Just how bad are things over at the City of Miami?

Could they possibly be this bad?

I've seen this City of Miami Fire Department Suburban several times this week with a busted out rear window covered with a plastic sheet.  Could things really be this bad that they can't afford to replace the rear window?  Overall I've noticed that the city's fire trucks and equipment were worn out and ragged out looking, either really dirty or with the paint faded out so bad that they no longer look red but more like a dark pink.  Could the city be so tight on money that they can't afford to keep up their equipment any longer?  I know the rest of their vehicles already look like shit, especially the police cars, but generally the fire trucks and assorted fire department vehicles are generally in good shape.

On another note, I'm sure you've all heard that former North Miami Mayor Beach Myron Rosner has been arrested on corruption and grand theft charges.  What's most interesting about this case is that it arose because of a blogger named  Stephanie Kienzle who's been after Mr. Rosner for years through her blog named Voters Voice.  Congrats to Stephanie, good work.

We'll leave off with another scandal that's rocked the Miami Dade Criminal Court system over the last few weeks, the story of the leopard print underwear.  In this case a public defender named Anya Cintron Stern decided to take photos of her clients underwear and post it on her facebook page.  From the Miami New Times story...

The family of defendant Fermin Recalde, who stands accused of a 2010 Hialeah murder, dropped off a bag of clothes to wear during trial. Public defender Anya Cintron Stern apparently thought the leopard-print man-briefs included in the bag were hilarious, and posted a photo of similar briefs on Facebook with a caption insisting they weren't "proper attire for trial." One of Cintron Stern's friend tipped off the legal system. She was fired and the case ended in mistrial.

What a horrific situation for the defendant, rather than concentrate on defending him the attorney somehow finds time not only to take photos of his underwear but then has the audacity to publicly post photos of said underwear on facebook. I'm glad she got fired.

Illegal gaming machines are illegal...

No shit?  Sounds like a pretty stupid title for today's post right?  Of course illegal gaming machines are illegal!  

In case you forgot, the expert witness who examined over a hundred of these illegal gaming machines (AKA maquinitas) concluded that not only were the machines indeed nothing more than slot machines whose outcome had nothing to do with the players skills and because of the way they were configured, they were designed to cheat the poor folks that were playing them.  From the report...

This morphing permits the machine's computer to defeat any attempt at skill, and to deliver an outcome that was chosen in advance by the computer. Not only is this machine designed and manufactured specifically for the purpose of gambling; it is also designed to cheat the customer.

OK, I'm sure by now you all get it and are sick of hearing about how the machines are illegal, etc, etc, etc...

Let's forget about the machines being illegal for a moment, forget about the fact that they're designed to screw the players and the fact that they circumvent any revenue generating taxing scheme for the city or state.  Back during the summer of 2010, City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado championed an ordinance to regulate coin operated amusement machines which in essence was a ploy to legalize the maquinitas that we've become so fond of talking about.  If you bought into Regalado's theory, since the maquinitas are nothing more than coin operated "amusement machines" rather than have them scattered about the city, his plan was to create a law that required each and everyone of these machines to be licensed and by doing so creating an additional revenue stream for the city.  Check out how he pitched it to the city commission back in June 24, 2010...

Mayor Tomás Regalado:  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission.  FR.2 is an ordinance on first reading.  I would tell you that this ordinance, the final product, is the result of several month [sic] working with the Law Department, with the Finance Department, and the Administration to have this ordinance in place.  The reason that we did a new approved moratorium on the sale of stickers or license for coin-operated machines -- and this moratorium will be in place until September -- is precisely because we went -- we were working on this ordinance and it needed a lot of research.  We met with the chief of Police.  We met with the Finance Department; of course, the Law Department was there.  We also met with the representative of Magic City Casino that will be opposing this ordinance.  However, I think that we need to hear from the Finance Department because what this ordinance does is rectify a process that has been wrong for the last years.  We -- if we pass this ordinance, we will know exactly where each machine is; now, we don't.  In the past, there were some machines that were seized, but at the end, the courts ruled one way or another.  And there's still hundreds of machines in the City of Miami.  

OK, so now the Mayor wants to lump together these maquinitas with all other types of coin operated machines and license them, therefore in his eyes, the maquinitas are no different than say a pinball machine or a coin operated PacMan machine.  He goes on...

