What has happened to Jeb Bush? He can’t catch a break. His campaign has had about four shakeups and reboots since June. And his latest effort to turn the page Monday with his “Jeb Can Fix It” Florida tour was marred by three bad polls in Iowa, New Hampshire and Florida. And then….
CAN JEB FIX IT? – By Monday evening, #JebCanFixIt was trending worldwide on Twitter –as an object of mockery. That’s deadly for a campaign. It’s one thing to be ignored, patronized or disliked. But when the opinion of political elites mesh with social media trends in one massive jeer, the campaign loses clout. Candidates are like the “Godfather’s” Jack Woltz: “a man in my position can’t afford to be made to look ridiculous.” And right now, many see Bush’s campaign as ridiculous.
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If you rearrange the letters in Jeb Can Fix It, it spells I Can’t Fix Jeb.
Simply put, every time his lips moved he was lying.
He told one of his lies when Putney asked him about the Miami Herald's "tepid" endorsement of his candidacy.
"I'm so proud to have their endorsement, whichever way they want to give it ... The last time I ran for mayor ... they didn't endorse me, but I won in a landslide."
Landslide, Mr. Mayor?
You received 5641 votes. The other three candidates received a combined 5534 votes. You won with 50.48% of the vote. That's not a "landslide."
Click to enlarge.
Levine tells another lie when at the 5:02 mark on the tape when Putney asks him about his office staff brand manager and chauffeur.
Levine responds, "In business you're not allowed to lie. But in politics, for some reason, you're just allowed to lie." Levine goes on to say that "I have my own private driver ... I pay for myself."
Levine tells Putney, "We have 1.2 more people in our office than they had four or five years ago."
As I wrote back on Sept. 11, "After quite a bit of prodding, Tobin was able to get Budget Director John Woodruff to admit the cost taxpayers to have a chauffeur squire the mayor around town is about $90,000 a year."
As for Levine's office staff being the same as it was four or five years ago under a previous administration....you decide.
At an Oct. 1, 2013 Miami Beach mayoral debate (see video above) at the Shore Club, the insults were flying ... many of them originating from a table where unruly supporters of candidate Philip Levine were seated.
One resident got up to chastise Levine for his now infamous "mañana" remark.
Levine responded by attacking the woman; suggesting that she was best friends with his opponent, Michael Gongora, and adding incorrectly that Gongora had appointed her "to all the various boards."
Watching all of it from the side of the room was Beach Commissioner Jonah Wolfson. And behind him, whispering in his ear, was Wolfson's aide, Leonor Hernandez.
Leonor Heranndez - wearing "Levine for Mayor" stickers on her blouse - whispers in the ear of her boss, Miami Beach commissioner Jonah Wolfson during a mayoral debate on Oct 1, 2013. (Screen grab from the video above.)
Hernandez proved herself extremely helpful to the mayor in 2013 by taking a leave of absence from her city job and working round the clock for Levine's campaign, getting all those votes from the elderly in Miami Beach's senior housing. She put her own elderly mother to work with the seniors, as well as her son on robocalls and political mailings, and her husband at campaign fundraisers. Getting the mayor elected was a family affair.
She was rewarded handsomely, with a job she desperately needed, and - for a woman who declared bankruptcy, and with her husband has nearly $5.0 million in judgements against them for apartment buildings and two single family homes on Miami Beach foreclosed on - somehow ended up with a $287,000 home paid in cash in Cutler Bay with no explanation.
There was speculation that Philip Levine bought it, or loaned her the money. He has loaned money to friends before.
She and her husband lost their two side-by-side waterfront homes in North Beach to foreclosure in 2014, after years of appeals and legal maneuvering. The properties were foreclosed on in lieu of judgements of $1.5 million and $1.9 million.
There are other outstanding judgement liens - see detail below - and code violations that were never paid.
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via Miami-Dade Property Appraiser's Office. Click here to enlarge.
Mayoral aide Leonor Hernandez's home in Cutler Bay.
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Now, two years later, Hernandez is working for Levine as he campaigns for reelection.
Officially, she's on leave of absence from her city job.
Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine and his aide, Leonor Hernandez, (seen at his right elbow) at a recent campaign event in North Beach. (Click image to enlarge)
But questions abound.
Did Hernandez submit a request for this outside employment? Is she on an official leave of absence to perform political campaign work? When was the leave paperwork submitted, to whom, and is it on file with the City HR department?
Is she drawing down any leave time (using accrued vacation leave and therefore receiving a paycheck, and also access to health care coverage and other benefits) while on leave to do campaign consulting?
And what about sending a city employee who regularly visits senior centers as a constituent aide (city employee) into those same centers during elections? Even if on leave, it violates the very first bullet in the Commission On Ethics memo [below]. How are the residents to know whether she is there as a city employee or as a private citizen/campaign volunteer? She is always functioning in an official capacity to represent the mayor.
Perhaps Mayor Levine will answer some of these questions before election day.
But don't hold your breath.
Despite a lot of talk in 2013 about cleaning up corruption at Miami Beach City Hall, Levine's actions over the past two years prove that he's really no different than those who preceded him.
Miami Beach Commissioner Ed "Mad Dog" Tobin and City Manager
Jorge Gonzalez are seen on May 9, 2012 after Gonzalez announced
he was resigning effective July 8. (Click on all images to enlarge.)
And that means future city commission meetings won't be nearly as interesting without "Mad Dog Ed" on the dais.
Consider these three sentences from a September 2013 Miami Herald story:
As Miami Beach's commission meeting last week dragged on for the 14th hour, things got a little testy.
It was 11:20 p.m. Commissioner Jonah Wolfson began to mock Mayor Matti Herrera Bower's high-pitched voice, and, for the second time that night, threatened to throw himself off the third floor of City Hall.
