Miami City Commission cancels meeting after two commissioners fall ill
Miami’s city commission met for just 10 minutes on Thursday because two commissioners fell ill and the rest voted to defer the whole agenda to the commission’s next meeting, on Feb. 10.
Chairwoman Christine King announced the cancellation just before 10:30 a.m. Thursday, about 90 minutes after the meeting was scheduled to start. Commissioners Joe Carollo and Ken Russell were present. Commissioners Manolo Reyes and Alex Díaz de la Portilla were absent. Carollo, Russell and King voted to push the day’s work to the next meeting.
“I apologize for you having come out, but we will see you on Feb. 10,” King told the small number of people in the chamber at City Hall.
King did have a quorum. The commission is allowed to take action with three present, but they chose to defer the agenda.
Díaz de la Portilla, 57, told the Miami Herald his blood pressure was elevated, and he was getting tests done, but he was “fine.”
“He wasn’t feeling well, but he’s doing better now,” said Karla Fortuny, the commissioner’s chief of staff. “It was just a precaution.”
Reyes’ office confirmed the commissioner was “not doing well” and was seeing a doctor Thursday. Reyes, 77, recently had a bout with COVID-19, which caused him to have to attend the Jan. 13 meeting virtually. He had recently tested negative twice before falling ill Wednesday.
The agenda included some potentially controversial items, including a discussion on redrawing Miami’s district boundaries, a process that would change which commissioners represent certain neighborhoods. Maps were expected to be presented Thursday by the city’s consultant, lobbyist and attorney Miguel De Grandy.
Commissioners were also scheduled to discuss extending the life of the OMNI Community Redevelopment Agency, a quasi-independent, tax-funded arm of the municipal government that is supposed to combat slum and blight. Such agencies can become the subject of scrutiny over how those tax dollars are spent within the CRA’s boundaries. The question of who leads such agencies was also on the agenda, an item that has created tension on the commission before as politicians jockey to chair agencies that control millions of public dollars.
One curious item was listed as a discussion with the title “Jan. 5, 2022,” sponsored by Carollo. That’s the date of a car accident involving Díaz de la Portilla that led to phone call between police and the city attorney about how to handle reporting the collision.
One non-agenda item did pass — the allocation of $20,000 to Black History Month events in February, a move sponsored by King.
This story was originally published January 27, 2022 at 4:58 PM.
