MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

Former city commission whenever someone tried to criticize its members and its administration

FIGHTING ENTRENCHED BUREAUCRACY IN MIAMI BEACH

Jose Smith, the powerful city attorney of the City of Miami Beach, was provided with an opportunity to answer terminated fire inspector David Westons allegatio ns about the involvement of his office in Westons wrongful termination on trumped up ethics charges after he persisted in reporting millions of dollars in what he called missing moneys. Smith categorically denied any involvement of his office whatsoever although the public record easily available to him belied his statement, and he would rely on that record in his communications to the city commission. His initial denial was indicative of mendacity or gross negligence. Smith, apparently fearing exposure, contacted a third party, Kim Stark, the editor of the SunPost, a journal that does not employ David Arthur Walters, the freelance author investigating the Weston affair, in a characteristic attempt to discredit him with that editor. He implied that he had also contacted the editor of City Debate, J.P. Morgan, the publisher of Sins of South Beach, with whom Smith went to high school. Morgan subsequently denied that Smith had been in touch with him. Smith also implied that he had discussed Walters with other members of the community, and that Walters had gotten a bad reputation, giving Walters the impression that he was yet another subject of a Smithsonian smear campaign. Walters, after Smith contacted the SunPost editor to defame him, submitted his exhaustive investigative report, Saving Miami Beach Government from Hellfire, to the editor free as a public service. She expressed interested in it, but she did not run it, we believe, because she is more afraid of Smith than Smith is of her possible publication of a fair and balanced report involving him.
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That was the second time that Smith had contacted the SunPost to denigrate him, Walters said. I believe Smiths behavior when criticized demonstrates a pattern of governance by insult and intimidation, and a tendency to greet any criticism of your official conduct with defamatory statements, including accusing me of defamation although I had said nothing at all, in one case, or had simply stated the truth or mere opinions on the facts in other instances. He immediately attacks the character of anyone who asks embarrassing questions or criticizes his official behavior, instead of just addressing the facts, hence his argumentum ad hominem is generally fallacious. Nowhere did I see an attempt on Smiths part at conciliation, an attempt to win opposing talent to his side before trying to ruin them, a tactic well known to godfathers, or simply assigning them to do something on your behalf for the sake of the city. Walters recalled that his grammar school teacher assigned him to walk the kids around the block and take sick or unruly kids home to keep him occupied because he was restless. He said something called his reading level caused him to experience class as unbearably boring. Some of Smiths intemperate behavior was in response to a little note had Walters sent along to him with a copy of retired firefighter Jim Llewellyns formal whistleblower complaint. In that note, Walters said he did not know if the complaint had been filed in court, but he had noticed that it included a complaint about officials similar to Westons. Mr. Walters: Please see attached, Smith responded via email. The complaint was dismissed by Judge Wilson as frivolous. The 3rd District Court of Appeal affirmed the dismissal (P.C.A. without opinion). The grievance was also denied. It was all BS. Weston never even bothered to file a grievance or a lawsuit. Have you confirmed if any of it is true? Keep digging. Keep trying. Youre developing quite a reputation in town. Maybe the National Enquirer will p rint our emails! Have you no shame? Jose I do not know why Judge Wilson would dismiss a lawsuit that Llewellyn never even bothered to file, said Walters, or why the appellate court would bother to affirm a dismissal of a lawsuit that had not even been filed. The attachment Smith sent along was a memo to the commission stating that the matter had been dismissed on technical grounds: the statute of limitations had run out, and the plaintiff had exhausted his opportunities during the grievance process. The rules are complex, as he should know; those defenses are rather common in such cases, and are frequently successful. Nowhere in his memo to the commission did I see a determination that the complaint was frivolous and/or that the plaintiff and his attorneys were sanctioned for frivolity. I will ask the clerk at the court to pull the record to see if Smith is lying about that. Mr. Llewellyn reviewed Smiths message to Walter s about him, and sent Smith an email stating that Smith had resorted to insulting his inquirer instead of addressing the facts Llewellyn had asserted about public corruption. He asked why Smith had no shame, and how he could sleep at night:

