Remember Bob Rivard of the San Antonio Express-News? He’s the guy who beat a hasty retreat last October just as Miami Herald publisher Alberto Ibargüen was preparing to name him editor of our local rag. Well now Rivard really is a star. For the first time in its history, this…
I cannot for the life of me remember the first time I watched Jeopardy! I do remember a few games of Trivial Pursuit in which I mopped the floor with my family, my friends, and my family’s neighbors, who used to be their friends until one night I whooped a…
Richard Reckley, a registered nurse at the Turner Guilford Knight Detention Center medical clinic, says he waited three years before he got angry. Then he did something that might be considered traitorous: He started a fight with his labor union, the organization formed to protect his employment interests that survives…
The reviews are in. Alex Penelas’s performance last week was a giant flop. Here are excerpts from a few of the newspaper editorials condemning our mayor. “No public official has been more disappointing than Alex Penelas, the ambitious mayor of Miami-Dade County. Penelas rushed to the front of the mob…
In the fifteen years since prosecutors opened the shameful chapter in South Florida history known as the Miami River Cops scandal, about 100 officers have been arrested, fired, suspended, or reprimanded. At least 20 have been sentenced to prison for robbing cocaine dealers of cash and dope. Some are now…
If fate had been kinder, or if people in state agencies had done their jobs, perhaps nineteen-year-old Kyle would not have done time in a state correctional facility. Nor would he now be stuck in Krome detention center. When social workers from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in…
The meeting had a lofty mission: to launch a committee to work on behalf of freedom of the press in Miami. It was early January 2000, and the gathering site was the Coral Gables office of the Community Media Council (CMC). This two-year-old nonprofit corporation has positioned itself as a…
The way Lisa Willoughby tells it, her boss Jack Garofano crossed the line on a February morning in 1998. After the two discussed some personnel matters in Garofano’s office, he stepped out for a cup of coffee. She stretched. When he returned, he allegedly stood beside her and stared at…
The bottom floor of Liquid nightclub on South Beach is empty. The brick walls are bare. Velvet couches and chairs are gone; so are rows of liquor bottles. The only things visible through the front window last week were eight buckets of paint and plaster. Although the club rocks on…
County schools are supposed to teach our kids to do the right thing. And the best way to instruct is by example, right? So Miami-Dade school officials should be embarrassed and ashamed. Hell, they should be mortified by Riptide’s discovery that there has been no recycling program at 75 percent…
The day begins early at Hialeah Distributors. The sun has risen a half-hour ago, casting the sky in pastels, while the breeze below smells of cinnamon and fried chicken and rot. The men gathered in the parking lot are luncheros. They drive the lunch trucks known affectionately as “roach coaches,”…
Unlike Miami’s austere courthouses, such as the Flagler Street tower or the fortresslike behemoth on NW Twelfth Street, the sprawling Juvenile Justice Center on NW 27th Avenue has all the dignity of an elementary school. And form speaks to function. In the adult courts, both civil and criminal, grownups suffer…
Everyone knows the Magic City’s expressways are ever-more exciting these days. Drivers who zigzag at high speeds experience the biggest adrenaline rush, but even the five-mile-per-hour jam can be amusing. We surf the radio waves, talk on cell phones, crank the CD player, and gaze at the growing number of…
Look skyward. You may see an attack ad. Yes indeedy, the air war against State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, who’s up for election this fall, continues unabated. It began last month during protests about news hog Elian Gonzalez, when planes flew over the city tugging banners that read, in Spanish:…
The recent arrest of a juvenile-court employee displays the scope of problems in Miami-Dade’s system of selecting court-appointed lawyers. On December 9 the State Attorney’s Office charged Thomas Grande, a 31-year-old judicial support specialist, with official misconduct. Authorities say he illegally assigned two cases to a lawyer. One of the…
Fast-forward to Miami 2015. A visitor from Chicago exits I-395 at Biscayne Boulevard and confronts a 23-story steel behemoth known as PIP (Pork Investor Park), home of the long-ago world-champion Florida Marlins. He heads south, hoping to catch a glimpse of that pretty bayfront showcased in the Internet travel brochures…
The government of the country of Cuba continues to maintain a policy of denying common freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, and human rights to the majority of their citizens. Until this policy changes, Miami-Dade County shall not enter into a contract with any person or entity that does business…
On the morning of February 25, when Jacquelyn Mills-Smith summoned José Garcia to her office, Garcia thought he knew the reason. The pair worked for the U.S. Bureau of the Census on Miami Beach. Mills-Smith was the office manager. Garcia supervised a team of seven who had been hired to…
Every month the St. Patrick Parish School in Miami Beach honors a family through its guardian angel program. On February 18 faculty, parents, and students from the Catholic parochial academy gathered in the auditorium to salute the Buttacavoli clan. The program notes that Mayra Diaz-Buttacavoli is a Miami Beach assistant…
Florida International University basketball coach Marcos “Shakey” Rodriguez resigned under pressure on Monday, less than two weeks after a story in these pages disclosed the unseemly histories of assistant coaches Jose Ramos and Bernard Wright, as well as Rodriguez himself. To wit, Ramos was booted from two basketball teams after…
What has Vivian Monroe done to deserve her January 12, 2000, removal as chief of the Miami-Dade County School District police department? Plenty. Since becoming chief in January 1997, she has repeatedly interfered with investigations of school district employees with whom she is personally acquainted. She has even gone so…
The search for Acting Chief Vivian Monroe’s successor as the head of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools police is well under way. After receiving 38 applications, Nelson Perez, the administrator who supervises the police department, winnowed the list down to 22. A search committee interviewed those applicants in person on…
