Showing posts with label Michael I. Abrams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael I. Abrams. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

And not for the first time... a Miami Herald reader reveals more insight in their comments about the news than the Herald reporter does in their reporting of a news story; re Miami-Dade lobbying fees


And not for the first time... a Miami Herald reader reveals more insight in their comments about the news than the Herald reporter does in their reporting of a news story; Miami-Dade's lobbying fees

A well-informed and observant Miami Herald reader states what radio industry icon Paul Harvey used to famously call "the rest of the story" in his syndicated show, via the comments section of Monday's article about Miami-Dade's tortured handling of its lobbying fees. 
Again.

The reader states factual connections with devastating aplomb: " Becker & Poliakoff also employs Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, Carlos Gimenez Jr, and George Burgess."
As someone has no doubt said a few times before, though never in my family, "Eureka!"

Which is to say, 
a.) Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, the former Miami-Dade County Commissioner and current FL State Senator for District 36, who replaced one brother, Alex, currently a lawyer/lobbyist and former State Senate Majority Leader, and another brother, Renier, who's currently on the Miami-Dade School Board.
b.) Carlos Gimenez Jr., the son of Miami-Dade County's current Mayor, and, 
c.) George Burgess, the former Miami-Dade County Manager who resigned in March, after his job was overwhelmingly eliminated "with prejudice" by county voters in August of 2010, presaging the delicious and much-deserved recall of County Mayor Carlos Alvarez earlier this year.

It's helpful context alright, especially for those of us who have followed how the M-D lobbying process/charade has been abused over the years so that commissioners could make sure that their pals kept getting their cut of the American Dream, Miami-style (crony capitalism), which to cite but one example, where Comm. Sally Heyman kept Carrie Meek on the reservation regardless of her actual use, or the fact that her team was not one of the lowest bidders, but useful context of the sort that for the past few years has routinely NOT appeared in Herald articles, and Laura Brannigan's article is no exception.

(No serious follower of Miami-Dade politics and government that I know ever asks what a particular decision, vote or legislative bait-and-switch means on its face without first mentally scrolling thru his head the family trees of the county commission -and their assorted unofficial "families"- and then thinking about which members of la familia works for which one of the companies, firms or parties involved. 
Yes, just like in a banana republic, that's just the fundamental default question you have to ask.)

Just like the Herald NEVER mentioned in the days and weeks leading up to this decision that the subject would be taking place, much less, when the vote would be taking place.
Just keep the readers in the dark:THAT'S the Herald's local coverage policy -always after the fact.
And sometimes, NOT even then.

As it happens, the Miami-Dade County vote described took place last Monday, Dec. 19th.

Correct, it has taken the Herald exactly one week to report upon this vote in Miami, not in Timbuktu, in Mali, where a past housemate of mine in Arlington county served in the Peace Corps, and explained to me many times how difficult it was to communicate with the outside world from the village that she lived in.

Should a professionally-run news organization, esp. one that still claims to have a degree of relevancy and currency in the South Florida market have the same problem reporting from Miami in the last days of the year 2011?
I don't think so. 

For more on this point, see my post of November 27, 2010 about the use of technology, wherein I draw a comparison between the ability of a great song performed at a Paramore concert last year in Stockholm -at the bottom of this post- to be uploaded to YouTube and be seen by me thousands of miles away within hours, and the Miami Herald's myopic Pony Express-style of news reporting, where they constantly miss what's current because of their conscious decisions made by editors and management, leaving readers who want fresh news in the lurch.
How a video of Paramore in Stockholm and Razorlight at the Cuckoo Club, London proves the Miami Herald is moving too damn slow in its news coverage., Iceberg dead ahead!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-video-of-paramore-in-stockholm.html

That the powers-that-be at One Herald Plaza chose to print this story about lobbying and the commission vote that decided it -at least temporarily- so long after-the-fact, and on the day after Christmas, instead of in Sunday's paper, their largest circulation day, well, to me, that's a very curious conscious choice indeed.
Yes, more Pony Express-style news coverage from the Miami Herald, but it doesn't end there.

Also as it happens, Monday marked 13 days since the Broward County Commission voted on redistricting and approved new district maps, and the Herald has STILL NOT printed anything in the newspaper or posted anything online about it.
Even though it directly affects roughly 40-45% of their readers.

Seriously, is it really asking too much of a local daily newspaper to actually report news within 24 or 48 hours?

For more on los hermanos Diaz de la Portilla, see also: http://www.ccfj.net/CCFJDeLaPortilla.htm

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Miami Herald 
Miami-Dade Commission aims to cut lobbying tab, ends up paying $50,000 more 
By Martha Brannigan
Posted December 25, 2011

Facing a tight budget, Miami-Dade commissioners launched plans this fall to ink new contracts with Tallahassee lobbying firms. Their goal: to slash spending. 

