Is Michael Gongora Strong City of Miami Beach Mayor Candidate

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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

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Michael Gongora

MICHAEL GONGORA, STRONG MAYOR CANDIDATE?

Does he have the gumption to stand up for law and order and the strong mayor form

government?

February 2, 2013

Editorial by David Arthur Walters

Commissioner Michael Gongoras Feb. 1, 2013, Brief Update on City of Miami Beachpolitics stated that he made a motion to shorten the list of candidates for the city

manager position to three finalists, namely:

Monica Cepero, currently an assistant to the Broward County Administrator, a

competent and the most personally attractive candidate.


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Frank Rollason, formerly an assistant manager of the City of Miami whose interview

presentation was the most persuasive.

Jimmy Morales, formerly a Miami Dade County commissioner, an ethical hometown

boy who is a Harvard-educated attorney. Rollason and Morales were not on the slate

chosen by recruiting firm Bob Murray and Associates, but were selected for interviewsat the suggestion of commissioners.

Morales, rumored to be the shoo-in, is a well-liked political insider foreordained to win

the job although he has no municipal management experience. Gongora, who has had

his own issues with the Miami Dade County Commission on Ethics, knows that Morales

did in fact have a run-in with the COE, over campaign expenditure documentation.

Morales qualifications and background indicate that the management job would be a

step down from or a delay in his political career. If only he were better known outside of

the county, he would have a shot at the state legislature and perhaps the governors

office. If Morales managed to controversially reform city government in short order, thecity manager job might prove to be a stepping stone.

Why did you pick these three, and did your motion pass, and if not why not? we asked

Gongora.

I selected each for different reasons. My motion passed. I found them to be the most

qualified for City of Miami Beach.

We did not understand why, for example, Robert D. Frank, currently the city manager of

Ocoee, Florida, and a reserve deputy sheriff for Ft. Lauderdale with early experience as

a police officer and paramedic, was passed by, given his long career in city and county

management The fact that he bothered to state that he firmly believes in maintaining

true access to the manager by residents and business owners rings a bell, since the

main complaint by residents and business owners about the former Miami Beach city

manager, Jorge Gonzales, was that he was inaccessible to residents, that only favored

contractors and developers had access to him. At a Feb. 24, 2010, Civic Circle

gathering to praise him, Gonzalez derogated residents who complained about a few

bad blades of grass in my nice lawn, mocked the nearly hundred thousand residents

who thought they should be his boss, and said that he would stay in his position as long

as he liked. One of his assistants pointed out that he only answered to the citys part-time commission and not to residents, and he did not present constructive suggestions

from residents to the commission because he did not have to.

Did you say WHY you felt them to be most qualified, or did you just make the motion

that they were, and the motion passed with debate? we asked Gongora.


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It wasn't as simple as a motion. The candidates were each discussed and the

Commission finally decided to do a straw ballot vote of the top three choices for each.

These three people were top vote getters and I made a motion to accept this list and

move forward with them.

Did the two from out of state come close as runners up? we asked.

No.

We were mindful that an outsider was favored by the civilians for the city manager job

a dozen years ago, but she did not have a chance against the shoo-in advanced by the

Hialeah power elite, Jorge Gonzales, who was forced to retire last year despite his

statement that he would stay in the job as long as he liked, his position now occupied by

interim city manager Kathie Brooks.

Out-of-state applicant Steven H. Barwick has been city manager of the resort town of

Aspen, Colorado, for over a dozen years. His implementation of a stormwater

improvement program among other improvements catches the eye given Jorge

Gonzales studied neglect of Miami Beachs antiquated, inadequate system, which has

cost residents and businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in flood damages, and

could have catastrophic consequences in the near future if ignored. He said it would be

inappropriate to prepare for a fifty-year flood, not bothering to account for the

consequences a twenty-year floor would have, keeping in mind that a flood within the

averaging timeframe is a probability that could happen in any given year

Out-of-state applicant Thomas J. Wilson, currently the assistant city manager of Palm

Springs, California, revealed that he has thirty-five years of diverse experience a city

manager for Milpitas and Oceanside in California, and Scottsdale and Tucson in

Arizona. His resume emphases community-involved leadership, community involvement

entailing positive listening, constructive dialogue and follow-up. Transparency and

accountability of staff are also stressed among other things desperately needed by

residents, visitors, and businesses in City of Miami Beach.

Yes, promises, promises: perhaps the expressions are boiler-plate rhetoric, or maybe

Wilson did his homework and tailored his resume to suit the city. We do not know

whether or not the recruiting company called his references to discover if he has a good

past record for doing what he promises to do for the City of Miami Beach.

The openness of the process, we stated to Gongora, with public resumes and

interviews, was great, but what influence constituents would have on the commission's

decision is an open question. Don't you think that we should have strong mayor system

so that the full time mayor would hire the city manager? If the city manager did not

perform well, the mayor's feet would be held to the fire. The mayors would probably


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bring in their own city managers. Limit both the mayor and the city manager to two four

year terms anyway.

Gongora, who reportedly will run for mayor, did not respond to our last question by

deadline. In our opinion the Strong Mayor concept would be a winning mayoral

candidate plank in a law-and-order platform for him, if he has the balls to stand up to theplate instead of being a weathercock who fails to follow through in the promised

direction when the wind happens to blow the another way.

Given the longstanding moral and criminal corruption suffered by our illustrious city on

the beach, and the utter arrogance of the ruling clique towards outsiders including those

with constructive suggestions, a well informed electorate would demand that one

elected person be directly responsible for all administrative heads. The part-time

commission and full-time professional city manager system is a formula for corruption.

W.M. Tweed loved his weak mayor and the concentration of power in the hands of hisring of department heads. Boss Tom Pendergast loved the weak mayor, professional

city manager form of government instituted in Kansas City to curb corruption such as

experienced under Boss Tweed in New York. The Kansas City innovation only added to

Boss Pendergasts ill-gotten gains. A strong mayor may be in someones pocket, but at

least the electorate can get rid of him along with the city manager, if the mayor does not

manage the city himself. A commission, like a many-headed hydra, is more difficult to

deal with, and its members may be affiliated with the morally and/or criminally corrupt

forces.

-XYX-


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Documents

Is Michael Gongora Strong City of Miami Beach Mayor Candidate