North Miami: Still crazy after all these y̶e̶a̶r̶s̶ weeks.

No more wire hangersNow that the North Miami Beach election is over, I have plenty of time to keep tabs on my other favorite city.  Not surprisingly, things are still as crazy as ever in good ol’ North Miami.

As was possibly the case in North Miami Beach, there’s a pretty good chance that absentee ballot fraud may decide the outcome of North Miami’s District 4 race.  Nacivre “Charlie” Charles and the Queen of Corruption herself, Daphne Campbell, have been “campaigning” with Carpetbagger/Fake “Teacher” Carline Paul to make sure that people “vote correctly.”

Or else.

I’ve already heard stories of residents not receiving the absentee ballots that they requested from the Elections Department.

I’ve also heard from several people who showed up to vote in person, only to be told that they already voted by absentee ballot.

When she’s not poking her nose into other people’s mailboxes business, Scam Artist Carline Paul has been all over Haitian radio claiming that her opponent, Alix Desulme is stealing absentee ballots.  Ironically, Carline is falsely accusing him of the very illegal tactics she herself has been known to employ.

Allegedly,  of course.

Thanks to people like Carline and her campaign operative, Good Time Charlie, who has already been implicated in absentee ballot fraud in the past, North Miami elections have been tainted for years.  Everyone knows this, yet no one has been able to stop the fraudsters.

CharlieIn November of 2013, six months after Lucie Tondreau was elected as mayor, her office was raided in an attempt to uncover absentee ballot fraud after investigators received a lead that about 60 online ballot requests came from her computer.  The Miami Herald reported:

The Miami Herald has learned the requests were submitted for both the June mayoral runoff and the first round of the municipal election, which took place in May and featured seven mayoral candidates. None of the ballots were mailed because the Miami-Dade Elections Department flagged them as suspicious.

One voter, 68-year-old Sinmilia Jean-Louis, said she and her husband, Lismond, requested absentee ballots themselves, as they have for years.

Another voter, 24-year-old Mark Fils-Aime, said he has never requested an absentee ballot but has received them for multiple elections without ever knowing why — suggesting the practice of submitting ballot requests without voters’ permission has been going on for some time.

Apparently, it’s still going on.

Charlie was no angel to begin with.  The Miami Herald also noted:

Charles, 56, has had a varied career — landscaper, entrepreneur and truck driver. The last job landed him in the middle of a federal sting operation in 1999 at Miami International Airport. Charles was a truck diver for Sky Chefs, a company that provides food for flights. He and 58 other employees were accused of hiding what they thought was cocaine in food carts, garbage bags and carry-on luggage or taking advantage of their easy access to secure areas to transport the drugs off the planes. Charles was indicted on charges of conspiracy to import cocaine and heroin and conspiracy to distribute cocaine and heroin. The charges were later dropped.

Nacivre Charles, who was Lucie’s campaign treasurer, is also the president and director of NIC Investments, Corporation, which is still located in the building that housed Lucie’s former office.  In fact, until as recently as August 5, 2013, Lucie was listed as the treasurer of his company.

The Herald noted, “The mission of NIC Investment Corporation is unclear. North Miami city records show NIC, along with 10 other companies, was invited to bid on a city landscaping project earlier this year. NIC never responded to the invitation.”

While we all know where Lucie is residing now, her former campaign-mate has been free to continue doing what he does best – steer elections.  As the Herald also reported, Nacivre Charles is a political operative who “built a name for himself in political circuits, earning thousands of dollars during election season. He has worked on the campaigns of North Miami Councilwoman Marie Steril and State Rep. Daphne Campbell.”

Princess DaphneDuring this runoff campaign, Charlie is out there “working” with Daphne Campbell to get Carpetbagger/Fake Teacher Carline Paul elected, even though everyone knows she doesn’t even live in North Miami.

