Bureaucrats in the Dade County park and recreation department, like many other people in South Florida, want to put Hurricane Andrew behind them. But nearly five years after the storm, as they attempt to close their accounts on federal hurricane-relief spending, they’re facing a problem: They can’t find several thousand…
The Miami Herald’s March 30 Police Report column was a typical hodgepodge. Two Surfside retirees scuffled over a taxicab. Thieves stole $16,000 in jewels from a Bal Harbour apartment. An exotic dancer was robbed at gunpoint at a North Miami motel. And there, nestled amid the minimalist chronicles of misdeeds…
Millions in taxes,” Coral Gables Development Director Catherine Swanson intoned to the darkened room in the basement of police headquarters. Her slide projector clicked, and her audience, seated around the projector in a loose horseshoe of chairs, was treated to an illuminated chart. Another click: a slide that touted two…
The arena is Bagels & Lox restaurant, a strip-mall deli in Lauderhill. The league is the weekly breakfast meeting of the Basketball Fraternity, a long-standing local fellowship of retirees, most of whom played college or pro ball during the game’s infancy. The contest is trivia. And Jack Shaber, Mr. Basketball,…
Pedro Blanco can relate to Anthony T. Rossi, the founder of the Tropicana orange juice company. Rossi immigrated to Florida from Italy, penniless, with a burning desire to succeed in business. Through hard work, his original fruit packing and gift box company grew into the world’s largest producer of fresh…
Two weeks ago the New Times story “They Owe It All to Odio” addressed the issue of the City of Miami’s practice of hiring so-called unclassified and temporary employees. The lion’s share of these workers, who bypassed the city’s civil-service hiring procedures, were brought onboard by Cesar Odio before the…
Info: They Owe It All to Odio Miami’s infamous ex-city manager hired more than 100 staffers entirely at his own discretion. Guess who’s paying them. By Robert Andrew Powell Ramon Conte prides himself on his toughness. The Cuban exile and Bay of Pigs veteran endured 25 years in Fidel Castro’s…
As social commentary the Herald’s “Police Report” is without peer. But is it art? We asked that very question of John Balaban, director of the University of Miami’s graduate writing program in fiction and poetry. “A minimal definition of poetry is the best words in the best order,” posits Balaban,…
Not only is Miami a sanctuary for con artists, mobsters, and hit men, it is a well-documented haven for such ne’er-do-wells. For years nonfiction chroniclers like John Rothchild and T.D. Allman, along with innumerable novelists, have vividly detailed the hazards of life on the edge of the Everglades. Miami, as…
City of Miami employees generally keep their lips buttoned. Despite pervasive incompetence and corruption, most employees decline to speak up. Manuel Garcia is not one of those employees. The 58-year-old Watson Island marina aide has always been outspoken, even when candor has been imprudent. Before arriving in Miami in 1979,…
Back in the old days — which is to say before Miami became the laughingstock of the entire nation — city officials weren’t scrambling to fix a budget mess. They were busy creating one, by cavalierly throwing taxpayers’ money around with no clue of the consequences. Take Willy Gort’s brainchild,…
If the citizens of Miami really want to solve their city’s financial problems, all they have to do is reach into their wallets, grab a couple of C notes, and send them off to city hall. Some 350,000 residents times $200 equals more than enough to cover the deficit. Voila!…
iami is in the national spotlight again. As usual, the news is lousy. Our magic metropolis hosts millions of tourists every year, but all anyone ever hears about are the Germans who are dragged out of their cars, beaten, robbed, and run over by hoodlums. On occasion Miami’s ethnically divided…
The rays of the setting sun filter through a skylight in the tin roof of the Caribbean Marketplace, down an atrium past the flags of thirteen Caribbean nations, and onto the perfectly round face of Leaman Bien-Aime. “This was the central place,” the 44-year-old shopowner says wistfully, his tortoiseshell-rim spectacles…
A slim, handsome man with slicked-back brown hair and roving eyes scans the Miami City Commission chambers. Glancing from one side of the hall to the other, he takes in everything. All four entrances to the room are monitored, as are the podiums, the audience, and the commissioners themselves. Before…
Of all the stories the Miami City Cemetery can tell, very few involve ghosts. Yes, it’s the final resting place of some of Miami’s most fabled founders, but civic matron Julia Tuttle is rarely seen rising from her grave. Dr. James Jackson, namesake of the hospital, makes no clandestine crypt…
Thirty days. That’s what City of Miami officials gave the developers of Northwestern Estates. Thirty days to move all the people from a soon-to-be-demolished housing project in Liberty City to acceptable housing. If the developers wanted to replace the project with new affordable homes, as planned, they first had to…
It’s Wednesday, October 23, and Humberto Hernandez is in his element at Robert King High Towers. The Cuban-American lawyer receives a rousing welcome as he arrives at the housing project near the Orange Bowl, where the second annual Hispanic Heritage Festival is in full swing. Nearly 900 elderly registered voters…
On August 30, a career bureaucrat named Manohar Surana abruptly retired as finance director of the City of Miami. Two weeks later some of his co-workers joined him in retirement — involuntarily. The federal government filed charges against City Manager Cesar Odio for allegedly seeking a kickback on a city…
Miami Mayor Joe Carollo was surprised enough by the results of his first request. Acting on a tip that then-city manager Cesar Odio was abusing his power to spend up to $4500 without city commission approval, Carollo asked Odio for a copy of every city check of $4500 or less…
Assistant City Clerk Maria Argudin handed a slip of scratch paper to the four City of Miami elected officials who weren’t facing federal corruption charges. Each politico dutifully scrawled his own name at the top, and underneath that the name of the person he believed should replace Miller Dawkins, who…
The 911 call was answered this past August 7 at 4:44 a.m. According to a tape recording of the call provided by the Metro-Dade Police Department, this is how the conversation began: Operator: County police and fire. Caller: Hello? Operator: Police. Caller: Yes. I’d like to report — um –…
