There are plenty of folks in Teele's district who watched the recall effort progress and applauded its overt intentions to demand accountability, even if they assumed there were also hidden motives. But on February 25 the group lost a great deal of credibility when it failed to turn over the petition signatures to the city clerk at the appointed hour, thus negating months of work and the legitimate complaints of the voters who had signed. The manner in which this occurred only served to heighten the sense that secret intentions had finally overtaken noble ones.
Irby McKnight was a Teele supporter, but then he began circulating recall petitions
Steve Satterwhite
The politically ambitious Henry Crespo is at odds with Miami's black establishment
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What happened is this: About a half-hour before the clerk's office was to close, McKnight, Crespo, and two others showed up at city hall lugging a large cardboard box stuffed with petitions. They walked right up to the window and waited there for city clerk Priscilla Thompson to come over and accept the petitions. Suddenly McKnight announced they weren't turning in the petitions after all.
For several long minutes an odd tableau unfolded, with Crespo and McKnight shifting uncomfortably and shooting looks at each other that seemed to say: "Is this what we really want to do?" They finally decided to claim victory by saying that the recall effort had resulted in reforms at the CRA and an all-around less arrogant, more responsive Commissioner Art Teele. They flatly denied the obvious question -- that either a payoff or insurmountable pressure encouraged them to back off. Did they not get the signatures? No, they replied uneasily. Plenty of signatures. "I'm satisfied," McKnight said. "And to tell the truth, we don't have the money to mount an election against him anyway."
At this point, elsewhere in the city, our villain-hero, Arthur Teele, had already fed the victory story to the Miami Times. Teele says he was told by one of the recall members (he won't reveal who) that they didn't think they had sufficient signatures, and that's why they didn't turn them in. (A couple of recall members later admitted as much to New Times, but characterized their clumsy, duplicitous handling of the problem as a "strategic retreat.")
New Times took a look at several pages of the petition, left behind as the recall crew fled city hall into the late afternoon. It was quickly clear that at least some of the people who signed it don't live in District 5, or even within Miami city limits. At least one signer hailed from Miramar -- in Broward County.
For his part, Teele says it's not over. He plans to go after the shady characters he claims were behind the whole thing. "I'm not going to worry about these guys," he says, a Cheshire cat grin on his face, referring to McKnight, Crespo, and the others. "I'm going to find out who's really behind it and make sure they can never do it again -- and their grandchildren can never do it again."
And so it goes in our fair city.
