Politics and a power shift shake up downtown Miami agency as acting director resigns
One week after former Miami Beach commissioner John Elizabeth Alemán agreed to become acting director of Miami’s tax-funded Downtown Development Authority, she submitted her resignation to the board Tuesday morning.
She is stepping down amid a flurry of change to power structures at the highest levels of Miami’s city government, shifts that influenced her decision. Her resignation also leaves a void in administrative leadership at the downtown agency two weeks before Super Bowl 54 comes to Miami, an internationally watched event that is supposed to highlight Miami’s downtown waterfront.
The agency controls a $12 million budget fueled by taxes levied on 3.8 square miles of Miami’s urban waterfront. The DDA is responsible for a homeless employment program, grants for property improvements and beautification projects, as well as promotion and economic development in downtown Miami for tourists, investors and a growing residential population.
A 15-member board made up of downtown property owners and business proprietors governs the agency. In November, that board voted to hire Alemán and pay her $198,000 a year, with an annual 17.5% bonus every July 31. Her selection came after a six-month search led by management consulting firm Korn Ferry under a $67,000 contract, a process that yielded 400 candidates. Alemán applied in mid-October, toward the end of the search.
“Nine weeks have elapsed since the DDA Board of Directors voted to appoint me as Executive Director,” Alemán wrote in a letter sent to city officials Tuesday morning. “While I was honored by the selection and eager to begin working with the DDA’s board and staff to tackle the critical issues confronting downtown, clarity around the terms of my employment and the nature of the position moving forward has diminished greatly since November.”
In addition to approving Alemán, the board also agreed to pay the outgoing director, Alyce M. Robertson, a full year’s salary and medical benefits to act as a consultant on standby to assist with the transition.
Commissioner Manolo Reyes, who recently became chairman of the downtown agency in a significant power shift on the City Commission, said he was surprised by Alemán’s resignation. He said they had met and were on the same page regarding downtown issues.
“We met and to be honest with you we were on point on everything that we talked about,” he said. “That was before I was even appointed.”
Final approval of Alemán’s appointment as executive director has been pending since December, when commissioners first considered the agency’s endorsement of Alemán. The board has unanimously backed Alemán’s appointment, but some commissioners wanted to hold off on confirming her until they could meet with her and review her employment terms.
Reyes said he was confused by the fact that under the proposed terms, Alemán was slated to receive a bonus after six months on the job without a performance evaluation.
“I’ve never seen a bonus that is guaranteed,” he said, adding that even then, he’d discussed reclassifying the wage increase with Alemán. He said he respected Alemán’s decision to step down, and would discuss how to proceed at his first board meeting Friday.
Alemán’s confirmation was on the agenda of the first commission meeting of the year, Jan. 9, but the proceeding unraveled in a fight over the order in which the commission would hear the day’s agenda items. A majority of the commissioners voted to abruptly adjourn the meeting after having taken no substantial action, including votes on Alemán’s appointment and the selection of the chairman of the Downtown Development Authority.
On Jan. 14, the DDA board agreed to name Alemán the acting director until her employment status was resolved by the commission. The board also agreed to retain veteran litigator Eugene Stearns to review the board’s options for moving forward after board members disagreed with the city attorney’s interpretation of whether commission approval is needed for the new director.
At that meeting, board members declared that they did not want the selection of the next director to become a political football for city commissioners.
In her resignation letter Tuesday, Alemán cites the city’s rocky political landscape as part of her reason for stepping down.
“As a businesswoman and former elected official, I have seen firsthand how conflicting political agendas can undermine the work of well-intentioned organizations and their leaders,” wrote Alemán. “Having watched city of Miami government come to a standstill over the past two months, I have concluded that the prospect of working within the current political climate is untenable.”
City Hall shakeups
January has brought a great deal of change and uncertainty about Miami’s city government, from the messy quarrel that prevented city business from being done, to the disagreement between the downtown agency and the commission, to the resignation of City Manager Emilio González, who’s been accused of falsifying paperwork to get a permit for a backyard deck and using his position to fast-track that permit.
Commissioners Alex Diaz de la Portilla, Joe Carollo and Manolo Reyes voted to fire González in December after Carollo aired the allegations during a commission meeting. They were one vote short of the four needed to solidify the dismissal after commissioners Keon Hardemon and Ken Russell voted no. All five commissioners later voted to have the auditor general look into the claims, an inquiry that is mired in another disagreement between Mayor Francis Suarez and the commission over the validity of such an investigation.
In announcing his resignation Thursday, González said he would address those allegations at another time, but he was stepping down to be with his wife, who is ill. He also said commission meetings had devolved into a circus.
Like Alemán, González cited political unrest among commissioners as a factor in his decision. Some of those divisions were laid bare Friday during a special meeting to hear some of the issues that went unaddressed on Jan. 9.
Three commissioners voted to change multiple leadership positions at some of the city’s largest semi-autonomous agencies, including the DDA. De la Portilla moved to appoint Reyes as the new DDA chairman and himself as the new chairman of the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency. Reyes and Carollo joined Diaz de la Portilla to form the majority that passed the motions. Commissioners Hardemon and Russell did not agree and voted no.
In the changes, Russell was removed from his positions as chairman of the DDA and Omni redevelopment agency. Afterward, he said he saw his removal as payback for voting against the motion to fire González.
“Clearly, that is the result of the fact that I would not vote on the side of removing this manager on fraudulent, trumped up charges about the size of his deck and the permits he applied for this deck,” he told the Miami Herald after the meeting. “Personally, I would fire a manager who couldn’t get a deck in two hours.”
Diaz de la Portilla said he felt there needed to be new leadership and new ideas at both the DDA and Omni redeveopment agency.
“I think we need new blood, and I think that every commissioner has a right to sit on different boards and sort of inject new blood and new ideas into these institutions,” he said. “I have some concerns about both of these institutions: The autonomous or semi-autonomous nature of the Downtown Development Authority, some of the homeless issues they’re dealing with and I don’t think dealing with them appropriately.”
He also suggested there might need to be changes in the composition of the DDA’s leadership as he criticized comments made by board members about the commission’s behavior at the Jan. 9 meeting.
“One of them was quoted as saying the commission had a hissy fit,” he said, referring to comments made by board member Alicia Cervera Lamadrid, managing partner at Cervera Real Estate.
The friction across City Hall’s leadership played a role in Alemán’s resignation. In her letter Tuesday, Alemán said reasons for her departure included “uncertainty over the commission’s ability to approve my hiring and the temporary nature of the “Acting Director” designation, to lack of stability in my agreed-upon compensation structure and the City Commission’s stated intention to restructure the DDA.”
Philippe Houdard, DDA board member and co-founder of Pipeline Workspaces, led the search committee that recommended Alemán. After learning of her resignation Tuesday, he said “there’s no getting around that is a setback for downtown.
“In this case, the wheels of government moved too slowly, and the wheels were grinding in the politically charged environment right now,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but I understand why she made her decision.”
Houdard said he hopes the process that has played out is not a deterrent to any future candidates who could lead the agency.
“The key is to remain focused on making downtown great,” he said. “The goal is to make this nonpolitical.”
Read the full letter below:
This story was originally published January 21, 2020 at 10:59 AM.
