2006 Top 50

Charles Burkett
Chucky

Two years ago, Charles Burkett IV gave the most serious challenge to Surfside Town Hall in more than a decade when he ran for mayor and led a slate of four candidates for the commission. All five of them lost but Burkett and company never went away: They continued to go to every meeting, nipping at Mayor Tim Will’s heels on subjects ranging from lawn maintenance to the reconstruction of the Surfside Community Center to the nature of FBI investigations. It wasn’t long before more people started listening to Burkett’s side, two town commissioners defected from the establishment and Will began to lose it on the dais. Burkett was even able to use a shadowy campaign, in which personal information about him was circulated to neighbors and the media, to his advantage. Long story short: Burkett and his allies were elected to the Town Commission on March 21.

In a speech after he was sworn in, Burkett announced his intent to hold meetings twice a week and audit Surfside’s books. That will surely be just the beginning. As Burkett showed during his tenure at the Miami Beach Housing Authority, the man is both charming and tenacious. He will get what he wants. And if that means changing Surfside’s government completely from top to bottom (hint to Town Attorney Steve Cypen: Start looking for other work) until no remnant of veteran Mayor Paul Novack remains, so be it. Sure, there will be some stormy days ahead for Burkett and chances are the old clique will materialize as a viable opposition, dogging him about one thing or another. But Burkett will probably steamroll through it, smiling all the while with those oh-so-perfect teeth of his.

Max Mayfield
The Predictor

OK, so maybe we won’t have as busy a hurricane season as last year when we had, oh, 26 storms? Guess what, with 17 named storms predicted it is still going to be plenty eventful. Conditions are ripe for the Caribbean Sea to be awash in spinning and turning tropical storm systems — a regular Terran asteroid belt of meteorological calamity and disaster. Chances are one of these storms will skirt our neck of the woods or hit it directly. But why are we stating the obvious? You were here last year, right? You remember continuously being told another storm system was headed our way? And so, come hurricane season, our computer cursors will click the Web page of the National Hurricane Center incessantly and our printers will regularly churn out the latest cone of uncertainties that, once in a while, will include Miami.

And always on the television screen, interviewed by weathermen and women from networks all over the country, will be Max Mayfield, the director of the NHC.

From the tornado capital of the world, Oklahoma, Mayfield started his career as a weather forecaster with the United States Air Force in 1970. Two years later Mayfield came to Miami and worked as a satellite meteorologist here. In 1987, armed with a degree in meteorology from Florida State University, Mayfield became a hurricane specialist. Since then Mayfield has written nearly 50 percent of the annual hurricane summaries for the Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Pacific published in Monthly Weather Review and Weatherwise. By 1996, Mayfield was awarded the Francis W. Reichelderfer Award from the American Meteorological Society for his work coordinating the center’s hurricane preparedness presentations to emergency managers and the general public.

So is it any wonder Mayfield was picked as the director of the NHC in 2000 when Jerry Jarrell retired? “He knows every link in the critical process of hurricane predictions,” Jack Kelly, director of the National Weather Service, said about Mayfield after his promotion. “He understands the science of hurricanes and the science of communicating the threat of hurricanes, which will help communities in danger of a land-falling storm take necessary safety precautions.”

And Mayfield continued to rack up awards. In 2000 the National Hurricane Conference gave him the Outstanding Achievement Award for expanding educational opportunities on hurricane preparedness to state and local officials. In 2004, the Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference gave him the Richard Hagemeyer award for his contributions to the country’s National Hurricane Warning Program.

But life isn’t completely rosy for Mayfield. Two years ago he told the Palm Beach Post that he fears one day a storm will approach Florida as a weak Category 1 at night but quickly strengthen into a Category 4 or 5 by morning. Mayfield called it the “nightmare scenario.” “That’s going to happen one of these days, and it’s going to be devastating,” he said.

Mayfield was confronted with another nightmare scenario last year: Katrina. His office was only 18 miles off on the storm’s predicted landfall. Thoroughly exhausted, Mayfield still made frantic calls to the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi, the mayor of New Orleans and even did a videoconference for President Bush. “I just wanted to be able to sleep that night knowing that I did all I could,” Mayfield told the St. Petersburg Times.

And come June, when conditions are favorable for the formation of hurricanes, Mayfield and his staff will be doing the same thing: whatever they can to warn the public of coming disaster.

Maria Pellerin Barcus
Community Builder

Carrfour Supportive Housing is more than just a developer of affordable housing; it’s the Miami establishment’s way of making amends to the area’s population left behind by the economic boom.

Started 11 years ago by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, Carrfour Supportive Housing was created as a solution to Miami-Dade’s growing homeless problem. “Its mission is to provide permanent housing and supportive services to maximize the self-sufficiency of the formerly homeless in Miami-Dade County and other cities in Florida through joint ventures with various non-profit organizations,” according to the organization’s own Web site. Not an easy task. Fortunately, Carrfour has Maria Pellerin Barcus at the helm.

