The Ousting of Esmond Scott in NMB

For the City of North Miami Beach, the explosion hit the city commission just after 7 p.m. on Feb. 22. The twin detonators came straight from the dais and from the City of North Miami.

Popular North Miami Beach City Manager Esmond Scott was out of a job and it was no surprise. He and others had seen it coming for weeks, even months. Scott knew he didn’t have the votes to stay with the new 4-3 Haitian American-majority commission, who wanted a replacement more likely to do their bidding. Scott has hammered out a severance through his Oct. 31 contract expiration.

For the viewer, the bombshell jumped out of the blue, barely an hour into the meeting. Apropos of nothing, North Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Joseph made his nomination for the next city manager: North Miami Deputy City Manager Arthur H. “Duke” Sorey.

Commissioner McKenzie Fleurimond quickly seconded, “for purposes of discussion.”

Instantly, Commissioner Barbara Kramer exploded with a primal scream. She has been in office since 2009 and, in recent months, demonstrated mounting disgust with North Miami Beach politics. This time, she got personal.

“We are not doing this again!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, in a reference to a similar and successful 4-3 Jan. 28 move to replace the previous city attorney. “I am telling you now, this had better go through some process … I’ll be damned if you think you do this again. I’m ashamed to know you, Mr. Fleurimond.”

In the end, the commission backed away – even if just for now –by unanimously appointing Assistant City Manager Horace McHugh interim city manager and conducting a national search. McHugh is incoming president-elect of the Florida City and County Management Association.

Fleurimond moved to cap the search at 45 days. Joseph asked if he could make it 30, but Fleurimond held fast to 45.

So what’s the big hurry?

Fast action would be good for Sorey, for he comes with baggage, much of which could figure prominently in the upcoming North Miami May 11 elections, with 14 candidates already jostling for one mayoral and two commission seats a month before the qualifying deadline. There’s the benighted Red Garden pop-up project on NW 7th Avenue, bleeding $1.4 million and counting out of the general fund; the city’s groaning deficits; the failed $150 million bond referendum; and sluggish morale at city hall.

This would be a logical time for Sorey to jump out of North Miami into a job with an equivalent package north of $200,000. Finding such work is tricky. He has an MPA from Florida International University and a certificate from a Harvard University summer executive program, but so do others.

Sorey has allies on the city council – such as outgoing Councilwoman Carol Keys – deep community roots, and friends and foes alike. He is the son of Arthur “Duke” Sorey, North Miami’s first Black American city councilman, who served from 1995- 99, and he bought a house right next to where he grew up on NW 10th Avenue and 128th Street. As a budget analyst and manager less than a decade ago, Sorey was known for good, clear work, before he was thrust into power.

Taxpayers, however, deserve competence, integrity and transparency over sentiment and affection. As VotersOpinion.com blogger and activist Stephanie Kienzle – who called Sorey “a hot mess” – told commissioners, they are there to serve, not to rule.

Until Larry Spring was terminated in early 2020, the former city manager handled the money, while Sorey took care of personnel and departments. Payrolls and deficits bloated. Today, City Manager Theresa Therilius is struggling to get the city out of its $8 million financial hole, and her relationship with Sorey has cooled. Sorey has tried and failed so far to get an equivalent job elsewhere, and North Miami Beach would provide a lifeline with locals he already knows.

For at least two weeks starting in early February, word spread around town that the fix was in for Sorey’s installation. North Miami and North Miami Beach city offices and police stations were abuzz with anticipation and dread.

Word had not reached Mayor Anthony DeFillipo or Commissioners Kramer or Fortuna Smukler. It appeared that Commissioners Paule Villard and Daniela Jean were on board with Fleurimond and Joseph over Sorey, pointing toward the 4-3 vote.

Reading the tea leaves and counting the votes, North Miami Beach Police Chief William Hernandez retired in mid-February and was replaced by Interim Chief Richard Rand, who will report to the city manager. The department is generally well-regarded with a top-rated Excelsior status from the state’s Office of Professional Standards.

