When we first found out about EX-North Miami Beach Commissioner Paule Villard’s second summer vacation on taxpayer dime — this time to Haiti — we immediately made a public records request on July 30, 2022 for:

1. All documentation, including emails, memoranda, travel requests, all invoices for air fare, hotel, transportation and meals, for Paule Villard’s and Deputy Chief Ervens Ford’s recent trip to Haiti.
2. An accounting of the regular and/or overtime pay for Deputy Chief Ervens Ford with respect to this trip to Haiti.
3. All documentation, including emails and memoranda, regarding a “partnership and cooperation” between the North Miami Beach Police Department and the government and/or police department of Cap-Haïtien, per the attached screenshots of Facebook posts.

 

Translation:

After waiting four months and six days for our records, we finally received a “partial response” to our request, which only included the “Program Agenda” and travel expenses for Deputy Chief Ervens Ford.

We still don’t have an accounting of Chief Ford’s regular and/or overtime pay, or any travel expenses incurred by Paule herself, but we will be posting Part 2 as soon as we receive those items.

What we do know about Paule’s expenses, however, we discovered while reviewing her August 5, 2022 Purchasing Card (P Card) Statement, and noted that she charged $1,102.49 to Spirit Airlines for a plane ticket in the name of Paule Germain, which is the last name of the second husband she divorced more than a decade ago.  Paule also charged $920.00 to someone or something called “BUTEAU, BERTRAND CAP HAITIEN” on July 23, 2022.  We still have no idea what that payment was for, but we fully intend to find out.

Judging by how much Ford’s trip cost taxpayers, we can’t even begin to guess how much Paule stole from City coffers for this vacation, which totally explains why City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey is withholding those documents from us as long as he can.

That’s okay.

We’ve got all the time in the world.

We certainly have a lot more time than Duke has left receiving a paycheck from NMB.

Just saying.

Let’s unpack the information we gleaned from the records we received so far.

In an undated letter to EX-Commissioner Paule Villard from Father Audigène Bayard of the Diocèse de Fort-Liberté, Nord-est; Haïti, he invited her to attend the annual conference of the Congrès national de la pastorale des jeunes à Fort-Liberté.  He advised her she was scheduled to speak “on July 28 and July 29.”

The alleged purpose of the trip was to “inspire and empower” the youth of Haiti.

Father Bayard closed his letter by saying “we would like to have a partnership with you.  Because we need a lot of financial help to make this youth ministry work.”

North Miami Beach residents should be up in arms about this trip for so many reasons, we don’t even know where to start.  But, we’ll try.

First and foremost, before helping “the youth” in Haiti, or any foreign country, public funds should be benefiting the City’s children and teens.  It’s not as if there aren’t enough “youth” in North Miami Beach that could use help.

Secondly, the purpose of this trip was to allegedly assist with a religious institution, which is a clear violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

Then again, Paule Villard is no stranger to violating the Establishment Clause of the Bill of Rights more commonly known as “separation of church and state,” as evidenced by her illegally holding a Christian church service on government property on April 27, 2022.

Even more egregious, according to a July 19, 2022 Memorandum from Chief of Staff Francisco L. Medranda to Constituent Services Aide Nadia Brewton, Paule’s taxpayer-funded seven day vacation would begin Saturday, July 23, 2022 and end on Saturday, July 30, 2022, even though she was scheduled to speak on only two days, “July 28 and July 29,” according to the invitation from Father Bayard.

So, in addition to her so-called “speaking engagement,” Paule went to Haiti “to network and broker relations with other local municipalities on behalf of North Miami Beach.”

This doesn’t look suspicious at all, does it?

Let’s take a look at Deputy Chief Ervens Ford’s unnecessary — and very expensive — “working” vacation to Haiti, where he was ordered to accompany her as her bodyguard.  (And, yes, sources have confirmed that’s exactly why he was sent.)

According to the Pre-Travel Authorization form, Ervens Ford was permitted to travel to Cap-Haitien/Fort Liberte from July 23, 2022 through July 30, 2022, at a total cost of $2,367.82.

 

Upon his return, he submitted his Travel Expense Report, which was signed on August 1, 2022.

Eighteen days later on August 18, 2022, Deputy Chief Ford submitted a Memorandum to Chief Harvette Smith advising her that the total expenditures for the trip was $2,915.66.

Although he was scheduled to stay at a hotel from July 23, 2022 through July 29, 2022, it appears that Deputy Chief Ford only stayed for three nights and departed Haiti on July 26, 2022.  He did receive a refund credited back to his P Card in the amount of $547.20.

The final cost of Ford’s three-day trip to Haiti ended up costing taxpayers a grand total of $2,368.46.

And that doesn’t even include the salary he received for those 72 hours while he wasn’t serving the residents of North Miami Beach who foot the bill.

And yet, we still have questions.

• Was Deputy Chief Ervens Ford sent there for any official business or just to babysit Paule Villard?
• Why did he leave Haiti so abruptly after only staying for three days instead of the scheduled seven days?
• Will he return the $432.25 to the City of North Miami Beach for the per diem meal expenses that he received but didn’t use because he cut his trip short?

As for Paule’s taxpayer-funded vacation, we have lots more questions.

• How much did Paule’s vacation really cost North Miami Beach taxpayers?
• What was she really doing in Haiti for seven days?
• Did she visit any relatives during her taxpayer-funded vacation?
• And finally, WTF is this ⬇️?

We do plan to find out the answers to these questions and ones we haven’t even thought of yet.

What we do know for sure is that Paule Villard may be out of office — FINALLY — but we’re not even close to uncovering all the corruption that took place during the four long years she wreaked havoc on the City of North Miami Beach.

We won’t rest until she suffers the consequences she so dearly deserves.

Stephanie