Katy Sorenson
She didn't like him when he was incompetent boy-mayor of Homestead (her district includes that hapless southern community). In January 2001 she voted against appointing him manager, and she fought with him repeatedly since then, all but calling him a sneaky liar for trying to keep alive the county's interest in the failed development of Homestead Air Force Base. In fact at a special meeting just three months ago she asked her colleagues to kick his sorry butt to the curb for allegedly ordering emergency-management honcho Chuck Lanza to lie about our readiness to deal with a terrorist attack. The other commissioners just stared blankly at her, and Shiver emerged unscathed. Sorenson looked mighty lonely on the dais that day. But now she's sitting tall, his forced resignation her vindication. "I don't get any personal satisfaction out of this," she says. "It's what's good for Miami-Dade County, and I think the manager was bad for the county for several reasons." She may be too discreet to admit it, but the commish could use his scalp, a sign of her perseverance and better judgment, as ammo in a run for higher office. County mayor perhaps?
Alex Penelas
Don't believe a word of the mayor's conciliatory rhetoric about Shiver's departure: completely the manager's decision; leaving at the top of his game; admirable accomplishments; bright future; blah, blah, blah. It's total bull. Penelas told him to resign or he'd be fired. Period. Sure, he should have done it long ago, but that's old news. Now it's all about the U.S. Senate race. Pushing out Shiver makes Penelas look like a take-charge executive. Installing George Burgess shows his good judgment -- especially if Burgess can somehow keep the county's financial house together until next year's election. And with the bureaucracy in competent hands, Penelas can concentrate all his energy on shaking the money tree and making promises to special-interest groups from Tallahassee to Key West. It's clear sailing ahead for the little man who stood tall and gave Shiver the boot.
Angela Gittens
Karmic irony is the sweetest of all. Our beloved airport director was hired against the wishes of the boy-king Penelas, even as he championed another wee mayor for county manager. Being an honest and intelligent sort with the rare backbone to fight the good fight, Gittens clashed repeatedly with Shiver in her attempts to establish an independent, ethical, efficient MIA. Shiver, meanwhile, attempted to preserve the carnival atmosphere the airport has always maintained among the lobby whores and their complacent clientele -- the proven path to success in Miami-Dade County. Even a year ago, few would have predicted that a classy professional would outlive the small-minded mentality of a political hack. Maybe this town is growing up after all.
Chuck Lanza
Shiver derisively labeled the county's top emergency manager our own Chicken Little, running around worried that terrorists were about to strike and no one was prepared. The beady-eyed county manager first tried to diminish Lanza's concerns, then resorted to disparaging him as a mentally unstable loose cannon after Lanza brought his complaints to a March meeting with Shiver and officials from the police and fire departments. The meeting grew tense when Lanza said police hadn't kept him in the loop and that more planning was needed. If things didn't change, he'd quit. Which is exactly what he did. "I respect Chuck, but this time of crisis is not the time to have this kind of breakdown," Shiver sniffed to the press in accepting Lanza's resignation. Later Shiver said: "I'm not going to comment on one person's opinion versus the entire group of public-safety professionals." But it wasn't so easy to quiet Lanza. First, rank-and-file firefighters supported him, then mayors around the county fumed that they weren't in the loop either. The backlash grew until county commissioners held an emergency meeting. Suddenly Shiver was on the ropes. Meanwhile Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne didn't have any problem quickly hiring Lanza as his director of emergency management and homeland security. "I like boat-rockers," he said.
South Florida's Fragile Ecosystems
Miami-Dade County's Department of Environmental Resources Management (DERM) is charged with a daunting task: safeguard our environment from the ravages of harmful human activity. Since 1989 one man has shouldered the responsibility for leading DERM and fulfilling that vital mission -- John Renfrow. In January 2001 Shiver became his boss. Not long after that eventful change in Renfrow's professional life, something bizarre happened to him -- he began suffering severe memory loss. The mysterious and debilitating condition was finally diagnosed by researchers at the University of Miami, who identified it as "Shiveritis." Its effects on Renfrow were serious. He confused or completely forgot what he was supposed to do in his role as environmental watchdog. And he couldn't remember who he was supposed to be protecting: His boss's powerful friends? Businesses that excreted toxic trash? Developers intent on paving everything in sight? But just as suddenly as he was afflicted, Renfrow miraculously recovered. Quite by coincidence, this dramatic development occurred the very same day Shiver resigned. Renfrow was heard to exclaim: "Yes! It's all coming back to me now. DERM is supposed to protect ... the environment!"
Constance Kaplan
Kaplan, who this week took over as Miami-Dade elections supervisor, has dealt with some major hardheads. She's spent more than 30 years as a top elections official in Chicago (home of the notorious Mayor Daley political machine) and has observed elections in Albania, China, Zambia, Indonesia, Kosovo, and South Africa. But with Shiver at the helm, Miami-Dade County was emerging as something even political scientists were at pains to describe. The county is: A) a developer's nation, B) a dictatorship of stooges, C) a backward, corrupt theocracy, D) all of the above. Shiver's latest Third World move: layer the elections department bureaucracy with even more bureaucracy to ensure that the new supervisor doesn't have any real power. But Kaplan was too shrewd to walk into that trap. She wouldn't take the job until she had an employment contract with guaranteed severance and the full authority of her job put in writing -- something Shiver's backward, corrupt, dictato-theocracy just couldn't provide. Mayor Penelas had to step in and lobby for the assurances Kaplan demanded.
