New commissioner moves fast to fire Miami City attorney Victoria Mendez
Miami City Attorney Victoria Mendez should be shopping for a new job.
Newly-elected Commissioner Miguel Gabela, who said on the campaign trail that he would fire Mendez, has put her termination on the agenda of his first regularly scheduled meeting Dec. 14.
Gabela’s office has requested some information in advance of that meeting: How much is the city spending on outside counsel? How many cases have been lost? How much of the city attorney’s budget, which is almost $12 million, has gone to defending Commissioner Joe Carollo against multiple lawsuits?
“She’s his personal attorney, paid for by the people,” Gabela said. “I promised in my campaign that I was going to fight corruption.”
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Mendez definitely does seem like Carollo’s private law firm. Remember when she had her office do everything possible to deny the recall petitions against him. She had a cheat sheet on it. She also defended the closure of several streets in Silver Bluff, another Carollo gimmick that lost in court.
Gabela and newly elected Commissioner Damian Pardo will actually have their first meeting Monday — an emergency special meeting called to fix a budget blunder that could cost taxpayers $56 million in gas tax funds. It’s another Tricky Vicky slip-up.
Apparently, the budget passed in September isn’t valid because only four commissioners voted on it, because Alex Diaz de la Portilla had been suspended by the governor, because he had been arrested on public corruption charges, because it’s all about the lechuga for him. The fact that the city has been operating under an invalid budget since then surprised many, including the commissioners.
But Mendez knew. She had an opinion from the state that told her the vote would not be valid. And she ignored it.
City Manager Art Noriega learned of the problem last week, when he got an email from the Florida Department of Revenue, telling him that a new vote would be needed unless the city dropped the tax rate to a level where not all five commissioners had to vote on it. They gave him until Monday to fix it.
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“Anytime there’s a problem, she’s in the middle of the storm,” Gabela told Political Cortadito. “I can’t vote knowing that the person who has put us in a bad position over and over again is advising us. I don’t feel safe taking advice from her.
Pardo is ready to consider the termination. “Vicky Mendez has bade a million mistakes,” he told Ladra.
Mendez is named as one of the plaintiffs in a new lawsuit brought by the same two Little Havana businessmen who won a $63.5 million judgement against Commissioner Joe Carollo, whose city salary could be garnished to start to pay the damages. The new lawsuit claims that Mendez, Noriega and several other city employees were complicit in the denial of their rights and that the city also should pay.