The two firms that had the business offered to reduce their prices, but the county rebuffed them.It was a costly decision. When commissioners doled out four lobbying agreements last week totaling $450,000, they wound up spending $50,000 more than the reduced price offered by the two incumbents.

After 90 minutes of debate and five failed motions, the vote was 10-3 — with Commission Chairman Joe Martinez voting against an initiative that he had spearheaded.

Also voting “no’’ on Dec. 19 were Commissioners Lynda Bell and Xavier Suarez, who argued for reduced spending.

“Nobody wants to cut out one of their friends,’’ Martinez said wearily from the dais. “Why doesn’t someone make a motion to defer and put us out of our misery?’’ 

In an interview afterward, Martinez added: “It was my item, but it didn’t turn out the way I expected. That’s why I voted against it.’’

Under the deal, sponsored by Commissioner Barbara Jordan, a team of lobbyists led by the two incumbent firms — Ron L. Book P.A. and Rutledge, Ecenia & Purnell P.A. — were kept on, but were scaled back each to $170,000 a year from $225,000. Erased, too, was $50,000 for special projects, or “work orders.’’ 

Two additional firms — Akerman Senterfitt & Eidson and Ballard Partners Inc. — also were awarded contracts for $55,000 a year each. Akerman already does federal lobbying for the county. Book subcontracts with the Pittman Law Group. Rutledge subcontracts with Becker & Poliakoff, Dutko Worldwide LLC, and Gomez Barker Associates Inc. The one-year contracts come with annual options to renew for three years.

Besides the lobbying team, the county has its own government affairs staff and assistant county attorney Jess McCarty doing work in the state capital.

Brian Ballard said his firm won’t be doing work for the county on the casino issue. Ballard represents Genting Group, the Malaysian gambling giant that is pushing for legislation to permit destination resort casino gambling in the county, a pivotal issue now before the legislature. 

Akerman partner Mike Abrams said in an email that his firm has represented a Genting affiliate, Bayfront 2011 Property, “in several real estate matters,’’ but has “not been contacted or engaged to lobby on behalf of Genting or any of its affiliates with the state government at any level, including the legislature.’’

The commission’s money-saving effort began a week into the county’s new lean budget for fiscal 2011-12. “The ominous specter of layoffs threatens employee morale and the county’s ability to deliver services to our residents,’’ Martinez said in an Oct. 7 letter to Mayor Carlos Gimenez, adding that to “drastically reduce’’ costs it would be necessary to advertise for lobbying firms through a competitive selection process. 

In a bid to hang onto the lucrative and prestigious county work and to head off a competitive search, honchos at Ron L. Book P.A. and Rutledge, Ecenia & Purnell offered on Oct. 24 to cut their annual contracts to $200,000 each, from $225,000. The firms took reductions in 2009 and 2010 as well. 

But commissioners brushed aside the offer, pushing forward with a selection process and giving themselves the broadest latitude in handpicking the new team. “I thought we could get it down to $350,000 or $300,000 [in total],’’ Martinez said. 

The commission named the selection committee members, and rather than have the committee rank firms with numerical scores, asked simply for a list of firms meeting the basic qualifications. 

At the commission meeting, Bell recommended spending a total of $300,000 for three firms. But the measure died for lack of support, as did four other ideas.

Some commissioners fretted that changing lobbyists with the legislative session set to begin next month was ill-timed. Others said cutting spending at a time when Tallahassee is facing its own severe budget constraints was ill-advised. 

“This is a very tough year in Tallahassee,’’ said Commissioner Jose “Pepe’’ Diaz. “It’s a chaotic situation, plus there is redistricting,’’ he added, referring to the drawing of new political boundaries. 

Finally, Jordan successfully proposed the $450,000 deal, divided among all four firms that had applied. 

“If this was really about saving money, when you add it up, it cost $50,000 more than the two firms agreed to reduce their fees to,’’ said Commissioner Sally Heyman, who voted for the measure but was unhappy with it. She said by being on the prevailing side she is in a position to bring the issue up for reconsideration. 

“I question whether we need lobbyists in Tallahassee at all,’’ Suarez said afterward.

The commission plans to take up the issue of reducing payments to the county’s Washington lobbyists next year.


