Thousands of public officials and employees in Miami-Dade go to work on your behalf and take home your hard-earned tax dollars in return. They are hired or elected to serve none but the citizenry, meaning they must abide by all public records laws and perform their duties to the public legally and transparently.
Those requirements are being blatantly ignored by an arm of county government and the city of North Miami Beach (NMB). So are long-standing policies governing release of public records to the media. In apparent bids to avoid accountability and public scrutiny, these entities are knowingly working to keep taxpayers in the dark, ignoring their legal duties as mandated by Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes.
At the Biscayne Times, we work diligently to keep you informed of government decision making. So, when we see the kind of secrecy and public obstruction now being carried out by the Miami-Dade Economic Advocacy Trust (MDEAT) and NMB, we fearlessly call it out.
On June 22, 2023, the Biscayne Times requested documents related to lawsuits involving NMB city commissioners. The public deserves to know how much of their money is being spent on litigation amid continuing dysfunction in the city. But, more than three months later, we have received nothing.
The intracity court battles began after Mayor Anthony DeFillipo was accused of living in Broward County, investigated by a private firm and subsequently sued by the city for breaking residency requirements. DeFillipo was arrested May 31, 2023, for allegedly voting three times last year in a district he could not legally vote in.
Before the since-suspended mayor’s arrest, Commissioners Michael Joseph and McKenzie Fleurimond were among those missing commission meetings to boycott DeFillipo, leading now acting Mayor Jay Chernoff to file suit against them. The turmoil in city government included Joseph fighting in court for his political survival, the firing of City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey and the resignation of City Attorney Hans Ottinot, who pursued the residency lawsuit against DeFillipo. Ottinot’s departure led to the hiring of a new interim attorney, John Herin, who defended Chernoff in his suit against the two absent commissioners.
There’s more: Attorney Michael Pizzi was hired to represent DeFillipo in the suit filed against him, and later to represent Chernoff in his suit against Joseph and Fleurimond. He was also hired by the city to investigate fraud in the administration, with a focus on Sorey’s actions.
Given that litigation was running rampant in the city, we asked how much the court fights were costing taxpayers. Specifically, we requested the cost of legal fees for the lawsuit between Chernoff and Joseph, any cost to the city for the investigation and litigation against DeFillipo, and any cost to the city for the investigation into Sorey’s actions.
The city has not provided any explanation for its failure to fulfill our request in blatant disregard for government transparency and the rule of law.
The secrecy is equally alarming in Miami-Dade County government.
The transparency problems at MDEAT stretch back months; Our sister newspaper, The Miami Times, previously exposed a pattern of mismanagement at the agency, and its investigation into a still unreleased 2023 MDEAT disparity study uncovered a number of alarming issues. MDEAT’s board of directors approved a $234,915 sole-source contract with CMA Enterprise Inc. and E.L. Waters and Company LLC to conduct the study. The usual competitive bidding process used by county agencies to hire vendors was set aside at the insistence of MDEAT’s executive director, William “Bill” Diggs.
All matters related to the development and execution of the CMA-Waters study are public records; we requested them on Sept. 6, 2023. A poorly written 43-page executive summary of the study, rife with typos and unfinished sentences, was finally provided to us Sept. 26.
A copy of the resolution voted on by the board to hire CMA-Waters and Sign-in sheets for just two listening sessions was sent to us on Friday evening, Sept. 29.
Among the records and information MDEAT has failed to provide to us are:
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· Sign-in sheets for the remaining 10 community listening sessions that CMA charged MDEAT $10,500 each to hold.
· Justification for CMA’s sole-source contract.
· A complete breakdown of the disparity study’s sample size.
· A list of elected officials surveyed, and the names and titles of everyone who participated in focus groups or online surveys.
· A copy of the phone list used to call residents and the survey phone script.
MDEAT is tasked with resolving socioeconomic disparities within the Black community. The public needs to know how MDEAT is being managed because the agency’s mission is vital. Yet its administrators seem bent on keeping every record they can from outside eyes. MDEAT took two months to respond to a previous public records request submitted by The Miami Times in May, failing to comply until July 27. The delays are part of an ongoing pattern of unacceptable obstruction.
We are not alone in sounding the alarm. A recent column by the Miami Herald’s executive editor highlights a disturbing pattern of secrecy in the city of Miami, which has failed to fulfill or ignored dozens of the newspaper’s public records requests.
When government keeps those who fund their salaries in the dark, taxpayers must join the press in demanding transparency.
This editorial was updated online on Oct. 3, 2023 to reflect documents received after our print deadline.