Sins of Commission: 10-24-23

The tragicomedy continues

Dr. Do Little

First, allow me to get some important housekeeping out of the way. You’ve probably noticed my affinity for referring to certain commissioners by their first name, Melissa Castro included. But thanks to a recent revelation, I feel it would be too great a dishonor to continue referring to Melissa by her first name. You should know that the revelation in question came from none other than the most trusted source in news, Ariel, at the first October commission meeting. While white knighting for the same woman he regularly uses as a human shield, Ariel disclosed the fact that Melissa (last time, I promise) has a…wait for it…PhD. Mon Dieu! I brim with shame. Anyway, some things are simply too good to fact check, and thus I choose to embrace the 0.001% chance that this is true and will from now on refer to the esteemed commissioner as “Dr. Castro.”

If a conflict of interest falls in the forest…

Am I the only one having a hard time figuring out the rules of engagement lately? On one hand, it feels like I’ve been told that in the interest of an informed citizenry, the velocity and position of practically every atom that exists within the boundaries of the Milky Way galaxy should be considered information that’s critically important to the people of Coral Gables. I’m told that little things like the way elected officials introduce one another at cocktail parties is legitimate city business, and that if one commissioner feels a colleague was a poo-poo head at a ribbon cutting, well then hell yes that axe should be ground right there on the dais and subject to public comment to boot.

On the other hand, I’m told to shut my frigging mouth and read the budget on my own time if I want to know how much of my money my commissioners have decided to keep for themselves. And I’m told that the very strong possibility that one of those commissioners has repeatedly violated the Miami-Dade ethics code by virtue of being greedy and stupid is not worth talking about because we’re operating on a need-to-know basis and there’s only so much residents need to know.

Regarding that last part, I bet most of you didn’t know that the Shops at Merrick Park (the mall) is one of the many Gables-based clients that Dr. Castro’s business serves, I bet you didn’t know that Dr. Castro herself has pulled permits for them, and I’ll bet you didn’t know that Dr. Castro recently voted “yes” on a shared-parking arrangement that is apt to result in the mall receiving a substantial amount of new parking revenue.

By the way, the Shops of Merrick Park hasn’t done anything wrong here. But if we take the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics at their word, it’s hard to see how Dr. Castro hasn’t. Juicy stuff, right? If only there were some kind of self-styled “news organization” that dedicated itself to exposing this very kind of thing, one that was run by some kind of “insider,” someone who could bring stories like this to light on behalf of a community that is famously hostile to even the slightest hint of corruption. Not that Dr. Castro is corrupt. I’m sure all instances of her ethically unsound behavior are purely accidental. She’s new to this, you know. A babe in the woods. I don’t think it would even occur to her to try to leverage her power as an elected official to directly benefit her business. Indeed, it would be unreasonable to think such a thing.

“What? Where am I sitting? Oh, nowhere. It’s just that I’m part of this organization, it’s nothing, really. What’s that? The building next door? Oh that’s just the building department. The one that answers to me. Yeah, it’s crazy how I sometimes forget. Anyway, I hear you need help pulling a permit…”

Krafty Kirk

If anything is certain, it’s that Kirk, who doesn’t mind a little attention, is going to be receiving a lot more of it between now and April 2025. The problem, at least for Kirk, is that I highly doubt he’s going to enjoy the flavor of attention he has coming.

I don’t want to get too far in front of the wave, but allow me to suggest that there is a reason that Kirk’s vote on item E3 last Tuesday, which increased the maximum buildable height in the city’s so-called design district in exchange for additional open space, was a lot more meaningful than you might think. And it’s not because this was the first time he failed to vote with his new handlers since before the elections-date battle, although that is not an insignificant detail either. The main reason Kirk’s vote was so significant is that it’s consistent with something that several well-connected people have been telling me for months: that Kirk is very keen on increasing the maximum buildable height in the areas near or abutting the Crafts Section, where Kirk owns property. I’ll stop there, for now, and let you ponder why that might be so.

All good things

Last Tuesday’s commission meeting wasn’t all bad. It had its moments. The above-mentioned height-for-open-space swap was eminently sensible, although if you rely exclusively on Ariel’s self-reporting you’ll likely come away a bit confused as to what actually happened. That’s because while he’s not the most gifted communicator in general, he has this funny way of becoming a syntactical contortionist when he’s spinning for himself. Take his Commission Insider—ugh, I feel so cheesy typing those words—recap on this item:

If, like me, you needed a whiteboard and a protractor to figure out what the hell this meant, here’s why: Ariel needs us to know that he voted against increased building height, hence the clear and active voice in the first sentence. His supporters don’t really do nuance, you know. A sin is a sin, and tall buildings are the original sin. But Ariel isn’t nearly as direct when he gets to the part where he voted in favor of that additional height when the matter was quickly revisited. No, for this part, we get the awkward “the changes were reconsidered” and were “approved unanimously by the commission.” Suddenly there’s no “I” in team. And all that lovely stuff about the new park? Well, you’re not really supposed to know that it was all the mayor’s idea, that he’s the one who proposed the deeded-park stipulation that Ariel is so proud of.