Prior to joining Carrfour, Barcus worked as director of the Miami Beach Development Corporation and director of economic development for Miami-Dade County. It was in the latter capacity that she created the Hurricane Andrew Economic Recovery Strategy in 1992, which “sought to utilize the strongest economic sectors in the county to re-establish economic activity and jobs in the devastated area,” according to her bio.

Two years later, Barcus was named president and chief executive officer of Carrfour. During her tenure, Carrfour has pieced together $70 million in various grants to build and operate more than 700 units in complexes throughout Miami-Dade County. Oh, and they aren’t just any complexes. As Carrfour’s mission statement, well, states: “The buildings are designed with the community in mind, with a ‘look’ not only reflecting the flavor of the neighborhood in which they are located, but also improving upon it.” When Little River Bend, a 66-unit apartment building for formerly homeless individuals with a disability, was completed at 8250 NE Fourth Place, property values on the blighted block actually increased.

Unfortunately, that fact was lost on North Beach residents when they found out last year that Carrfour was developing Harding Village just a couple of blocks away from St. Joseph’s Catholic School. Neighbors clamored that a project for formerly homeless individuals would be a threat to the little kids going to St. Joseph’s. Never mind that similar transitional housing projects, some for recovering alcoholics, are also in the area. Never mind that individuals with violent records would not be allowed to live at the facility. Never mind that Miami Beach has a law on the books forbidding convicted child molesters from living within 2,500 feet of a school. Never mind that what was previously on-site, the Paradise Hotel, was called by Commissioner Jose Smith, a North Beach resident, a “rat-infested, drug-dealing and prostitution-laden hotel.” Harding Village was despised by the public. After it was pointed out that Miami Beach can’t stop such projects (especially since the city was sued to the ground for doing so several years back with another agency), Harding Village won a conditional use permit earlier this year to operate. North Beachers, though, have vowed to fight on.

Chances are those legal challenges will be pushed by the wayside. Barcus is a tough cookie and all too ready to remind members of the Greater Miami establishment of the need to do something about homelessness. When all is said and done, and Harding Village is completed and occupied, North Beachers will probably have trouble remembering what they were so fired up about.

Jorge Gonzalez
The $230,000 Man

At the tender age of 39, Miami Beach City Manager Jorge Gonzalez is the third-highest-paid city manager in Miami-Dade County, making $230,000 a year, a $2,000 housing allowance and, after his latest pay raise, a $12,500 performance bonus. Only two administrators earn higher base-line salaries: County Manager George Burgess (who has trouble sleeping at night, fearing the day he annoys one county commissioner too many) and Miami City Manager Joe Arriola (who donates most of his taxpayer salary to the United Way while passing the time engaging in business deals with Mayor Manny Diaz). Did we mention Gonzalez is only 39?

Jealous yet?

Don’t be. He came with a high price tag when he was first hired by the city of Miami Beach in 2000. His prior job was senior assistant chief administrative officer for Montgomery County, Md., the highest nonpolitical appointee job title for the Greater D.C. community. Before that Gonzalez was assistant county manager of Arlington County, Va., and was given the task of making sure the community’s computer systems were Y2K compliant. (Remember those days? When we thought we’d be transported to the Stone Age because computer chips would think it was the year zero after January 1, 2000. Boy that was fun!)

Anyway, Gonzalez proved to be adept not only at administrating but in local politics as well. Entering his sixth year, Gonzalez only has to deal with the occasional outburst from Miami Beach City Commissioner Luis Garcia. Now all he has to do is address $620 million worth of capital improvement needs, find capital improvement managers who will stay with the city for more than a few months, deal with power outages caused by hurricanes that slam into Miami Beach two or three times a year, resist homicidal urges after disgruntled city employee union leaders circulate unflattering flyers about him, keep tax rates from getting too high while doling out six-figure salaries to department heads, find a way to get South Beach streets clean, avoid the wrath of dog owners and — all the while — find a way to turn the Jackie Gleason Theater into a Cirque du Soleil entertainment complex, build a brand spanking new $50 million ballroom at the Miami Beach Convention Center, hurricane-proof windows at Mount Sinai Medical Center, rebuild the Miami City Ballet and see that renovations of two firehouses and the Normandy Pool are finished prior to NASA completing a landing base on the moon.

Not so jealous now, are ya? Face it. Gone are the days when we could call Miami Beach a seasonal town. The Beach is a complicated organism and Gonzalez is the complicated guy running the whole shebang.

Jorge Perez
The $2 Billion Man

OK, so one of his Las Vegas projects fizzled. Who cares if he pulled out of the Cirque du Soleil deal? And so what if a few Shorecrest residents threaten legal action to stop one of his latest ventures, the 20-story Oasis, from seeing the light of day? In an economic environment where development is, for lack of a better term, starting to head a little south, it is to be expected that Perez will experience a few bumps and scrapes.

But Jorge Perez is Jorge Perez, the president and CEO of the Related Group of Florida, a firm that is developing multifamily projects not just in the southern portion of Florida but now northern Florida, southern Georgia, South America and other destinations not even announced yet. In October 2004, the Related Group of Florida declared $2 billion in sales. That was enough for Hispanic Business magazine to name it the largest Hispanic-owned company in the United States in 2005 and for South Florida CEO to nickname Perez “cool $2 billion.” Also that year, Forbes magazine listed Perez among the richest Americans, while Time magazine named him among the 25 most influential Hispanics in this country.

