MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

No. 2 SERIES ON PHASED PERMITTING

Construction Fence Advertisements - ONE OCEAN on South Beach Jorge Perez dba The Related Group

PHASED PERMITTING & BROKEN WINDOWS

Shadow Inspector Alleges Corruption Inside Building Department
4 March 2014 By David Arthur Walters MIAMI MIRROR Miami BeachProgressive cops have a theory called Broken Windows. Neighborhoods where misdemeanors such as minor vandalism are tolerated tend to attract felonious behavior. I supposed that theory might apply to the breaking of non-criminal ordinances such as the
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signage laws in my South Beach neighborhood after I noticed that many temporary real estate sales and construction signs did not have the required permits. I discovered that the Code Compliance Division of the City of Miami Beach Building Department does not bother to enforce signage law unless someone takes the risk of being retaliated against for making a formal complaint. I was astonished to see code enforcement officers pass by obvious violations every day and do nothing about them even after I pointed them out. I worried about the existence of far more serious violations, such as building code violations, hidden from view. Would a Miami Beach cop ignore misdemeanors, such as someone urinating in the doorway of the bakery, or aggressively panhandling, or guzzling beer on the corner? Top police brass profess adherence to Broken Windows Theory, talk about zero tolerance and the even enforcement of all laws. Curiously, an Internal Affairs officer remarked that there were too many laws including laws regulating police behavior, and that, if anyone were followed around long enough, he or she would be caught breaking a law. But does that mean, for example, that cops should ignore the running of stop signs and lights, speeding, wrong turns, and other unlawful behavior that, if tolerated, could lead to injuries and death? I also noticed that many contractors, architects and interior designers were not putting their license numbers on their signs as required by state law. State regulators say it is an important requirement yet they do nothing about thousands of obvious violations unless someone complains, and then no fine is imposed. They really do not care. As for me, I hypothesized that, if developers, contractors, and brokers did not voluntarily comply with signage laws simply because they were not enforced, then the defective signs could be a sign of far worse violations and regulatory carelessness jeopardizing the public welfare. I could not help notice the advertisements on the construction fence around The Related Groups ONE OCEAN project in South Pointe. The ads ran around three sides of the block. They were not unattractive to me, but they obviously violated the size requirements. Temporary real estate sale or rent signs must have permit decals applied to them unless they are part of an approved construction fence, which can have all sorts of artwork and even a picture of your mother on it. However, there are limitations on the space devoted to advertising text on construction fence wraparounds. Construction signs whether on fences or freestanding on site are supposed to be approved by the Planning and Review Department. Again, a freestanding real estate marketing sign on a construction site must have a little permit decal affixed to it. There is no such requirement for contractor signage although it must be permitted. Curiously, Jorge Perez ONE OCEAN signage advertised an architect and interior designers unlicensed by the State of Florida. That might be a sign of more substantial violations, I
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thought, so I asked the Code Compliance Division if the signage had been permitted. Although my request was not a complaint, my name was entered on a formal online complaint. Code Compliance Supervisor George Castell apologized for naming me as a complainant for complaints not made, a process that often results in retaliation. I finally went over to the Planning Department to find out for myself. Clerks did their best to help. Amazingly, they could not find the largest project in South Beach in their records. The department was in a mess, I was told, and the only person good at finding things was on holiday. Furthermore, I was informed that construction sign permits were often not even applied for because the Code Compliance Division did not enforce the codes. Planning staff referred to Records Management in hopes that the common address for the permits could be found there. No dice. I was given the records from the wrong property; when I pointed that out, I was referred to Building Administration, where I was rudely treated and sent away. I reported my Kafkaesque experience in On Being Fazed by Phased Permitting. The Planning Department explanation for not seeing any recent construction permits on the ONE OCEAN block, where heavy earthwork was in progress, was that it was probably a socalled phase permitI thought she was saying face permit, meaning something superficial to do with paperwork. I would eventually discover that phased permitting involved a so-called prepermit permit, early permit, or no-permit permit process that was relatively novel to Miami Beach although the state building code had allowed local jurisdictions to resort to it for some time, as we shall eventually see. Although no one at the city could or would find the common address of the lots involved in the project, I managed to provide myself with the missing excellent service by walking to the library, where it took me about three minutes to fine the address on the county appraiser s maps: 1 Collins Avenue. I found little more in the online permitting records for the address than a construction fence permit back in 2012, so I asked the new city manager, Jimmy Morales, why there was no groundwork permit in the online records. He referred my question to Building Director Mariano Fernandez, who replied after some time that it was a phased permit. What was this newfangled thing called a phased permit? The building director supplied a permit number, so I put that into the system, and Walla, there was the phased permit and related permits. That information was now also returned by entering the address only, 1 Collins Avenue. What? Why did not an address search return the permit records when I first looked for them? I had copy-pasted the previous information supplied, and the permit information had not been there. That had happened to me and others on previous occasions. Auditors and officials had said anyone can change the records, or can switch certain ones on and off. Was the phased permit
