Miami meltdown: Commission abruptly ends meeting, delays dozens of decisions
Miami’s first commission meeting of the new decade ended abruptly Thursday during a loud argument over how to proceed with the day’s business, leading to a hasty adjournment before any substantive votes were cast.
What came into clear, ugly focus for Miamians was a burgeoning power struggle among commissioners with differing visions of how the elected body should conduct meetings and handle accusations of wrongdoing against the city’s top administrator.
To compound matters, it appears commissioners are heading toward a fight over who among them gets to lead certain quasi-governmental agencies, and a mayor with largely ceremonial powers is trying to assert what limited power he has while squaring off with a few combative commissioners.
On Thursday, tensions burst and overtook any will to continue with the business of the city, an agenda with more than 50 items as varied as the alleged improprieties of City Manager Emilio González, the creation of an LGBTQ advisory board, the confirmation of an administrator to oversee a tax-funded agency that promotes downtown, and regulations for food trucks.
All of that business was left on the table when the proceeding came to a complete halt shortly after 11 a.m. The debate over the order of agenda items spiraled into a messy quarrel that concluded with a 3-2 vote to adjourn the meeting. Bystanders were left shocked with the sloppy and premature end to the hearing, some angry with the commission’s failure to get any real work done, others aghast at the political theater that unfolded. Longtime staffers quietly confirmed that they’d never seen such a spectacle.
A portion of the day’s business is expected to be heard at a special meeting at 10 a.m. Jan 17, hastily called in the wake of Thursday’s debacle. The rest of the agenda will roll over to the Feb. 13 commission meeting.
Earlier Thursday morning, four of five commissioners voted to take up a section of the day’s agenda in a certain order. The newly selected commission chairman, Keon Hardemon, who has been battling the flu, was not present but arrived later and began presiding over the meeting.
Hardemon, who was chairman for three years before 2019, declared his intention to hear two personal appearances after public comment: a presentation from the chairman of the Super Bowl 54 host committee and comments from the embattled city manager — a widely anticipated speech after his near-dismissal in December. Hardemon pointed to past practice in the city of hearing personal appearances, which are extended public comment periods for individuals, early on the agenda.
This deviated from the order requested by commissioners Joe Carollo and Alex Diaz de la Portilla and approved by their colleagues, spurring the commission allies to challenge Hardemon.
After tempers flared and commissioners talked over each other for a few minutes, Diaz de la Portilla moved to adjourn the meeting. Carollo seconded the motion, and when the vote was called, Commissioner Manolo Reyes added the third vote. Hardemon and Commissioner Ken Russell, who had presided over the meeting before Hardemon’s arrival, voted against the adjournment.
After the vote, commissioners cast blame on each other for putting personal interests ahead of city business. Hardemon criticized Diaz de la Portilla, Carollo and Reyes for their vote to shut down the meeting.
“That’s what happens if you don’t have people who vote for the right interests in the city of Miami, you’re going to have issues like this,” he told reporters.
Fuming, Carollo launched into a tirade against Hardemon. He accused Hardemon of “hijacking” the meeting in order to hold onto his spot on an important city board and appease Mayor Francis Suarez and the city manager in hopes of receiving fundraising help for his County Commission campaign.
González later denied the accusation. Hardemon, speaking from home later Thursday, fired back.
“That makes Joe Carollo a liar. There is nothing true about what he said,” Hardemon told the Miami Herald. “If Joe Carollo told you he was a man, I would encourage you to check his birth certificate. Commissioner Carollo has not shown interest in giving truthful statements. He’s focused on making news. I’m focused on being making my community better, being a great father and being a great husband. I have no interest in what Commissioner Joe Carollo has to say about me personally or professionally.”
Carollo said several objectives were more important than completing the work of the commission Thursday, including maintaining a proper procedure, letting democracy and integrity prevail, and finding a new city manager.
“What’s so important is you cannot let any individual up here become a dictator and start taking actions that only belong to a majority when they vote,” he said.
Russell said petty politics threaten to stifle progress in the city unless commissioners get their act together.
“Unfortunately the struggle of politics is outweighing the business of the city, and it’s untenable,” he said. “Something has to break at this point, because we need get back to the business.”
Reyes, who provided the deciding vote on the adjournment, said he thought Hardemon was incorrect and saw no way to continue a meeting that had already gotten out of hand.
“Instead of going back and forth with insults, I voted to adjourn and I left,” he said.
Diaz de la Portilla said he’d never seen anything like Thursday’s unraveling in his two decades of experience in the Florida Legislature, saying Hardemon was “out of order,” and lacked maturity and composure.
“I think the person that stood in the way of the city’s business today was Keon Hardemon,” he said.
What seemed like a procedural argument that spun wildly out of control was set against a backdrop of unrest and mistrust at the top level of Miami’s government, some of which became apparent in December when the same three commissioners voted to fire González, one vote short of the four needed to finalize his dismissal. On Dec. 12, Carollo spent more than an hour accusing González of falsifying documents to get a permit for work on his house and using his position to fast-track that permit. González was not present during that meeting because he was with his wife, who is ill.
All five later voted to send the allegations to the city’s auditor general. Suarez attempted to veto the vote, though City Attorney Victoria Mendez issued an opinion that he could not veto such an action.
That veto, and ostensibly its validity, was supposed to be taken up early Thursday before several items that were specifically requested during the vote on the order of the day. Had Hardemon proceeded as he planned, González would have had a chance to speak before the veto was heard.
“There were two individuals who should have had priority to speak in public comment,” Hardemon said, adding that if handled correctly in his absence, the public appearances should have happened before public comments. “We’ve always done it this way. When you are down for a public appearance, you speak before the public is allowed to speak.”
Diaz de la Portilla also said that he wanted to give González a chance to defend himself, which is why he asked for his discussion item on the city manager to be taken up early.
“He’s entitled to that,” he said.
Under his scenario, González would’ve spoken after the veto discussion.
Other powerful posts, each with multimillion-dollar budgets, were at stake on Thursday’s agenda. Commissioners were expected to name chairmen from their own number for a slew of boards that oversee semi-autonomous government agencies, including the Downtown Development Authority and multiple community redevelopment agencies. Sources told the Miami Herald some commissioners were angling for new posts, and jockeying was anticipated during the debate.
In the end, commissioners didn’t get to fight any fight other than the one that ended the day. Miami’s elected leaders failed to accomplish anything of note before Hardemon banged the gavel to prematurely end the hearing, having been overruled by three commissioners who voted to adjourn. Thursday became the latest illustration of dysfunction at Miami City Hall, with the public witnessing a meltdown that prevented real work from proceeding.
Diaz de la Portilla quickly called for a special meeting Jan. 17 to hear items related to city leadership, including the employment status of the city manager, board appointments and reappointment of the city clerk and city attorney. The meeting was confirmed Thursday afternoon.
Hours after the meeting adjourned, the drama continued around Suarez’s veto. Suarez sent a letter to the the city’s auditor general, Theodore Guba, asserting that he considered his veto upheld because the commission did not take action on it.
“Please immediately confirm that you and your office are governing yourselves accordingly, and that no such special investigation is taking place as there has been no special authority granted to you to do so,” the mayor wrote.
Reyes’s office fired back immediately, sending Guba a memo prepared earlier in the day in anticipation of a situation where it was unclear if the auditor could begin an inquiry into the allegations against the city manager. In his memo, Reyes issues a clear directive to Guba to begin an investigation.
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 3:16 PM.
