Today, candidate Marc Sarnoff channeled former University of Miami football standout Kellen Winslow Jr in describing his credentials as a legit neighborhood results-producing activist.
Back in 2003, after a home loss to the Tennessee Volunteers, a ticked-off Winslow described himself to reporters as more than a football player. "I'm f---king solidier!" Winslow snapped.
Apparently Sarnoff, a candidate in the race to replace suspended Miami City Commissioner Johnny Winton, goes to war too. In an e-mail response to community activist Grace Solares, Sarnoff writes: "I am not a gadfly; I am a soldier who will fight when necessary and act diplomatically when possible."
Gee, how interesting. Riptide didn't know securing $306,000 to replant trees in Coconut Grove was the equivalent of surviving an al Qaeda ambush in Iraq's western Anbar province.
Of course, Sarnoff was venting his frustrations regarding Solares' insinuations that he's a Trojan horse for departed city manager Joe Arriola. Solares' proof: Sarnoff forwarded Arriola and his son Ricky an e-mail from opponent and appointed City Commissioner Linda Haskins distancing herself from her ex- boss and the fire fee scandal.
In that missive, the city's former chief financial officer says: "The settlement arranged by Joe Arriola was indeed a disaster. Had Joe consulted with me on the matter, I would never counseled him to go forward with it."
Sarnoff doesn't hide that he had a good working relationship with Arriola which allowed him to get things done in the Grove, such as procuring new garbage cans for the Dog Park. But that doesn't mean he's going to be Arriola's stamp boy, Sarnoff relayed in his lengthy manifesto to Solares.
We agree. If anything, give Sarnoff credit. He saw an opportunity to exploit an opponent and exploit it he did. Anyone who has gone cara a cara with Arriola knows he can't resist the impulse to fire back, which he did, in yet another winded electronic correspondence. "What really is upsetting to me is that Linda comes out with this BS story," Arriola fumed. "To this day we have never had a conversation about the fire fee that she has not been in full support of me and Manny. But I guess that as always you dump on the one that is no longer there."-Francisco Alvarado
