Ah, Hialeah, Hialeah. You truly are the city of progress. One of my new friends on Facebook is Hialeah Cares, an unknown identity in the vast cyberverse of anonymity who has riled up Mayor Julio Robaina’s most vociferous critics. The back and forth has been quite entertaining. The wall post…

First it was Hamas. Now the Gaza-bound, blockade-defying flotilla was helping Al-Qaeda too.So claims Israel’s Consul General to Florida and Puerto Rico, Ofer Bavly. “The so-called peace activists on board the flotilla with ties to Al-Qaeda and other terror organizations were interested in creating a media circus,” Bavly railed in…

Joseph Mitrani was given the job of overseeing construction of a new training facility for the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department. Mitrani was instrumental in making sure the project was completed on time and under budget, according to department spokeswoman Elizabeth Calzadilla-Fiallo. Score one for government efficiency, right? Err, not really.Fire…

Claudia Davant claims her estranged husband and state Sen. Alex Diax de la Portilla has repeatedly stalked her since she filed for divorce five months ago. And the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating some of her complaints.Tallahassee Circuit Judge Dawn Caloca-Johnson granted Davant’s request for a temporary restraining…

It’s time for North Miami Mayor Andre Pierre to tell his former law partner Marc Douthit and his ex-campaign manager Willis Howard to come up with a better deal.The two insiders and their partners are buying the mortgage note on the foreclosed Biscayne Landing site, which they intend to convert…

​For 7.5 months in two years, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Lt. Lisa Hart failed to show up for work. She apparently got away with it. The county police department concluded an investigation eight months ago, but fire rescue officials refuse to release the investigative report — asserting the probe remains open…

Who knew that Harry Emilio Gottlieb, a prolific writer of letters to the editor denouncing cronyism, was a Hollywood wheeler-dealer?Why else would he get a $63,000-a-year gig as the man in charge of Miami’s film and cultural affairs office? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with his close friendship…

When Natacha Seijas wants something done, you have to read between the lines. You have to decipher her messages with the keen sensibilities of a mob button man when he gets the order to whack somebody.So when a friendly county fire-fighter forwarded Banana Republican a letter the Miami-Dade County commissioner…

Rudy Moise must be desperate for cash to finance his political campaign. The Haitian physician is running for the U.S. congressional seat being vacated by Kendrick Meek, who is running for the Democratic Party’s nomination in the U.S. Senate race.This afternoon, I received an email from Moise’s wife, Mirjam, lamenting…

The buyers of the failed Biscayne Landings project in North Miami have a novel idea for what ​to build on the city-owned, 193-acre site: a ski and snow-sports mountain park that would include a 550-foot-tall slope.In addition to downhill skiing, Solar Mountain would include a 163-meter ski jump, ice-skating rinks,…

When a 300 pound 6’3″ retired NFL quarterback killer talked smack about Billy Corben on WQAM 560’s Sid Rosenberg show last week, the Miami documentary filmmaker didn’t waste time sacking Warren Sapp’s blathering nonsense.The former University of Miami and Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive lineman was on Rosenberg’s afternoon show this…

Jeanette Espinosa was snooping in places she wasn’t supposed to. The 44-year-old intelligence analyst for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement admitted to investigators from her agency that she used law-enforcement databases to look up private information about her co-workers, their families, and a private citizen.The FDLE launched an internal…