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Dear Mr. Smith: After I read your recent comments regarding my old whistle blower law suit, (attached here), I must respond to set the record straight. 1. You wrote that my suit was BS. No sir, failures and corruption regarding public safety matters are dangerous and a disgrace. As an attorney, you know very well that court decisions are not always indicative of what the truth represents, especially when it involves whistle blower suits which are notoriously difficult to advance. Furthermore, as you know, statutes of limitation issues were involved in the courts ruling against me. While my suit may not have been successful in recouping unjustly lost compensation, the details spelled out in it are backed by proof, especially dealing with the citys failures to ensure honest and effective government in the realm of life safety. You simply deny these facts and other truths of the matter. 2. You actually seemed more interested in insulting and denigrating the person doing the inquiry which prompted your comments regarding my suit than you do in acknowledging the truth. Citizen activists usually operate using their own time and resources. While some in government may be irritated by their efforts the truth is they play a critical role in keeping government honest which has obviously been a problem in Miami Beach for many years. Their role is especially vital when government managers seem more interested in self preservation and political considerations than positive reform, all the while being paid handsomely by the very same taxpayers they have betrayed. 3. Lastly, you seemingly fail to recognize the irony of your pathetic denial. Consider that at least as far back as my efforts to fight corruption almost 10 years ago, (see Up in Flames link below) Miami Beach government managers have presided over continuing gross failures of public trust including critical issues of public safety and well being. One would have to be dishonest or simply out of touch with reality to deny otherwise after so many years of arrests, investigations, critical audit findings etc. And that strikes at the heart of the problem of what some people, including myself have been saying for so long. Miami Beach management has enabled corruption by circling the wagons and punishing those willing to speak out instead of acknowledging the truth, just as you are doing with the comments regarding my suit. How do you and other so called leaders sleep at night? Do you ever have trouble looking in the mirror? How do you rationalize away the fact that Miami Beach management, of which you are a part, has repulsively failed to provide honest government for many years, resulting in unnecessary endangerment and losses to Miami Beach residents and visitors.

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You asked the person making the inquiries about my suit if he had no shame. Given the indisputable evidence of extensive corruption that has occurred under your and the rest of Miami Beach government managements watch, along with the continuing resistance to acknowledging the truth for the sake of positive reform, I must ask. Have you no shame? Sincerely, Jim Llewellyn Miami Beach Firefighter/Inspector Retired

Smith replied characteristically: Dear Mr. Llewellyn: Thank you for your tirade about public corruption. To date, you have never provided proof regarding any of the allegations made in your whistleblower complaint. If you had any, did you ever bother going to the State Attorneys office? Or the FBI? Or MBPD? Or to me? Why now, 7 years after you left the city. Are you still holding grudges? What I did find interesting was a very telling Grievance Reply Form, dated March 31, 2006 from Linda Gonzalez, Labor Relations Director. It describes, in specific detail, why your grievance was denied and refers to numerous personality issues, insubordination, disruptiveness, hostility, paranoia, and job burnout. It is hard for me to fathom how all the various city officials named in the report (including your own union representatives) were involved is some huge conspiracy to corrupt the fire inspection process. Why did you not appeal? Call me nave but it just does not make any sense. Remember, I was a City Commissioner during the time you made those allegations. You never spoke with me and I never heard about any of this until after you went to the New Times. During the 8 years I sat on the City Commission, I never heard of anyone pressuring a fire inspector not to cite a property owner. If I had, I would have gone straight to the FBI. So, yes sir, I do sleep very well at night, thank you very much. Jose Smith

Walters took Smith to task for his statements in a communication dated March 19, 2013:

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Instead of addressing the facts Jim alleged in his complaint, you addressed your correspondent in an insulting manner, strewing red herrings to distract attention from your negligence. Your reference to the personality issues published by the labor relations director on a very telling Grievance Reply Form, which appears to be a typical or formal assertion in many grievance cases, are very telling of what I feel is a goosestepping tendency to deem anyone who criticizes government or fights city hall as criminally insane. Since medieval church clerics invented standard forms so the illiterate faithful could do business in a legal way, we all too often find professional thinking as well as prose limited to hackneyed forms. Indeed, your note to Mr. Llewellyn demonstrates that formal lack of intellectual ingenuity. I have no doubt that if you had your way, I would be cast into a padded cell without pen, paper, internet access, and visitors. Solzhenitsyn had much to say about that approach under Stalin. I recall that a journalist named Savinkov wrote an article entitled En Route which was published in a professorial newspaper. Because Savinkov was actually en route, the elderly editor was arrested. He was not charged with slander for the journalists statement that, "One has to be criminally insane to affirm seriously that the international proletariat will come to our aid." Rather, the paper was charged with and closed down forever for attempting to influence peoples minds. It is no wonder that the editor of the SunPost feared publishing anything I wrote after receiving your tirades about me; she may not be familiar with the Soviet gulag but she is certainly aware of what happened under the Nazis, and may be wary of such a powerful bureaucrat like you, who either runs or is chief advisor of the administrative gulag, especially given the fact that your defamations include accusations of defamation, with implied threats to file SLAPP suits that might very well put the innocent paper out of business due to the expense to defend the suits the outcome of which could never be certain given judicial prejudices, a tactic employed by Montgomery, Alabama, Police Commissioner L.B. Sullivan et al in a nearly successful attempt to destroy the New York Times over a full page ad appearing in the paper Feb. 26, 1960. And speaking of fascists and communists, have you no shame in saying to Mr. Llewellyn, Why now, 7 years after you left the city. Are you still holding grudges? Should the Jews just forget the pogroms they suffered since the murder of a messiah on charges of blasphemy, including the recent burnt offering to the terrorist all mighty, the holocaust under the Nazis? Can an abused woman, child, slave, prison, or employee forget the abuse and harbor no grudges, after having memorials of abuse literally beaten into them, simply because a messiah advocates forgiveness and loving ones enemies and going along with the Romans? Some rabbis say not, and even advocate hating enemies unto death
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unless they sincerely repent and make suitable amends, for to ignore evil is the greatest evil of all: He who ignores evil is good for nothing. Mr. Llewellyn may not know that your office liaisons with law enforcement agencies. He certainly is not aware at this time that I myself on several occasions have brought to the attention of your office for investigation or forwarding to law enforcement information about what may have been criminal conduct including a suspected conspiracy to defraud the city of permit fees and its ability to regulate conduct to protect the public safety. To the best of my knowledge, your office did not take up the issues with any law enforcement agency. My belief is based, however, on knowledge limited to the fact that your office was generally unresponsive with few exceptions: on one occasion you personally declined to inquire into corruption because it was an urban myth; on another occasion your office accused me of misstatements regarding my understanding of an official alteration of a building department record, yet did not respond to my rebuttal; at another time you offered to walk me over to the F.B.I., an offer I initially interpreted as a typical effort to treat people who complain about officials like criminal suspects. Given the widespread urban myth about retaliation, I also feared that you might use your police liaison to retaliate against your critics, but dismissed that notion because of my faith in the greatly improved police department, and because I assumed that the attorneys in your office had consciences independent of your whims, and would not resort to unethical behavior to support your vindictive campaigns. Let me make clear here that I have admired some but not all of their representations of the city: Nothing is perfect, but practice may tend to perfection. And you say you have difficulty fathoming how there could be a huge conspiracy when you yourself, as commissioner, together with other city officials had to settle a complaint filed in federal court alleging your conspiracy to deprive a local businessman of his constitutional rights, and then the settlement was referred to as a dismissal of an unwarranted complaint did you say frivolous? The complaint quotes the Ethics Commission as saying its efforts to obtain information were frustrated, and that there was an appearance of impropriety at least. In common-parlance and non-euphemistic language, the impropriety would be called extortion. Oddly enough, given your frequent disavowal of your powerful role as the attorney whom the commission would appoint to represent the city, and your inclination to report misconduct when you were a commissioner, it was City Manager Jorge Boss Gonzalez who allegedly advised the businessman to sue you and the other conspirators, including the then current city attorney, and it appears that the businessman would have won that suit. Indeed, this and other incidents make a mockery of your dismissive references to conspiracy theories and urban myths.