On the local front, Perez is hard at work completing projects such as Icon Brickell, One Miami and 50 Biscayne while putting the final details on residential endeavors like Apogee in South Beach and the aforementioned Oasis in Miami’s Upper Eastside and doing a joint venture with Donald Trump and the Dezers to complete a 271-unit luxury high-rise in Sunny Isles Beach. Outside Miami-Dade County, Perez is embarking on projects in Atlanta; Jacksonville; Punta del Este, Uruguay; and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Perez even has a school named after him: The University of Miami Jorge Perez School of Architecture. That came following a $1.25 million donation to the school but you get the point.

And so, while building thousands of residential units, Perez apparently felt he had enough time on his hands to consider a joint venture with Clear Channel and Cirque du Soleil to transform the Jackie Gleason Theater into a permanent venue for the Montreal-based circus in exchange for a public investment between $85 million and $100 million. The venture, by the way, would also include a nightclub/multipurpose venue, an indoor/outdoor event facility, a spa, a small boutique hotel, retail, gallery and “other uses as mutually determined by the parties.” “It was ballsy,” David Kelsey, president of the South Beach Hotel and Restaurant Association, said of Related’s proposal. When the project seemed too much, Perez backed out, though Cirque President Eric Fournier gave credit where it was due: “It was Related that made it possible for Cirque to meet with [the] city … for which we are very grateful.”

By the end of March, Perez also threw in the towel to construct Icon Las Vegas and perhaps even an 11-tower condo project venture with George Clooney, Las Ramblas, on 25 Vegas acres. “Did we misjudge the levels of demand and costs in Las Vegas? The answer is yes,” Perez told the Miami Herald. He was still glad he made the effort. “You learn, but you don’t regret.”

Another thing Perez has learned: Don’t be too greedy. As he told South Florida CEO last September, “I have just two philosophies: You never go broke from making a profit, and pigs always end up getting slaughtered. I have been in the business now for 27 years, and I don't know how many people have gone broke in real estate always looking for that last profit.”

No doubt the folks with the Upper Eastside Preservation Coalition hope Perez’s sense of pragmatism might get him to back off after they filed suit against the approval of Oasis on 79th Street. They’d better be prepared for a battle. Because Perez is not only a good businessman — when it comes to protecting his perceived rights he is also quite a fighter.

Steven Sonenreich
In the Black

When called by this newspaper about the recent closure of South Beach Community Hospital, Mount Sinai CEO Steven Sonenreich could not help but gloat — in a professional manner. No, he didn’t give any credence to local urban legends of semi-comatose individuals on gurneys trying to break free of their restraints when informed by paramedics the ambulance was headed for South Beach Community, aka South Shore. He didn’t remind the SunPost about the time FBI and IRS agents carted away documents in relation to South Shore’s billings to Medicare. In fact, Sonenreich even complimented the South Beach hospital’s CEOs for competing so long against Mount Sinai, Florida’s largest private, independent, not-for-profit teaching hospital that offers comprehensive emergency, cardiovascular, cancer, orthopedic and rehabilitative health care. And now, with Miami Heart Institute thoroughly absorbed, Mount Sinai is the only game in town. And who better, Sonenreich feels, than a nonprofit hospital interested only in bringing in good doctors, scientists and state-of-the-art equipment? So why not, the CEO is asking city officials, give Mount Sinai $1.9 million, or maybe even $35 million, so it can hurricane-proof its building? Beach officials, worried about such things as providing essential services for the public and giving money to Cirque du Soleil, are so far reluctant to buy the argument.

But if anyone can convince city officials to invest in Mount Sinai it is Sonenreich, who began his medical administrative career at that hospital in 1977. By 1990 he was Mount Sinai’s chief operating officer. Six years later, Sonenreich went off to become executive officer of Cedars Medical Center. To fill the void, Mount Sinai’s board of directors would eventually hire Bruce Perry and M. Brooks Turkel as their executives. The pair would convince the board of directors to buy Miami Heart for $184 million. To help finance the transaction, Miami Beach acted as a conduit. Unfortunately that idea created a $64.9 million deficit for the hospital and incurred the wrath of the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), which insisted that Perry and Turkel made “misrepresentations” about the hospital’s health to investors in May 2001. (Turkel settled with the SEC in December 2005, paying a fine of $35,000 without admitting guilt. Perry maintains his innocence.)

So Sonenreich came to the rescue in October 2001. Using his administrative talents and motivated by his loyalty to Mount Sinai as an institution, he slashed the hospital’s debt and convinced Wall Street of Mount Sinai’s financial worth. Now a modest profit is projected for this year (barring any powerful storm systems) and Mount Sinai is moving forward with plans to build a hospital near Aventura.

