Let's Talk About The Mayoral Race

Connie Leon-Kreps is a terrible mayor.  I cannot overstress this.  Since the day she pushed her way into the mayoral seat, she counts among her major accomplishments:

• The worst police chief we have had in memory, Robert Daniels.  
• Budget overruns every year until the commission finally said enough this year.
• Actively blocked efforts to improve Treasure Island Elementary School which is now a 'D' ghetto grade school with no clear plans for improvement.  
• Attacked political opponents for being gay.  
• Loses control of the meetings sometime within minutes. 
• Probably interfered with an ongoing police investigation at the Kennedy House that yesterday resulted in the conviction of the management team, including having Alejandra Salcedo, then under investigation and now convicted in the crimes as a key worker in her 2014 campaign.   
• Accused her fellow commissioners of "collusion and conspiracy" without any proof and then attempted to get the village to pay her attorney $650 per hour when the commissioners censured her remarks.  (She failed but that's some caradura nerve.)   
• Has consistently terrible relationships with the village managers, first Dennis Kelly and now Frank Rollason who she is trying to fire.  
• Kreps pushed the food trucks out of North Bay Village and tried to get them banned from Pelican Island.  

So you have some of the bad things.  Let's balance those with the good things.  

• After her initial opposition to village funding of the IB program for TIES, she later voted for it.  
• ummm.   Kind of out of things.  

Kreps is not just a bad legislator, she is a bad person.  Her political skills have alienated each of her fellow commissioners, each of whom were allies of hers initially.  There's a story behind each one.  When Richard Chervony questioned expenses, she tried (and failed) to shut him down.  When Jorge Gonzalez worked long and hard to get the village in the Miami Shores Chamber of Commerce, Kreps went behind his and the commission's back to get herself appointed to the Board of Directors, probably extra legally.   With Eddie Lim, Kreps constantly disrespected him from the dais until it became intolerable.  

Kreps' relationships with residents are no better.  She is quick to perceive insult and understands disagreement as threats.  Every one of the boards has either been dissolved or reduced to impotence under her constant combination of ignoring the boards or actively insulting them.  

Finally, Kreps has broken relationships with the county and no relationships at all with our neighbor cities of Miami and Miami Beach.   

So even supports her?  There is a small coterie of North Bay Island neighbors who are only interested in their four square blocks, and those people who benefit from her lack of interest in fiscal stewardship such as some developers and village contractors.  Beyond that, very few.   

Jorge Gonzalez is running against her and I have problems with him as well.  I think he should work to restore the public access to the Bay, something he has not done, and he needs to take the lead on fixing the ugly north side of the causeway.  Sorry it didn't work out for the developers who wanted to flip but that's no reason to leave it looking like that.  Still Gonzalez is a far better bet as mayor.  

The village is finally back on a good financial track, the different commissioners have found their groove with education, environment, recreation and finance all finally having champions on the dais.  We have a real chance to move the village forward now but if we try to do it with same old craziness from the current mayor, we will fail.   

Kevin Vericker

October 26, 2016