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Now you have said that you would have, as commissioner, gone straight to the F.B.I. with allegations such as Mr. Llewellyns. It is very telling that you did not say you would do so as a city attorney. It appears that the role of a city attorney differs from that of a commissioner: that you are under no legal or ethical obligation as an in-house attorney, except in certain peculiar circumstances, to turn in your clients, the high city officials, or to investigate or advise them, as you have stated to me in writing, unless they ask for an investigation or advice. Instead, you are bound to defend them. As you know, I have objected to your interpretation of the Charter in that regard, and have urged you to be more proactive, to represent not the entrenched bureaucrats but the city itself. Finally, you have presented Mr. Llewellyn with a copy of your and the interim city managers report to the city commission in response to the inflammatory New Times article that shed some light on the negligence if not the probable corruption of members of the previous administration. I have offered additional information to the commission in respect to Mr. Weston: my Hellfire investigation along with a small portion of the file in support thereof. I have elsewhere stated my perspective that a clean break must be made from previous maladministration. We now have a new city manager who has far more experience actually practicing law than you do, and he claims to have a far keener and broader perspective on the issues crucial to improving the administration of the city including the entrenched bureaucracy. We had some doubts because he seemed overqualified, someone who should run for a slot in the state or national legislature; further we worried that he is a political insider in the county, and that what the city needed was fresh blood from outside, not a homeboy who, as far as we know, went to school with you and some of the commissions. Of course local savvy, on the other hand, may be helpful, and the man has been out of town for a Harvard education and practice in the national capital and in the greatest of all cities. Perspective, understanding moral and criminal corruption and entrenched bureaucracy, writing legislation, and heading committees is important, but who is going to actually enforce the laws and regulations, make sure that complaints are carefully investigated and if found meritorious acted upon instead of shelved under protection of the discretion of sovereign immunity, i.e. tyranny? And who is going to get rid of the entrenched bureaucracy? Perhaps you can help the new city manager get rid of the entrenched bureaucracy. If you do, I may sit down and shut up. Sincerely, David Arthur Walters
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Our review of the Grievance Reply Form does demonstrated that its author, Labor Relations Director Linda Gonzalez, was inclined, undoubtedly at the behest of city officials, to cast Llewellyn as a psychological misfit rather than focus on the factual merits of his claim. Thats all they had, Llewellyn said in response to our query. Instead of replying to Walters, Smith sent an email derogating him to Stark at the SunPost despite being advised on several occasion that Walters is not employed by that paper. Walters, in another letter to the City Attorney, mentioned the Llewellyn affair:

And the Lord said to Cain: Where is thy brother Abel? And he answered, I know not: am I my brothers keeper?

