Showing posts with label Spinelli Brothers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spinelli Brothers. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

#SoFL - Rare win for govt #ethics! .@dwightyoakamfan on North Miami's vote to torpedo #FL state Rep. Joseph S. Geller & Greenspoon Marder. Stephanie Kienzle connect-the-dots yet again, this time on what was really at stake for the public of North Miami.

http://www.votersopinion.com/2015/11/25/city-attorney-decision-north-miami-1-lobbyists-0/

For once, I have a blog post today that hardly needs any additional commentary or useful context from yours truly, because it's written with such care and concern by my friend, Stephanie 
Kienzlewho says everything that needs to be said -and more- about what was really at risk recently to the long-beleaguered citizenry of North Miami.
Specifically, in the way of lobbyists taking over more territory at yet one more City Hall in South Florida, and one lobbyist in particular, Evan Ross.

North Miami is a place I know intimately from growing up in next-door North Miami Beach from 1968-1979, when North Miami was not only home to some of my favorite people and place -and my barbers, the fabulous Spinelli Brothers, who used to cut my hair at their sports and show-biz memorabilia-filled shop on West Dixie Highway in the 1970's, when they still had many famous sports and show business clients who would always visit them when in Miami for a personal or business trip.
People whose faces and names you would instantly recognize today. 

(The Spinelli Brothers were even kind enough to sponsor me for Optimist football, even though I played for North Miami Beach Optimist, not North Miami, but they still received one of those very large sponsor photos of me in my uniform anyway in exhange for a donation to NMB Optimist. They hung the photo up in their shop, and trust me, when I walked in there with my Dad, it was always one of the first things I checked out upon entering, to make sure it still had its prime location!) 

North Miami was also home to some of the best though sadly, no-longer extant restaurants in all of South Florida, including Marcella's, on West Dixie Highway and N.E. 138th Street, with their legendary lip-smacking garlic rolls and amazing food smells that made both kids and adults salivate like crazy while you waited to get a table in a place that was almost always packed with happy customers.



Of course, North Miami is also home to the North Miami HS Pioneers were also the arch-rival of my school, the North Miami Beach HS Chargers, and thus the combatants in what was then an often bitter rivalry that split families, since until NMB opened in the early 1970's, North Miami High was the most northern public high school in NE Dade County.

I was personally eyewitness to many epic and hard-fought battles (and screaming matches) between fans over the years in soccer, football, basketball and even Girls gymnastics, in the years when I was the NMB Gymnastics team manager and the PA announcer for home meets, when NMB was far-and-away the best team in Florida, and had many hundreds of people attend our home meets.
We capped that my senior year by winning yet another GMAC County title, as well as a state title for our beloved coach -and amazing AP Science teacher- Pete Saponaro
That state championship was one we hosted in NMB, with me handling all the travel planning and logistics for all the invited teams from around the state, as well as media czar for the media that covered the meet. 

But even that had a North Miami angle.
"Sap" himself was a North Miami High grad before leaving for Penn State, where he was an All-American and co-captain one of the years that Penn State was the NCAA Mens Champion.



Before I was a Hoosier, I was an NMB Charger, Class of 1979.

My last blog post on the antics and activities of Florida state Rep. Joseph S. Geller was just over two months ago, on September 17th, in a post I titled, 
#Ethics still matter in South Florida! Stephanie Kienzle of Votersopinion.com keeps her eyes firmly on what's going on with the VERY CURIOUS legal antics of FL state Rep. Joe Geller, even as most of South Florida's news media keeps ignoring what's right in front of us.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2015/09/ethics-still-matter-in-south-florida.html