LOSERS
Mia's Jackrabbits
New Times broke the story last February 20: Something was threatening airport security, and it wasn't al Qaeda. It was hundreds of jackrabbits that, when flattened by airplanes, became dinner for turkey buzzards, very large birds that, when sucked into jet engines, can cause serious trouble. The rabbits would have to go. Most likely they would be shot dead. But hero-hopping in to save their day came ... Steve Shiver! He would let animal-rights activists trap the creatures and fly them to Texas -- within 30 days. After a month, though, some bunnies were still rabbiting around the tarmac. Would they now be, um, terminated? No! Shiver allowed the traps to be set for another 30 days, saying sensitively of the poor critters: "I don't think there is any need for the brutal killing en masse of the rabbits at the airport." But while the bunnies remain, their guardian angel has split. The only question now is what ammo to use: standard .22-short rounds or soft-lead pellets that flatten on impact and rip a big hole.
Jim DeFede
Some would call it a victory for the former New Times scribe traitorously turned Herald heavyweight. If so, it's a Pyrrhic victory. With Shiver gone, who will DeFede hammer on once or twice a week? Shiver was a reliable whipping boy for the columnist even before a divided county commission approved his appointment as manager. At this paper DeFede cranked out fifteen Shiver pieces in as many months, including a 5000-word opus on the sleazy manager's manipulation of a lucrative county computer contract. He didn't break stride when he moved over to 1 Herald Plaza. But now.... Disoriented? Adrift? Floundering in the journalistic equivalent of postpartum depression? You be the judge. Just look at the melancholy metaphor DeFede invoked to frame his first post-Shiver column: Steve was leaving the dance alone, his $200,000 severance package was "cab fare home." And witness the sappy sentimentality of the first Burgess-era column, which featured the following (we are not making this up): "'Welcome home,' one employee whispered in his ear as he hugged Burgess."
Merrett Stierheim
Merrett is the Job of bureaucrats. First the two-time county manager suffers the humiliation of being forced out by pipsqueak Penelas and replaced by a preschooler. Then he takes charge of the school district, which turns out to be even more hideously Malthusian than county government. So he spends a year and a half being jerked around by shortsighted, egotistical politicians, weathers a half-dozen scandals erupting from the previous regime, gets lambasted for moving too slowly by self-interested critics, and is sued by employees when he moves too fast. We'd be willing to bet old man Stierheim emitted a big belly laugh when he heard about Shiver's ignominious end. Probably made his whole damn year. But we'd also lay money that he took a few fast, shallow breaths when he learned his main money man was fleeing joyfully back to county hall. With Pat Tornillo now under the thumb of the feds, who the hell knows what's coming next? Anarchy beckons.
Lobbyists
The 29th floor of county hall is shared by the manager and the mayor. When Merrett Stierheim was manager, influence-peddling lobbyists were pretty much restricted to Alex Penelas's side of the building. The manager's area was considered hostile territory. Shiver's arrival, however, ushered in a new era of convenience and efficiency. Penelas now could easily care for his favored lobbyists by simply herding them down the hall to Shiver's office. There they could graze contentedly on bounteous county contracts. Fat and sassy, they would in turn harvest the millions of dollars Penelas needs for his next election campaign. Talk about synergy. Alas, recently installed county manager George Burgess is a Stierheim protégé, and thus the salad days appear to be over for the likes of Chris Korge and Rodney Barreto, as well as Brian May, Jorge Lopez, and Courtney Cunningham. But not to worry. Next year a new mayor will be elected and the sanctimonious Burgess can be swapped out for someone with a better understanding of how things work around here.
Homestead
Everything you've ever wanted has been right here, all along. Here no one protested when you had the heart to dole out city contracts to your powerful friends. No one questioned your courage to spend ten or twenty million dollars that the city once actually had. And no one doubted you had the brains to stand up to those bullying local newspapers, always going on and on about your supposedly thick skin. "It didn't happen on my watch," you modestly offered when asked about all the great things that happened to the town while you were mayor. Why deny it? Forget about that wicked Katy Sorenson. Close your eyes, click your heels, and say: There's no place like Homestead.
Alex Penelas
Just when he needed a compliant county manager who would lavishly reward big-time campaign contributors, Penelas finds himself in the awkward position of having ousted that very manager and replaced him with a strait-laced nerd. It was bad enough that Shiver's antics over the past couple of years will provide the mayor's U.S. Senate opponents with a mountain of mud to sling, but dumping the little twit now, just as the campaign is heating up, can easily be made to look like the act of a desperate man. Penelas can only hope Shiver didn't leave behind a ticking scandal bomb that'll detonate with a thunderous blast just as Florida voters are trying to decide who should replace Bob Graham.