Despite the pleas for an end to absentee ballot fraud by radio host Rotschill Anderson and other prominent members of the community, the scams continue.  No matter how many times these organized crime rings are investigated by the authorities, both in North Miami and North Miami Beach, the perpetrators always seem to be one step ahead of the law.  Hopefully, the ring of fraudsters will eventually get caught, but in the meantime, honest and ethical candidates like Alix Desulme, who is running against Fake “Teacher” Carline, continue to face an uphill battle against an insidious criminal element.

Last November, Anderson told the Miami Herald, “When they do absentee ballot fraud they don’t consider it as robbing people of their vote.  To them they say they’re helping the community to vote.  That is what they claim.  They claim Haitians are not educated enough to order their own ballots, to fill them out.  They see themselves as the savior of absentee ballots.”

The same way Lucie saw herself as the savior of the mortgage industry, I imagine.

Just saying.

Until voters become aware of the scams and make sure they keep control of their own absentee ballots by filling them out in private and personally putting them into the mailbox, the criminals will continue to control election results.  I sincerely hope that North Miami District 4 voters are paying attention.

Unless authorities start taking voter fraud seriously, arrest the perpetrators, and vigorously prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, there will never be a free and fair election in North Miami.

Or North Miami Beach.

Never.

Meanwhile, in other North Miami news…

The Miami New Times reported yesterday that Biscayne Landing has reinvented itself.

Again.

In Biscayne Landings Mega-Development has a New Name, New Plans and Two Proposed Giant Lagoons, it was announced that the “former dump and Superfund site,” formerly known as “Biscayne Landing,” will now be known as “SoLeMia.”

Lipstick_pigThe article explained,

What exactly does that mean? Well, the “So” is for the Soffers, a family with a development company headed by son Jeffrey Soffer (AKA Mr. Elle Macpherson). They already own the Fontainebleau Hotel and Aventura Mall, two Miami landmarks. “Le” is for LeFrak, another family-run megadevelopment company based out of New York and headed by Richard LeFrak. You can probably figure out the “Mia” yourself.

To which I promptly responded with a comment on Facebook:

The Newest Biscayne LandingThe article doesn’t specify the price of one of SoLeMia’s 4,390 apartments, but I do know that you couldn’t pay me enough to actually live in a toxic wasteland.

Life’s short enough.

The biggest news out of North Miami, however, was that the nephew of former mayor Andre Pierre and the State Attorney’s Office reached a plea deal.

Ricardo Brutus was arrested in 2011 during an FDLE sting operation.  As reported by the Miami Herald, Brutus agreed to serve a 90 day jail sentence, followed by four years of probation, 250 hours of community service and a repayment of “$21,000 in administrative costs at a rate of $595 per month.”

The damning evidence was in the form of a “video that shows Brutus accepting $4,000 from Shlomo Chelminsky, a North Miami businessman who owns several properties. Chelminsky cooperated with the FDLE investigation and never faced charges,” according to the Herald.

In a newsletter sent out by Councilman Scott Galvin, who takes credit for “taking information to authorities and … working with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and State Attorney’s Office to root out illegal activity in North Miami,” he wrote, “I feel Brutus’ penalty is fair.  And though it took a long time to be handed down, it serves as additional notice that there is a price to pay for anyone breaking the law in our city.”

Oh, except for Shlomo Chelminsky, who got to walk for his co-starring role in the Ricardo Brutus arrest video.

The self-dubbed “King” of North Miami apartment buildings, however, doesn’t exactly have a squeaky clean rep.

Chelminsky was the defendant of a string of bankruptcy lawsuits in 2009 and 2010 for properties he owns in North Miami, Hollywood, Dania Beach, Pompano Beach, and West Palm Beach.

This is also the same Shlomo Chelminsky who is being sued by eleven tenants in one of his North Miami apartment buildings, who were displaced when the roof collapsed.  The lawsuit contends that “he knew about the damage to the complex but did not act swiftly or responsibly enough to make repairs.”  The complaint also alleges that the landlord threatened and intimidated tenants, who are mostly Creole speaking, by forcing them to sign waivers of liability under the guise that they were signing a receipt for the return of their deposit.

