It ain't easy writing this blog...

Throughout the last several years, we've often struggled with the subject matter of this blog.  Whether the story was about a crooked politician, dirty cop or other fraudsters that haven't been found out yet, it's tough writing about these people.  Each and everyone one of them has a family that for the most part may have nothing to do or even know about the nefarious schemes our subjects have been involved in yet by outing these folks we invariably do great harm to the people around them not to mention outing whatever crooked business they're engaging in.  So it's tough to write about some of our subjects over the years knowing the kind of collateral damage that will occur as a result of our work, nothing drove this point home more than watching the friends and family of then City of Miami assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur during her federal mortgage fraud trial.  It tore me up to watch them have to sit through the trial and ultimately watch her get convicted and sent off to jail, regardless, in my opinion, considering her position and how she abused her position, it was a story that needed to be told.  Perhaps she should have thought about her children before she engaged in a ten million dollar plus fraud?

Regardless, we're now working on a story involving a dirty cop who thinks nothing of manufacturing false police reports, fabricating evidence, etc.  When our story comes out, this cop is sure to loose his job and more than likely his law enforcement certification.  I've held off on putting this story together considering the impact it will have on his family, who more than likely have nothing to do with this guy being a piece of shit.  When considering the consequences of outing this guy, you have to take into account that this guy thinks nothing of writing bogus police reports and fucking with people simply because he can.  A dirty cop?  I think so.  Does he deserve to be outed?  What do you guys think?

FPL backed candidates in yesterdays South Miami Elections get TROUNCED!

The title says it all and our friends over at Eye On Miami said it best...

Incumbent South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard won reelection to a third term last night, with a galloping 62 percent of the popular vote. 1897 ballots were cast, representing 26 percent of eligible voters. Running for city commission, former mayor Horace Feliu -- a stand-in for Florida Power and Light -- lost to Walter Harris by a 20 point margin; the second time Feliu has been turned away by South Miami voters.

They left out Gabriel Edmund also trounced Donna Shelly for the commission seat that Valerie Newman vacated.  Congratulations to Mayor Stoddard, Commissioner Harris and Commissioner Edmund.

With that said, we were fortunate enough to obtain this video from the Newman/Feliu campaign headquarters that was taken just after the results came in...

Its election day in South Miami!

Hold on to your hats, it's election day over at the City of South Miami.  First and foremost we have the mayoral race where termed out city commissioner Valerie Newman is running against incumbent mayor, Phillip Stoddard.  There's also the race to fill the commission seat that Newman is vacating and commissioner Walter Harris is running for reelection against former city mayor and commissioner Horace Felieu.  

Unfortunately though, at least one of the candidates seems to have broken the law during the course of this election, I was ready to throw a post together detailing the crime the candidate was alleged to have committed but I was told that I should hold off as the police are investigating.  Oh well.  For the time being, we'll sit back and wait for the election results.

Michael Miller, co-publisher of Community Newspapers, offers an alternative view of the Horace Felieu campaign sign stealing incident.

Our friends over at Eye on Miami covered the Horace Felieu sign stealing incident yesterday on their blog.  Michael Miller, co-publisher of Community Newspapers and Horace Felieu's former employer gave this version of events in the blogs comments section...

MIchael Miller said... 

Here's what I heard: Horace and two other people were out campaigning and parked their car in a friends driveway.Upon exiting the car,Horace walked across the street and started talking to a gentlemen who was in his garage. Horace chatted for about 10 minutes about the election and about the gentlemen's dune buggy. 

At some point, Horace asked him about the Stoddard sign that was attached to the street sign.Horace pointed out the the sign was illegally placed on city property.The gentlemen said that it wasn't his and Horace asked if he could remove it. Which he did. Soon thereafter, the woman of the house objected to the removal and Horace suggested that if she wanted the sign, that it be moved off the public swale and placed on their own property. The women agreed and Horace carefully placed it on their own property and not on public property. 

Next..Back to where Horace had parked his car(across the street from the dune buggy.) Horace and two others were invited in and spent more than five minutes inside his friends home and they were told by the homeowner that the Walter Harris sign that was on the side of their property line did not belong to them and that they wanted a Horace sign.
Horace then went to the side neighbor and asked if the Harris sign belonged to them,which they denied. At their request, Horace put up his sign and the Harris sign was removed and given to them. 

And BTW, Horace's car did not have signs in it that belonged to Harris, Stoddard,or Obama nor Clinton or Christy 

So there ya go..Another way to look at that event.