There were other happy outcomes as well, all of which get similar treatment in Ariel’s writeup. There was the purchase of the eight historic White Way Lights that were located in Broward, but no mention of the fact that the mayor had been working for several years to bring those to the Gables. Ariel also manages to snub Karelia Carbonell, who played an indispensable role in the matter, to be sure.

There was the vote to urge the state to rescind its preemption of local historic preservation ordinances so that the Gables can save the Alfred Browning Parker home in Gables Estates. Like a lot of what Ariel does, this was purely symbolic. How do I know? Because two elected officials not named Ariel Fernandez actually got off their asses and flew to Tallahassee long ago to fight the state legislature on this very matter and were told to pound sand. They also passed their own resolution opposing the state’s preemption. But I guess that’s not something an “insider” would remember.

Then there’s the condemnation of Hamas and the city’s reaffirmation of support for Israel and the Jewish community. Once again, I don’t normally get too worked up over symbolism, but given the circumstances, I’d say this was wholly worthwhile. It was also the mayor’s doing. But don’t worry, Ariel fans, because as solemn as the subject was, it didn’t stop Ariel from working in a dig as he opened his remarks, sarcastically thanking the mayor for “changing his mind” regarding cosponsorship of the item. The Cause yields to no one, my friends.

Sense and Incivility

I’m actually going to skip over much of the civility code nonsense. I know, it supplied much of the high drama over the last two commission meetings, but I’m about to write a post in which I will analyze the rank dysfunction that has come to define the new commission. The bulk of the commentary on this subject, therefore, is best reserved for later.

Suffice it to say that Tuesday’s meeting had an Empire Strikes Back feeling to it, with Lago giving Ariel and Dr. Castro a taste of their own abruptly administered medicine. It was also nice to see “Based Rhonda” make yet another appearance, as she proposed civility-code legislation that was infinitely more sensible than Dr. Castro’s criminally stupid version that ended up passing. Anderson did a commendable job of explaining how Dr. Castro’s legislation ignores due process and is prone to abuse, all while brutally highlighting the good doctor’s hypocrisy. That is one formidable woman.

Meanwhile, Lago put together a little presentation of his own, and, in climactic fashion, revealed his newly minted “closeout letter” from the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics, that, among other things, gives the lie to the very specific rumors that Ariel was caught spreading back during the campaign, rumors about Lago being under an ethics investigation.

The best thing to come out of this, though, is the realization that Ariel has an incredibly bad poker face. I was shocked, really, because I just assumed that all pathological liars were naturally solid in that department. But go back and watch the tape and pay close attention to Ariel when he has to respond to Lago’s accusation that he, Ariel, is the one behind all the brutal personal attacks being lobbed at the mayor on social media and the blogosphere. I’d be curious to know if any of you found Ariel’s half-hearted and smirking self-defense believable. You can tell Ariel certainly didn’t, which is why he looked like the cat who ate the canary as he phoned in his conspicuously tepid denial.

Fuhgeddaboudit

But I’ll say this for Ariel, his supporters have ice-cold blood and cast-iron stomachs. Sure, they’ll pretend they’re shocked and appalled by the paralyzing discord gripping the commission, but don’t kid yourselves, paralyzing discord is exactly what these people signed up for. It’s a feature, not a bug.

To put it another way, say that in order to resolve a payment dispute you hire some guy named Tony “Two Toes” Luciano who wears a red carnation on his lapel and works out of the back of an Italian restaurant. You really can’t act surprised when people start drowning on fishing trips and envelopes full of cash and severed fingers start showing up in your mailbox. You knew exactly what you were doing. The same goes for guys like Ariel. You can’t elect a David Rivera protégé who’s thick as thieves with Joe Carollo’s accountant (Javier Baños) and then clutch your pearls when things get very Hialeah very quickly, and you can’t elect someone with a child’s intellect and a child’s demeanor and then feign surprise when she shames the dais with a child’s drama. You can’t act like you didn’t see any of this coming, especially when I’ve been warning you about it from day one.

A not-so-divine comedy

There is a tragicomical dimension to all this, a so-close-yet-so-far flirtation with real enlightenment. So many residents are recoiling at the sharp degradation of order and civility on the commission, yet they can’t bring themselves to accurately apportion blame. “They’re all acting like children” they say, an observation that carries the same penetrating moral insight as “war is unnecessary.” It’s a bit more complicated than that, folks, and it’s something we’ll look at much more closely in my next post.

For now we should expect more of the same. In fact, we should expect it to get worse. There are deeper circles of hell still to explore. But I would not go as far as to say “all hope abandon, ye who enter here.” We’ll get through this and grow from it and look back upon it someday just “as he, who with laboring breath has escaped from the deep to the shore, turns to the perilous waters and gazes.”