Miami Beach Commissioner Jonah Wolfson blasts Local 10's Michael Putney in a full-page Miami Herald ad

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Apparently Miami Beach Commissioner Jonah Wolfson has never heard of a quotation attributed to Mark Twain about picking fights with the press.  Had he known, perhaps he would have thought twice  about taking out a full-page ad (text here) in today's Miami Herald that hits back at Local 10's Michael Putney over comments the veteran reporter made on his Sunday show, and a column in the Miami Herald about Wolfson's political action committee, Relentless for Progress.

In an August 4 op-ed headlined "Sleazy politics on Miami Beach," Putney wrote, in part:

Putting together a slate of candidates who favor a mayor is nothing new.. Ditto for setting up a political action committee. Nearly every politician has one these days. But what sets the Relentless for Progress apart from other PACs is its high-pressure tactics, the contributors it's soliciting and the mayor's admitted involvement. The chairman of RFP is Miami Beach Commissioner Jonah Wolfson, who is term limited. The mayor says he and Wolfson have together and singly called prospective donors asking for money. Levine makes it sound totally benign.

But some on the receiving end have told me they agreed to give only because they feared payback from the mayor, commission and city administration if they didn't. Mount Sinai Medical Center, for example, may lose a $15 million city grant because it refused to cough up a big contribution to RFP. At a city commission meeting last week, Wolfson called the $15 million grant to Mount Sinai "corporate welfare" and tried to get it cut from the budget. You have to wonder if he'd feel differently if Mount Sinai had written a check to RFP for, say, $100,000.

In the ad, Wolfson writes that Putney never called him before leveling his accusations. "Had he done so, he would have learned that I have always been against Mt. Sinai's corporate welfare ways."

"Mr. Putney's suggestion that my votes against taxpayer-funded handouts are related to campaign contributions is both false and defamatory," Wolfson says in the ad.

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Reached by email, Putney politely declined to comment when I asked if he planned to respond to Wolfson's charges.

While Putney didn't say so, perhaps he was thinking of another quote; this one attributed to George Bernard Shaw: "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."


Miami New Times: Michael Putney, Glenna Milberg targeted in full-page Herald ad by Beach Commissioner

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Jonah Wolfson Miami Herald Ad attacking Michael Putney