New Miami Herald column: Dunn deal
I’ve got an extra column in the Herald this week, focusing on the deal the Miami commissioners extracted from their newly appointed colleague, Rev. Richard Dunn. Read it here.
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
Shameless self-promotion: my new gig
I’ll be writing a twice monthly column for the Miami Herald, mainly about my favorite subject: politics. The first column can be found here, and covers one of my new favorite subjects: the ongoing soap opera that is Michelle Spence-Jones. Check for the column every other Thursday!
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
Decision day in Miami
Voters in Districts 1 and 5 get a chance for a do-over today, as they go to the polls to choose from nearly 20 candidates for the seats vacated by Angel Gonzales (who stepped down to avoid prosecution for getting his daughter a no-show job from a city contractor) and Michelle Spence Jones (the young, charismatic commissioner who has this strange habit of speaking about herself in the third person, and who seems prepared to do everything short of taking hostages in order to hang onto her seat amid accusations she pilfered grant money for her family business that was intended for other organizations.)
The polls are open. Let’s see how many votes show up …
Dunn vs. Spence-Jones, the re-mix
Once and future opponents Michelle Spence-Jones and Rev. Richard Dunn II
So, Rev. Richard Dunn is throwing his hat into the ring and will challenge Michelle Spence Jones for her dearly departed commission seat. Great. Just … bloody … fabulous. It’s also a blast from the past — since the first meeting between these two, for the very same commission seat, was a knock-down, drag out affair, complete with a lawsuit. Check out this article from back in the day (2005) … it’s called “Bad vs. Worse” — not my title. I swear … Read more
Friends (Miami scandals version)
Judge Yvonne Colodny accepted suspended Commissioner Michelle Spence Jones’ not guilty plea today in her grand theft case — but only after she “de-friended” Spence Jones on Facebook. Ah, these modern times!
The villains of District 5
From left: Michelle Spence Jones, Katherine Fernandez Rundle and Barbara Carey Shyler.
My column on the Miami District 5 madness is up on the South Florida Times website. A clip:
To review: The Miami election is barely two weeks old, and the winner and incumbent in District 5, Michelle Spence-Jones, has been driven from office. Gov. Charlie Crist suspended her after she was charged with stealing tens of thousands of dollars in grant money intended for her community. It’s an all-too familiar story in Miami, which has a long history of political scandal. But it’s especially ugly given the outsized challenges faced by the neighborhoods that Spence-Jones used to represent. They include Overtown, Liberty City and Little Haiti, which face higher-than-average unemployment and crime rates, and lower-than-average economic development.
There are so many villains in this runaway catastrophe, so it’s hard to narrow it down to just five. But here goes.
Read the rest here. You might be surprised by who makes number one.
Also in the SFLTimes today: Crist still AWOL on Broward Commission District 9
Meanwhile, more names are popping up on the special election radar, with the buzz list including Patrick Range Jr., Rev. Richard Dunn (a sometimes friend, sometimes opponent of Spence-Jones’), Pierre Rutledge, who Spence Jones had appointed to the Orange Bowl Advisory Committee through 2008 and who is associated with the Miami-Dade School Board, and the two runners up on November 3rd, David Chiverton and Jeff Torain. Personally, I think that since it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that Ms. Spence Jones will win re-election (again), and given the potential to have her re-removed, and yet another special election, the city should just scrap the whole damned thing, save the $200,000, and allow the woman to return to her seat. If the people of District 5 are fine with having a commissioner facing trial while she’s supposed to be serving them? So be it. Let them have what they want (but no complaining, D5! No one’s going to want to hear it!)
Also, I’ve uncovered new details about this case, not seen anywhere else, which I’ll be rolling out soon. Stay tuned!
Spence Jones: “I’m running”
Ousted (for now) MIami commissioner Michelle Spence Jones brought the drama tonight, holding a press conference this evening, surrounded by about 50 supporters (mostly campaign workers from her recenet electoral triumph) and telling the world (and the prosecutors) that she will be a candidate in the special election for the District 5 seat Gov. Crist just dismissed her from. Read more
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