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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

Commissioner Exposito and City Attorney Smith whispering

ARE WHISPERINGS AT CITY COMMISSIONS LEGAL? Filed by David Arthur Walters MIAMI MIRROR October 26, 2013 MIAMI BEACHCity of Miami Beach Commissioner Jorge Exposito had a problem on the dais at the public meeting of the commission held on Sept. 11 to choose a contractor to manage the citys tennis facilities. How Jorge Exposito in all good conscience choose Green Square Inc., the insolvent company that has held the contract for over a decade, despite a long history of deplorable management and maintenance of the court? Indeed, Green Squares breaches of the contract had been so egregious and continuous yet tolerated by the disgraced administration of former city boss Jorge Gonzalez and his commissioners that the Bollettieri branded company really had no contract: Green Squares principles, Victor Weithorn, Tom Mar, and Jimmy Bollettieri, son of world famous coach Nick Bollettieri, and employees both documented and undocumented, were virtually city employees accountable to none other than city officials, who themselves stood accused of being unaccountable to the public. Jorge Gonzalez and other officials had been dumped as a result of the clamor following yet another series of F.B.I. arrests of city employees as the city vied with other South Florida cities for the dishonor of being the most corrupt city in Florida.
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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS


But the moral bankruptcy lingers. Although normally only three bidders make the evaluation list, just in case the top two bidders drop out or are disqualified, Green Square was forced onto the bottom of the list by a city official as a fourth bidder. The chambers were packed by Green Square with a rude crowd of supporters brought in for the occasion, called Greenshirts because green Bollettieri T-shirts were handed out at the door. Many of them had never been seen around the courts. Two boys testified together most eloquently about their Teacher Jimmy Bollettieri. His dad Nick showed up for the occasion to say that tennis is about kids, not about money. He was followed by wealthy energy trader Mark Fisher, who flew down in his Lear jet to highly recommend Green Square and promise to deposit a large sum of money in the bank if his friends got the contract. Green Squares maladministration, including the mismanagement of maintenance and financial irresponsibility, were not mentioned. And apparently good sportsmanship was not part of the Bollettieri methodology. When anyone testified in favor of the top bidder, they were booed, jeered, hissed and hooted down by the intimidating Green Shirts. The top bidder still put on a good presentation, including referring to its revenue stream on other courts, indicating it could double the revenue Green Square was reporting to the City of Miami Beach. That raised questions in the audience as to why Green Square had been crying poor for so many years, one man speculating that perhaps a million dollars had gone missing each year. What a show! Retired tennis pro and tennis facility manager Chris Growald testified that Green Square had never organized anything until that meeting. Commissioner Ed Tobin reminded the commission that decisions should not be made on the basis of how many people show up to support some cause at a hearing, and said that surely Green Square had picked up a few friends over the years, but that was a tiny part of the population. Never mind, the game had already been fixed. How could anyone blame the commissioners for voting in favor of Green Square after the staging of all that fuss? The fly in the ointment was the procurement law, which provides for a fair and reasonable process for the selection of contractors who want to do business with a government entity. The majority of the commissioners wanted to arbitrarily, capriciously and unreasonably circumvent the law and thus deny due process so Green Square could be retained on a month-to-month basis and eventually granted permanent contract. But somehow the appearance of propriety would have to be maintained.

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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS


Commissioner Exposito knew whom to turn to devise a pretext that would allow the commission to toss out all the bids. He collaborated with the man on his left, City Attorney Jose Smith, the in-house attorney for the lingering old regime; Boss Jorge Gonzalez had been his principal client. Exposito and Smith were observed engaged in intimate oral intercourse off camera, and whispering to one another on camera, so what was said must be induced from Expositos public exchanges. To wit: claim that there are uncertainties and ambiguities in all the bidders submissions so that they all could be tossed out. So we have this exchange between Commissioners Jorge Exposito and Jonah Wolfson around 8:14 pm: Exposito: At the end of the day, I think the trouble we are having is that there are so many ambiguities and so many uncertainties in this RFP. I am not seeing it as a qualification, but we have to look at the satisfaction of what we are giving our community at the end of the day because that to me is more important than $120,000. I am going to make a motion that the RFP be thrown out. Come back, rehash it. Come back with very specific criteria. So we can measure apples to apples. That is my motion. Wolfson: What are the ambiguities? Exposito: Everything in terms of staffing and maintenance. As a matter of fact, the only bidder whose submission under the Request for Proposals was ambiguous and uncertain was Green Square! So the bids were tossed out, Green Square remaining with nine-tenths of the law as defined by the city attorney, i.e. possession of the tennis facilities. The city attorney on the dais was coy when openly asked beforehand if that procedure was proper. Although the city charter allows him to make recommendations to the commission, and he has done so many time in the past, he offered no recommendation or opinion: he simply recounted that what the commission would be doing would be to reject all the bids and bring back an acceptable contract. Commissioners Ed Tobin and Michael Gngora voted against rejecting all bids. Gngora was not fooled by the dirty trick: he called it sneaky. Gngora, who is currently running for mayor, is distinguishing himself from the lingering the old regime without openly insulting it. He obviously did not think he would lose any votes by going against Green Square, for their long possession of the courts is not due to popularity but to favorable discrimination by the power elite.

