Cities wait for Irma money as probe drags on. Ex-police chief says FBI is involved.
Across Miami-Dade County, cities are submitting reimbursement requests to FEMA for spending related to COVID-19. But three cities are still waiting for millions of dollars in reimbursement money from another disaster: Hurricane Irma, which made landfall almost three years ago in August 2017.
It’s been 10 months since FEMA informed El Portal, Miami Shores and Florida City that the agency had found “questionable invoices” submitted by consultants who helped those cities manage Irma debris cleanup. And it’s been seven months since FEMA said it handed those invoices over to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General for further investigation.
That investigation is shrouded in mystery. Officials in all three cities say they have no idea where it stands, and a spokeswoman for the DHS inspector general’s office said only that, “as a matter of policy, we do not confirm or deny open investigations.” (The agency typically posts the findings of its investigations online.)
“I just put in a call last week to figure out what’s going on,” said Crystal Wagar, the mayor of Miami Shores, which is waiting on the release of over $1.2 million from Irma cleanup. “It would just be nice to get our money back.”
Now, as the probe drags on, it appears another agency — the FBI — has also taken an interest in the matter.
Ronnie Hufnagel, the former interim police chief in El Portal, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit last Wednesday in which she says she “blew the whistle to the FBI and other agencies” about possible misconduct by public officials in connection with the FEMA submissions.
Hufnagel’s attorney, Michael Pizzi, told the Miami Herald that Hufnagel has met with the FBI “for many hours on more than one occasion” about Irma debris removal in El Portal, and that she has communicated with the agency within the past “30 to 45 days.”
“Her cooperation in ongoing investigations into the village’s fraud upon the federal government continues until the present day,” says Hufnagel’s lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.
The exact nature of criminal investigators’ interest in the case is unclear, and the FBI, like the DHS inspector general, is tight-lipped. A spokesman said the agency “cannot confirm or deny the existence of an investigation of this nature.”
But Hufnagel has long been outspoken about El Portal’s actions in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, and her lawsuit alleges she was fired in retaliation for blowing the whistle. In a “State of the Village” address in August 2018, Mayor Claudia Cubillos said El Portal police had monitored workers who were removing debris from the storm, but Hufnagel said that wasn’t true.
FEMA requires cities to monitor the removal of downed trees and limbs to ensure that their submissions for reimbursement are accurate and follow the government’s rules. Typically, that monitoring is contracted out to consultants, but El Portal didn’t have a contract in place when Irma first made landfall. Both El Portal and Miami Shores ended up piggybacking on Florida City’s contracts with a debris removal company and a monitoring company.
The role of El Portal police before those contracts were finalized was a point of contention earlier this year at arbitration hearings over Hufnagel’s firing in late 2018. An attorney for the village showed images of police officers standing next to debris removal trucks during storm cleanup; Cubillos said they were monitoring the work, but Hufnagel said they were simply directing traffic.
Lawyers also presented a police worksheet that indicated an officer had performed “debris detail” work after the storm. Another form bearing Hufnagel’s name indicated Hufnagel had patrolled “citywide for debris hazard,” but Hufnagel claimed it wasn’t her handwriting and that she never filled out the form.
Cubillos said she didn’t know who filled it out. “I believe that the police department has that kind of ethic that they would do their own work,” she said, according to a transcript. Pizzi, Hufnagel’s lawyer, suggested someone must have “forged” Hufnagel’s name on the form.
The arbitrator ultimately wasn’t moved by Hufnagel’s retaliation case, ruling in late June that the village was justified in firing the 20-year department veteran. Village officials cited several instances in which Hufnagel hadn’t done her job properly and said she became insubordinate after she was demoted from interim police chief to sergeant.
“Any suggestion that village management was somehow biased against the grievant [Hufnagel] or that it retaliated against the grievant is baseless,” wrote the arbitrator, Joshua Javits. “Management clearly had objective and legitimate reasons for its conclusions.”
The village will likely lean on that ruling when it defends against Hufnagel’s lawsuit, which claims her firing was retribution for her whistle-blowing. Village officials didn’t respond to a request for comment on the suit. Hufnagel is seeking $4 million in damages.
Cities await payment as FEMA review rolls on
Without knowing if or when they will be reimbursed for more than $2 million in Irma costs, officials in El Portal — a tiny village with a $2.5 million budget — recently negotiated with their bank to extend, for a second straight year, the deadline to pay off a risky $1.25 million loan they took out in 2018 to pay a consultant for debris removal.
The village modified a line of credit agreement with Synovus Bank “for one final year,” Village Manager Christia Alou wrote in a June report. “Our account remains in good standing with interest payments being met as we await the reimbursement,” Alou wrote.
Meanwhile, it appears FEMA officials are still reviewing the “questionable” Irma submissions from El Portal, Miami Shores and Florida City, all of which were prepared by consulting firm Disaster Program & Operations.
Florida City Mayor Otis Wallace said he met virtually Friday with FEMA officials and discussed some of the agency’s concerns, including images of debris that may have been located outside city limits and debris picked up on private property that wasn’t blocking public roadways. Those are the types of submissions that FEMA would likely flag as problematic.
Wallace chalked up the first concern to a “GPS glitch” during the monitoring process, and he said city officials were working with FEMA to clear up the latter issue.
“I’m confident it will be resolved,” Wallace said. “I want the city’s money back. We’re entitled to it.”
A FEMA spokesman didn’t clarify whether the meeting was related to the inspector general investigation but said the agency was working directly with Florida City, Miami Shores and El Portal to review “the scope of work, eligible costs and completing final inspections.”
The Herald previously obtained hundreds of photographs and other documents that the municipalities submitted and identified several potential problems in El Portal and Miami Shores.
On Oct. 2, 2017, for example, one monitor logged 504 hazardous limbs removed from Miami Shores, 10 times the daily average for monitors in El Portal and Miami Shores in the days after the storm. But the monitor submitted only seven photographs for that day — most of which appear to show low-lying brush.
FEMA rules mandate that a photograph be submitted for each hazardous limb, and that municipalities only be reimbursed for limbs greater than two inches in diameter that “pose an immediate threat” to public safety.
This story was originally published August 6, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