Mera Rubell
The Godmother

Mera Rubell is a no-nonsense gal with a penchant for modern art. She moved to Miami in 1993 from Manhattan, where she had worked as a teacher and was involved in real estate. Along with her husband, Don Rubell (brother of Studio 54 frontman Steve Rubell), and her children Jennifer and Jason, she and the Rubell clan settled in the Magic City and became the pioneers of what is now the Wynwood Art District. The Rubells started collecting art after their marriage in 1964 and have now accumulated one of the largest private art collections in the world. It features work from major artists such as Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Julian Schnabel and Keith Haring. In 1996 the Rubell Family Collection opened to the public in the Wynwood warehouse they had purchased in 1994. In 2004 the warehouse was renovated and the space was doubled to 45,000 square feet. It now includes a research library with more than 30,000 volumes, a Phaidon bookstore, a sculpture garden and 27 galleries. The Rubells have built a modern private residence nearby.

According to the collection’s curator of six years, Mark Coetzee, it is the “most complete collection of contemporary art in the U.S.” “That’s kind of why I’m here,” he says. He adds that few people may remember Mera Rubell’s pivotal role in bringing Art Basel to Miami Beach. She was “very friendly” with the director of Art Basel prior to Samuel Keller, he explains, and brought him down to Miami, perhaps giving us an early edge over Los Angeles, another contender, for being chosen as the fair’s U.S. outpost.

When Mera Rubell isn’t gallivanting around art fairs in Switzerland and Italy or speaking about the collection at major museums around the world, she has managed to secure some choice pieces of property in Miami, including the Sony building on Lincoln Road as well as a few South Beach hotels.

Luis Pons
The Creative

Don’t let his pretty-boy looks fool you — Luis Pons is a creative force to be reckoned with and he is definitely an architect to watch. This industrial-design dynamo has taken on architecture, art, interior design, furniture and landscape design and even jewelry-making. You may remember Pons from last year’s Art Basel when his inflatable floating villa made waves throughout Miami. Pons has a secret laboratory tucked away inside the Design District’s Moore Building where he comes up with his crafty creations. The designer, now 40, came to Miami from Venezuela and has since been designing houses from Florida to St. Bart’s. He even designed Latin pop singer Chayanne’s home. In 2005 Pons showed his collection of lights and furniture at the Milan Design Fair. His floating villa has now bid this city adieu and is on its way to the Venice Biennale via Paris. Pons is one South Florida personality who is putting the “design” back into the Design District.

Gary Pruitt
The Savior

“Is McClatchy bad? No! I’d rather my paper be bought by McClatchy than Gannett or Knight Ridder any day of the week.”

So said Dale Maharidge, a former Sacramento Bee reporter, as quoted in a 2003 American Journalism Review article titled “Is McClatchy Different?”

Now the McClatchy newspaper chain will soon buy Knight Ridder, and among the newspapers deemed worthy of not being sold off to other entities is the Miami Herald.

By these two facts alone Gary Pruitt merits being named a 50. One: He is the CEO and chairman of McClatchy. Two: It will be the first time since 1937, when Ohio newspaperman John S. Knight purchased the Herald, that the business head of Miami’s daily won’t be a Knight or a Ridder CEO. Such a thing is likely to have an effect among the power elite of Miami itself. The Non-Group, Miami’s own local illuminati (now known as The Miami Business Forum), was basically founded by Alvah Chapman, then CEO of Knight Ridder.

Yet there is an even bigger reason Pruitt is making an impact in Miami-Dade County now and will continue to: His reputation has made Herald reporters feel optimistic again for the first time since the early 1990s. Unlike Knight Ridder chairman Tony Ridder (portrayed in fiction and columnist commentaries as a money-grubbing executive), hardly anyone has anything bad to say about Pruitt or the chain he runs.

Raised in Satellite Beach, near Cape Canaveral, Pruitt began his career in the newspaper business as a First Amendment lawyer for the Miami-based firm Paul & Thomson. In 1984 he was hired as McClatchy’s in-house counsel. Pruitt had a lot to do. The chairman of the McClatchy chain, C.K. McClatchy, wanted his newspapers to be “raw” and so the chain got sued a lot. Pruitt fought them all and created a libel “preventive program that impressed a lot of people in the newsroom,” former McClatchy CEO Erwin Potts told Editor & Publisher. Prior to dying of a heart attack in 1989 while jogging, McClatchy persuaded Pruitt to come over to the business side. By ’96 he was the CEO. By ’01 he was the chairman.

And since then McClatchy has run like a well-oiled machine. The secret to Pruitt’s success: He despises laying people off (bad for morale and for business, he reasons) and he keeps out of the hair of newspaper editors.

And to think Herald writers have a corporate raider from Naples to thank. 

Bruce Sherman
K.R. Killer  

With all the grumblings Miami Herald critics — both within and outside the paper — made of Tony Ridder’s aforementioned tendency to slash budgets in order to make the bottom line, one would think that Wall Street investors would be quite pleased with the Knight Ridder chairman and CEO.

They would think wrong. Bruce Sherman, the money manager of Naples-based company Private Capital Management, got together with the company’s largest investors and gave the Knight Ridder newspaper chair an ultimatum: Sell the stock or get fired.

