The Flood Waters Recede - North Bay Village Today

North Bay Village After Irma

Trigger Warning:  This is a really long post about Tuesday's Commission Meeting.  For a good short post, go to Richard Chervony's summary here.  It's less dull.  

In 2017, North Bay Village got hit by Irma and the immediate picture after the landfall was pretty bleak.  We still see some damage and changes but looking at us today, we don't look like South Treasure Drive did that day as pictured above.  

Almost simultaneously, a human caused storm engulfed our islands as our commission began a nearly year long rampage to destroy the infrastructure of North Bay Village and cover up the failed legacy of a an 8 year rule during which the only accomplishments were detrimental to the village.

Previous NBV Commission

The village attorney was fired without explanation and replaced with an inexperienced municipal attorney whose missteps are well documented, the police chief was fired and replaced with a contractor who is now being investigated for violating the laws around retirement, a sitting commissioner was removed without the due process set out in our charter and replaced via a process that is not in our charter with an ambitious friend of the mayor.   In the meantime, the village manager, deputy manager and executive administrator left hours before they were to be put on the chopping block.  A new village manager was brought in and then fired when she failed to provide the fireworks the mayor wanted.    Well, you know the story.   

Righting the Course

The newly elected members of the dais, Mayor Brent Latham, Commissioner Julianna Strout and Vice Mayor Marvin Wilmoth, along with the holdovers from the crew of the Exxon Valdez, North Bay Village edition, voted to bring in the consulting firm of Marsal & Alvarez to create a definitive assessment of where we are now and deliver recommended course corrections to get us back to rights.  

On Tuesday, they presented their results.  You can review them at this link, starting page 10, or watch the presentation on the North Bay Village web streaming site.  

Spoiler Alert:  A&M found that the Village was badly managed under the previous administration and the interim status of key positions is not helping.   

And that was the point.     

When you're in the middle of the storm and busy building the rudder, you can't stop to assess where you are.  

Alvarez & Marsal came into to act as a navigator, establishing where we are and plotting the course to go forward.  Their report is a success.  

But First What They Didn't Find

The previous commission was famous for their use of casually placed slanders to discredit people who might point out the real problems their actions were causing.  There were two major ones.  

A completely unfounded slander that there are large amounts of money unaccounted for or misappropriated.  A second slander that Village employees were not reporting for work or doing their jobs.  

The assessment found no evidence of either one of these things.  Nor by the way did the previous commission members but that hasn't stopped them from spreading these lies.  

What A&M Did Find - InterimVille

I'm not going to go all through the report.  Again, here's the link and it starts on page 10.  Most of the recommendations are technical or procedural in nature.   

What jumps out at me and jumped out at the commission was how dysfunctional our departments have been while we are run by a team of "interims" replacing a team of inexperienced political hires. An interim Village Manager, an interim Attorney, an interim Police Chief, a vacancy at the head of the building department, outsourced planning, an unfilled procurement position and a recently hired Village Clerk replacing an interim clerk.   

This overview was exactly what the commission needed to truly assess their next steps and they took action quickly.  

The same night, the three useful members of the commission voted to fill the interim manager position with Dr. Ralph Rosado and made him permanent, they filled the interim attorney position with Weiss Serota, they approved the contract with Patrick Slevin to run communications, and approved the hire of a new public works director, Jose Olivo.  

The next step is to create a strategic and tactical work plan to get us back on track and Rosado is already on it.   

The public was largely supportive of the assessment and several added their own view on how to proceed.  

Except for one.  Someone from the previous commission wondered why we spent money on this when anybody could see how badly the Village was deliberately broken by the previous commission.  It was a good question.  Let's ponder it.  

Oh, yeah.  Even the vandals on the dais last year didn't know how bad the damage they were inflicting was so the current dais needed to know. 

The Rest of the Meeting

After the A&M presentation, the three useful commission members swung right into their regular session...invocation, kids singing, awards, plaques, Good & Welfare, something about invasive species, a long rambling presentation by our village lobbyist, the above mentioned permanent positions, an update from Kimley Horn on the CLK Walkway to Nowhere, there's progress on the Dog Park but there's not a Dog Park yet, very little on STVR's but a plan to move more aggressively on the subject will be presented and so on.  It went late and ran smoothly.  

WAIT.  DON'T GO YET.  I FORGET TO TELL YOU.  CARLOS NORIEGA IS BACK.

That's right.  In the Game of Thrones knockoff edition that passed for governance in the last year, one of the victims was Carlos Noriega, our well respected chief of police.  In a turn of events that any competent, experienced municipal lawyer would have seen, Noriega took his case to court to show that he was fired for investigating criminal complaints and reporting a potentially illegal data breach to the state authorities.   

The Useful 3 voted unanimously to reinstate him.   The place went wild.  You see the public has long known that not only was the firing unjust, but the police department needs to move forward and Noriega has the skills and experience to do just that.  

Noriega graciously accepted a settlement for far less than he could have gotten had the trial gone to jury, an outcome any competent, experience municipal attorney would have seen,  and is back probably next week.  I'll keep you posted.   

Good days in North Bay Village!

Attendance Report:  Both meetings were attended by Mayor Brent Latham, Commissioner Julianna Strout and Vice Mayor Marvin Wilmoth.   Commissioners Jackson and Alvarez were otherwise engaged and sent their regrets.  

Kevin Vericker

May 16, 2019