the most corrupt town in miami dade is bay harbor islands-there has never been spanish commisioner there even though the town is 70 percent latino,let regalato be the chief in bay harbor islands and give him a banana.
Yes, Miami, this is your life. "This chief will go down in history as the worst chief we've ever had in Miami," Commissioner Richard Dunn says. "It baffles me why we have not yet been able to fire him."
Dunn doesn't connect the dots, so we will: Regalado recruited Exposito, hired him, and has done nothing to end his appalling reign.
Regalado connected with Expo in the late '90s, when the then-major ratted out his department for keeping secret files on politicos' girlfriends and favorite "drinking establishments." Exposito paid a price — he was demoted to captain and banished to the property room. (He filed a whistleblower suit in 2000 over that treatment and eventually won back his rank.)
Regalado thought he had a guy he could trust. Soon after taking office, he wrangled a resignation from Chief John Timoney and handed the reins to Expo, who echoed the mayor's campaign pledges to "raise morale" and root out corruption.
Neither of those plans worked out. Exposito's first act was to announce a "corruption bust" of eight city employees and nonprofit workers. Unfortunately, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle dropped nearly every charge, and the FBI blasted both the chief and mayor.
The rest of the sad story is all too familiar: In addition to the shooting spree, Exposito allowed a reality show, Miami's Finest: Special Operations Section, to film in his department. In a leaked promo, he called his officers "predators," and other cops advocated "hunting" in Miami's worst neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, the chief and mayor's relationship disintegrated. At the heart: an argument over maquinitas, gaming machines at bodegas around Little Havana. On January 7, Exposito announced he had filed an FBI complaint that Regalado had "interfered" with raids on machine owners. On Spanish radio, he accused the mayor of having mob ties.
In February, Regalado backed a plan to pay an ex-FBI agent $20,000 to probe the department. In return, the mayor received last month a brief, five-page report that bizarrely concluded the chief was running a perfectly adequate force.
Exposito has since told anyone who will listen that "high-ranking city officials" offered him $200,000 in January to walk away from the job, and hinted he has worked with investigators to hold the mayor accountable for bribery.
Either way, the chief is set to retire in December. "He's going to be gone soon," Regalado says. "But there's nothing I can do."
Sure. Absolutely nothing.
8. Four City Managers in 20 Months
Regalado is strangely jocular about one of the more troubling signs of mismanagement. How exactly does a mayor plow through four city managers in just 20 months on the job? (Manny Diaz had only three in nearly a decade.) When Regalado took over, Pete Hernandez had been running the show capably for three years. But Regalado wanted his guy in there, he says, so he hired a Bentley-driving former bank exec who was once married to disgraced City Manager Cesar Odio's chief of staff. Although Carlos Migoya, a Lex Luthor look-alike, avoided any Odio-esque scandals — and yeah, he worked for free for one year — Regalado knew he was a short-timer. Migoya used the job as a stepping stone to a $590,000-per-year gig as Jackson Memorial's director, without fixing any long-term budget problems.
His successor, Tony Crapp Jr. — Regalado's longtime chief of staff — had no significant business or financial experience.
Maybe that's why he bailed in the middle of Miami's worst budget crisis since the mid-'90s while giving possibly illegal severance packages worth almost $118,000 to two departing bureaucrats. (Ex-CFO Larry Spring received $61,827 and departing IT chief Peter Korinis received $56,079. Regalado also signed off on a $92,500 cash payout for Crapp, who rejected it amid public outcry.)
But don't worry. There's always a chance new manager Johnny Martinez — a longtime state bureaucrat whom Migoya brought onboard — is the answer.
Here's Regalado's convoluted reasoning why Miami shouldn't be concerned: "Pete [Hernandez] was Manny's guy, and I liked him, but he knew I needed my guy in there. And Carlos Migoya, I knew when we brought him in could only stay for one year, because we couldn't pay $700,000 to keep him. So really, the only disappointment I've had has been Tony [Crapp]."
Voter's aren't the only ones not buying it. On June 24, bond rating agency Moody's downgraded $226 million in city obligations from "stable" to "negative." The reason: "turnover in key city managerial positions at this time of fiscal instability."
9. He Loves Terrorists
In the mid-'80s, Regalado — then a news director at WRHC-AM — held an on-air fundraising drive to help the legal defense of a local dockworker named Eduardo Arocena. Regalado proudly told the Miami Herald that his station's work helped pull in a piece of the $21,000 collected to pay for Arocena's lawyers.
What did Eduardo do, you ask? Well, he's only Miami's most notorious terrorist. He and his goons built 32 pipe bombs and detonated them outside businesses, government offices, and theaters from Little Havana to New Jersey in the mid-'70s in a twisted attempt to win support for anti-Castro efforts. In 1979, he ordered his cronies to shoot a Jersey activist to death in front of his 13-year-old son.
the most corrupt town in miami dade is bay harbor islands-there has never been spanish commisioner there even though the town is 70 percent latino,let regalato be the chief in bay harbor islands and give him a banana.