Michael Miller

Essentially through his interpretation of events, Mr. Miller is calling William "Billy" Calcoa, the man who made the report to the police, a liar.  While most of his comment is hearsay, he does go on to state this part as fact:

And BTW, Horace's car did not have signs in it that belonged to Harris, Stoddard,or Obama nor Clinton or Christy

Oh, ok.  Glad Mr. Miller is taking inventory of what's in Mr. Felieu's trunk, thanks for that.

Even if you take Mr. Miller's word for how things happened, the one thing that Mr. Felieu can't escape is his role as a wanna be code enforcement officer who's cruising the streets of South Miami pointing out what he alleges are illegal signs.  Once again, from Mr. Miller's version of events...  

Horace pointed out the the sign was illegally placed on city property...and Horace carefully placed it on their own property and not on public property.

Honestly, WTF?  This part's my favorite though...

So there ya go..Another way to look at that event.

Ok, granted, that is another way to look at the event but so is blaming the whole thing on aliens, only thing is, the alien version of events is more probable than Mr. Miller's!

City of South Miami former mayor and current candidate for city commissioner, Horace Feliu, accused of stealing campaign signs.

Talk about WTF?  A South Miami citizen has reported former mayor and city commission hopeful, Horace Feliu, to the police for ripping off campaign signs!  WTF?!  What makes this allegation even more bizarre is that the person who allegedly witnessed Mr Feliu stealing the signs said he was stealing Mayor Stoddard’s signs for the mayor race, a race that Feliu isn’t even running in?!  Take a look at the report as it was given to the South Miami police…

  City of South Miami former mayor and current candidate for city commissioner, Horace Feliu, accused of stea...

City of South Miami mayoral candidate, Valerie Newman, is a racist.

Ever since we started covering the goings on over at South Miami, we've consistently heard stories of off handed racist remarks made by current city commissioner and now mayoral candidate Valerie Newman.  Whether its a comment disparaging Jews or blacks, there's plenty of rumors running around about different racially insensitive remarks made by Commissioner Newman, problem is that most of these comments were made in person and have been hard to prove.  That is till now, one of our readers forwarded us a video which contains a copy of an email where Commissioner Newman explicitly says "screw the black vote".  Take a look for yourselves, here's the email...

In case you missed it, here it is...

The video goes on to give several more examples of Commissioner Newman behaving "rude, boorish and tyrannical ", take a look for yourselves...



Screw the black vote, huh?  I suspect Commissioner Newman is going to be in for a nasty surprise come election day.

A quick look at the mayor candidates in South Miami's upcoming election.

The Miami Herald did a pretty good piece that in my opinion went unnoticed regarding the mayoral candidates in South Miami's upcoming election.  Here's a few quick quotes from the three candidates...

From incumbent City of South Miami mayor, Phillip Stoddard...

“Professionalism is important, but so is neighborliness,” Stoddard said. “A really big issue for me is corruption. The government doesn’t work if people don’t trust it, so it’s really critical in our small city.”

Fair enough.  It's unfortunate that in a state where our own congressman Alan Grayson claims that we have "more corrupt officials than alligators" that we don't have more like public officials fighting governmental corruption.

Next up we have political newcomer Rodney Williams.  Mr Williams who is currently a barber in South Miami has had a few brushes with the law in the past and want's to use his run ins with the law to help his fellow citizens...

“My arrests and situations happened,” Williams said. “I did some things and got arrested as a person not afraid to speak his mind. Some officers take offense to this. The officers have a job to do. My goal now is to encourage the younger guys to understand the law and if you are ignorant to the law, to just keep your mouth closed.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/28/3898316/seven-candidates-running-for-south.html#storylink=cpy

Ok, that reminds me of this like minded attorney's business card, check the fine print...

Last but not least we have current city commissioner, Valerie Newman, who is also running for the Mayor's seat, unfortunately, the Herald article only gives us this...

"Newman declined to be interviewed by the Miami Herald."

That's strange?  Why wouldn't a candidate in an election only days away refuse to be interviewed by the regions largest newspaper?  In lieu of a remark from candidate Newman, the Herald was kind enough to leave us with this bit about the esteemed commissioner...

In 2011, the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust dismissed a slew of complaints against Newman, but issued a letter telling her that "rude, boorish and tyrannical behavior by elected officials, while perhaps not actionable under an ethics code, is inexcusable nevertheless."

That's nice, "rude, boorish and tyrannical behavior", those make for some especially endearing qualities for a public servant!

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/28/3898316/seven-candidates-running-for-south.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/28/3898316/seven-candidates-running-for-south.html#storylink=cpy