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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS


Commission Exposito is also running in the current election to retain his seat. He usually conducts himself honorably so there is some wonderment in the community as to his moral bankruptcy contributing to the travesty on Sept. 11. Exposito purportedly needs the support of Commissioner Deede Weithorn, who is in league with Mayor Matti Herrera Bower, to retain his commission seat. It is believed that he held the proxy of Commissioner Deede Weithorn, CPA, who recused herself from the meeting because she is sister-in-law to Victor Weithorn, who holds a one-third interest in Green Square. She also prepares Green Squares tax returns. The 2012 tax return shows that Green Squ are has been insolvent for some time, with little or no cash in the bank. It has a spotty record of paying rent, and has failed to provide all the financial statements required by its contract, and the administration has failed to perform regular audits. Apparently Weithorn has no duty to the city to warn it against doing business with her insolvent client. The current city manager, Jimmy Morales, has been asked to order a forensic audit in response to irregularities brought to light over the years and the mystery of why a broke company would cling to a losing proposition. He has also been asked to revise the citys administrative procedure so that all newcomers to boards and the commissions are thoroughly indoct rinated on Floridas Government-in-the-Sunshine law. Victoria Frigo, senior attorney for the Miami Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE), was asked if whisperings on the dais between city attorneys and city commissioners are a violation of the Government-in-the-Sunshine law. The inquiry pointed out that the city attorney was not asked for his opinion because he has been extremely hostile in respect to any questions potentially begging askance of his conduct. The COE has no jurisdiction over Sunshine Law violations but advertises that it reviews inquiries, and, if it suspects there have been violations, refers them to the State Attorney with whom it has a close relationship. COE Director Joe Centorino was formerly a public corruption prosecutor for the State Attorney. Several allegations have been made to the COE lately as to the recalcitrance of the Miami Beach city attorneys office in providing records to the public and records ordered by the court. The COE has not been very responsive. On this occasion, Frigo responded that only conversations between commissioners at public meetings are subject to the Sunshine Law. However, she was asked to reconsider her position in the light of a common sense analysis of the statute itself, statements made by the Florida Attorney General in her Manual on the subject, and a leading case decision by the Florida Supreme Court that meetings between commissioners or board members and their government attorneys are subject to the law.

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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS


Frigo was asked to at least refer the matter to the local State Attorney for her opinion. Frigo said she has referred the matter to the Attorney General for her opinion, not to the State Attorney, so she has been asked if the State Attorney, who prosecutes violations, has demurred. Exposito, alarmed by the inquiries, turned again to Smith for advice, but this time the advice came in public writing instead of private whispers. Smith issued a formal opinion agreeing with Frigo, and took care to disparage the inquirer in the formal opinion, psychologically signaling his fea r that the inquirers lay opinion on the matter might be considered weightier than his legal opinion. A copy of the opinion was sent to Rebecca Boyce, President of the Miami Beach Tennis Association, who responded in the public record email as follows: Thank you, Mr. Smith for your response, although I find the attack on Mr. Walters, a concerned person, to be unprofessional and quite disturbing. I am a simple resident without legal training. I am concerned with the processes and standards upheld by our government and would like to understand better the events that led to Mr. Exposito's motion in the 9/11/13 commission meeting. In this context, please clarify the content of the whispering, and also, the actual 'ambiguities' that the tennis RFP contains. Thank you. Respectfully, Rebecca Boyce. ##

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