March 23, 2013 Jose Smith, Esq. City Attorney CITY OF MIAMI BEACH Subject: Your Insolence Mr. Smith: Thank you very much again for bringing out the best in me.
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I condemn your attempts to personally insult me every time I question public officials including yourself in plain English. The following excerpt from my line of questioning conducted in an attempt to understand an aspect of due process culminated with yet another expression of your utter contempt for your inquirer: GRANADO: I have confirmed with the Office of the City Attorney that Florida Statute 166.041 (3) as well as City Charter Section 2.05 do not require (nor prohibit) a public hearing on a first reading of an ordinance. Thus, City Attorney's Offices states there is no "impropriety" if an ordinance is voted down on first reading without a public hearing. WALTERS: Thank you. Please email me a copy of that statement. GRANADO: I apologize, but I do not understand your question. WALTERS: I reiterate my request here because you may have misunderstood it: Please email me a copy of that statement. The statement I am referring to is the one made by the city attorney that the described procedure is proper. SMITH: Why dont you ask your question in simple English so that you can be understood. We do not understand gibberish. (sic) WALTERS: The Clerk announces to the City Commission at beginning of a hearing on the first reading of an ordinance, THIS NOT A PUBLIC HEARING. The interested party was not prepared for a public hearing, being informed that the public hearing will be at the second reading. The chair allows members of the public to speak on the subject. The city attorney has an interest in the subject matter, and advises that the ordinance should be voted down. The commission votes down the ordinance. Is that proper procedure? SMITH: You are still talking gibberish. The City Attorney does not advise commissioners on how to vote on an ordinance. The City Attorne ys ONLY interest is the best interest of the city. The City Attorney would recuse himself on ANY matter affecting his private interests. You, sir, are delusional! Unknown to Smith, Walters was investigating a claim made by businessman Leroy Griffith that Smith and other officials attempted to extort $30,000 from him in order for him to have access to the commission to obtain a liquor license, and that they had defrauded him into believing he would get a fair hearing of he dropped his federal suit against them and the city. Smiths statement does not make sense. First of all, his duties under Sec. 3.01 of the Charter of Miami Beach, which he does not seem to fully understand after serving as same since 2006, include (d) to attend all meetings of the City Commission, and (e) he/she shall recommend to the City Commission for adoption, such measures as he/she may deem necessary or expedient.

