Commissioner ‘Phone-It-In’ Josh Liebman skips meetings, then lies

South Miami Commissioner Josh Liebman, in a re-election campaign, sent out a mailer or handed out flyers on Thursday that said he has attended commission meetings 99.5% of the time, missing only one — on his birthday.

“That’s commitment,” it says in big green letters.

No, that’s delusional.

Because according to attendance records at the city clerk’s office, Liebman has missed more than 50 city meetings since 2014, including 21 commission meetings. Not just one. He defends himself by saying they were special meetings on which he only got 24 hours notice. He says he has attended all but 1 regularly scheduled meeting.

Still, he has been absent more than 50 times to city meetings.

At least at three of those meetings — and sources say it’s more like eight or nine — Liebman has phoned in his “present” and yay or nay votes from wherever he is. He phones it in.

Is that legal? How do we know he didn’t have a gun to his head? Or a developer or city contractor whispering sweet nothings in his ear?

“It doesn’t matter if he’s alone or not,” said City Attorney Thomas Pepe, who confirmed that Liebman cast a number of votes by phone. Pepe, South Miami’s attorney since 2011, could not remember exactly how many.

“More or less than 10,” Ladra asked. “More or less than 20?”

“I’m not going to speculate,” Pepe said, adding that the votes are legal as long as Liebman is not part of the quorum. “His appearance must be in person to be part of a quorum but if there’s a quorum, he can participate by phone.

“Nothing prevents a commissioner from attending a meeting by audio/visual means, such as Granicus, and then voting,” Pepe said, adding that Liebman is watching the meeting but nobody can watch Liebman. Again, nobody knows if there’s a gun to his head.

State law makes it illegal at the county level. Chapter 125 of Florida Statutes, which deals with the organization, powers and duties of a county government — municipal, like a city — has parts that read:

“Upon the giving of due public notice, regular and special meetings of the board may be held at any appropriate public place in the county… The legislative and governing body of a county shall have the power to carry on county government. To the extent not inconsistent with general or special law, this power includes, but is not restricted to, the power to … adopt its own rules of procedure, select its officers, and set the time and place of its official meetings.”

Key word: Place. It does not say places. Please.

And if this the law for all the 67 counties in Florida, you don’t think cities have to apply to the same thing?

Reached Saturday morning as he set up for early voting, Liebman defended his position. “I’ve been to 191 of 192 regular commission meetings.”

But that is not reflected in the records. He has missed 21 regular commission meetings and six special meetings, according to the city clerk.

“When you’d like to talk about accomplishments and achievements, call me,” Liebman said. But why would Ladra believe anything he says now?

Also a member of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, Liebman has also been absent to a whopping 25 of those meetings — including six in 2017, five in 2018 and four in 2019. He must have missed some key votes — but not the vote to sunset the CRA, which his opponent in the commission election believes needs to be extended (so does every mayoral candidate, by the way).

At the last CRA meeting, there was a motion to table the sunsetting of the agency — which is basically when it ends after it serves its purpose — but Commissioner Bob Welsh moved to kill it and Liebman was among those who voted to end it.

“It’s over in June because they basically said we don’t need it anymore,” said Levy Kelly, who is running against Liebman. “But we still have work to do in this area.”

Kelly, who has been on the CRA for the past four years, says Liebman has missed “quite a lot” of meetings and he asked the CRA chair about having him censured for that. “I was told that it was better not to have him here, that we could get more work done,” Kelly said.

Liebman — who likes to drop names and said at a recent forum that he has the endorsement of former Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen — apparently likes the sound of his own voice. So why has he also been absent from several budget meetings and workshops?

He is not the only one. There have been other commissioners that have missed a few meetings here and there. But Liebman has apparently missed more meetings than the other four commissioners combined. That’s not commitment. That’s fear of commitment.

Liebman, who had only spent less than $1,000 of the $7,800 he raised as of Jan. 24, was the frontrunner yesterday and expected to win Tuesday.

At some point the commissioner obviously realized that his absences were the talk of the town during an election that could become a surprise overnight challenge. Kelly has a lot of support from the diminishing African American community and from Commissioner Walter Harris.

So Liebman put out the piece that says he’s only missed one meeting. That’s a bigger problem than the absences — the cover-up always beats the crime — because it’s just simply not true. And if he’ll lie about something as basic as attendance, he could lie about anything.

“That’s commitment,” he says.

Maybe he believes that. Then he should be committed. But he certainly should not be rewarded with re-election.

Early voting is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8, at South Miami City Hall, 6130 Sunset Drive. The election is Tuesday, Feb. 11.

Josh Liebman, South Miami Election

Commissioner ‘Phone-It-In’ Josh Liebman skips meetings, then lies added by Ladra on February 8, 2020
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