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hidden from view until I asked? Was this phased permit some kind of special permit made for Jorge Perez? Surely, I thought, that could not be. Surely my case must be another case of operator error. I was certainly fazed by the whole phased permitting thing, so I whipped off the following letter to Morales. It is no wonder that the clerks could not find the permits when I inquired. Why were the 30 May 2013 master permit and 23 July 2013 extension permit records along with several others on the project inserted into the public system after I obtained a copy of all permits posted as of 16 January 2014? Kathy Brooks (interim city manager after the disgraced former city manager, Jorge Gonzalez, was forced into retirement) guaranteed us a transparent process in this online permitting system. I have encountered fluctuating records in the system several times, disappearing records and the like, and find it confusing. Maybe I am seeing things this time? Also, I do not understand the meaning of phase permit. I ventured to Permitting and asked about it but several people there had not heard of it, and one contractor said it only applied to demolition. I also went to Permit Doctor next door and the gentleman there said he not heard of it. This week I asked a superintendent at a major construction site if he had heard of such a permit, and he said, of course he had, it was only for demolition. Planning staff said it did not permit construction. Since Mr. Perez was already pulling preparatory permits on this job, like for a fence back in 2012, so why is he not using the usual permitting process? The master permit says nothing about "phase." How can he proceed with construction when the permit is just applied for and not approved? And where is the f ee balance due of $183,711.37? He did not respond. In fact, Morales has a habit of replying now and then to a private persons concerns, usually referring him or her to underlings, and never addressing the inquirer when he or she informs him that the response or lack of it by the underling is unsatisfactory. After all, he has a lot on his plate; therefore, a lot must be swept under the rug one way or another. Indeed, civic minded denizens have lately noticed a sudden dearth of any response at all to their communications. The urban myth explaining the official silence from the formerly folksy town hall is that the new mayor, Philip King Levine, who has been emulating a strong mayor in the citys weak mayor system with the help of lackeys who have pronounced him Great Leader, has promulgated pragma prohibiting official responses to individual concerns. Only group leaders wielding influence over large numbers of voters are worthy of responses; at least that is the hypothesis induced from many instances of quietude. Activists are to be ignored, other than retired lawyer Frank Del Vecchio, who wholeheartedly embraced businessman Levine during his campaign, as well as unruly bloggers and skeptical journalists. The Miami Herald will be tolerated to some small degree although its editors endorsed Levines opponent, and implied that the Levine camp had an anti-Hispanic bias. The Levine campaign slapped
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groundless defamation suits against several journalists to shut them up during the course of the campaign. Preferably, legitimate press inquiries are to be handled by the citys spin doctor, who, like other sophists, is adept at making the weaker arguments the stronger, even to the point of proving that nothing exists. Attempts to corroborate the existence of this public relations agenda, which is hardly novel for cities in this great nation of ours, have been greeted with silence. Now my own policy, when I do not receive a response to my independent press inquiries, is simply to create a developing story based upon whatever facts and statements that I manage to obtain by deadlines. I do tend to be rather nice to sources that are nice to me when providing me with authoritative statements, a tendency that is all too human yet is contrary to my ethical code, wherefore I must be careful to create the appearance of propriety by occasionally biting the hands that feed me no matter how much I savor their handouts. In accordance with that policy, and being in dire need of some story or the other about phased permitting, I formulated my own theory about the official motive for its adoption howsoever it might be defined. The only knowledgeable person who would speak to me on phased permitting by deadline was former fire inspector David Weston. Weston is a private permitting expert who also serves the community as a sort of shadow inspector, reporting his findings and recommendations to the City of Miami Beach and candidates for its elected offices, Miami-Dade County Code Compliance, Public Corruption Section of Miami-Dade Police Department, Miami-Dade Audit Department, Miami-Dade Building Department, Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, Miami-Dade State Attorney Office, Miami-Dade Inspector General, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Everyone he reports to are very interested and polite, he said. They investigate my information and data thoroughly. This probably resulted in additional scrutiny by law enforcement and contributed to the arrests and convictions of many corrupt employees. Unfortunately, my final mission of creating interest in having employees protected with a city Whistleblower ordinance never gained any real traction. Likewise, my encouragement to create an independent Miami Beach Inspector General stalled. Until these steps are taken both the citys citizens and city employees will continue to suffer. I continue to believe that there was a failure to properly supervise the corrupt employees. As long as the same managers are in place, you cannot expect different results. He said he is in the process of discussing phased permitting with Miami-Dade County officials. He disapproves of the process itself because he believes it facilitates corruption. One troublesome aspect, he said, is the abnegation of official responsibility for public safety by requiring phased permit projects to be inspected by private inspectors hired by developers.
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Phased permit holders must hold the city harmless from damages due to the shirking of its duties to the community it is supposed to be serving. Furthermore, he said, the phasing of permits allows developers to defer payment of full permit fees pending final approval of the master permit. It must be said, in the context of his opinion on phased permitting, that Weston definitely has an axe to grind with the city. He has relentlessly inspected the policies and behavior of city officials after being fired for sticking his nose into Building Department business, raising a big stink about millions in missing monies, and referring to the esteemed department as a racketeer-influenced, corrupt organization after the latest FBI arrests. He asked Jimmy Morales, the new city manager, to conduct a full investigation into the circumstances so that defamatory statements are purged from his record; or, at least, the reason for his termination be changed to resigned. Morales promised not to brush the matter under the rug, and then did just that, referring it to his new human resources director for summary dismissal. I wondered what they might have had on Weston that they did not want to talk about. The pretext for Westons dismissal appeared to be an anonymous complaint that he had a conflict of interest as a fire inspector because he was allegedly in cahoots with Damian Gallo, a permit expeditor who does business as Permit Doctors. The filing of anonymous and often false complaints for purposes of retaliation is a common practice in the City of Miami Beach. Weston reported his relationship with Gallo to the Fire Department in advance, and the county ethics commission found nothing unethical in that relationship, yet the city attorney office insisted he was in violation of the citys own ethical code. In approximately February of 2008, Weston explained to me in a written statement subsequent to his remark on phased permitting, the inventor of the redial button, an electrical engineer like myself, asked me to join him in a venture to buy 10 decrepit boat docks at Collins and 52st Street. These are deeded locations that he knew about because he was on the condo board across the street. A one third equity investment unit was available and I said yes. Damian Gallo of Permit Doctor wanted in and the other partners did not want to split their ownership so I agreed to a 16.66 % split and Gallo would take the other 16%. Mind you this was all talk. No business had actually begun and none of the 10 deeded locations had been acquired. We just had an informal meeting of intent. The general partner, Andre Bernard, as mentioned above, formed an LLC called 5255 Marina and all of the partners to be, including myself, were listed.

