The Miami Herald reports this morning that the North Miami Beach City Council fired City Manager Kelvin Baker last night. Although no specifics were given, Banana Republican wonders if his termination had anything to do with Baker accusing some city council members of violating the state's Sunshine Law.
This past August 31, Baker notified Mayor Myron Rosner and City Attorney Darcee Siegel via official letter that he believed city council members were using intermediaries to privately discuss city legislation before council members voted on it. The Sunshine Law requires that elected officials conduct any matters related to a pending vote in public.
In both letters, Baker wrote:
From time to time, politically powerful citizen activists of the City have contacted Council Members and made demands related to business of the City which is to be discussed at a public meeting or which is pending for discussion. These demands are then circulated among Council Members by Council Members or from activists to Council Members and Council Members to activists as conduits and a consensus of the action to be taken then occurs, before open meeting discussions and vote and the laws and spirit of the Sunshine Law violated.Siegel notified Joe Centorino, the Miami-Dade assistant state attorney in charge of public corruption, who has opened an investigation, according to a North Miami Beach lawyer familiar with the situation. You can read Baker's letter to Siegel below:
As City Manager and as an interested citizen, I am obligated to bring this matter to your attention. I am requesting that an investigation be conducted so that such violations can be ferreted out and stopped.
Darcee S. Siegel Ltr
