Judy Drucker paved the way for the arts in Miami.

As of Tuesday, Murmurs was told Gov. Charlie Crist had not yet been “briefed” on Johnny Winton’s situation.

“He just returned from Israel yesterday afternoon,” Thomas Philpot, a Crist spokesman, said, referring to the governor’s recent trade trip.

Benedict Kuehne, Winton’s defense attorney, expected as much. Interviewed the day before, Kuehne said the governor is probably waiting for a signed document of Winton’s plea agreement to be sent over. That will take about a week, Kuehne estimated.

But Philpot had a simpler reason: “This afternoon he is on personal time.” But just because the governor is chilling doesn’t mean folks on both sides of the Johnny Winton issue are giving it a rest.

How rude of Murmurs. Here is some quick background for the tourists and locals ignorant of current events. Back in 1999, Johnny Winton, a real estate broker frustrated with the powers-who-be in Miami, became one of the powers-who-be in Miami when he was first elected commissioner. By the next century, Winton had become a staunch ally of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz (elected in 2001) and the mayor’s vision that development is generally good, even if that means allowing a big ol’ Home Depot to be constructed in quaint-ish Coconut Grove, much to the annoyance of fellow Grove residents. Winton even partnered with Diaz and then-City Manager Joe Arriola to buy a house in Coconut Grove, and later voted to give Diaz a $50,000 a year pay raise.

And then, last summer, Winton, already saddled with a reputation for heavy drinking, got into a drunken scuffle with two Miami-Dade police officers. Winton was charged with two counts of battery on a police officer. Since these are felony charges, Gov. Jeb Bush suspended him from office. Last November, Grove activist Marc Sarnoff was elected to Winton’s seat and has become a thorn in Mayor Diaz’s side, voting against development projects, criticizing a proposed streetcar plan, acting as a fifth columnist in a pending lawsuit against Home Depot; and being noncommittal on Museum Park and the mayor’s envisioned new zoning plans called Miami 21.

Fast-forward to last week: Winton plead down to three misdemeanor charges in exchange for a two-year probation sentence that included a ban on drinking for the duration of the sentence. He also told a TV reporter that politics is not in his future. His attorney Kuehne, meanwhile, was telling print media that Winton will finish out the last five months of his term and expects to be reinstated by Governor Crist. The reason: Winton was not convicted of the exact charges he was suspended for but for two misdemeanor counts of battery and disorderly intoxication. Thus Winton was “cleared of the charges which were the basis of the arrest, indictment or information by reason of which he or she was suspended under the provisions of this section,” according to a letter sent to Paul Huck, Crist’s general counsel, and signed by Kuehne and Winton’s other power attorney Kendall Coffey. Ergo Winton should be allowed to “resume the duties of office to which he was elected by the people of the city of Miami for four-year term.”

But Sarnoff, also an attorney, doesn’t think he should have to leave. “Nobody is going to be serving my term,” he said. “The law is very clear and I think the governor, legally, must remove…” Sarnoff’s lawyer, Jeffrey Swartz, has sent his own letter to Huck. Although not convicted of the specific felonies, Winton was “convicted of offenses which were the subject matter of his arrest and ‘contained’ in the information as lesser included offenses of the felonies for which he was charged.” So there!

But if you really want to sway a politician a certain way, write a lot of e-mails. Upper Eastside activist Steve Hagen (a critic of Museum Park) and Coconut Grove resident Sue McConnell (an opponent of The Home Depot) have launched an e-mail campaign to get the governor to permanently revoke Winton’s seat and keep Sarnoff.

“Basically he was elected by the people,” McConnell said, reasoning that for the last year the seat changed hands three times — Winton, then appointed interim Commissioner Linda Haskins and finally, after a competitive election and “costly” run-off, Sarnoff. And now, just when things are “getting done” in Miami’s District 2, Winton returns? “It’s very disruptive,” she said. If Winton wants to get back his seat, she argued, let him run for election in November. (Sarnoff has filed to run for a full four-year term. So far, no one else has signed up to run against him.)

Peter Ehrlich, a consultant for Sarnoff’s District 2 office, said “slightly less than 1,000 letters went to the governor” supporting Sarnoff.

Meanwhile, Winton fans have not remained idle. Mayor Manny Diaz appeared on WBPT Channel 2 on Sunday, saying Winton did not want to run for a four-year term but did want to finish his last five months so he could complete projects the both of them had started like (drum roll) Miami 21, the streetcar and Museum Park.

Seth Gordon, a political consultant who counts Diaz and Winton as friends, says there are lots of folks who have been trying to get Winton back in office. “There are an awful lot of people communicating with the governor, suggesting that he lift the suspension,” he said.

 

Fired?

 

If you log on to the Concert Association of Florida’s Web site, www.concertfla.org, and click on “About us,” you will see several pictures of Judy Drucker posing from various time periods with classical music celebrities like Luciano Pavarotti, Itzhak Perlman and Leonard Bernstein. Also featured prominently on the Web site is a 40th-year anniversary banner even though the Concert Association has only officially existed for 21 years. The logic: The anniversary includes the previous 19 years that Drucker brought in classical acts to then-culturally devoid Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County, particularly Temple Beth Sholom. And if you call the nonprofit’s office, the phrase “You have reached Judy Drucker’s Concert Association of Florida” is the first thing you hear on the recorded phone system.

So you can imagine Murmurs’ amazement when reading the headline “Drucker Fired” in Tuesday’s 5 Minute Herald. The more in-depth Miami Herald article explained that the board of directors had voted to replace Drucker as director of the concert association with Chief Executive Al Milano, owing to the $1.5 million to $2 million debt the organization has incurred. Board Chair Robert Hudson also told the Herald Milano would leave the organization if Drucker continued as the group’s co-leader.

Murmurs asked the first person reached at the association: “So Judy Drucker got fired from Judy Drucker’s Concert Association of Florida?” The employee reacted with a snicker before censoring herself. “I shouldn’t be laughing,” she said. “It’s a tough time.” Further questions were eventually referred to Milano himself. The question was repeated. “No, no, that’s such a horrible way of looking at what [happened],” he said.

Milano, who worked at the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts prior to November, went on: “The concert association has some very significant monetary challenges right now.” He described Drucker’s departure as leader as a mutual decision between all board members and Drucker herself, emphasizing that Drucker (who received a $155,000 salary last year) would get a generous retirement package as well as a stipend for being a consultant. He said he looked forward to working with her in booking acts for next season and emphasized that he enjoyed working with her.

But what about Hudson telling the Herald they feared you would leave if Drucker remained as director? “I don’t know too many organizations that have two directors,” he answered.

Murmurs called Drucker, who basically insinuated it was her idea to leave as director, as she desires to move on to other challenges in the entertainment world. “I’ve been here so long. Forty years,” she said. “We are all parting on the best of terms.”

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