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Sometime afterwards a letter of complaint arrived at the fire department. I personally thought it to be a phony, because when shown to me it had a stamp with the wrong postage and no cancellation. Since the MBFD knew about my investment, as I had openly discussed it in advance, I thought the letter to be a set up and an attempt to get me out of the way of their RICO operation. The irony was that most of my inspections were fails as opposed to the honest yet arrested and convicted inspectors that had hundreds of passed inspections and very few failures. A month later and I was fired. The 5255 Marina never got off the ground and no business or money was transacted. After I was fired, Mr. Gallo felt badly and thought that I should go into the permitting business OUTSIDE of Miami Beach. I agreed, and he became a 25% partner in Professional Plans and Permitting DBA The Permit Doctor. There was another 50% partner. I had 25% and Gallo 25%. A total investment of $80,000 was made and within 2 years that business closed with the 50% partner leaving to run his own company Plans Runner Inc. I continued to stay in business for myself as David Weston DBA the Permit Doctor. I continue to handle accounts outside of Miami Beach and send Beach business to Gallo and vice versa. I continue to use the website email and logo. I do not nor have I ever had any interest in the other company Damian Gallo and Associates DBA the Permit Doctor. Weston appears to be a credible expert. My investigation into phased permitting shall continue apace until I am unfazed by it. -XYX-

ONE OCEAN Common Address 1 Collins Avenue

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