Building permit? Miami-Dade County doesn’t need any stinkin’ building permit!In fact, officials for the county’s internal services department got away with completing two construction projects in downtown Miami without obtaining permits for either one, according to Miami-Dade Inspector General Chris Mazzella.”The Office of the Inspector General finds this matter troubling,”…

It’s pretty hard to follow in the large boot steps of John Timoney, the one-time Miami police chief. In fact, ever since Miami New Times crowned Timoney “America’s Worst Cop” in 2007, it’s taken us five years to find suitable successors to the title.But the quintet of contenders in Miami…

Back in June, a Miami-Dade School Board audit skewered a Coconut Grove charter school’s seemingly incestuous relationship with its founder and landlord, Manuel Alonso-Poch. Seven months later, school board auditor Jose Montes de Oca claims Academy of Arts and Minds has done next to nothing to address its conflicts of…

Banana Republican kicked off 2012 by recognizing a local Internet cabal of rabble-rousers and muckrakers who have helped fill the investigative journalistic void in the Magic City. In a cover story back in January, we ranked the Top Ten activist bloggers who work incessantly to expose shady government officials and…

Tammy Valdes, a former Golden Beach Police officer who recently won $233,000 in damages against the town for wrongful termination, has been criminally charged with illegal firearms dealing. Her husband Rafael Valdes, a Hialeah Police officer, is also facing a federal charge of making a material false statement in connection…

There’s a big battle brewing between the Old Guard and the New Guard for the top leadership position of Florida’s Democratic Party. Several South Florida Hispanic Democrats are voicing their displeasure with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s move to support Tallahasee’s Allison Tant in next month’s election for the party’s state…

You’d think that after Demetrio Perez Jr. pleaded guilty in 2002 to defrauding a trio of frail elderly tenants in his low-income Little Havana apartments, Miami-Dade politicians would steer clear of the felonious former school board member. But then they couldn’t grease up to Perez and his deep pockets whenever…

Sari Maharani had barely opened the doors to her downtown Miami restaurant Little Lotus when she says her landlord was already trying to find a way to kick her out without just cause. Now the former paralegal of Indonsesian descent is locked in an epic legal fight with Abram Aminov,…

Back in 2002, Demetrio Perez Jr. had an epic fall from prominence. The then-Miami-Dade Public Schools Board Member was removed from public office following his 21-count federal indictment that he had been overcharging elderly tenants at his federally subsidized low income apartments in Little Havana for a decade.He ended up…

Ever since she beat two separate criminal cases against her last year, Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones has been quietly preparing for an epic take down of Mayor Tomas Regalado and Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle — the two politicians she blames for almost destroying her.Today, Spence-Jones launched the…

A Hialeah sugar making company owned by an ex-cocaine trafficker who wooed Hialeah and Miami-Dade elected officials into naming a street after his firm and approving $400,000 in tax breaks has been ordered to pay up a $208,000 debt. On Oct. 25, All-American Containers won a default final judgment against…

The Miami-Dade Ethics Commission is accusing Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff of failing to report a pretty sweet trip to Brazil earlier this year as a gift. Back in April, the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau covered all of Sarnoff’s traveling expenses when he and his wife Teresa traveled…

For this week’s cover story, I profiled Lazaro Mendez, AKA DJ Laz, the booty bass pioneer and FM radio personality who provided the soundtrack to thousands of teenagers growing up in south Florida since the late 1980s, including Banana Republican.Over the course of two months, I hung out with Laz…