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Joe Fontana will
ask questions during a screening process if he darn
well wants to. |
[Editor's Note: The
SunPost has just been informed that Joe Fontana
passed away at Mount Sinai Hospital on Monday, September
3rd. He was taken to the hospital the previous Wednesday
evening, August 29, a day after a phone interview with
Murmurs. The following Thursday morning he was given
triple-bypass surgery. The SunPost would like to
express its condolences.]
The
14 candidates currently running for four seats on the
Miami Beach City Commission received letters from the
Miami Beach Condominium and Homeowners Alliance a couple
of weeks ago, inviting them to take part in the
organization’s endorsement screening interviews. Members
of the press were not invited.
“It will not be open
to the public,” said Joe Fontana, president of the MBCHA,
just prior to last Friday’s screening. Fontana said the
interviews were to be conducted by seven members of
MBCHA’s board of directors. “They will be interviewing
the candidates individually. … I’m the president. … I
will be one of the seven.”
The idea that Fontana
was leading a screening committee brought some amusement
from a couple of candidates and at least one political
consultant whom Murmurs spoke to recently. According to
them, Fontana, who has run for Miami Beach commissioner
several times since 1991 (the last time against Jerry
Libbin and four other candidates in 2005), is hardly
impartial.
“I don’t know how
someone who is so deeply involved in so many campaigns
can do [this] with a straight face … there’s a little
bit of a conflict issue,” said one consultant who
preferred not to be named. “… Usually [organizations]
have the decency not to bother [inviting candidates] to
a screening if [the outcome is] pre-ordained.”
Fontana bristled at
the suggestion that the MBCHA’s endorsements will not be
fair. First off, he said, the decision is not entirely
up to him. He says he’s just one vote. “If I were going
to do it on my own … I would not need a committee,” he
said. Second, Fontana said the only candidate he is
campaigning for is Commissioner Michael Gongora, who is
running for a full four-year term for the Group 5 seat.
“I supported him last
time; how can I not support him again?” he asked. “I
will recuse myself from voting. It will be the other
members [who will decide the Group 5 endorsement]. I
will make it very fair.”
Ed Tobin, who is
running against Gongora, said although Fontana declared
his intent not to vote in the recommendations for the
Group 5 race, he was present in the interview and even
asked questions. “Typically in a judicial forum, if a
judge has a conflict, he cannot ask questions,” said
Tobin, an attorney. Murmurs also knows from covering
meetings that when a city board member or elected
official has a conflict, he or she doesn’t say anything
and even leaves the room.
“That’s fine, so
what’s wrong with that?” asked Fontana when Murmurs
brought up the sticking-around-for-questions thing in a
follow-up phone call made on Monday. “… I can ask
questions. I didn’t vote.”
“In a certain kind of
way it is fun to have the guy around, in a caricature
sort of way,” Tobin said of Fontana. “It’s sort of an
amusing thing in a dark humor sense.…”
Fontana said the MBCHA
will announce its choices on Sept. 9 during a luncheon
at a location to be disclosed. Incidentally, Fontana
declined to give the names of MBCHA’s voting board
members for fear they would be lobbied. However, Murmurs
found the names of MBCHA’s leaders on a letter sent to
one of the candidates, so lobbyists and political
operatives, see if you can figure out who the voting
members of the MBCHA are and have at it. And remember,
you owe Murmurs one.
Officers: Joe Fontana
(president), Luis Maseda (first vice president), Benita
Argos (second vice president), Alfredo Rey (treasurer),
Justo Gomez (secretary).
Board of Directors:
Scott Barger, June Castro, Marylin Jaramarillo, Bernard
Miller, Frank Natoll, R. Gavin Oddo, Abe Podolsky,
Arlene Terrinoni.
More Election Fun!
Say, ya know that a
biiiiiiiig election is coming up in Miami Beach, right?
Of course you do! And so the SunPost and the
Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce are teaming up to
sponsor a Meet the Candidates for Miami Beach City
Office thingamajig at the Ronald W. Shane Center at 6500
Indian Creek Drive on Monday, Sept. 10. Come early (5:30
p.m.) and mingle with mayoral and City Commission
candidates who managed to qualify before the city’s
Sept. 7 deadline. Then at 7 p.m., a mayoral debate
moderated by Helen Aguirre Ferre of WPBT Channel 2’s
Issues program commences. Got a question of your own
for the mayoral candidates? E-mail them to
debate@miamisunpost.com.
Oh, and seating is limited so be sure to call the
Chamber of Commerce at 305-695-6834 or e-mail to rsvp@miamibeachchamber.com
if you are interested in attending.
Cops, the Murmurs
Episode
And now a tale from
one of the SunPost’s contributors (can ya guess
which one?):
“Three weeks ago, on
Monday around 12:30 a.m., I was at my house doing some
work and waiting for some friends to get to the Love
Hate lounge right around [the corner from my place].
Admittedly, I had already begun the pre-party when all
of sudden there was a knock on my door.
“I wasn’t expecting
anyone, so I looked through the peephole. Not
recognizing the man at my door, I didn’t open. I figured
they must have had the wrong apartment or something. I
guess they could see that I was looking through the
hole, and when I didn’t answer they started pounding on
my door and yelling ‘Open up! Police!’ Perplexed and a
little worried for my freedom, I opened the door and
found myself face-to-drunken-stupid-face with two
undercover cops. They wanted to know if I had heard
anything going on. I hadn’t (which is weird because I
can hear everything that goes on in the hall, not to
mention since I was working the TV and radio were turned
off).
“Then they asked me if
any black people lived on my floor. I said I didn’t
think so. They then explained to me that a girl had
barely escaped being raped and that she ran screaming,
crying and naked from my building and called the cops.
She described her attacker as a black Haitian male.
“Obviously, because I
am neither black nor Haitian they apologized for
bothering me and turned to leave. … Subsequently, two
patrol cars were stationed outside of my building and
the next day the gate leading into the garage that is
always open was closed ... at least until it broke again
a few days later.”
End of Summer
Murmurs senses change.
The breeze, though still stiflingly humid, is picking up
a bit. Stretches of residential and city streets in
Miami Beach are increasingly festooned
with colorful campaign signs — some
yards even inexplicably hosting signs for two
candidates running in the same race (they just don’t
have the heart to say no?). Miami Beach is even getting
a new postmaster on Friday (John Philip Cascio takes his
Oath of Office — Murmurs hopes it includes the bit about
sleet and snow — at 11 a.m. Friday at the Miami Beach
Post Office, 1300 Washington Ave.). So change is
inevitable. More moody than usual, Murmurs bids farewell
to a favorite water-cooler
comrade. This is the final edition for Robin Shear,
the SunPost’s managing
editor for the past two and a half
years. Murmurs and the rest of the staff wish her luck
in her next venture as associate editor of South
Florida CEO magazine.
Next Year’s
News
The SunPost’s
annual Reason
for Season calendar of events for
November through May is scheduled to hit the streets
Nov. 1. We are looking for submissions of events that
are open to the public and take place only
between Nov. 1, 2007
and April 30, 2008. Categories are art,
film, performing arts, music, society, festivals and
sports. The submission
deadline is Sept. 14.
Jpegs and other e-mailed images are welcome. Fax and
snail mail can be accommodated as a last resort. Call
Agustina at 305-405-7384 for more information;
e-mail calendar@miamisunpost.com
with submissions and to receive an e-mail instruction
sheet.
Got a murmur?
E-mail editorial@miamisunpostComments?
E-mail
letters@miamisunpost.com.
