Madonna mia! Mobster Al Capone, who died 62 years ago in his palace on Palm Island, has a gay grandson. So claims Chris Knight Capone, author of the memoir Son of Scarface, who has been staying at the notorious gangster’s Miami estate for more than a month. Standing by the…
For more than 10 years, Brazilian-based construction firm Odebrecht has made tons of money from Miami-Dade County public works projects. If anything, the company is consistent…at completing jobs behind schedule and charging the county more money to finish. For example, Odebrecht accepted responsibility for having to repair 96 massive concrete…
Imagine you hire a contractor to build your house. And that contractor goes over budget, continually misses deadlines, and then tries to charge you more for it. Logic dictates you wouldn’t hire that contractor again, unless you’re a sucker. Well, Miami-Dade County government is the biggest sucker when it comes…
William “Bill” Perry III is the consummate insider. Once head of the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority and a county mayoral candidate, he has been at the center of a passel of questionable deals. In 2002, he received a last-minute $98,000 loan from the Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust to stop foreclosure…
What if the guy investigating bad cops broke the rules? Miami-Dade Police Maj. Donald Rifkin recently lost his job overseeing internal affairs probes into county cops accused of misconduct. Seems he was hitting on a fellow cop, Carmen Pichardo, using sensitive information about her ex as bait. According to the…
Today, Miami Herald reporter Daniel Chang wrote about the South Miami-Dade Cultural Center boondoggle that I swear I read somewhere else nine days ago. Oh yeah! Right here. And it’s not the first time the Herald has been one step behind New Times this week either…
Donald Rifkin, a former Miami-Dade police major accused of trying to exchange sensitive information about internal affairs cases in exchange for sex from a female cop, is no longer investigating county officers accused of misconduct. He is now assigned to the Strategic Planning and Policing Bureau, says MDPD spokesman Det…
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement recently ended an investigation into the onetime commander of the Miami-Dade Police Department’s internal affairs unit, concluding Donald Rifkin was hoping to get laid by talking to county cop Carmen Pichardo about sensitive information in the internal affairs case against her. Department rules forbid…
Miami-Dade County just can’t get it right. In 2006, the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts opened more than two years behind schedule, costing taxpayers $472 million, which was almost twice the original construction estimate. Now similar problems are dogging the county’s construction of the smaller-scale South Miami-Dade Cultural…
Yesterday, I blogged about Secure Wrap of Miami’s eight year lock on a Miami International Airport contract to wrap travelers’ luggage in a cellophane-type material to deter theft of personal items. The post was based on a recent report by the county’s inspector general criticizing the Miami-Dade Aviation Department for…
Turns out Miami International Airport bureaucrats aren’t so lazy, just a bit slow at fostering competition. Earlier today, I wrote about the Miami-Dade Aviation Department’s reluctance to competitively bid the baggage-wrapping concession operated by Secure Wrap of Miami, which has held on to the lucrative business for more than eight…
Owing to the laziness of Transportation Security Administration and Miami-Dade County Aviation Department bureacrats, a company with a lucrative venture at Miami International Airport won’t be getting any competition anytime soon. For the past eight years, Secure Wrap of Miami has held the exclusive rights to wrap luggage in a …
Dennis Moss is done putting together the new make-up of the county commission’s committees and I’m impressed with most of his selections. In case you don’t know, the commissioners use the committee system to hammer out decisions that ultimately impact our tax dollars, from formulating new ways to tax us…
At 11:45 this morning, Jackson Soul Food restaurant at 950 NW Third Ave. was standing-room-only. Overtown and Liberty City residents packed every booth, table, and counter inside the storied and recently remodeled soul food eatery as they watched President Barack Obama’s inaugural ceremony on three brand-new flat-screen TV sets on…
Georgina Lee has been driving a cab for 32 years. Times have never been tougher for a Beach cabbie, the 55-year-old Cuban American attests. So please excuse her if she’s a bit bent out of shape with the rough treatment she’s been getting from Miami Beach’s finest.”We’re not making any…
For the past 28 years, Harold Rengifo has sold natural foods, vitamins, fresh juices, and herbal teas on Miami Beach. Throughout this time Rengifo’s Natural Life Center has operated from various retail locations, most recently at 405 15th Street, a storefront located between Drexel and Washington avenues. Never had a…
Times are really hard for ink-stained wretches in the musky Banana Republic we call Miami-Dade County. With the Miami Herald on the selling block and more layoffs expected early this year, MAP fizzling out, the ever-shrinking Miami SunPost, and even the bloodletting at New Times, being a local print journalist…
It’s a Monday morning in late December on a corner of Buena Vista Avenue in Midtown Miami, where four burly workers are laboring to place a Romero Britto sculpture onto a metal stand. They are the only sign of human activity on the street, where four art galleries, including one…
Today, the last day of 2008, Banana Republican highlights his ten favorite news stories of the year, the tales that truly capture life in a sun-drenched, third-world dimension. 10. Marc Sarnoff’s Memo to Himself. The Coconut Grove loving city commissioner has a super secret meeting with Joe Arriola at which…
With holiday parties in full swing, Riptide is pondering gifts to send to some of our favorite Miamians. We begin with Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez. We hear the strapping ex-police director enjoys starting his day at the gym. Well, hard to argue with that, since our top local leader should…
On the surface, Norman Edelcup’s desire to relocate a Sunny Isles strip club seems like something any sensible small-town mayor would want. But the owners of Thee Dollhouse at 755 Sunny Isles Blvd. say Edelcup is trying to squeeze them out of business to benefit a developer friend, who just…