So Knight Ridder announced it would sell itself off, causing a mad bidding war the likes of which few corporate newspapers have seen as other media conglomerates and investment firms made their inquiries. Financiers all over the country salivated while newspaper reporters contemplated a career in another field, such as lawn maintenance. “This sale, if it happens, will constitute the first big-time hostile takeover of a U.S. newspaper company but maybe not the last,” wrote Charles Layton, in his February/March American Journalism Review article, “Sherman’s March.” “Some on Wall Street are hoping it could trigger a broader wave of consolidation, with all of the investment banking deals, lawyers’ and consultants’ fees and stock windfalls that this implies. Many who work at newspapers — especially those belonging to Knight Ridder — worry now about their careers and the future of their profession.”

Strangely enough, Sherman doesn’t see himself as a heartless corporate raider out to annihilate journalism, but as an activist. At the age of 29, Sherman made a pretty decent living managing the wealth of one of Florida’s largest landowners, the Collier Family. Then in 1986 he went into business for himself and started PCM, which was later bought by financier Legg Mason Inc. Interesting thing about Sherman: He is not a speculator. He likes to hold on to stock for years. He also believes that “shareholders have rights” and it’s the role of money managers to see that they are protected. So when Knight Ridder stock began to plummet, Sherman felt he was just doing his duty by demanding the corporation’s sale. Peter Tanous, an investment consultant, recently recounted a conversation he had with Sherman to the Baltimore Sun. “He said, ‘You know Peter, when I was doing this years ago, nobody paid any attention, and now that I’m doing it with bigger companies, everybody is paying attention.’”

Then came the announcement of Knight Ridder’s sale to McClatchy for $4.5 billion. For the employees of 12 Knight Ridder newspapers, the nightmare is just beginning —McClatchy plans to sell those papers off. However, for the lucky kids at the Miami Herald, McClatchy brings a ray of hope and, most importantly, stability. Unlike the Ridder family, the McClatchy family controls the voting stock of the company. Ironically, thanks to Sherman, that means McClatchy isn’t vulnerable to corporate takeover and the Herald newsroom is finally insulated from financial managers just like him.

Gerald Posner
Literati

Gerald Posner possesses a talent shared by many in this 50 list: the ability to succeed at any industry he tackles. A graduate of UC Berkeley and Hastings Law School, the baby-faced Posner started his career at 23 as one of the youngest attorneys ever hired by the Wall Street law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore. After co-founding the law firm of Posner and Ferrara, he turned his sights to another profession: journalism. ABC News, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times and Boston Globe have all praised Posner for his in-depth investigative work.

Now in his early 50s, Posner is an established book author and freelance writer for several news magazines. He is a regular contributor to NBC’s Today Show and a consultant to shows on CNN and the History Channel. The subjects of his books range from assassinations (JFK and MLK Jr.) to Motown to 9/11 (Why America Slept) to controversial figures in history (Mengele and Ross Perot). Posner even showed his ability to keep up with sardonic comedian Jon Stewart when he appeared on The Daily Show last May to plug his new book, Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-U.S. Connection. Posner lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner, who collaborates on all of his projects. Locally, he’s a bit of a celebrity too, with a monthly Ocean Drive Magazine column called “Cultural Chatter” he and Trisha pen. And he also serves as the president of his condominium association, proving he’s not only a bright soul but a brave one.

Alberto Ibargüen
The Legacy

As Knight Ridder is absorbed into the McClatchy newspaper chain, there will be two monuments to the fact that the corporation once existed.

One will be the Miami Performing Arts Center. Costing hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars, repeatedly delayed and lacking any convenient parking, its eminent existence will be owed to the powers-that-were at the Miami Herald and Knight Ridder, who not only donated land but provided plenty of editorial support (read: pressure) and publicity. At least there should be a few good shows.

The second is the Knight Foundation, a thing that preceded the existence of Knight Ridder itself. Long before the Knight and Ridder chains merged into a single entity, brothers John and James created the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The institution has a complicated task: It seeks to build “strong communities” in the 26 cities and towns where the Knights had newspapers and to “seed and inspire great journalism everywhere.” As explained in the organization’s mission statement: “Every day, we ask the question, of ourselves and our partners, ‘Is this the best there is?’ We seek out leaders who ask the same, who can identify the best opportunities and turn the big ideas into action.” To make it happen, the Knight Foundation has assets of $1.94 billion and a president and CEO in the form of Alberto Ibargüen.

We know him as the former publisher of the Miami Herald. But Ibargüen, a Peace Corps volunteer in his youth, has been a newspaper executive since 1984, starting at the Hartford Courant, then New York’s Newsday and finally, by 1995, the Knight Ridder newspaper chain. During this time, Ibargüen has been forced to make unpleasant decisions — making cutbacks in business offices and newsrooms. So when Ibargüen replaced David Lawrence as Herald publisher some were nervous. And indeed, in the years to come, senior Herald writers were offered lucrative retirement packages. However, there were also quite a few triumphs at the Herald — news coverage gradually became more aggressive and Ibargüen was not afraid to hire former New Times writer Jim DeFede as a columnist, thus spicing up the local section. Unfortunately, Ibargüen’s successor, Jesus Diaz, was all too keen to fire DeFede.