Commissioner Ed Tobin offered: "I'll carry you there, if you promise to do it."
And in 2012, when the ACLU expressed concerns over Miami Beach's plans to handle Memorial Day crowds, the Miami Herald's David Smiley quoted Tobin as saying "There were people defecating on people’s dining room tables [during the first Urban Beach Week in 2001]. So on the events where people are defecating on the tables, we’re going to have a different approach than the events where they aren’t.”
Today, Smiley broke the news that Tobin will be sworn in as rookie Miami police officer at 10:30 a.m. Friday morning.
From Smiley's report:
Miami Beach Commissioner Ed Tobin will finally realize his childhood dream of becoming a cop. It just won't be in the city where he grew up.
Tobin, a former prosecutor, officially becomes a Miami police officer Friday. He will be sworn in during a 10:30 a.m. He had about three weeks left on his final term on the Miami Beach Commission, but resigned at 5 p.m. Thursday due to a Florida law that prohibits holding two sworn positions at one time.
“Once he hits the streets he's no longer a commissioner. He's a rookie,” said Miami Police Chief Rodolfo Llanes. “He's Officer Tobin.”
One Miami cop says his department is a natural fit for Tobin: "We pay less and have lower standards than the Beach," he told me.
Tobin, 53, has dreamed of wearing a badge and a gun since his days as a Miami Beach police explorer scout some 40 years ago.
Tobin originally applied for a job with the Miami Beach Police Department in 2014, but withdrew his application after flubbing an answer to an important ethics question during an oral examination.
During his time as commissioner, Tobin made quite a few enemies within the MBPD when he lobbied unsuccessfully in 2012 for the selection of controversial Bal Harbour police chief Tom Hunker to be Miami Beach's new police chief.
In a letter to colleagues and constituents, Tobin wrote:
I have known one of the candidates for Chief for 30 years, Tom Hunker. Tom retired from Miami Beach as a Lieutenant after 26 years of outstanding service. He ran the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking task force here in South Florida and then spent several years as the Asst Chief for North Miami Beach. He has spent the last 8 years as Chief of Bal Harbour. He has won countless Local, State and National awards. He is an expert in money laundering and currently brings in about 20 million of forfeiture money from seizures in other states and countries, annually, to Bal Harbour. These funds would be coming to Miami Beach if Tom is chosen. [emphasis added] Currently Miami Beach earns about 1.5 million from our drug forfeiture efforts.
Tom earns a larger salary in Bal Harbour and has 3 years left on his contract there. His city Manager has confirmed he does an outstanding job there. Tom does not need this job but is willing to come back to the City that gave him his start.
The safety of my family and my community is my primary concern.
Tom Hunker is my choice for Chief.
Tobin was absolutely correct when he said Hunker was "an expert in money laundering."
This week, the Miami Herald reported, "After years of rampant abuses by undercover Bal Harbour police [under Police Chief Tom Hunker], the U.S. Justice Department is investigating the millions taken in by the officers who turned a money-laundering sting into a major cash enterprise, spending lavishly on travel and luxury hotels without making a single arrest."
Yes, by the time the next Miami Beach city commission meeting rolls around, "Mad Dog" will be pounding a beat on Miami's mean streets.
Which means Miami Beach residents will no longer be able to relish moments of comedy gold like this....
As a candidate, Levine promised to "manage the city's finances." But once elected he started spending taxpayer dollars like a drunken sailor on shore leave.
Tobin wanted answers on how much Levine's "chauffeur" was costing the city, and also asked why the mayor needed a staff of PR people following him around the city.
The commissioners returned six days later at the request of Weithorn for a "Sunshine Meeting" that was intended to discuss budget policies.
(The meeting was recorded but never uploaded to the archived meetings section of the city's website. A Random Pixels reader called City Hall to ask about the video and was told, "We were directed not to put the video on the website, but if you'd like a copy, you can pick up a DVD at City Hall.")
In the video, Weithorn begins by asking why the city's assistant emergency management director, Clarise Ferguson, got a a 24.6% salary increase.
After moving from the police department's communications unit, Ferguson's salary jumped from $60,183 to $93,849.
Human Resources Director Sylvia Crespo-Tabak told Weithorn that Ferguson's responsibilities had "expanded exponentially," adding that "[Ferguson] gets along with [emergency manager] Chuck [Tear]."
Countered Weithorn, "In the private sector I don't know anyone who gets a 25% increase."
Kolbinsky, a retired DEA agent, worked for Levine as his driver/bodyguard during the 2013 mayoral campaign.
A few months after Levine's election, Kolbinsky was given a part time position in the city's emergency management department at an annual salary of $65,015.
Kolbinsky is now a full-time employee with the city and makes $91,020 a year. (It's good to be the mayor's friend.)
But despite the fact that there are three top employees in the city's emergency management department making a combined total of $335,827 a year, no one seems to be tackling any emergencies.
Less than a month after the Sept. 10 budget meeting, a Miami Herald photographer captured images of people coping with severe street flooding.
Chuck Tear's highly-paid emergency managers could have used the flooding as a dry run for a more serious incident, but its appears they were caught unprepared. So much for those huge salaries.
Father-and-son Carlos Coello Sr. and Carlos Coello Jr. give Maria Posada, 65, a lift back to her condo in Miami Beach on Friday, Oct. 9, 2015. Photographs by Walt Michot/Miami Herald.
Phil Levine talks a lot about spending taxpayer dollars wisely. But his actions speak louder than his empty promises.
On his campaign website Levine says, "Taxpayers work hard for their money. This City should work equally hard to ensure that money is wisely spent."
