Chuck Martinez, Willy Bermello, and Peter Yanowitch, the masterminds behind the Grand Prix Americas — the three-day racing extravaganza that commandeered the streets of downtown Miami October 4-6 — have boasted that 75,000 to 100,000 people attended their event, pumping more than $28 million into the local economy via ticket,…
Rev. Al Sharpton was midway through his Haitian/Refugee/Solidarity speech on the steps of the Torch of Friendship at Bayside Marketplace during last Thursday’s downtown protest rally, when he began rambling on about “Little Efrain.” At first people looked at each other and scratched their heads: “What can the ninny be…
Judy Johnson, ex-general president of American Postal Workers’ Union Local 172 (representing 3500 employees), was pacing the floor of the Scoreboard Bar & Grille in Doral, talking intently on her cell phone. Two weeks had elapsed since she and her colleague, Warren Pearlman, were suspended pending a hearing — she…
It didn’t take long for Gov. Jeb Bush and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to hightail it out of Aventura Station 8 last week, after spending just fifteen minutes glad-handing dozens of Miami-Dade County firemen wearing bright red “Jeb!” T-shirts (supplied by their union, Local 1403 of the International…
On July 29, 1999, Miami-Dade County residents dealt Alex Penelas a political ass-whuppin’ he would never forget. An angry 234,309 people, a resounding 30 percent of registered voters, turned out on a special election day to overwhelmingly defeat, by a 2-1 margin, the Penelas-led “Transit Not Tolls” campaign to raise…
Two weeks before the recent general election, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Capt. Stan Hills is on his cell phone talking to political consultant Armando Gutierrez. The conversation is about last-minute changes to a radio ad asking voters to abolish the Miami-Dade Fire Board, which had run afoul of International Firefighters Association…
It’s Saturday afternoon, October 5, just before the start of the inaugural Grand Prix Americas, the brand-new ultra-chic three-day motorsport extravaganza that commandeered the streets of downtown Miami last weekend. The heat’s unbearable on this stretch of Biscayne Boulevard — from NE Third to NE Sixth. Curvy, Latina TV actress…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami’s Brain Matter Miami underwent significant change between 1990 and 2000, not least of which was the city’s poverty rate: It grew with such exuberance that Miami climbed from fourth to first place among the nation’s most impoverished big cities. That’s…
On July 23, Sharon Franklin went to the Miami-Dade elections office in the Stephen P. Clark Center in downtown Miami to register as a candidate for the Country Club of Miami Community Council. One of fourteen local zoning boards that approve (or not) applications in unincorporated Miami-Dade, it had been…