At any rate, Ibargüen is a philanthropist at heart, willing to chair the Public Broadcasting Service board, to direct the Inter American Press Association (funded partly by the Knight Foundation), to chair Knight’s Miami-Dade/Broward Community Advisory Committee, to be a trustee of the University of Miami, the National Gallery of Art, the Council of Foreign Relations, etc. When Ibargüen got the news that the trustees of the Knight Foundation had elected him their president and CEO, he gave Jesus Diaz a pat on the back, smiled and embarked on a career that would help provide people with better futures instead of being forced to lay them off for the bottom line. In other words, Ibargüen emancipated himself. And now, as McClatchy prepares to assimilate the Miami Herald, Ibargüen keeps the wheels turning at Knight’s legacy.

Kobi Karp
The Accommodator

Recently, enthusiasts of 1950s and ’60s architecture, which local preservationists like to call Miami Modernism or MiMo, attempted to persuade the Miami City Commission and 5220 Biscayne Boulevard developers not to transform the circa 1954 Lester Pancoast-designed Maule Building into dust and tried to preserve the building. Both the developers and the city declined the offer. They decided they wanted to build an 11-story condo designed by local architect Kobi Karp. Truth be told, this isn’t the first time a Karp building has replaced a MiMo structure. Way back in 1998, shortly after preservationists held a sparkler rally in front of the Bel Aire Hotel in North Beach to heighten awareness of the MiMo concept, the developer flattened it. He replaced it with, you guessed it, an 18-story tower designed by Kobi Karp.

Who is this Kobi Karp and why do his designs inspire developers to destroy things built during an age when Jetson cartoons were new? Actually, we’re being a bit exploitative here. Karp has renovated many historic Art Deco buildings, most recently the six-story Deco Caribbean Hotel, which will be attached to a 19-story tower Karp is also designing. Yep, Karp does renovations, high-rises, low-rises, houses, commercial retail, interior design and urban planning. Karp and his employees at Kobi Karp Architecture do pretty much whatever his clients want. “The firm specializes in collaborating with clients to reach their project’s mission while working within their budgetary parameters,” the company profile states. “The firm understands the need to create viable commercial, residential and mixed-use environments that produce a valued return on investment.”

After 20 years in the business, Karp has learned to be flexible, thus attracting clients like the Related Group, Leviev Boymelgreen, Maefield Corporation, Fortune International, Hilton, Hyatt, Club Med, etc.

He’s also very persuasive. Sure a developer can throw out extra bucks hiring a lawyer to persuade a city board why a project should be developed. But often times Karp is there alone, ready to convince board members — and even a project’s opponents — that he can build a tower that will please everybody and make his client a ton of money.

Frank Rollason
The Mission Statement

Not too long ago, the Miami City Commission decided it would not be a bad idea to analyze how the Community Redevelopment Agency should be run, even though, technically, Miami commissioners ran it. So they assembled a crack team of volunteers to oversee and examine how the CRA (they) conducts business. The verdict given to the commission last May: The CRA should stay true to its mission, which is basically to remove “blight and slum” from Overtown and Omni while enhancing property values, stimulate the creation of new job opportunities for people who live in those areas and improve the quality of life of those residents. Unfortunately, the CRA board simply goes about its business in a disorganized fashion without creating a unified plan on how to achieve it, Donald Butler, chairman of the oversight board, declared last May. Fortunately, however, the CRA has Frank Rollason as executive director. “The CRA is not being allowed to be mission-driven. If it is doing so, it is only because Frank Rollason keeps looking at the mission trying to make it happen,” Butler said. As fellow oversight member David Marko put it: “The consensus of the board … is that Frank Rollason is not doing anything but a spectacular job, full stop. But we will not always have a Frank Rollason. He is the best of the best.”

And after the testimony, commissioners simply patted Butler and Marko on the head, muttered “there, there” and went about their business. There is nothing to worry about, they reasoned. The days of CRA scandals are gone! We have Frank Rollason. He will live forever.

Rollason started working for the city of Miami on Valentine’s Day of 1966. Rollason was a fire marshal when Hurricane Andrew hit. The city manager at the time asked Rollason to take care of FEMA and insurance requests. Thus Rollason was thrust into the world of economic development. When Rollason left the fire department in 1999, the city administration hired him as director of the building department, general services administration, risk management. You name it, Rollason did it. He was assistant city manager in 2002 when City Manager Joe Arriola decided to rid all “assistant city manager” titles and made Rollason director of the CRA. Back then the agency was gripped with scandal. Directors came and went. CRA Chair Art Teele, a city commissioner, was seen as the undisputed lord of the agency. And four different audits, conducted between 1995 and 2002, showed that the CRA failed to follow bid procedures, kept poor records and had horrendous accounting practices. When Rollason came on board everything changed. He even had the support of Teele as the CRA’s operations were thoroughly reformed and professionalized. Marko, during the May address to the commission, dubbed the troubled CRA era “pre-Rollason.”