Fighting tears from the dais at the close of the Feb. 22 meeting, DeFillipo declared Feb. 23 Esmond K. Scott Day for the City of North Miami Beach.

On Tuesday, Feb. 23, the city marked the occasion with a three-hour midday farewell celebration at the Julius Littman Performing Arts Theater next to City Hall and via Zoom that refined Kramer’s primal scream from the night before into a three-hour Irish wake – a bittersweet ceremony of grief and celebration with tears, laughter, prayers, stories and pointed Biblical exhortations referencing integrity and transparency. There was affection for times just past, and dread for what lay ahead.

Scott would have smiled from heaven but was very much on Earth. He sought to reassure the audience, urging all to stick to the work and do their best. A celebratory video ran, playing a well-known reggae song from Scott’s native Jamaica: Bob Marley’s “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.”

The Sorey move was not the commission’s first slice-and-dice action of note.

On Jan. 28, the 4-3 majority – simply by calling the question – sacked the city’s 75-attorney, full-service law firm, Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman, and replaced it with Sunny Isles Beach solo practitioner Hans Ottinot as interim city attorney at the same rate of $55,000 a month. Pretty good cabbage for a one-man show.

The immediate question remains not just what was attempted Feb. 22, but how it was done. Hiring city attorneys and managers are the most important jobs of any commission. Calling a question or making a sudden motion does not pass the small test.

Government in the Sunshine? Not on your life. How did they come to such accord so readily? Did they communicate through a lobbyist as a go-between? In dark corners in Krome Avenue casinos dining areas? Did they divine each other’s intentions through crystal ball, Ouija board or psychic transference?

Or was it, say, text messages? Among commissioners? With lobbyists? With Sorey? Who knows? Just a thought: Why not ban phones on the dais as they do in federal jury rooms? Government in the Sunshine is a leaky boat indeed, even leakier in our time of instant technology.

The Commission on Ethics and Public Trust has to catch such violations in the act and they are hard to prove. Let us pray that it gets strong gums and sharp dentures so it can bite. Hello, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. Anybody home?

During public comment at the Feb. 22 meeting, most residents greeted the axing of Scott and attempted anointing of Sorey with emotions ranging from skepticism to rage.

One resident after another recounted Scott’s thoroughness, efficiency, attentiveness and kindness. Employees and family members did the same the next afternoon at the theater. Smukler started crying while she recounted how Scott came to her assistance as her father lay dying during the approach of Hurricane Irma.

Scott responded with grace, thanking his mentors in the city and family. He told the council members: “Please be kind, respectful, true and loyal to each other and to the industry.”

Scott recited his accomplishments in bringing the water system back into the public ownership within deadline, strengthening security after a hacker broke into the system and demanded a $5 million ransom, and boosting the city’s reserves to $29.6 million – a pointed contrast to North Miami, which has squandered reserves and today is wrestling with a huge deficit.

One fear is that the new council will want to raid those reserves by awarding themselves with pay raises, increased staff, higher expenses and more trips, just as North Miami has done over the last decade.

In North Miami, candidate filing deadline is March 29 to April 6 for the upcoming May 11 election and June 1 runoff. Voter registration deadline is April 12.

Incumbent Mayor Philippe Bien- Aime, who has raised more than $75,000, will face former City Clerk Michael Etienne. Etienne has fed $25,000 of his own money into his campaign since November, and has used that money to buy Creole-language radio time for April and May.

Seven candidates are battling for the wide-open District 2 seat vacated by Keys.

Five candidates are challenging District 3 Councilwoman Mary Estimé-Irvin, who has raised $17,550.

Donors to both incumbents were filled with $500 and $1,000 contributions from real estate, finance and investment sectors, and the lobbyist-law firms of former North Miami Mayors André Pierre and Frank Wolland. Such are the advantages of incumbency.