We hope you’re sitting down.

As we first reported in Duke Sorey’s shady Red Garden-style of “management,” Part 1 and Part 2, we told you about North Miami Beach City Manager Duke Sorey and four Commissioners’ secret plan to sell off the City’s 10.06-acre property where the Arthur J. Snyder Tennis Center is located.

We also told you that he planned to hire a “Friends & Family” company called Clarke Smart Solutions for $94,000 “for the provisions of event planning and productions services for the Pre-Solicitation Launch Event for the Dieffenbach Preserve, according the Updated Agenda for the August 16, 2022 Board Meeting of the City’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA).

And just to show you how poorly this thing was planned from the get go, Duke started out by misspelling the name of the park, which is Diefenbach with one “f” not two, on the invitation!

This is actually a big deal since the park is not some random name pulled out of a hat.

The Daniel D. Diefenbach Bicentennial Park was named after a former North Miami Beach Mayor who served for a decade from 1953 to 1963, and who also served as City Manager from 1969 to 1974.

Not only is Mayor Diefenbach’s namesake park memorialized with a bronze plaque on the property, but his son, Daniel Diefenbach, Jr., who is still alive, spells his name with one “f.”

How utterly disrespectful!

And dreadfully unprofessional.

Not to mention embarrassing.

Nevertheless, Duke was bound and determined to host another one of his infamous baccanals more fitting for a cabaret than a business affair catering to “developers, financiers, and investors.”

Courtesy of North Miami Beach taxpayers, of course.

À la North Miami’s Red Garden financial disaster.

Remember this?

As we all know by now, Duke Sorey loves to throw ostentatious parties and act like he’s a kingpin.

Or as we say in Yiddish, a big macher.

As long as he doesn’t have to open his own wallet.

And now he’s brought his own very special brand of debauchery to North Miami Beach.

While the CRA meeting didn’t go as smoothly as Duke had planned — the Board voted to give him only $10,000 to put on a scaled down event — he did bring up the fact that the City Manager has the discretion to spend up to $50,000 from the City’s General Fund without Commission approval.

And he proceeded to do just that.

And then some.

Instead of the outdoor gala under air conditioned tents he originally envisioned, he was relegated to hold the event at City Hall, with a McKenzie Fleurimond-narrated video presentation in the Julius Littman Performing Arts Theater.

As expected it was quite the fancy affair.

Nightclub atmosphere aside, of course.

Wait staff circulated the crowd with trays offering dainty hors d’oeuvers to the crowd of covetous “developers, financiers, and investors” angling for a chance to buy up 10+ acres of North Miami Beach’s only vast expanse of treasured green space left.

Duke’s personally invited “stakeholders” swigged expensive spirits at the taxpayer-funded open bar while dreaming of erecting 1,500 “affordable housing” units (think Section 8) crammed into five concrete buildings looming at least 30 stories into the air, towering over the idyllic grounds of the historic Ancient Spanish Monastery.

Despite the inevitable disaster of this absurd scheme, Duke was bound and determined to go for broke on yet another self-indulgent party so he could pretend to be a moneyed bigwig on your dime.

With the CRA’s $10K secured, Duke also had the right to spend up to $50K from the General Fund on his “Pre-Solicitation Launch Event for the Dieffenbach [sic] Preserve.”

As expected, $60,000 just wasn’t enough to scratch his party itch, so he just spent whatever he wanted, knowing full well he’d face no consequences.

In an email from Duke’s Executive Assistant, Ashley Francois, to Commissioner Barbara Kramer, this is how much Duke spent.

So far.

Even before the August 16, 2022 CRA meeting, Duke had negotiated a $24,500.00 contract with Kobi Karp Architecture to design the project.  Duke had his Assistant Manager, Kemarr Brown, sign the contract the day after the meeting.

On August 16, 2022, the same day of the CRA meeting, Duke hired his friends at Clarke Smart Solutions, after he “convinced” them to slash their original $94,000 fee down to $27,774 for the “creation, operation, production and execution of event per signed Agreement.”

To this day, no one has ever seen the “signed Agreement.”

Six days later on August 22, 2022, Duke threw another $10,000 at Clarke Smart Solutions for no apparent reason.

At least none that we know of.

The day after the big event on August 26, 2022, Duke paid another $2,750 to Paule Villard’s favorite videographer, Guerrier, Inc. — a company that was incorporated four months after Paule was elected.

Just saying.

And finally, according to Ashley’s email to Barbara, the food for the event cost “$2,918.52 (Invoices Pending).”

How odd that she didn’t provide the invoices for such a specific amount when she clearly had them at her disposal.

We suspect that Ashley is hiding the true cost of the generous amounts of food that was served and spirits that were flowing freely at Duke’s party.

In any event, according to the information that we do have so far, the cost of Duke’s unnecessary party was $67,942.52, which means he spent $7,942.52 more than he was permitted to do without a Commission vote.

Not that it matters since Duke has the four reliable votes of Michael Joseph, McKenzie Fleurimond, Paule Villard, and Daniela Jean on the dais to approve anything he wants to do.

And in turn, Duke lets them spend whatever they want on anything they want, consequences be damned.

Duke Sorey may think he came up with a “brilliant” idea, even though it was just an excuse to throw a very expensive party at taxpayer expense.

Unfortunately for him, and that insufferable twit, McKenzie Fleurimond, they are about to find out it’s not gonna be smooth sailing.

Just saying.

Meanwhile, North Miami Beach residents can actually do something to put a stop to all the insanity at City Hall.

JUST SAY “NO” TO A CRIMINAL GOVERNMENT!

ELECT JAY CHERNOFF AND PHYLLIS SMITH ON NOVEMBER 8, 2022!

Stephanie