Mayor Regalado: But if I may, Commissioner, 90 percent of the ordinance is to regulate the machines because now we don't know where the machines are.  Actually, I think the Manager went and look at a number of the machine and called the Finance Department, and he can -- they couldn't say where that machine was because it was one of the hundreds of the stickers that are running around.  If we do this ordinance, then we will know where each machine, each stickers belongs to, what address, and who pulled that permit.  If an inspector or a police officer goes and see that the machine has been altered, because it has to be altered to use that machine for gambling purposes, then there will be a civil fine of $500 to the person that operate the business.  And there's also a caveat that could be included that if a business is operating a gambling machine, then the City has the right to pull the occupational license, which is an extreme measure, but it's part of the regulation.  So the other thing is that now we do not have the manpower to monitor those machines.  They're everywhere.  But if we do this ordinance, then Finance will have the possibility of having their inspector checking each of the places and also checking occupational license, which many in the City don't have.  We have -- I mean, we have a list officially of 13 -- 14,311 occupational license for business [sic] in the City of Miami.  I imagine that there are more that don't have occupational license.  I've seen one, at least.  I've seen one business operator with no license at all.  And we do not have the manpower to go door-by-door.  But I just think that we have several options.  We have the options of keeping the moratorium, not selling any license; keeping the process as it is, selling $480 and you get all the stickers; or changing the Code so we can regulate more, and we could use the revenue to check on the machines.  Actually, we're not condoning or inciting this kind of practice because it's already there.  I mean, in the past, there were a group of police officers that every night went to cafeterias and they took down some of the machines.  Some of the people went to court.  City, I believe, won two cases.  City lost, as you know, several cases.  Many cases were dismissed.  So many, many cases were dismissed because of the arrests that were made that were not good arrests and all that.  So this is the intent to regulate.  

Whatever the fuck ever.  According to this new plan, the machines are all going to get licensed and not only will the city enjoy the revenues from these licenses but according the mayor, the city will also know where each and everyone of the machines are for whatever that's worth.   He concludes with this...

 And I do understand what you are going to hear from Magic City Casino.  You know, they have a casino, but it's different.  You get money and you get -- and the machines are not supposed to give you back.  It's illegal.  It's in the ordinance.  It's in the affidavit.  And anybody who does that will be fined and the machine will be confiscated.  So I just wanted to state that.  

Huh?  Does that make any sense to you?  Try it again...

And I do understand what you are going to hear from Magic City Casino.  You know, they have a casino, but it's different.  You get money and you get -- and the machines are not supposed to give you back.  It's illegal.

I'm not even going to try to make sense of that.  So let's disregard the fact that the machines the mayor is talking about in this ordinance are illegal and for the sake of argument lets say that they're nothing more than coin operated machines that are for amusement purposes only.  By licensing these machines and making their owners pay some sort of tax, in the eyes of our mayor and the City of Miami, these machines are now magically legal.  That's all well and good if you can overlook the fact that the mayor has essentially given a free pass to all the maquinita owners.  So what's this ordinance from nearly two years ago have to do with our story?  Old news you say?  Correct, it is old news, in fact the owners of these "maquinitas" have had two years to get licenses for their machines and therefore theoretically, the City of Miami by now has been collecting at least two years worth of license revenues from the machines that are littered all over the city.  


All good right?  All would be good if that was really the case, let's go back for a moment and take a look at those machines located in the first floor of the building that houses the Spanish radio station, 670 AM "La Poderosa" that we talked about a few days ago, if you remember, we found three "maquinitas" in the cafeteria that's located on the buildings first floor.  Take a closer look at the machines again and see if you can spot any of those coin operated amusement license decals that the mayor was championing back in the summer of 2010...

Would you look at that?  Not a single decal, sticker or any sort of license for these machines from the City of Miami!  In fact, the only sticker of any sort on these machines is this one...

Of course the machines are for amusement purposes only!

So there you have it, unless the City of Miami licenses are affixed beneath these machines, they appear to be operating illegally.  Even under the mayor's goofy licensing scheme where the machines would be legal, without the licenses whether they're games of skill or games of chance, they're 100% illegal because they're not properly permitted!  LOL!  So much for the mayor's ordinance and all the additional revenue it was supposed to bring the city...

In search of the elusive Maquinita....

Here we are talking about those pesky maquinitas again.  Their natural habitat always seemed to be in the nastiest neighborhoods of our lovely city, they were usually found in the back of cafeterias and bodegas in the lowest income areas, sometimes out back, hidden behind racks or sometimes even in hidden back rooms.


That's all changed now though, under Mayor Tomas Regalado's administration, the machines have now worked their way out of the shadows and are featured prominently in the businesses where they're located.  What with the lax (non existent) enforcement of these machines by local police, why hide them?  Why not put them front and center so as to attract as many customers as possible?


Case in point, the lovely building located at 330 SW 27th Avenue, home to Spanish radio station 670 AM "La Poderosa".  Now this isn't some dank building out in the middle of the hood, "La Poderosa" is located in a nice class "B" office building in a decent neighborhood right on a major thoroughfare, take a look for yourselves...