Police and firefighters call for union votes to recall His Ignorance, Tomas Regalado.
Thanks to people like you this just may happen, a small but meaningful dent on the banana republic..
Tomas Regalado and Johnny Martinez need to reduce pay and benefits for all 4,200 employees immediately. Concurrently, they must fire 500. Reducing the headcount to 3,400 to 3,500 should have been done years ago.
Is Regalado too stupid to know what needs to be done? Is he surrounded by too many idiots?
City of Miami fires it's disgraced CFO Larry Spring. Rookie City Manager Tony Crappola leaves under a cloud taking huge severance checks on his way out the door.
Regalado sleep walks from one disaster to another.
Regalado is a bumbling fool. How about the Gucci wearing commissioner Marc Sarnoff? He demands the City pay a policeman to be his chauffeur. Then he gives raises to his cronies.
This article is a good but I can assure you it is only the surface. The city’s corruption is overwhelming and honestly scary enough to be in the movies. The layers of corruption, mismanagement, bad processes, and backroom deals (to name a few) are massive. Working at the city nowadays is like working in a hostile and violent environment. The corruption starts from as low as employees taking ineligible paid time off (PTO) spending thousands of taxpayers’ dollars to hiring friends and family into $100K+ roles. You point out some interesting names Victor Igwe, Priscilla Thompson, I suggest you get the story straight about Victor Igwe – the only real fact here is that he is African American. You may want to start with his contract; 45 Paid Vacation Day Per Year, Hundreds of accumulated vacation hours, thousands of accumulated Sick Hours, no different for Priscilla Thompson, Julie Brue, to mention a few. Sadly there are “few” good employees (keyword “few”) and unfortunately their efforts are tarnished by the rest of the garbage. There’s no fixing the City of Miami – the culture of corruption is embedded well into its structure.
You guys had a chance to get him when he was taking gas from a city card for personal use. That was ten years ago, the monster has now grown into miilions in mismanagement and defrauding the taxpayers.
What's up with Regalado? He is a novice mayor with a low IQ and corrupt friends.
Tomas Regalado and his friends and campaign manager have been raping the taxpayers for years.
Anyone notice Regalado trying to give the Marine Stadium site to his buddy Manny Puch, the shyster lawyer?
According to this document Madelin Pacheco gets an annual salary of $67,000 rather than the $76K you report, other than that, i enjoyed the read.http://web.me.com/alcrespo1/Si...
Small mind, just because the old County Mayor and the new County Mayor share the same first name, that does not make the new Mayor a "virtual carbon copy" of the old Mayor. Why don't you try researching the issue. If you did, you would find that the New Mayor was the Old Mayor's loudest critic on the County Commission, and not just recently, since 2004 when they were both elected. Really, comments like that really put into question your credibility, assuming you had any to begin with.
Regalado has never answered what he did with Torriente's briefcase. You did not mention that in your story.
Thank you for writing what the Propaganda Herald refuses to. Its a shame that we live in such a clueless city. A city that we allow these crooks to walk in and stuff their pockets with taxpayer money. Only 10 to 15% percent of the population here votes
How do these crooks get elected? pastellitos. Read the http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com...local politician talks about voting scams.
Fcking incredible!!
Tomas Regalado has been a total failure as Mayor. The City must reduce pay and benefits to its 4,200 employees. In fact, Regalado must get new novice City Manager to fire over 500 employees with the worst attitudes.
Will Regaldo and Martinez be men and fire 500 slackers?Or will they be cowards?
Did you even read the article?? Employees are not even mentioned in the story.... Move on already... We were decimated last year to the turn of over 25% per employee....
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Insiders know how bad things really are and the bloggers are doing a pretty good job in uncovering all the dirt under Regalado's regime. Highly qualified staff are jumping ship or being laid off for not doing the dirty dealings asked of them. That will result in many lawsuits and cost taxpayers. The city is scrambling to find good talent in many department and the cronies are destroying the little good that existed. All of this will have long time repercussions to get the City to bounce back. Tim: Regalado is close to Braman, so in this case, Braman is not the man for the recall. If we wait on that, it will never happen. Braman needs Regalado to build his Kia dealership in Wynwood and who knows where else.
Greed and corruption are an American pastime! The "me" culture is what helped construct the fable story of an American Dream.
welcome to the banana republic
nepotism that how you get a job in miami just ask the city workers
"a college degree does not guarantee a job"
Nepotism in the workplace
Under Florida law, public officials are banned from "appointing, promoting, employing, advancing or advocating for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement in or to a position in the agency in which he serves or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative." For example, if a municipal chairperson recommends or appoints his daughter for a clerical position in his office, then he is running afoul of Florida nepotism law
Under Florida law, the legal definition of what constitutes a relative for the purposes of nepotism in public employment is clearly defined. In fact, the law provides a laundry list of familial labels that constitute nepotism. These labels are "father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother or half sister.
Teele shot himself in the lobby of the Herald building after talking with DeFede over the phone, who taped the conversation without Teele's knowledge and was subsequently fired from the paper for doing so.
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