You can't make this shit up, and it's doubtful you'd do this by mistake, but then again, Miami now has a mayor whose father was once popular with dead voters, so why shouldn't the District 2 City Commissioner run for Congress with a Communications Director who not only can talk out of both sides of his mouth, but also seems to be willing to register to vote with both political parties?

It's Miami, Bitches!

it seems like only yesterday that  I was writing about the incompetence and bad attitude of self-described doe-eyed millennial Eleazar Melendez, and how those attributes were bound to create problems for Commissioner "Selfie Boy"  Russell.

Of course all of this was before Russell revealed himself to be a self-serving, duplicitous weasel dick by announcing that after less than 2 years as a City Commissioner he felt that his talents could better be utilized to make America great again by running for Congress.

Before all of this craziness occurred, I thought Melendez was a bad influence on Russell. Afterward I realized that I was obviously wrong because what he turned out to be was Russell's comrade in arms and chief enabler in batshit craziness.

In the end it didn't matter what I thought, because Melendez was so bad at his job, and so toxic to so many people at City Hall that in March of this year he was replaced by Rebeccas Wakefield, and went off to become the Political Director for the Miami-Dade Democratic Party.

People familiar with Melendez's activities while Russell's Chief of Staff joked at the time that Melendez going to work for the Democratic Party was a belated Christmas gift to Republicans.

Alas, Melendez didn't last all that long with the Democratic Party, because on October 15th, he posted a notice on Facebook that he was back with Russell, this time as the Communication's Director for his campaign.

October 15th was a busy day, because in addition to announcing one new job, he announced a second new job.

Only the day before he had also announced that he was looking to hire new folks for his "communications consulting business," which would lead me, and perhaps you to believe that Codorniz was that business.

Alas, whatever kind of business Codorniz is, no one's bothered to incorporate it, and there's no record of any such business anywhere but on Melendez's Facebook, which raises a question as to whether this is a real enterprise or just a make believe fantasy to create an illusion of success to take the sting out of lasting with the Democratic Party for 6 months?

But, perhaps Melendez was, like many people distracted by the back and forth battles being waged for the District 3 Miami City Commission race.

October continued to be a busy time for Melendez because on October 19th, he posted on Facebook a reference to a story that Miami Herald stenographer David Smiley had written that day about the street fight between Joe Carollo and Tommy Regalado.

Notice how solicitous Melendez is towards David Smiley and the implied unpleasantness that Smiley had to suffer in order to do his job.

All kinds of props indeed.

This solicitousness is just part of the professional bullshit that passes for mutual back scratching between people like Melendez and stenographers like Smiley, as evidenced by the below portion of a text message that was included in dozens of pages of text messages released by Russell's office in September of 2016, dealing with Russell's efforts to get his fellow Commissioners to go along with his ill-conceived request to fire City Attorney Victoria Mendez. It was an effort largely orchestrated by Melendez.

Melendez wrote sent this message to Russell during the course of the Special Meeting to fire Mendez.

First you set someone like Smiley up by getting someone to leak information to him, and then you "feed him the story."

Playing the Miami Herald has always been considered easy-peezy for folks at City Hall, as I revealed in this 2012 story about how a story was fed to a Herald reporter by then Communications Director Angel Zayon.

By election day, Melendez was openly and enthusiastically in Ralph Rosado's camp in the District 4 Commission race, along with his pal and co-worker  Fernando Diez, who had been Russell's campaign manager in his City Commission Race, and was now Rosado's campaign manager where he collected a total of $70,335.00 for his efforts.

While there's no way to know whether Melendez was a sub-contractor thru Diez on Rosado's campaign, he made sure to let everyone know where his loyalties lay by posting this photo and caption on Facebook.

Rosado, it turned out was not the only candidate who Diez and Melendez backed in this year's City Commission races. They also were on board with Alfied Leon's efforts to defeat Joe Carollo in District 3.

In fact, Diez was paid $8,850.00 from the political committee, People For Stronger Neighborhoods, formed by Alfie Leon's attorney, JC Planas.

Melendez did his part by donating $1000.00 to Leon's runoff effort.

For some inexplicable reason however, the donation was listed on Leon's campaign report as coming from an Eleazar Melendez who lived in New York, and not in Miami.

This prompted a record search that revealed that Melendez had lived and registered to vote at 528 West 152 Street, New York, back in November 2007.

Melendez left New York and moved to Miami in 2012-2013, which raises a question of whether he used a check with his old New York address in a half-hearted effort to mislead, or because he's still using checks with a New York address long after he left the Big Apple.

What's turned out to be more interesting was the discovery that on November 1, 2013, he double registered with the Miami-Dade Board of Elections, using 2 versions of his name, listing himself as as a Republican and a Democrat, and living at 2 separate addresses in Miami-Dade County.