements, and even recommended to Mayor Bower that South Pointe Park be renamed after him. She seemed receptive to that idea, but for some reason she did not broach it with the commission, perhaps because the rule for naming now requires the person who has the good name to be dead three years. I had also objected to the big rush to get rid of Gonzalez right away instead of keeping him around another year, to take advantage of what he had learned over the last thirteen years to respond effectively to the public clamor. I was astonished at the sudden effort to depose him, and marveled at the rising of what appeared to be a faux opposition. Political opportunism was obviously at play, and perhaps something else, maybe even corruption. Commissioner Ed Tobin, who had made himself a cadet at the Police Academy, considered my opposition to the Opposition on June 2, 2012, and asked, Can I buy some pot from you? To which I replied: I sold out in 71 when I copped out to The Man. Try Green Square. (I had experienced difficulty getting a response from the legal department to our public request for drug testing records). That exchange occurred in the email aftermath of Tobins April 24 public record letter to Gonzalez attributing the opportunity for corruption to his aloofness. In that letter, Tobin, a former prosecutor, indicted Gonzalez on several counts, which Gonzalez rebutted. Gonzalez faulted us for going after City Attorney Jose Smith for calling people who criticized Smiths behavior crazy. Forsooth, one must be crazy to criticize Smith. His reactions caused us to think that perhaps the commission forced the retirement of the wrong person, and that Smith was actually the boss behind the scenes if not the ruling rings Bruce Cutler. The barking is interesting, but you are barking up the wrong tree. Smith is not who you think he is. He is just a cog in the machine. He is thin-skinned, that is all. He should not be so thin-skinned, I respond, because insulting responses and threats to questions and opinions gives journalists cause to think officials have something to hide and to get on their cases with dogged determination. True, but Smith is just thin-skinned, he does not take criticism well. You should be looking at Wolfson, who led the campaign against me.

Page3of5

MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

Commissioner Jonah Wolfson is the so-called populist leader who recently told the New Times reporter to go f*** himself when asked about the towing companies contributions to his wifes judicial campaign before the commission approved of a tow-rate hike. Incidentally, Gonzalez had recommended against the hike. I asked Miami-Dade Ethics Commission staff members if the contributions to wifes campaign, which her husband reportedly managed, might involve a conflict of interest, but I received no response, which is usual. Again, instead of going after Smith, you should be asking exactly what has been done to curb corruption since my departure over a year ago. I pointed out that the police department had initiated improvements. The MBPD brass had also come up with a plan for its Internal Affairs department to form a Public Corruption Unit to investigate all allegations of misbehavior of officials no matter how high or low. My report attracted national interest. Even Smith lauded my report on the subject, saying it was the only sensible thing that I had ever written. Gonzalez himself had called for the countys inspector general to investigate allegations of official misconduct, but the inspector general declined, citing a want of resources. Since the sudden death of Commander Gary Shimminger, who was leading the pilot program for the IA Public Corruption Unit, the program seems to have been abandoned as if it were a pipe dream. Commissioner Michael Gongora, most likely to win the current mayoral race i, promised to inquire into the inspector generals refusal. The question was referred somewhere else, and no answer seems to be forthcoming. And Gongora did not respond to repeated requests for his support of the Internal Affairs Public Corruption unit. The police chief initiatives were taken at my prompting, said Gonzalez. The Internal Affairs Public Corruption Unit was just talk. What else has the city done since I left? Nothing. As for the towing companies contributions to Wolfsons wife, and your belief that the Ethics Commission is reluctant to investigate the matter, you should ask why they would invest so much money in the campaign of judge, and look into her relationship with the State Attorney, and who works for the Ethics Commission now. He said that politics had taught him that nothing happens without a reason, and advised us to follow the money. History should teaches us to beware of the rhetoric about taking back our city. To begin with, he said, investigators should carefully observe the distribution of campaign contributions, paying special attention to what happens, for example, to the fate of campaign contributions for uncontested seats. And he referred to a sizeable contribution a few days after

Page4of5

MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

his fall from grace along with other recorded transactions that, if investigated and analyzed, might bear fruit. I pointed out that city managers often get embroiled in politics throughout the nation, and that managers in general are scapegoated when things go wrongly. Would his involuntary retirement as Miami Beachs city manager hurt his chances of obtaining employment elsewhere? Well, the job is on the resume. It hurts when a manager is falsely accused of being and incompetent, bad manager. I observed that the City Commission had taken on the appearance of a snake pit with all rattling and back biting, and asked if it would not just be better to walk away from the whole thing and write a book about something of lasting value. One should never, ever walk away from injustice, he said. It seems that the hopes and fears that Jorge Gonzalez will return are groundless. How can he return when he never left? ii

##

Philip Levine entered the mayoral race after this was written, with $2 million of his own money and the endorsement of former President Clinton, to win the job, which pays $10,000 per annum and provides no executiveauthorityunderthecitysstrongcitymanager,weakmayorsystem. ii JorgeGonzalezwashiredascitymanagerofBalHarbourshortlyafterthiswaswritten.Hewasallegedlyhighly recommendedbyCityofMiamiBeachofficials.
i

Page5of5