Morning clicks: run away Rubio, Kos flips on Crist-Meek
It’s a late morning here in ReidReport land. I’m getting ready to head out to Channel 2 to tape a segment of “issues,” but before I go, here’s a bit of what’s going on in the sunshine state:
Rubio on the Run: this Daniel Ruth op-ed on Marco Rubio’s duck and hide response to his credit card and family employment plan with other people’s money is worth it just for all the different ways he messes with Rubio’s political title. On the substance, the bottom line is that Marco is taking a page from the Sarah Palin playbook: when scandal calls, don’t answer the door; hide under the bed and stock the foyer with pre-screened, adoring fans.
Meanwhile, if the problem is politicians treating donor money like their personal slush fund, why is the answer to bring back even more political slush funds?
Here’s something you don’t see every day: the Meek campaign forwarding around a post from the Daily Kos. Read more
Spence-Jones pleads not guilty to bribery charges
The suspended commissioner turned herself in today in a Miami-Dade courtroom, but was released on her previously posted bond. She entered a not guilty plea, and left the courtroom saying only “God be the glory.”
Meanwhile, the Miami New Times’ Riptide team gives the developer in the latest Spence-Jones saga, FOJ (friend of Jeb) Armando Codina, the Tiger Beat treatment. Spoiler alert: Spence-Jones isn’t the only Miamian to refer to themselves in the third person…!
Grand jury delivers new charges against Spence-Jones
The ousted commissioner’s life just got even more complicated. From the Miami Herald comes word a Miami-Dade grand jury has indicted Michelle Spence-Jones on bribery charges, stemming from allegations she solicited $25,000 from a developer seeking her vote on an office building project. (Read the indictment) Read more
Gaston Smith avoids the slammer, Spence-Jones has her day in court
Rev. Gaston Smith
Rev. Gaston Smith brought a bunch of pastors and supporters to court with him today to tout his many virtues, and apparently, it worked. Smith was sentenced to five years probation after being convicted of stealing about $10,000 in county grants, and he’ll have to repay the money and do 40 hours of community service. Jesus saves! Meanwhile, I’m not sure how many pastors showed up for former Smith parishioner Michelle Spence Jones’ hearing downtown on whether the governor had the right to suspend her before her trial on theft charges. The ACLU did show, however, and the judge will now take ten days to decide.
More on the Spence-Jones hearing here. My column in the South Florida Times on the Spence-Jones v. Crist saga is up and running.
The temp, the plaintifs, and the D5 hustle
At a town hall meeting yesterday, according to WLRN, newly selected “caretaker” commissioner Richard Dunn (a/k/a “the temp,”) who already has his very own city email address, by the way, promised his constituents (from the audio, it sounded like there were about five people in the room…) that he would fight for them, primarily by demanding to be made chairman of the $100 million Community Redevelopment Agency that’s holding the money pot theoretically geared toward economic development in Overtown. Oh, here we go …
SSP: Joy discusses the MSJ suspension on “Issues” with Helen Ferre after the jump
Read more
Dunn wins D5 (dis)appointment
After nearly eight hours of deliberations and three votes, Rev. Richard Dunn was selected to fill the commissioner seat vacated by Michelle Spence-Jones, who is facing grand theft charges. The commission had deadlocked twice before the final result, with Commissioners Francis Suarez and Mark Sarnoff voting twice for Miami-Dade School Board Operations Director Pierre Rutledge, and Commissioners Frank Carollo (who said repeatedly that he wished the whole process would go away in favor of yet another special election,) and Willie Gort, the newest member, who just won his seat in the same January 12 special election that re-re-elected Spence-Jones, going for Dunn. Read more
The scramble for Spence-Jones’ seat
At left: Michelle Spence-Jones. At right: Richard "Ever Ready" Dunn
There will be a vote in the Miami Commission tonight (and you know it’s going to be dramatic,) to fill the seat that has been involuntarily vacated by Michelle Spence Jones. The special session starts at 4, and I’m assuming that the circus will begin well before that. Already this morning, there has been a prayer breakfast at which potential candidates strutted their stuff, and several losing candidates from November and January, including Dufirstson “66 votes” Neree, David Chiverton (Mr. 7 percent), and the Jay Leno of Miami Black politics (meaning he’s always hovering in the wings, waiting to take a fired politician’s spot if his current gig doesn’t pan out) — Rev. Richard Dunn, have begun making their pitch to commission members in hopes of securing the seat. The MSJ camp is pushing its own choices, school board guy Pierre Rutledge, who has the support of the guy who probably should be the nominee himself, but clearly doesn’t want it, Patrick Range Jr., and Erica Wright, who I can tell you from personal experience was a solid Spence-Jones supporter before the campaign. A group of D5 residents have even floated an open letter to the commission, via Blogging Black Miami. Read more
Judge denies Michelle Spence-Jones’ suspension stay request
A Miami judge quickly dispatched ousted Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones’ emergency order which sought to stop Gov. Charlie Crist from suspending her. (Video after the jump) Read more
Miami PBS affiliate to host live Haiti forum TONIGHT
WPBT, the main PBS affiliate here in South Florida, is hosting a live, one-hour forum, “WPBT2’s Pulse Presents: Haiti, A Community Conversation,” tonight at 8 p.m. on the ongoing crisis in Haiti. Viewers will get the chance to call in and talk about their personal experiences and stories in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake.
The forum will be streamed live on WPBT’s website, (information on the live stream will be posted here,) and those wanting to comment on the program via Facebook can do so here.
If you have friends or family (or yourself) who has a personal story to tell, please join in. Miami is central to the Haiti story, given that South Florida is home to more Haitian-Americans than any other community in America. Let’s be heard.
On MLK Day, Spence-Jones gets downright defiant
Michelle Spence-Jones (far right) put on a full court press during the MLK Day parade in Liberty City Monday.
The politicians assembled across from the Wendy’s, their convertibles and constituent buses and vans lining 54th Street along 10th Avenue. It was about an hour and a half before the scheduled start of the Martin Luther King Day parade through Liberty City — an annual tradition, and THE parade according to insistent fans who brushed off the parades in South Dade and in Broward as knock-offs of the real thing. Women fixed their elaborate, feathered outfits, boys straightened their marching band uniforms, and a carload of kids from the 5000 Role Models looked smart in their crisp, white shirts and trademark red and black ties. There were candidates and politicians everywhere — Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, Democratic Senate contender Maurice Ferre, Miami-Dade District 2 Commission Dorrin Rolle, who wheeled up in a giant bus with his face emblazoned all over it, and State Rep. James Bush III, whose wife is running for his seat while he run’s for Kendrick Meek’s Congressional seat (one of about a dozen candidates to do so.) But that wasn’t the show.
The show was, at first, the guessing game over whether “she” would show up. And then, she showed up. Read more
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