Now, consider what this radio station means to the community, on any given day you'll find a bevy of local politicians going in and out of this station, some for their regular radio shows while others, both local and national, make the obligatory stop in order to garner votes from the Hispanic community.  So whether it's local Mayor Regalado or his daughter Raquel or perhaps someone like Congresswoman Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, let's say they've been on the radio for an hour or so and they're ready to leave the station and on the way down they decide to stop by the cafeteria that's on the first floor and grab something to drink or perhaps something to eat. What they'll find is a nice quaint cafeteria with halfway decent food...

 So you grab something to eat, have a seat and 

SHAZAM!

So there you have it!  Illegal gaming machines right out in the open, under the City of Miami's current administration they've made their way out of the shadows and are now out front and center, in this case in plain view in a building where some of the most powerful people in our city and perhaps our nation regularly walk by them!


What I want to know now is just how long will it take before these gaming machines find their way into City Hall?

What the City of Miami didn't want you to know about those gaming machines...

The whole mess regarding the gaming machines, aka maquinitas, that brought the City of Miami to its knees finally culminating in the firing of the city's police chief all comes down to whether or not the machines in question were games who's outcome was determined by the players skill or simply games who's outcomes were determined by the computers that operated the machines.  Seems like a stupid question right?  As far as I can tell, whether the outcome is controlled by the player or by the computer, as long as money goes into to the machines and some sort of payout comes out, who cares who controls it, in my book that's a damn slot machine!  As dumb as that whole premise may sound, City of Hialeah police chief Mark Overton even went on the record saying...

“If it’s a game of skill or has some element of skill in it then it isn’t illegal,” Overton explained. “And that basically is what the statute says.”

What in the FCUK does that mean?  From the very same interview, Jim Defede goes on to ask Chief Overton...

But where is the skill to hitting a button marked “credits” and then hitting a button marked “play”?  “I don’t know, that’s part of the issue,” Overton said.

HUH?!  If Chief Overton doesn't know, then why comment about something you have no clue about?  What are we left to think, that there's some sort of black magic that controls these damn machines?

So how the hell are you to figure out just what's behind these machines?  Say for example you're an embattled police chief who crusaded against these machines who then found himself embroiled in a lawsuit filed by the owners of the 500 or so of these machines that you had confiscated, what would you do to prove that these machines were indeed nothing but illegal slot machines?  A smart chief would go ahead and hire an expert witness to go ahead and analyze these machines scientifically and prove that indeed they're nothing but slot machines designed to bilk people out of their money.  Said chief would then go ahead and submit this report to the court at which point any defense the machine owner would have would promptly get blown out of the water.  Makes sense right?

Here's the problem, when the maquinita owners filed their lawsuits to get their machines back, it was police chief Miguel Exposito that was spearheading the campaign against the machines and their owners.  Chief Exposito and his crew went ahead and hired the expert, not just any expert but the foremost figure in the field of electronic gaming and gambling machines, D. Robert Sertell.  The City of Miami retained Mr. Sertell to do a forensic analysis of the maquinitas that were in the city's custody, from what I understand, he spent a week going over the machines.  But just a few months later, City of Miami Mayor, Tomas Regalado successfully ousted police chief Exposito, and just like that the campaign against the illegal gambling machines was over, but where does that leave those lawsuits the maquinita owners filed to get there machines back?   You'd think that the maquinita owners were shit out of luck, what with the results of the forensic analysis of their machines and all, right?

WRONG!  A funny thing happened after Chief Exposito and his crew were fired, it seems like the City of Miami didn't want to pay the expert witness for his work.  While the city did retain and pay Mr. Sertell for the week he examined the machines, somehow the city didn't see fit to pay him for his report!  Think about it for a moment, no report from the expert witness results in an instant win for the maquinita owners!  And what better way to make sure that the report doesn't make it to court?  Easy, DON'T PAY THE MAN WHO WROTE THE REPORT!  Brilliant!

So there you have it, another day in the City of Miami.  The powers that be decided to protect their friends and campaign contributors that owned the maquinitas by directing the city not to pay the expert witness whose report would have destroyed any chance they had of getting their gaming machines back.  Fucking brilliant.  

It would have been a perfect plan if it wasn't for a private citizen who couldn't sit by and watch this bullshit, a private citizen who pulled several thousands of dollars out of his own pocket and paid for the report himself and was then kind enough to forward us a copy of the report...

LOL!  We'll discuss further on Monday...

No really, whatever happened to all those maquinitas?

Remember all that fuss over those damn machines a few years back?  Check out the story Jim Defede did a while back...