One day there will be a post-Rollason era. When that day comes, the CRA regions will be well on the path of gentrification and tens of millions of dollars in property taxes will be trapped within their borders. Miami residents may take comfort in the fact that Rollason has raised the bar at the CRA for his successor. Still, it would be nice to have an organized mission statement.

Antonio Ellek
The Fast Food Pasha

South Florida has a history of birthing popular fast food chains: Burger King, Miami Subs, Pollo Tropical, to name a few. It takes several key ingredients to achieve success in the already-flooded food business in South Florida. Antonio Ellek and his team at Pasha’s have found the secret recipe: vision, oodles of passion, focus and lots of heart. The family, as Ellek endearingly refers to his colleagues, has truly become the pasha of Mediterranean quick cuisine in Miami. (The word pasha stems from a term used during the Ottoman Empire to describe nobility.)

Much like its menu items, Pasha’s was created completely from scratch. What started as a business school project morphed into one of Miami’s rare munchy mainstays. Ellek, who is half Turkish, says that his project review board at Harvard Business School way back in 1995 liked the idea of a health-conscious Mediterranean restaurant. One professor, Myra Hart, advised him and his partner, Nicolas Cortes, to get a feel for the food industry before jumping whole-heartedly into it.

Ellek, 38, landed a job at Yum Brands — the folks responsible for KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell — and worked in virtually every aspect of food management. He also collected tons of business cards.

“Meeting people is just as important as the experience itself,” says the Miami Beach resident over freshly baked simit, the Pasha’s version of a bagel, with yogurt cream cheese and just-squeezed apple juice.

To harness even more success, the menu at Pasha’s is low-carb friendly. Diet guru Arthur Agatston featured the restaurant in his South Beach Diet book. Oh, and did we mention Pasha’s is also inexpensive? A filet mignon wrap ($6.95) and a fresh Mediterranean garden salad ($4.45) puts your lunch bill at less than 15 bucks including tax and tip.

In as few as six years, Pasha’s has expanded from one Lincoln Road location to a total of four restaurants in Miami and North Miami Beach. Ellek talks of adding four more locations within the next year, including one at the upcoming University of Miami’s Medical Wellness Center. And we’ve heard rumors that Ellek may have something brewing with Starbucks coffee king Howard Schultz.

Ellek’s business philosophy is simple: Focus on doing things right and things will happen. He credits that to Professor Hart of Harvard. He also says Pasha’s is about doing good things for people, citing several heartwarming stories like the now-married and expecting couple who met at the restaurant, or the investor who gave her child the middle name “Pashas.”

“With any business plan, we try to follow it as best we can, but that never happens,” Ellek observes. “It’s the human side [of a business] that you can’t put on paper.”

Scott Storch
Made in the Shade

With his Bentleys, flashy jewelry and love for Paris Hilton, Miami is the perfect home for record producer Scott Storch, who at the young age of 26 is a major player in the music industry. He’s also the guy at Mansion wearing the sunglasses and the big chain who you just want to smack, because he’s got gorgeous ladies around him and always the best table in the house, yet he’s dressed like a total fool.

But those who know music would be quick to tell you that looks can be deceiving. He didn’t exactly become a powerful, multimillion-dollar music man by parading around South Beach in his gangster getup with Paris every night. Storch started out playing keyboard for The Roots, but made his name (and his money) producing hits for Justin Timberlake, Beyonce and Christina Aguilera, and #1 hits like “Lean Back” by The Terror Squad, “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent, “Let Me Love You” by Mario and “Run It” by Chris Brown.

Now he’s taking on bigger projects, like trying to fashion musical careers for both Paris Hilton and Brooke Hogan, daughter of wrestling’s Hulk Hogan. If anyone can do it, it’s Storch, who has proven himself time and time again as a master hitmaker. And honestly, what better way to solidify himself as an A-list scenester than to hit the town with Paris Hilton on a regular basis. Now, if she could just get him to lose the sunglasses.

The Ridingers
$500,000 Pyramid

There are two ways to make a name for yourself in South Florida. You can either develop large multimillion-dollar real estate projects or you can throw a kick-ass party. James “JR” and Loren Ridinger focused on the latter last November, when they rented out The Forge for a “Butterflies and Bling”-themed Bat Mitzvah for their daughter Amber, who undoubtedly became the most popular kid in school after that night. Amber’s rite of passage into womanhood reportedly set the Ridingers back a cool half-million. With DJ AM on the ones and twos, performances by Ja Rule and Ashanti, and Major Leaguer Mike Piazza dancing the hora, if you didn’t know who the Ridingers were before their daughter turned 13, you certainly did afterward.

Nowadays, JR and Loren, the CEO and senior vice president of Market America (an Internet marketing pyramid scheme-type company), respectively, get their name in the press via a solid friendship with Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony. The Hollywood power couple, since selling their house, crash at the Ridingers regularly these days, and the couples often dine together at The Forge and other J. Lo faves around town.

While the Ridingers’ marketing company continues to rake in millions, the couple have clearly made their way to the top of the social pyramid as well. The real power player though – that’s got to be Amber Ridinger. After all, it was her party and she scored a diamond bracelet from J. Lo, who ironically couldn’t make it because she got an invitation to some Sweet 16 up in Jersey first.

