It's about time. The Miami Herald finally gives credit to one of our friends and local bloggers, Al Crespo, for breaking a story.

As the title of today's post states, Chuck Rabin of the Miami Herald has finally decided to give credit to our friend and local blogger Al Crespo of the Crespo Gram report for breaking the story of former City of Miami CFO Larry Spring's illegal severance package. It's nice to finally see mainstream media like the Herald giving credit to the people who work tirelessly and for free for doing the research and breaking these kind of stories that they usually wont report on. From the Herald article...

The payout to Spring—first reported on Al Crespo’s blog, thecrespogramreportcom — has created a furor in the local blogosphere, confusion at City Hall, and anger among some city commissioners and the mayor.

So it took "furor in the local blogosphere" before the Herald finally decided to acknowledge the corruption and outright theft that's been going on in the City? After being asleep at the switch ever since Regalado was elected mayor, the Herald has finally woken up. Great.

In my opinion the Herald giving credit to Mr. Crespo for breaking the story is a milestone, Mr. Crespo says it best in the comments section of the Herald article...

To Chuck Rabin and the Miami Herald, thanks for the credit. The times are changing, and I think that you all need to not only start crediting bloggers more, but more importantly piggybacking off our of initial efforts. You can't do what we do, but we can't do what you do either.

Correct, I've always given credit to the Herald or whoever else I get a story or information from, it's about time the Herald does the same. Which leads us to Mr. Rabin's Herald article regarding City of Miami Assistant Fire Chief Veldora Arthur's federal mortgage fraud indictment story we broke a few months back. As you all remember, our blog post was published on February 21, 2011...

The very next day Mr. Rabin of the Herald writes his story about Veldora's indictment...

No big deal right? What Mr. Rabin doesn't know is that I was watching him read our blog at 9:32 in the morning on the 22nd of February hours before he wrote his story. How do I know? Take a look at our blog tracking software report for that morning (click on image to enlarge)...

Our blog analytic software tells us that the folks at the Herald were perusing through our Veldora blog post from 9:32 am through 11:37 am ripping off our story without giving us credit. No big deal Mr. Rabin, like Mr. Crespo said...

The times are changing, and I think that you all need to not only start crediting bloggers more, but more importantly piggybacking off our of initial efforts. You can't do what we do, but we can't do what you do either.

Now, let's turn to a disturbing comment we received yesterday regarding City of Miami employees Veldora Arthur and Thomas Thelusma's employment status with the City since their federal mortgage fraud indictments...

Anonymous said...

FIRE CHIEF TOOK TOM THELUSMA I.D AND BADGE AWAY BUT COCK SUCKING VELDORA ARTHUR STILL HAS HERS. VELDORA HAS NOT BE SEEN IN 2 MONTH OR LONGER. I GUESS SHE IS IN THE BAHAMAS ON TAXPAYERS PAID LEAVE ! AND YES THE BLACK THING DOES HAVE SOME MEANING , JUST GO TO THE AMINISTRATION AND SPECIALLY SUPPORT STAFF AND YOU WILL SEE HOW DARK IT IS AROUND THERE . MFD AT AN ALL TIME LOW MORALE AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE TILL THEY CLEAN HOUSE. . IF YOU THINK VELDORA IS THE ONLY ONE NOT IN THE OFFICE , JUST GO BY HQ AND PEEP IN , YOU WILL FIND NO ONE THERE PAST 1:30 PM.

June 22, 2011 10:54 AM

I wasn't sure whether or not this comment was accurate, so I reached out to one of our sources in the fire department who clarified things for us, his responses are in blue..

"FIRE CHIEF TOOK TOM THELUSMA I.D AND BADGE AWAY BUT COCK SUCKING VELDORA ARTHUR STILL HAS HERS.
I believe this was true during their respective periods of "Paid Administrative Leave" but Thelusma was only on leave for less than 2 weeks

VELDORA HAS NOT BE SEEN IN 2 MONTH OR LONGER.

True, longer

I GUESS SHE IS IN THE BAHAMAS ON TAXPAYERS PAID LEAVE !

She has in fact traveled for personal reasons during her absence but from the records i have seen; she was charged vacation time for those absences

AND YES THE BLACK THING DOES HAVE SOME MEANING , JUST GO TO THE ADMINISTRATION AND SPECIALLY SUPPORT STAFF AND YOU WILL SEE HOW DARK IT IS AROUND THERE .

Thelusma and Arthur are both black. If he means "How dark it is" = alot of blacks; there are in fact alot more blacks in the fire administrative upper ranks than there was 10 years ago, but alot of it began under the previous anglo chief not chief kemp, so Im not sure what this guys point is but its out of context.

(1)MFD AT AN ALL TIME LOW MORALE (2)AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE TILL THEY CLEAN HOUSE.
1. This is true but mostly because Fire Rescue personnel were singled out by the Mayor and received 20-30% pay cuts last year. 2-3 times as much percent as other city employees. This has nothing to do with veldora, thelusma or anything like that. 2. not true , it has nothing to do with cleaning house of veldora, thelusma or anybody else for that matter

IF YOU THINK VELDORA IS THE ONLY ONE NOT IN THE OFFICE , JUST GO BY HQ AND PEEP IN , YOU WILL FIND NO ONE THERE PAST 1:30 PM.

Very exaggerated. The real heroes in the fire rescue department are definitely the firefighter/paramedics out on the street saving lives and definitely not the 20 or so behind desks shuffling papers, but the 1:30 part is an exaggeration. Most probably work longer days that they get paid for.

I'm glad we were able to get that cleared up. As our friend says, if Ms. Arthur isn't coming to work and being charged vacation time for her absence then it's not really "paid administrative leave" like our commenters have been suggesting.

Now, regardless of how the story of the City of Miami's former CFO Larry Spring questionable and perhaps illegal severance package became public, let's see what the folks over the City are going to do about it. Once again, congrats to our friends over at the Crespo-Gram report and Investigation Miami blog for the countless hours they put in to bring these stories to light.