Aventura taps well-known consultant for no-bid, $180K communications contract
Aventura commissioners think their city is an understated jewel of Miami-Dade County, and they want to tell their residents and the rest of South Florida.
To do that, they are enlisting a consultant who is well-known to every elected official in the city — some of whom are former clients.
The City Commission voted 6-1 in October to award Evan Ross’ Public Communicators Group a one-year contract for communications services. The motion was put forward by Commissioner Bob Shelley, who hired Ross to help on his 2014 campaign.
The no-bid contract, which required a supermajority of votes to pass under the city’s charter, promises Ross $15,000 a month to help the city government advertise Aventura to its residents and the greater South Florida area as a community of family-friendly neighborhoods and low tax rates.
Aventura Mayor Enid Weisman, a former client of Ross’ who asked the city manager to come up with a solution to the city’s public relations needs, said she wants to reshape the city’s image beyond a place where people move to retire. The city is on the verge of change and the average resident’s age has declined to about 47 years old, she said.
“He was someone we were all familiar with,” Weisman said in an interview. “I am not going to say there weren’t political connections. I have known Evan since he was a little kid … but it was important that we got someone who hits the ground running. It seemed kind of natural to me.”
Weisman said she hopes Ross will help use video messaging and earned media to build a sense of community and “show people that even when a city is vertical, we can be as close and connected as anywhere.”
Not everyone supported the move. Commissioner Marc Narotsky, the lone vote against hiring Ross’ firm, called the contract “wasteful spending.”
“We all know him, he has worked on some of our campaigns,” Narotsky said during the October 21 meeting. “It smells when you’re giving a contract to someone we know without a bid.”
Many government agencies pay for public relations. Under the base rate of the contract, Aventura will pay Ross’ company about as much as Miami Beach pays its marketing and communications director, who according to public records earned $180,734 in 2020.
Ross’ contract expires in October 2022, and can be renewed for two more one-year periods. In addition to the $15,000 monthly fee, the contract also includes a $250 hourly rate for work outside the lines set by the agreement, such as crisis communications during emergencies, and allows for reimbursements of up to $20,000 a year for advertising expenses.
Ross also has another contract with the city that started in July 2020, under which the city agreed to pay Ross’ firm $250 per hour for consulting and $150 per hour for graphic design. Ross said under that contract, he produced the 2020 state of the city address and a vaccination public service announcement.
While that contract is not ending, he won’t be paid under it, Ross said.
Ross founded his public affairs firm in 2011, and provides a range of clients with services from crisis communications to government affairs. In addition to the work he does for various governmental and political clients, he also chairs a political committee called Public Service that largely supports Democrats, and has funneled almost $40,000 into Agriculture Commission Nikki Fried’s 2022 gubernatorial campaign.
Aventura is Ross’ primary municipal client, though he sometimes does work on an as-needed basis for the city of North Bay Village.
Ross, who says he has lived in or near Aventura his whole life, said his new contract will help elevate a city he says is one of the best places to live in the state.
“Aventura has an incredible story to tell,” he said. “Aventura does everything exceptionally well except communicate how amazing the city is.”
The compensation, Ross says, will pay himself and the subcontractors he hires to help on larger projects like video production. The contract requires he create a communications plan for all city departments, manage social media accounts and assist with public information requests, as needed.
Aventura also has a full-time social media manager who is a city employee, though Ross said his team will create a de facto communications department.
“We are providing a communications department for the city, we are doing what a city would hire a handful of people to do,” he said. “We want to make Aventura the model for how a city communicates. That means creating a lot of fresh content that introduces people to the people running their government, the elected officials but also the people who work in their parks and fix their potholes, if you can find any.”