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REMEMBER THAT RUSSIAN WHO MET WITH TRUMP'S FLORIDA PAL, ROGER STONE IN SUNNY ISLES IN 2016? THE ONE STONE CALLED A "SPY?"  IN 2018, HE WANTED TO OPEN A RESTAURANT ON THE MIAMI RIVER AND HERE IS THE VIDEO OF WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE FOLKS IN SPRING GARDEN SHOWED UP AT A PZAB MEETING LAST JANUARY TO OPPOSE HIS EFFORT.  

This morning, the Miami Herald published a story by David Smiley and Glenn Garvin about a Russian guy who had met with Donald Trump's main Florida agitator/fixer/apologist/pal Roger Stone, offering to sell him information on Hillary Clinton for $2 million.

Part of their story revealed that in January, this guy, then going by the name of Henry Greenberg, showed up at a hearing of the Miami Planning and Zoning Appeals Board (PZAB), to try and defeat an appeal filed against a warrant that the Planning Department had given him to build an outdoor restaurant on the Miami River, north of the 5th Avenue bridge, where the river curves to the west.

What's really interesting about this guy's appearance at this meeting is that after telling the board that he was waiting for his attorney - who he claimed was Kendall Coffey - and after he was denied a continuance, he just walked out of the meeting. You can see him do that in the video at minute 17.

He never returned, even though as you'll hear, immediately after he walked out  a representative of the city's Planning Department recommended that the appeal by the neighborhood residents be denied.

The meeting continued, the residents who were opposed to this venture all spoke, and at the end of the day the PZAB board by a vote of 8 to 1, voted in their favor, by granting their appeal.

Greenberg, or whoever he is, had 15 days to appeal, but didn't.

The really intriguing questions, given that this is the City of Miami's Planning Department that we're talking about here, is just how did this guy manage to get the original warrant to build this restaurant, how did he get the City of Miami to give him a license agreement to use the city property next-door for parking, and was there anything else that led to the city's Planning Department recommending against the appeal?  One can never be sure with the Planning Department as to what they're up too, especially since they keep a jar of vaseline by the door for those hand jobs they keep giving their favored developers. No offense to the ladies who also get favored treatment.

This is the kind of story that a crack city reporter for the Herald could really get his teeth into if he wanted, and there's no telling where, or to whom this might all lead.

In any event, there is strange, and then there is really strange, and when it's really strange, that's when it becomes,

It's Miami, Bitches!  

NUMBER 50 - JUNE 19, 2018