Mayoral Candidate Laura Cattabriga Pays $127,000 In Hush Money

I stole this office.  So sue me!

There's no other way to put this - our municipal government in North Bay Village is now little more than a disorganized racket.  Tonight, mayoral candidate and impostor commissioner Laura Cattabriga cast the deciding vote to pay $127,000 in severance to a village manager that she, Cattabriga, enthusiastically hired 90 days ago.   It was of course Mayor Crazy Eyes who initiated the firing of Martell and Norman Powell who is used to dealing with troublesome girls from his days as a registered strip club lobbyist and go to fix it attorney, but the deal was so bad that even Commissioner Mary Kramer's husband voted No.   

Yet Laura Cattabriga, who earlier in the evening spoke darkly about how she discovered almost $1,000,000 in emergency spending over the last 4 years and how she could not stand the lack of transparency, leaned in and voted to give away $127,000 of our money because, well, it's best to move on.  

Of course, Cattabriga has a long history of spending other people's money.  She convinced an elderly neighbor to finance her lawsuit against Doug Hornsby, the one the court dismissed, and she used village resources to illegally have Hornsby removed so she could take his seat.  Cattabriga has been using the position of commissioner, to which she is not ethically entitled, to destroy North Bay Village in the press and now this.  $127,000 of our money because the mayor couldn't get along with the Village Manager that she handpicked.  

It was that kind of night.  

The commission appointed Police Chief Lewis Velken to be temporary village manager.  

Our attorney, Norman C. Powell, does not know much about lawyering or he might have told the commission that it is against the Florida Constitution for someone to hold two public offices.  But Powell is not a real Village attorney.  He's the defense team for Mayor Crazy Eyes and when it was pointed out to him that there is a State Attorney opinion specifically on the subject, he did what he does best - made some stuff up.  But there is.  Here.  And Here.

The Budget workshop was just as bad.  It was rushed.  The commission was unable to follow much of it.  The Police Chief/Village Manager did say he wants to eliminate the PAL camp because it's expensive and proposed we merge it into the Miami Dade School programs, with which he is unfamiliar and had not made contact.  Several residents spoke against that, including a brilliant kid from the program, but the commission couldn't figure out what to do so they're kind of leaving it in.  

And lest we forget our lunatic mayor, Connie Leon-Kreps.  A bitter, disorganized woman who does not realize she has failed utterly at being a mayor and being a decent human being.  

During her "report" she made rather a large deal about a generator that cost $27,000 rather than $25,000.  Insisted on an explanation (that's a good thing), got it, the commission voted to spend the extra $2,000 and go ahead, the mayor cackling and chortling about how much better things were and then not 20 minutes later, received a text from someone that he had googled generators and saw them for $8,000 (a very different kind of generator) and tried to rescind the approval.  It was so crazy that even Powell was surprised.  Her motion to disapprove the approval failed because it was stupid.  

Fun sidenote.  If you look at the June Commission Meeting on video, you will hear the mayor complaining about her colleagues taking up so much time with their comments and questions.  I ran the video through a voice analyzer and it showed that on the resolutions and ordinances, our mayor spoke 87% of the time.  The others barely got a word in edgewise.  Tonight she was quieter.  

There was so much in a short meeting, all of it bad.  

By my reckoning, the budget will have to include $500,000 set aside for severance packages - Village Manager, Village Attorney because he will have to go, probably the police chief, and some of the other employees.  

We will lose at least two of the lawsuits and I'm thinking another $500k for those.  

In attendance tonight were the Miami Herald and an investigator from the Commission on Ethics.  

This is getting real.  

Kevin Vericker 

July 10, 2018