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YOU KNOW THAT FRANCIS SUAREZ IS SCRAPPING THE BARREL WHEN HE FORCED TO RELY ON MORON'S LIKE THIS TO WRITE A LETTER OF ENDORSEMENT FOR HIS CAMPAIGN FOR STRONG MAYOR

NUMBER 39 - MAY 29, 2018

Former Chief of Police Manny Orosa left the police department in bad shape.

It was under his watch that the thousands of pieces of homicide evidence first started rotting in the shipping containers under the I-95 overpass next to police headquarters, and it was Orosa, who under oath, called his officers snitches for providing me the information about the incident where City Commissioner Frank Carollo called him after he was stopped for a traffic violation, in what was seen as Exploitation Of Official Position, by the Ethics Commission.

THE REASON THE MIAMI HERALD DOESN'T MUCH CARE ABOUT COVERING MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC POLICY IS BECAUSE THEY SAY YOU DON'T CARE

David Smiley used to be the City of Miami's beat reporter. I tagged him as the "City Hall stenographer," for his lackluster reporting, and his willingness to crank out the equivalent of PR for the Mayor and City Commissioners.

Above is a Twitter comment related to the reporting done by Smiley and other Herald reporters on the first round of the recent District 5 Special Election.

Smiley's response isn't the first, or only time that a Herald reporter has attempted to justify the lack of quality, in-depth reporting of municipal government by the Herald that one sees in newspapers in other cities.

As bad as Smiley was, his replacement, Joey Flechas, is turning out to be even worse.  Go and see how many stories that Flechas has written before or after a City Commission meeting during the time that he's been the "City Hall stenographer?"

Last week Flechas was finally shamed into providing some live Tweeting of what was going on during the meeting, but I guess the stress was too much because he's NOT WRITTEN ONE WORD under a byline about anything that happened at that Commission meeting, and a lot did.

Flechas is also another Herald "reporter" who argues - as he did at an event he spoke at recently - that the Herald's readership doesn't really care about reporting on governance or public policy all that much, because the public doesn't show an interest in reading about these issues - as evidenced by reader reading habits  recorded by the Herald's "Click Bait" measuring devices.

Now, it's true that we now find ourselves living in an media environment that is  different and vastly more fragmented than the world that some of us older folks grew up in, but even back in the day one could have argued that a lot of folks didn't bother or care about reading the stories that appeared in the newspaper about municipal governance or public policy issues.

The difference is that newspapers back in those days took it as a civic responsibility, and even an obligation, to report on stories and issues even though they too knew that they weren't going to read by a majority of their readership because they operated under a different ethical standard of what it meant to be a newspaper, especially in cities where there was only one newspaper.

Newspapers held a unique and higher obligation to inform the public, whether they wanted to be informed or not, because they, more than any other institution in society had accepted that responsibility as a mandate.

That mandate was the justification that newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post used in persuading courts, including the US Supreme Court to protect them and their reporters from legal attacks by those who would try and keep secret their actions, that if revealed would expose their misbehavior, or worse, efforts to undermine our Constitution and our Bill of Rights

There are still newspapers in this country who try to live up to those responsibilities of providing quality coverage of municipal government, but sadly, the Miami Herald is not one of those newspapers.

Instead, like bean counters, the editors and reporters of the Miami Herald keep one eye constantly glued to a computer screen to watch the success of their "Click Bait" version of the news and as a way to justify their abdication of their responsibility to print even a little bit of the news that's actually fit to print.

HERE'S THE PROPOSAL THAT WAS PROVIDED TO THE CITY BY THE FORMULA 1 PROMOTERS FOR THE MIAMI GRAND PRIX

To repaginate this PDF into a landscape format, you will have to download it and open it on your desktop using your own PDF reader.  Sorry, but I don't have the software to have done this prior to uploading it to SCRIBD.  

The Miami Herald apologizes that it didn't consider this document worthy of inclusion as part of its coverage, but then they know how you don't like to be burdened by too much news and information. That problem is covered below in more detail.

Orosa was the Chief when I wrote the story about cops on the Street Narcotics Unit falsifying arrest reports and possibly planting a pistol in one case. (Second story when they got fired, HERE.)

He was the Chief when on-duty police officers were assigned to provide security protection to the art gallery owned by Gary Nadar, who responded to questions about this activity by claiming it was a "Gentlemen's Agreement."

He was also the Chief when I wrote the story, Miami Still Hiring Bad Cops, about how the children of his Command Staff were being allowed to join the force even though they had questionable histories, including engaging in criminal behavior .

And of course, it was under his watch as Chief,  that Miami PoliceDepartment detectives conducted their investigation into the allegations that "Reverend" Jerome Starling was a child molester.

Like his successor, Chief Rudy Llanes, the information revealed in this investigation did nothing to deter Orosa from allowing Starling to wander around the 4th Floor of headquarters and hang out in Assistant Chief Gomez's office, or in posing for photographs with Starling.

MANOLO REYES IS RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION AND HE'S HAPPY TO ACCEPT MONEY FROM THE DARK SIDE, EVEN IF THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS

It is against this sterling list of embarrassments that the letter below should be measured.

It's Miami, Bitches!

NUMBER 40 - MAY 30, 2018

THE GUY ALLEGED TO BE THE STALKER OF MAYOR FRANCIS SUAREZ AND COMMISSIONER KEN RUSSELL HAS BEEN ARRESTED

James William Whelan, aged 52, and described as homeless was arrested last Thursday in Coconut Grove at Cocowalk.  

I'll leave it to the "real media" to get that document.

While I was able to obtain a copy of the Arrest Form that is below, that document did not provide a narrative to explain the reason why Whelan was arrested, so I requested a copy of the Warrant.  This is the response that I received from the MPD about that document.