MIAMI-DADE LOBBYING 
Incumbent lobbyists in Tallahassee: Ron L. Book P.A. and Rutledge, Ecenia & Purnell P.A. Book subcontracts with Pittman Law Group. Rutledge subcontracts with Becker & Poliakoff; Dutko Worldwide LLC; and Gomez Barker Associates. Additional firms receiving state lobbying contracts: Akerman Senterfitt & Eidson and Ballard Partners Inc.
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Paramore - Misguided Ghosts - (Acoustic) LIVE at Fryshuset, Stockholm, Sweden, November 30, 2009, http://youtu.be/O9OuNtlXiGA

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Miami Hurricanes scandal -Michael Putney interviews U-M Trustee Mike Abrams re his disappointment with Donna Shalala & UM's pathetic public response


Channel 10/WPLG-TV News: Trustee: Shalala's Response To UM Scandal Disappointing.
UM President Refuses To Speak To Reporters. August 19, 2011
Local10's Senior Political Correspondent Micheal Putney interviews University of Miami Trustee Michael I. "Mike" Abrams about the national scandal that broke this past week Courtesy of Yahoo! Sports involving the university's football team, and the school's response to it, particularly, President Donna Shalala's.

I've always liked Shalala personally and since returning to South Florida from the Washington area in late 2003 -where she had been President Clinton's HHS Secretary- I have often found myself defending her efforts to improve things in Coral Gables, mainly by raising academic standards - and expectations- against other sports fans who seemed a little too quick to intentionally misunderstand her and paint her with too broad a brush.
Given the flood of information that has already appeared in so many different national media outlets about her longstanding love of athletics, how anyone can remain ignorant of all that, I don't know, yet even after all her time down here, I still hear her attacked by know-it-all dopes on local Miami sports radio stations as being part of the (genuine) anti-athletics adademe, which could NOT be further from the truth.

(As I've written in this space a few times previously, what I've personally long found most galling about the UM's varsity athletic program -and never ever see anything about in the South Florida news media- is how truly un-competitive the UM Women's sports teams are nationally and within the ACC, and in particular, the very strange choices the school has made about what teams to field.

The decision to have a Rowing team but NOT field either a Field Hockey or Lacrosse program -or both- when the ACC is by far the most-dominant conference for those two popular sports nationally -esp Maryland, North Carolina and UVA, where my niece goes- while elsewhere in the state, the Gators have become a clear top-caliber Women's Lacrosse program almost overnight -making it to NCAA Quarterfinals- by actually investing resources and actively recruiting many top-flight players from the Mid-Atlantic areas where the sports are huge is a very, very puzzling and hugely disappointing choice indeed.

I'm not saying this just because all three of my nieces play(played) both sports, but both sports are very popular among female high school students in a fertile recruiting area for the UM student body, so NOT having them puts the UM at a real dis-advantage, and frankly, in my opinion, makes it hard to take the UM's commitment seriously.)

Frankly, because of Shalala's demonstrated ability to think both clearly and long-range, skills sadly lacking in numbers in South Florida, I've long thought that if this were a more normal part of the country, she'd actually already be the Mayor of Miami-Dade County.
She'd make sure there was a LOT MORE accountability to the taxpayer with the public dime than the crowd in downtown Miami is used to.
She's friendly-but-firm, and demands a lot of herself, but also expects others to produce RESULTS, not excuses, and a steady diet of excuses is what South Florida residents have been hearing everyday from their local elected officials since I returned to this area.

I could very easily write pages and pages here on the blog about the latest scandal involving the University of Miami football team, based on the extensive things I have read and heard and know.
I could also write about the many side-stories that, curiously, are NOT appearing in print or TV but which really ought to be.
I'll soon be writing about one of those important journalism side-stories that EVERYONE in South Florida is currently ignoring, and when you hear it, trust me, you'll have to nod in agreement -everyone really is ignoring it.
Surprise! It involved the Miami Herald.

But for now, at a little past 1 a.m. on a Saturday morning, both tired and bored silly from watching the dreadfully tedious Dolphins-Panthers preseason game earlier tonight, I'm going to confine myself to one thing at a time.
In this case, Michael Putney's very interesting interview airing Friday night with University of Miami Trustee Mike Abrams, whom I first met in 1976.

Mike has become the very first person with any weight in South Florida thus far to publicly go on the record about their dis-satisfaction with the way this whole story has been dealt with from Day One the university's administrators.

I sort of botched my comments on Channel 10's website and approved them before I noticed some small mistakes. I'll have more on this scandal in the days ahead, but for now, here's what I meant to post there:


I know from longstanding personal experience what a straight-shooter Mike Abrams is, and how dedicated he is to the UM and how much he wants it to strive to be even better. This scandal must really pain him, both as both an alumnus and as a Trustee, and when he says that the school administrators need to be more forthright, from President Shalala on down, he is 100% right.

Since it's not mentioned here, for context's sake, I should mention that before he graduated, Mike was the UM Student Government president in 1969, and years later, became the Dade County Democratic Party Chair in the mid-1970's -when I met him and began working with him- as he played a crucially important role in helping underdog Jimmy Carter win the 1976 Florida primary -a win that helped make Carter a national candidate in the minds of voters and the national news media- which helped propel him to the Democratic nomination.
(I worked in all sorts of capacities for the Carter-Mondale presidential campaign.)

