A probable cause hearing has been scheduled on what was a questionable ethics complaint to begin with, filed against one of the candidates in the uglier-by-the-min
ute Homestead mayoral race, looking very much like a campaign move made simply to bolster Mark Bell‘s chances in the heated runoff against former Councilman Jeff Porter.
Note that the hearing is Wednesday — six days before Election Day.
The complaint to the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust was made by former State Rep. JC Planas, the attorney for Bell’s PAC who is also said to represent the interests of Wayne Rosen, a developer who is backing the husband of Miami-Dade Commission Vice Chair Lynda Bell.
Planas claims that Porter sent damaging mailers that said the Bells had received a $25,000 CRA grant to help renovate their Hotel Redland and called that a “malicious falsehood” because the money went to the hotel, not to Mark and Lynda Bell themselves.
Really? Really?!? Is that a distinction that needs to be made?
The ad does make it seem that the money went directly to the Bells, calling it an early Christmas gift. It also has a mock-up of a 
check that is made out to Mark and Lynda Bell, not the hotel. But the hotel is not running for office and it is logical to surmise that the Bells draw income from the hotel they own.
“Did they not receive monies from the grant,” asked an incredulous Porter, who also defends the inclusion on the mailer of the former Homestead Mayor turned county commissioner, who everyone believes is running her husband’s show.
Is the mailer a little sarcastic and smarmy? Sure. It’s a political ad, for goodness’ sake. Is it blatantly false? No, says Porter’s attorney, Joe Geller.
“This is constitutionally-protected core political speech. In a democracy, we trust the voters,” Geller told Ladra. “We don’t try to silence people, particularly when all they are doing is presenting facts. And these are facts.”
Documentation for the probable cause hearing called for on Monday states that that the allegation in the mail piece is false because Mark Bell is the sole owner of 5 South Flagler Avenue, the company that owns the Hotel Redland. “Bell’s wife, Lynda, a Miami-Dade County Commissioner, has no ownership interest in this property according to the incorporation documents filed with the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations.”
But Porter says that everyone knows the hotel is owned by both.
“If you read the minutes of the CRA meeting when it was granted, it was definitely Lynda and Mark Bell applying for it. Advertising for the hotel says it is owned by Mark and Lynda Bell,” Porter told me. In fact, the minutes show that Councilman Steve Shelley asked about a possible conflict of interest, if Lynda Bell voted on county CRA matters, and City Attorney Richard Weiss recused himself from providing an opinion.
And then there is the YouTube video where Lynda Bell helps give a tour of the historic hotel.
“Wanna see some rooms,” she asks the host of SeeMyBeach.com. “Thank you, for featuring us.”
Key word: Us.
“I love your unique boutique hotel here,” the host says.
“Thank you,” Lynda Bell answers. “We kind of love it, too.”
Key word: We.
Then she proudly tells him some details as she shows him some unique features, like the handicap-accessible room and the balcony, talking about the international guests and how interesting it is when they get together out there. She talks like she owns the place.
“Each room is different. There’s 11 rooms upstairs and there’s two rooms downstairs and no two rooms are the same,” Lynda Bell says. “We’ve been kind of full, so I can only show you a few.”
Key word: We’
ve.
Said Porter: “There’s nothing that says that she is not a part of it.”
By the way, the checks were made out to Redland Hotel, not 5 South Flagler Avenue, which was another false “falsehood” found in the probable cause that was seemingly not researched thoroughly enough. Maybe because it was fast-tracked.
Porter suspects undue influence on the ethics board from the county commissioner. And if you read the language in the “probable cause memorandum,” you might think so, too. It reads like it the agency is coming to the Bells rescue:
“The most egregious falsehood displayed in the flyer and the portion that exposes Bell and his wife to hatred, contempt or ridicule is the part of the ad that alleges that ‘just like typical POLITICIANS Mark and Lynda gamed the system and received a BIG FAT CHECK.’ This libelous statement all but accuses Bell and his wife of a crime without any justification or evidence.”
But Porter’s defense will point to page 28 of the CRA minutes from March 12 meeting. The voting page. There were two absent members, leaving five to vote. But Councilman Jimmie Williams left the dais one minute before the vote and it ended up 3-1 (Councilwoman Judy Waldman was the dissenting vote). Which basically means that Mark Bell — vis-a-vis the hotel, if you wanna get technical — got $25,000 with three of seven votes. Some might argue that is the very definition of “gaming the system.”
Said Porter: “When it smells, it smells.”
And what Ladra smells is a desperate tactic to deviate attention from the absentee ballot fraud allegedly committed by Bell campaigners in a heated race that he can’t afford to lose (read: she can’t afford to lose)? Consider these facts:
- The complaint is about a mailer that was sent out during the primary.
- Because it came x days before an election, it falls within the law’s criteria of an expedited case, which means that Porter now has to take time from the campaign to answer to this within three days.
