The battle cry is “Joe must go.” The aim is to remove Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo from the Bayfront Park Trust, where he is chair, because of what downtown residents say is an abuse of his power and mismanagement of Maurice Ferre Park, which is also under the trust’s purview.
In the same 24 hours as U.S. Marshalls posted seizure papers on the door at his Coconut Grove home — in connection with the $63.5 million judgement against him for violating the first amendment rights of two Little Havana businessmen (more on that later) — there’s a petition for Carollo’s removal from the Trust, begun by Downtown Neighbors Alliance President James Torres, who ran for commissioner in District 2 but lost. Torres and many other downtown residents — and anybody with a brain and a conscience — think that the new D2 commissioner, Damian Pardo, should chair these important boards that govern public parks in the heart of the district.
“While our community and its leaders have tried to work with Joe Carollo and the Bayfront Park Trust, we have reached a breaking point,” reads an email sent Friday by the DNA board of directors, who are also asking the city to reverse the vote allowing LED billboards at public parks, another item on the agenda brought again by Pardo (more on that later).
Carollo, who is “currently under pressure after losing several civil lawsuits that have proven his abuse of power and vindictive streak, has decided that the downtown community is the enemy, simply because we want a seat at the table,” it says. “While we have tried diplomacy and collaboration in the past, it is clear Joe Carollo doesn’t want to work with us as partners. He believes himself to be the almighty king of Bayfront Park, and anyone that dares question him is an unruly peasant.
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“Enough is enough. As of today, we are officially asking the rest of the city commission to remove Joe Carollo as chair of the Bayfront Park Management Trust and appoint a new commissioner who is above reproach to the seat,” the email says.
City commissioners considered that at the last meeting, but it was deferred while they conduct a forensic audit of the Bayfront Trust, the Downtown Development Authority and the community redevelopment agencies in the city. Ladra, for one, can’t wait to read the audit of the Omni CRA, which was chaired by former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla before he was arrested for bribery and money laundering among other public corruption charges.
The petition on change.org lists the many reasons why Carollo should be removed anyway, even before the audit is finished, Torres told Ladra, adding that the master plan calls for the park to be passive with unobstructed views.
“The destruction still continues,” said Torres, who got into a shouting match with Carollo at the last meeting and dropped the F-bomb.
In August, Torres presented more than 10,000 signatures against the LED signs.
Read related: LED billboards could buy their way to Miami streets via campaign donations
“We wish to express our deepest concern and dissatisfaction regarding the abuse of power, mismanagement, and authoritarian behavior exhibited by Joe Carollo as Chairman of the Bayfront Park Management Trust,” the petition states. “Throughout 2023 and 2024, local media has extensively reported on incidents of mismanagement and poor stewardship of the Trust, a hostile and dictatorial attitude by its Chairman and dishonest dealings with the community.
“Among other things, with Joe Carollo as its chair, the Trust has:
- Engaged in a pattern of paving over portions of Bayfront Park and Maurice Ferré Park to build controversial amenities that only Joe Carollo seems to want;
- Pushed forward on leasing valuable open spaces to outdoor advertising companies, so that they can put up LED billboards and kiosks that will have a negative effect on resident quality of life and ruin the beauty of our open spaces;
- Executed major contracts worth millions of dollars to build or refurbish amenities without bids and with little or no oversight (for example, the dogs and cats walkway and the rehab of the Bayfront Park fountain);
- Engaged in a pattern of cutting down trees in violation of the City Code, even after the city specifically told the Trust it could not remove the trees, then lying to neighbors about the reasons for tree removals;
- Leased the park to private events that have released red balloons as pollution onto Biscayne Bay;
- Engaged in a pattern of allowing construction to happen inside the parks without permits, and with deficient safety measures that have led to small children being involved in accidents;
- Pushed through the vision of what Maurice Ferré Park should look like that is in direct opposition to the award-winning master plan for that site, without engaging the community in any way whatsoever to ask what residents think about proposed ideas;
- Hired staff that have a clear conflict of interest in the operations of the park programs, including an executive director closely linked to a failed theater venture that was given a no-bid opportunity to use park space, and built a performance facility there without permits.
“When asked for information regarding these decisions, or when neighbors have criticized the Trust and used appropriate legal recourses to challenge Joe Carollo’s self-appointed position as emperor of the park, Carollo has responded with childish and offensive tirades, publicly calling those critics ‘losers’ who need to “go get a life” and falsely suggesting that neighbors who care about the park are all ‘racists,'” the petition added, using additional fun and legit terms like “incompetence” and “toxic.”
“We believe that Joe Carollo’s leadership has not been in the best interest of the community. Indeed, his entire tenure as Trust Chair demonstrates a clear trend of decision-making that prioritizes personal interests over the well-being of our shared public spaces.”
Torres and the DNA board are asking people to attend the commission meeting on Thursday morning and support the ouster of Carollo as chairman of the Bayfront Trust. The meeting begins at 9 a.m. (read: 11:30) at City Hall on Dinner Key.
But why stop at the trust. Carollo, who used the city attorney’s office to fight a legitimate recall effort against him in 2020, should be removed from office.
New petition drive aims to oust Miami’s Joe Carollo from Bayfront Park Trust added by Ladra on
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