Later, Mike became one of the most-influential and respected members of the Florida Legislature while representing my hometown of North Miami Beach and surrounding NE Dade in the State House.
I'm also pretty sure that while I was living up in the Washington, D.C. area, Mike was tapped and invited into the UM's Iron Arrow Honor Society, the most prestigious honor for a UM student or alumnus.

So who's going to be the next person in South Florida -after Mike- to stand up publicly and demand that the UM be more publicly accountable to the larger South Florida community?
Those of us who care about this school and this community will be watching carefully
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Some information about me and my longtime interest in the U-M and the Hurricanes, copied from my other blog, South Beach Hoosier, http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/
which is soon to be renovated before the new college football season starts with a new face in charge at IU.
Not mentioned below is that my nephew Mario graduated from the UM in 2010.

SEBASTIAN THE IBIS, THE SPIRITED MASCOT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI HURRICANES

Sebastian the Ibis, the Spirited Mascot of the University of Miami Hurricanes
Before going to my first U-M game at the Orange Bowl in 1972, a friend's father often would bring me home an extra 'Canes game program. That's how I came to have the Alabama at U-M game program from Nov. 16, 1968, which was the first nationally-televised college football night game in color. (A 14-6 loss to the Crimson Tide.)
After that first ballgame against Tulane, as I often did for Dolphin games if my father wasn't going, I'd get dropped off at the Levitz parking lot near the 836 & I-95 Cloverleaf in NMB, and catch a Dade County Park & Ride bus, going straight to the Orange Bowl. Onboard, I'd get next to the window and listen to WIOD's pre-game show on my Radio Shack transistor radio.
A few times, I was just about the only person on-board besides the bus driver, which was alright by me. Once at the Orange Bowl, if I didn't already have a ticket, I'd buy a game program for myself and one or two for friends or teachers before heading to the ticket window, since you usually couldn't find a program vendor once inside.
I probaly had a friend or my father with me for just under 40% of the U-M games I ever went to, but you have to remember that the team, though blessed with several talented players, like Chuck Foreman and Burgess Owens, was just so-so to average at best, and the games were usually played on Friday nights, so it wasn't exactly high on everyone's list of things to do.
Depending upon the opponent, if I was alone, I'd often have entire areas of the Orange Bowl to myself. (Wish I had photos of that now!)
For instance, I had a good portion of the East (open) End Zone to myself against Oklahoma in the mid-70's, when the Boomer Schooner and the Schooner Crew went out on the field after an Oklahoma TD, and the Schooner received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from the refs, as would happen years later in an Orangle Bowl Classic game. (Against FSU?)
I was there for the wins and losses under Pete Elliott, Carl Selmer & Lou Saban, and the huge on-field fight in '73 when under eventual national champion Notre Dame (under Ara Parseghian), they called a time-out with less than a minute to go, and already up 37-0. Their rationale?
To score another TD and impress the AP football writers; final score 44-0. Well, they got their wish and beat Alabama 24-23 for the title at the Sugar Bowl. A year later, thanks to my Mom's boss, she and I saw Ara's last game as head coach of the Irish in the Orange Bowl Game from the East End Zone -in front of the Alabama cheerleaders!!!- in an exciting 13-11 Notre Dame win over Alabama and Bear Bryant, a rematch of the '73 national title game.
I was also present for the U-M's huge 20-15 win under Pete Elliott against Darrel Royal's Texas Longhorns, the week Sports Illustrated's College Football preview issue came out with Texas on the cover, below. I was also present for lots of wins against schools called College of the Pacific, UNLV and Cal-Poly San Luis Obsispo, which I'd then never heard of before.
THE ISSUE I TOOK WITH ME THE NIGHT OF U-M'S 20-15 UPSET OF #1 TEXAS AT THE ORANGE BOWL


College Football, Texas No. 1, Hook 'em Horns, September 10, 1973.
Living in North Miami Beach in the '70's, my Sports Illustrated usually showed up in my mailbox on the Thursday or Friday before the Monday cover date. And was read cover-to-cover by Sunday morning!
And for those of you who forgot or never read my previous references to it, on January 2nd, 1984, at the 50th Anniversary Orange Bowl game where the Hurricanes upset Nebraska 31-30 for their first national championship, I was out on the field celebrating within seconds, having watched the entire last quarter in the row directly behind the team's bench. Now THAT was a night to remember!


MIRACLE IN MIAMI

Miracle In Miami
The Hurricanes Storm Past Nebraska, Halfback Keith Griffin, January 9, 1984