The war that erupted between then police chief Miguel Exposito and City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado ultimately ended up costing the chief and most of his command staff their jobs.  And worse, the folks that were arrested for having these machines in their businesses ended up winning the criminal cases that were filed against them.  So what about the machines?  The word on the street was that the City of Miami PD had several million dollars worth of these machines locked up in their warehouses and according to what we were told, the owners of these machines were going to stop at nothing to get their machines back.  With the chief out, it seemed like a slam dunk, in fact these documents from our friend Al Crepso's website seem to indicate that the machines did end up going back to the businesses where they were taken from...

There you have it, two court orders ordering the City of Miami PD to return Mr. Abdelhamid Machour's machines as well as the money that was contained inside them.  End of story right?  At least according to the coverage the local media was giving us, it was the end of the story, that is until you check the court docket for case #M09037660, it turns out that things didn't go quite the way the maquinita owners wanted to, from the docket...

From what the docket tells us, the order that we posted above were vacated and as recently as 6/2/11, the motions by the maquinita owners to get there machines back have been denied therefore all those gaming machines are still in the possession of the City of Miami PD.  Strange isn't it?  If these machines really were for amusement purposes only, why haven't the owners gotten them back yet?  Something's haywire here, we'll have to go down to the courthouse today and see what we can find...

Whatever happened to those pesky maquinitas in the City of Miami?

Everyone remember those maquinitas that created such a fuss over at the City of Miami?  Who could have forgotten those illegal gaming machines that were at the center of the war between the City's mayor, Tomas Regaladoo and it's police chief, Miguel Exposito which ultimately lead to his firing by the City Commission.  Many allege that these gaming machines which the city claims are for "amusement purposes only" are nothing more than quasi legal gambling machines whose owners provide cash payouts once in a blue moon to the poor schmucks that empty their pockets into them as evidenced by this video from the Miami New Times...

We're going to talk about these machines that litter our city and the ongoing legal war regarding these machines over the next few days, in the mean time, check out these photos...

No big deal, just a couple of guys in the city of Miami unloading some gaming machines aka "maquinitas" from the back of a trailer...

Now, here are the same folks repairing those same machines they were unloading earlier and now the best part, they're doing all of this in front of one of these guys...

LOL!  All this going on right in plain view and in front of a City of Miami cop no less!  Back during the Chief Exposito's administration, cops were going after these machines and their owners now it seems like under the currents chief's reign, the owners and operators of these machines operate with relative impunity!


More tomorrow...

Crime in the City of Miami up by 10.7%!

Amazing isn't it?  The Miami Herald reports that "Crime rate drops slightly statewide and in Miami Dade, rises in Broward" yet the completely ignore the fact that the crime rate in the very city their headquarters are located in has jumped by 10.7%!  Take a look at the statistics from the Herald's own story...

You can find the FDLE report that the story is based on here.  No matter how you cut it, crime in the City of Miami has gone through the roof under Chief Manuel Orosa, blame it on whatever you want, whether it's pay cuts, drastic reductions in the tactical robbery units, etc, Chief Orosa owns this embarrassing statistic.

What I find even more alarming is the refusal of the Herald to report on this black eye for the Regalado/Orosa administration while taking the time to slam Broward county whose crime rate only went up 3.5%!  WTF guys?

Meanwhile back at the City of Miami...

Forgive me folks, I've been sick as a dog and haven't been able to attend to the blog over the last couple of days.  While we're doing our best to recuperate, take a look at our friend Al Crespo's site where he's been discussing how the City of Miami somehow managed to miss it's payroll a few weeks back.  Considering the overwhelming majority of employees over at the city aren't fat cats making six figure plus salaries, most of the folks over there are hardworking people living paycheck to paycheck on menial salaries, one can only imagine how devastating it must have been for them to have missed a paycheck.  

Considering how many employees must have been ticked off about not getting paid and the financial turmoil the city is in, does City Manager Johnny Martinez's choice of vehicles to drive to work give you any kind of indication about his mindset?  Take a look at Mr. Martinez's ride...

Nice.  While the city is in financial turmoil and the budget is being balanced on the backs of the city's employees, the City Manager rolls into work in a $100k+ BMW.  Martinez's choice of vehicles only tells me one thing...

Who cares whether or not Martinez has a $100k+ car or not, but why take it to work when you're asking the city employees to make tremendous sacrifices in order to balance your budget?  Even worse after you've managed to screw up and missed paying them?  Couldn't he have had someone give him a ride or take a city vehicle over to City Hall?  I've always been told it's all about appearances, especially when you employee people who make less than you.  Why in the world would you want to flaunt a vehicle like this that's worth three or four times more than the majority of your employees make in a year?  Like I said, it just seems like the people in the upper echelons of the City of Miami just don't give a fuck.