But … but … Councilman Galvin told the Herald that “there will be a price to pay for those who want to flaunt the rules in North Miami.”

Which rules are we talking about?

Ethics?

Election laws?

Parking violations?

rules are made to be brokenTake corruptocrat Police Chief Leonard Burgess, for example.  He allowed a rogue cop and a deranged dispatcher to keep their jobs, while claiming that North Miami’s horrific crime rate is “the same as the City of Aventura.”

Burgess also flat out lied in an email when he denied that he was “not involved” in the very sexual harassment incident which was, in fact, investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement when a complaint was filed against him for … sexual harassment.

The “price” Chief Lenny paid for flaunting the rules?

He got to keep on schmoozing with the café society of the local Haitian political scene.

He also got to keep his job.

Then there’s City Clerk Michael Etienne, who has also been known to flaunt the rules.  He continues to send out send out rude and inappropriate emails to anyone who crosses him.

Which is pretty much everyone.

He also allegedly  abused his position to make sure his opponent didn’t qualify to run against him.

The “price” Michael paid for flaunting the rules?

For one thing, he awarded himself not one, but two private parking spaces!

The first one is right on NE 8th Avenue, a public roadway.

Parking Space #1Because one parking space isn’t enough for His Royal Rudeness, Michael commandeered another one just steps away from the first, by creatively removing a bicycle rack and narrowing a disabled parking space so he could squeeze in a personal spot for his Mustang.

Parking Space #2And park even closer to City Hall.  I imagine his next parking space will be in the lobby.

Because he’s so damn important!

Oh, and also he gets to be City Clerk for another two years.

For her unethical – and possibly illegal – campaign/absentee ballot tricks, Carpetbagger/Fake “Teacher” Carline Paul, WHO DOESN’T EVEN LIVE IN NORTH MIAMI, might pay the “price” for flaunting the rules by “winning” the election.

She’ll also get her very own parking space.

Maybe even two.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”

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6 thoughts on “North Miami: Still crazy after all these y̶e̶a̶r̶s̶ weeks.

  1. 1. Just why can’t these people be disqualified in the very beginning since they don’t live in the area?
    2. Is it too much to do “background” checking before their names are on the ballots?

  2. as usual, youve summed up the scum ridden north miami landscape perfectly. 11 years now im waiting to see the city get tougher with code enforcement and come up with and DELIVER improvements along w dixie but resigned to think it just aint ever going to happen. im sure all the improvements on 135th east of biscayne are nice for those folks ( oh right senor galvin lived over there too ) – how about senor galvin showing some love for those of us who live near w dixie? how about cracking down on the in your face prostituion? the bums urinating and defacating in the alleys? public intoxication? yeah senor galvin loves to self congratulate but hes also awfully good at ignoring a big chunk of the area he is representing

  3. In this day and age of pre-voting, why should absentee ballots be allowed for people who live here? There should be a rule that they have to be mailed out of the area because the voter will not be able to vote in the election or pre voting because of their unavailability to be here. If there are people who cannot read a ballot and need help to fill one out, they should not be able to vote. This may seem like disenfranchisement, but it would save votes being filled out for others unscrupulously that don’t even know what they are voting for.

    1. It should be harder to vote absentee. I don’t agree that people who can’t read shouldn’t vote. There is a system in place for voters who need assistance, but there are fraudsters who prey on people who do. They loiter outside polling places and pounce on anyone they suspect is unsure of where to go or what to do. These criminals are hired by unscrupulous candidates specifically for that purpose. The only way to stop this is for ethical candidates to hire poll workers to challenge fraud. Unfortunately, the Elections Department turns a blind eye to much of the fraud going on right under their noses. I also suspect there are people inside the Department who are being “enticed” to “help” these corrupt candidates. The circle of corruption is wide and much of it goes right up to the top, i.e., Katherine Fernandez Rundle, who is loathe to go after voter fraud. The really sick thing is that the corruption is well known, but there’s not a damn thing we can do about it when the criminals are protected by those who are supposed to be protecting the citizenry.

      Seriously, it’s infuriating!

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