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What he would not adopt he would not recommend, and would no doubt express his opposition in one way or another. Now, then, on the one hand, he claims he does not advise commissioners; on the other hand, he says he would have to recuse himself instead of advising them on matters affecting his interest. We notice that, at a first hearing, held on September 9, 2009, which the clerk and mayor said was not a public hearing, Smith advised Commissioner Saul Gross not to answer Griffiths question as to what he had against him that would cause him and his family of commissioners to extort $30,000 from him just to get a hearing of his cause. The commissioners virtually covered their eyes, ears, and mouths when Griffith raised the subject. Although it was said that this is not a public hearing, w e notice that Smith tacitly advised the chair, at the last moment, to hear members of the public, starting with Jane Gross, the person whom Griffith had sued for libel and slander, who was standing eagerly by for that purpose as her husband looked on as commissioner. Anyone of average intelligence would not be surprised that a so-called impartial opinion from the City Attorney Office, which is led by Jose Smith, on the technical aspects of a proposed ordinance, as well as the handling of negotiations with its advocates, would have some influence on the commissioners votes, and that the opinion and the process leading up to it could be wittingly or unwittingly prejudiced. And the commissioners most likely heard Smiths televised statements, to the effect t hat Griffiths suit against Jane Gross was an attempt to blackmail the commission into getting him a liquor license. Their animosity against him for suing a commissioners family member was expressed at secret closed-door sessions, and the Ethics Commission would point out that they could have care less if some other member of the public had been sued. But to return to Walters letter to Smith: Your question is obviously a statement since you do not bother with a question mark. You imply that your contempt for me (and my ilk as you said on another occasion) is shared by the administration and the commission, since you, in your representative capacity, employ the plural pronoun, we.' I went to the clerk with my question about process after I received allegations that it has been abused by the city attorney, an expert in that process, because I figured the clerk was intimate with the process he sits in on. I did not direct my question to you because almost every answer you have provided to me in the past, no matter how innocently, is laced with a personal insult, and sometimes with threats of retaliation, including two that I referred to the Justice Department: The first time that you referred to how I would be gone from this community, I did not take it very seriously; but when you repeated it, I became concerned about the subtle implications; after all, I have lived in South Miami Beach on and off since 1970 and continuously since 2004 and have no plans on leaving. The clerk was not the only person to whom I posed questions on the process. The persons questioned were certain as to what has been customarily done by the
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commission, but not with its propriety. They referred to you, as if you were an infallible pope. But how do the lawyers or anyone else on the commission know that your answers are any better than those that would be provided by a Magic 8 Ball unless your office is subjected to some sort of peer review? As a layman I have my doubts, not because of a difference in opinion over law but because I have noticed several misstatements made by you, and personal prejudice and intemperate behavior that tends to interferes with good judgment. Your previous insults were far more intense than on this occasion, apparently because the askance begged concerned your attempts to control the special master system and other systemic opportunities to write off monies due to the city. You called my constructive suggestion that the write offs be accounted for and regularly reported moronic. Together with your secret police agent you waged a hateful campaign against one of the special masters, Babak Movahedi, who bucked your opaque system, trying to get him fired by replacing the current chief master with your favored colleague in order to use him as your instrument to accomplish your ends. You misstated if not misrepresented the involvement of your office in the dismissal of David Weston, a fire inspector who persisted in complaining about missing monies, by categorically denying that involvement, which the human resources director said would be improper. Mr. Westons files were purged of commendations and withheld from him for months, drawing the ire of City Clerk Robert Parcher. You used an unlicensed psychological analysis within a personnel file to discredit Jim Llewellyn, an esteemed fire fighter who blew the whistle on similar official conduct. He chastised you for your insulting behavior towards me, your second attempt to shame and defame me with an editor for a publication that I do not work for and occasionally submit freelance articles to. Mr. Llewellyn pointed out where you were mistaken, and said, in part: You actually seemed more interested in insulting and denigrating the person doing the inquiry which prompted your comments regarding my suit than you do in acknowledging the truth. Citizen activists usually operate using their own time and resources. While some in government may be irritated by their efforts the truth is they play a critical role in keeping government honest which has obviously been a problem in Miami Beach for many years. Their role is especially vital when government managers seem more interested in self preservation and political considerations than positive reform, all the while being paid handsomely by the very same taxpayers they have betrayed. How do you and other so called leaders sleep at night? Do you ever have trouble looking in the mirror? How do you rationalize away the fact that Miami Beach management, of which you are a part, has repulsively
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failed to provide honest government for many years, resulting in unnecessary endangerment and losses to Miami Beach residents and visitors. You asked the person making the inquiries about my suit if he had no shame. Given the indisputable evidence of extensive corruption that has occurred under your and the rest of Miami Beach government managements watch, along with the continuing resistance to acknowledging the truth for the sake of positive reform, I must ask. Have you no shame? You seem to believe that your best and perhaps only defense on this subject is the fallacious argumentum ad hominem typical of old-fashioned, Rambo-lawyers, whose conduct bar associations periodically condemn as unethical. There does seem to be a tendency for our public officials to be deaf, dumb, and blind when their personal conduct is questioned. Yet you are not remiss to do your best to publicly discredit and insult your questioners while the other officials, either because they are ladies and gentlemen, or wish to appear as such, would be respectful, or at least keep smartly silent. Any other city employee would be reprimanded or fired for such conduct, and a commissioner would lose respect among the electorate. That you have gotten away with this for long, and have even been awarded another lucrative employment contract by the commission, is very telling as to your real role in governing this town. It is no wonder that you wish to keep a low profile. Sometimes I believe the wrong boss was retired. But again I say that if you were willing to give up your insolent representation and/or personification of maladministration, repent of your overweening hubris, and embrace with respect and with suitable deeds the new and improved administration we hope for, I will be glad to commend you. Respectfully, David Arthur Walters Exhibits A. Smith-Llewellyn Public Email Record B. Jose Smith Rewarded C. Fighting Entrenched Bureaucracy in Miami Beach D. Showdown at High Noon in Miami Beach Secret Police Background E. Ramboism Unprofessional Ethics F. Unaccounted For City of Miami Beach Writeoffs a Potential for Corruption G. Hell on Wheels Bomber Lawyer H. City Attorney Misinterprets City Charter I. The Complaint of Complaints about Miami Beach Officials J. Saving City of Miami Beach Government from Hellfire
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Cadmus Slaying Dragon

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