Gaslighting the Police Discussion

Tonight, the North Bay Village commission does not have a discussion item on the agenda regarding the proposed settlement with Police Chief Carlos Noriega.  They should.  The public deserves to be heard.   

Instead, they will be scheduling an Executive Session (alarmingly called a "Shade Session") to consider the best course for North Bay Village in the matter.   

The two real options on the table are reinstatement of Noriega, whose firing last year resulted in the lawsuit, or a financial and legal settlement with Noriega that will cost the village a great deal of money and will leave us once again in the position of finding a police chief willing to take on the highly politicized North Bay Village Police Department.  

Many residents want to see Noriega rehired.  

Their arguments are plainly laid out.  

• Noriega had the PD on track to professional certification, an effort derailed by his successor, Stephanie Leon PA and her third party employee, Lewis Velken.  
• Noriega restored the community programs that had been eliminated including PAL, the marine patrol, bicycle patrols, Crime Watch, 
• Noriega developed and implemented a plan to keep our Village safe in the event of a Parkland or Pittsburgh like terrorist attack.  
• Noriega reached out to all dimensions of the community.  

And I will add, that in politically charged criminal investigations, Noriega and his staff went where the evidence led.    

There are very good reasons to reinstate Noriega.  Legal reasons, financial reasons, organizational reasons, even political reasons as in the community worked well with him.   These may not be enough to convince the commission and I am very annoyed that there is no formal consideration of the community in this discussion.   It reeks of old school, closed door political shenanigans.  

Still, we have the opportunity to be heard during Good & Welfare, because unlike the last mayor who shut down Good & Welfare when residents attempted to express their concern about the investigations cut short by the Noriega firing.  

On the other hand, there is the old school rumor mongering and half truths being hysterically presented in two sparsely read sites, one a group on Facebook disingenuously called North Bay Village Rising and another on an anonymous troll site called LEOAFFAIRS*.  

Both of these echo chambers relitigate Noriega's tenure on the Beach with sensationalist claims that were well debunked during Noriega's hiring in North Bay Village and further making dark allegations that support for his rehiring is backed by shady group of residents who are motivated by, well, something.  It's not clear what.   

These self same pundits of positivity are also using a lawsuit filed by suspects in a criminal case, the same people who were squatting at the Moda, to discredit Noriega.     

This is typical of the old dirty politics of North Bay Village and it needs to be noted that the few public faces of this efforts are closely tied to the very people who faced investigation and the cops who fear that their disciplinary findings will be acted on.   

The commission has a straightforward, difficult decision to make this week.   I hope they will not allow themselves to be led astray by the people interested only in exempting themselves from the consequences of their actions.  

We all need to be at the commission meeting tonight.  We should not be left out of the process.  

Kevin Vericker

April 9, 2019

*I'm not liking to these sites.   Google them if you want.