- It was made, curiously enough, the day after two men who were working for Bell’s campaign reportedly stole the votes of a family of four. One of the men, local Republican committeeman James Brady, resigned two days after the alleged absentee ballot fraud account was reported first by Political Cortadito. But he was already paid at least $2,000 for campaign work by the candidate. Oops, I mean by his campaign account. Not him directly from his pocket. Better be specific because …
- It was filed by Planas, who is the most prolific complainant to the ethics commission (Well, maybe he is tied with fellow blogger Al Crespo of the CrespoGram Report) and who has already threatened to file one against Ladra.
That was after I started making calls about another candidate client of his, Philip Levine in Miami Beach. In fact, he had already filed another complaint against another blogger, JP Morgan who writes for City Debate. That complaint got tossed out because it did not even begin to meet the criteria for an ethics breach.
“The complainant acknowledged that Mr. Morgan was not publicly affiliated with any mayoral campaign staff in Miami Beach and was not registered with any political committee, committee of continuous existence, or electioneering communications organization in the State of Florida,” the dismissal reads.
Yet, Planas is not charged with filing a false complaint?
According to several sources, something Centorino half admitted, Planas has submitted several complaints to the Ethics Commission in the last few years. Some of those may be legitimate, and Ladra is referring specifically to the co-mingling campaign funds complaint against Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador which may actually lead to criminal charges, if the state attorney moves on evidence it already has, according to sources.
But I bet more have been deemed to have no merit (read: be as frivolous as this one) and one may venture to think that Planas is manipulating the process to benefit his clients.
When is the Commission on Ethics Director Joe Centorino going to figure out his office is being used by Planas as a creative campaign tool? Because, unlike I suspect Crespo is doing, Planas is not really seeking justice here. And because you just know the robocalls or mailers about this ethics “investigation” that he created come next.
Centorino said he is no dummy.
“From time to time, people make complaints during political campaigns and we know the circumstances,” he told Ladra, but only because we were talking in general terms and not about any specific complaint in particular. He said that, naturally, some of the complaints they get at the ethics commission may be politically motivated. But, even then, they can be good, truthful complaints.
He said all cases are investigated on their merits.
“We know the context in which these things occur. We are not in any political camp.”
Tell that to Porter, who said he was uneasy with the speed and exerted effort on the part of the Ethics Commission.
“It looks to me like a cookie cutter complaint,” Porter told Ladra Monday night, referring to the last line that mentions probable cause against someone named Richard Perez, someone that could be from another case, like a cut and past complaint. “We don’t even know who that is,” Porter said.
“It definitely smells like an inside deal,” Porter told me, referring to the speed with which the probable cause was found within days of the complaint and a hearing set for six days before the election.
“The Ethics Commission is like a tool being used to push an agenda forward,” Porter said. “It’s kind of embarrassing that the Ethics Commission is being used that way.”
Reached Saturday as or after he stumped for Levine at Miami Beach City Hall, Planas said that this was an honest complaint, not a campaign move. “No, what happens is when people violate the rules, we file a complaint against them,” Planas told me, explaining that it is a secondary part of his job as go-to campaign attorney.
“I am hired mainly to make sure that my clients do everything on the up and up and they don’t violate the law,” he told me. “If others do, then I file a complaint.”
Well, was he sleeping on the job when two workers from the Bell campaign tried to steal four ballots from a Homestead family?
“There was no AB fraud,” Planas told me. Maybe he gets inside information from the ethics commission?
“Nobody filled out any ballots. We had everybody fill out a form that said they would not engage in those activities,” he said. But remember how well that turned out for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, whose people were still implicated anyway in an AB scam in last year’s primary mayoral election?
But at the same time as he denies it happened, he leaves a window open. “We can’t be with people 100% of the time, and when they do something wrong we have to let them go,” Planas told Ladra.
Back to the ethics complaint.
Planas never denies the $25,000 gift, but says that it was given to the hotel like other grant monies go to other businesses and that they were matching funds for investment that the Bells put in. He also noted, as he did in the complaint, that the grant paid in three parts.
“He lied,” Planas said about Porter. “He put a fake check made out to Mark and Lynda Bell and it’s total BS,” he added.
“It’s CRA monies given to a hotel like it is given to other businesses, and it was matching funds. It was matched to the funds they put in,” Planas told me. Key word: They. But he forgets to mention it was matched to their 10 percent, or, basically, their $2,500 investment.
He also said they got it in three parts, as if that makes a difference. That’s a technicality that does not make the total sum paid to Bell — er, I mean to his hotel — false. And while he complained about the image of a check on the mailer, it seems like it would have been worse if it had put three checks on there!
Meanwhile, one of Mark Bell’s TV ads implies that Jeff Porter directly lost $2.2 million of Homestead’s money through his decisions on the dais, and that the former councilman and “his buddies” were “riding the gravy train.”
Bet Planas won’t filed a complaint about that.
Is election time Homestead ethics claim a campaign trick? added by Ladra on
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