Marc Sarnoff
The Grove Guy

Marc Sarnoff, elected chair of the Cocoanut Grove Village Council last November, is a force to be reckoned with. Just ask Home Depot or those evil, evil tree killers. The attorney and former president of the Village of Center Grove is the person behind The Grove First, whose claim to fame is the “Say No to Home Depot” campaign, and One Grove Alliance, an umbrella organization for all Grove activism groups. He also co-chairs the Grove’s Tree Watch committee and was a primary player in establishing the dog parks at Blanche and Kennedy parks. Sarnoff has even paid a little special attention to the human residents of the Grove by helping to launch Code 33, which gives locals an advantage over tourists and rowdy UM students with a discount to neighborhood shops and eateries. No wonder he received the 1,000 votes that catapulted him directly into the leadership spot despite being a council newbie.

Since taking his seat at the dais, Sarnoff has succeeded in making code enforcement hearings the place to be for in-the-know residents with his ongoing announcements of upcoming tree trials, and has even curried the favor of City Manager Joe Arriola, who doled out $300,000 in city funds to restore the Grove’s canopy early this year. Sarnoff is so dedicated, he once showed up to the bi-weekly council meeting despite having just undergone neck surgery. With witty comments and insights on nearly every issue that has come before the board since his reign began, it’s easy to wonder when (or if) this guy ever sleeps. At least the Grove’s canopy, critters and crusaders can rest a little easier.

Rob Schuler
The Rabble-rouser

In the two short years Miami Beach resident Rob Schuler has been in South Florida as the president of Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) Local 11, he has quickly catapulted himself into the role of working-class hero among the city’s less privileged. His emotionally charged speeches prompt outbreaks of chanting and his chosen missions, to unionize condo workers from Continental Group and gain better pay and working conditions for Unicco janitors at the University of Miami, have quickly been taken up by Miami’s (loosely) organized mafia of equal rights groups. In the sunny metropolis where everyone just understands that the rich are rich and the poor are, well, poor, Schuler is challenging the status quo by (gasp!) calling for a living wage that might just create a real middle class. The better half of the economic divide must be shaking their heads in consternation.

Schuler’s powerful rhetoric, however, was not gained through an Ivy League education or a stint in public politics. Instead, much of the power behind the 52-year-old’s words comes from his background as a blue-collar worker himself. And his master’s degree in public administration came from 12 years of night school, a far cry from the co-eds he encounters during his daily jaunts over to the UM campus to rally its janitors.

Schuler’s 20-year history with SEIU began when the former mechanic became a Teamster shop steward in an auto-shop union in Youngstown, Ohio. His involvement, he said, came from health and safety issues (one of the big pushes in his current campaign at UM). “There were no rules about asbestos in the early ’70s,” states Schuler. “The uneducated would spray asbestos dust from brakes into the air then and we simply started walking out of the shop whenever it happened.” Schuler’s union activism took him to more than 10 different cities before finally landing him in Florida. After briefly running the Disney Janitors’ union in the early 1990s, Schuler left, but like many he couldn’t quite leave Florida behind. “People are ready to be moved into action,” he said of the state’s cheap labor. “They know they can’t eat sunshine.”

Victor Diaz
Mr. Meticulous

A couple of years ago the Miami Beach Planning Board was prepared to put some actual teeth into procedures for the Single Family Review Board, a city panel that judges which pre-1942 homes should live or die at the whims of developers. Then, swarms of real estate agents, lobbyists and developers convinced the board’s majority to delay any action. “This is depressing,” said board member Jean-Francois Lejeune, who wanted some immediate action. Board chair Victor Diaz replied that he wasn’t depressed. “I see it as a challenge.”

Fast forward to the near present: Diaz has convinced his colleagues to back an ordinance that seeks to discourage the building of “McMansions,” via the creation of more red tape for those wishing to erect a house beyond a certain lot ratio. Without getting into all the details, let’s just say Diaz accepted the challenge of an issue he takes very seriously – the preservation of single-family homes in Miami Beach – and, through his tenacity and thoroughness, held a series of workshops until even local architects submitted to his will.

Anyone who has watched Diaz, a litigating attorney by trade, in action at the Historic Preservation Board and the Planning Board has witnessed how his attention to details, and willingness to argue about every one, has swayed or influenced the outcome of certain items — from the design of window treatments to the content of proposed ordinances. At times it seems that the Planning Board and Planning Department’s thought processes are determined by Diaz’s ideas and desires. And given the fact that the Planning Board is gaining more and more power on Miami Beach, these traits make Diaz an even greater force to contend with.

And what is it that Diaz wants? Ask him and he will tell you: It is all about preservation — preservation of historic buildings, preservation of tourism, preservation of quality of life, preservation of the Beach’s diversity, preservation of what South Beach is today. Diaz’s greatest fear is that, in the desire to make a profit, the very things that make Miami Beach special will be lost. To prevent that, Diaz will argue his point of view — for days on end if he has to.

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