Roots of Evil in Miami Beach Sunset Harbour
Content
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
Sunset Harbour Towers and Mayor Levine’s Shopping Center
THE ROOTS OF EVIL IN SUNSET HARBOUR
BY
DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS
30 September 2015
When City of Miami Beach Commissioner Ed Tobin was running for the city commission in 2007,
his firm prepared an option agreement whereby Scott Robins, his client, would purchase a Bay
Road lot from the owner of Tremont Towing in the Sunset Harbour neighborhood, wherein
Sunset Harbour Towers condominium Tobin himself owned an interest in three units and
several parking spaces. Tobin, apparently violating local law, accepted campaign contributions
Page 1 of 7
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
from Scott Robins’ group of companies even though he knew that Scott Robins was seeking a
re‐zoning of the property and would need to come before the City Commission.
Sec. 2‐489 of the Ordinances of the City of Miami Beach provides that, “No real estate
developer shall give a campaign contribution directly or indirectly to a candidate, or to the
campaign committee of a candidate, for the offices of mayor or commissioner.”
The Miami‐Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust and its prosecuting advocate,
Michael Murawski, almost always lenient on political shenanigans on the beach, ignored that
apparent violation, and the COE dismissed several counts against Tobin and issued a letter of
instruction. Another complaint brought against him would be similarly disposed of in 2013.
Fines when imposed are picayune given the power and wealth of the persons involved, yet a
conviction may have political consequences due to adverse publicity, which is rare given the
market needs of the only major daily newspaper and its television affiliate. Substantial
politicians may go to considerable expense to hire lawyers to represent them, or simply
badmouth the ethics commission as incompetent and irrelevant.
Tobin himself has publicly scoffed at the ineptitude of the ethics commission, which has been
dubbed “The Unethical Commission of Public Distrust” in urban lore. The commission
frequently requires that complainants themselves conduct the investigations that it is supposed
to conduct with the legal tools it has; it often takes the word of officials for granted without
asking for rebuttals; it is overly lenient towards certain officials; it appears to violate its own
ethical standards with impunity; ‐‐and then it has the gall to offer to teach ethics to
municipalities for a fee.
Scott Robins, Philip Levine, Jonah Wolfson, Jimmy Morales
Scott Robins and his partner Philip Levine would ultimately assemble properties and sell $20
million of air rights to the city, resulting in the shopping center and parking garage across the
street from Sunset Harbour Towers. Commissioner Tobin, by the way, would be instrumental in
the ouster of City Manager Jorge Gonzalez, who on behalf of the City Commission arranged the
Page 2 of 7
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
“partnership” or condominium agreement between the city and Robins/Levine although he
objected to what he believed was an exorbitant sum, $20 million, paid for the air rights.
Jorge Gonzalez
Forced to resign with a handsome severance package in the wake of a scandal over the arrest of
an handful of code enforcement officers, Gonzalez claimed that there would always be some
corruption in the lower ranks of governments, and that here the highest level of government
had been corrupted as well. That would be his boss, the city commission, whose commissioners
he said had been fixing code compliance cases in return for campaign contributions. So he
maintained that he was ousted because he bucked the will of corrupt commissioners.
The mayor’s Sunset Harbour area given priority for stormwater protection
Furthermore, he claimed that the roots of evil extended into Sunset Harbour, where today we
see the roads being raised around the mayor’s shopping center to protect the area from
stormwater, with considerable work being done by Lanzo Construction, a donor to the
scandalized PAC featuring the mayor’s alleged accomplishments. The flood control project,
Page 3 of 7
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
initiated prior to his advent by the previous regime, is the main accomplishment advertised by
the PAC and the mayor, a professional propagandist, via his personal vanity mayor website.
Indeed, he seems to have taken his cue from Mussolini’s popular swamp recovery program,
which ultimately failed, not to mention taking control of committees and suppressing dissent.
At the beginning of what has been a severe drought, he claimed that the streets were bone dry
after a slight rain although nearly five square blocks were ankle deep in water. A more
substantial rain occurring later on the full super‐ or red‐moon resulted in the closing of several
roads for flooding, but the ones protected by the pumps were dry.
Lanzo Construction contributed funds to the “stinking” PAC
Gonzalez concluded that corruption was given full sway with the faux reform regime led by
Clinton pal Philip Levine. He characterized the mayor’s henchman, city manager Jimmy Morales,
a political insider shoed into the job despite the recommendation of several outsiders by a
professional recruiting firm, as “spineless.”
Page 4 of 7
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
On June 2, 2013, before Gonzalez was shown the door, I made the following recommendation
in a town forum email exchange:
“We should not be deceived into thinking that changing city managers is going to change a
longstanding culture, much of it informal. Whosoever takes the office will have to adjust to the
status quo unless a radical is brought in and given temporary dictatorial powers except over the
budget (as in Rome). The salient features of his background should be courage, honesty, and
intelligence. Formal education and whether or not s/he inhaled or not should be at the end of
the list. Jorge should have remained in his position for another year in order to take advantage
of the impetus for reform i.e. a real crackdown, and save some face to boot. Obviously, certain
reformers did not want that crackdown, and have interests rooted in the very corruption they
pretend to root out. All the current commissioners should be replaced as soon as possible with
a slate of clean candidates. Perhaps Jorge should considering running for mayor on a strong‐
mayor charter‐reform plank.”
Commissioner Tobin responded: “Can i buy some pot from you” (sic)
So Jimmy Morales, a sophisticated Harvard Law grad, former city attorney for the scandalized
City of Doral, good old Miami Beach home boy, was wheeled in as city manager, crying when he
was appointed.
Morales is well known locally as a nice guy with an open door as long as he is gone along with,
and as a vindictive bureaucratic thug behind closed doors when resisted, but not nearly as
vindictive as the de facto strong mayor he depends on—weak city managers come and go with
strong mayors. He is praised by some as a moral man while others warn that his last name
should not be confused with morality and that morality should not be confused with the Good
of ethics. Ironically, the city might be better off if he were the political mayor and Philip Levine
managed the city business under the city’s weak mayor, strong city manager, fascistic charter.
Tobin was allied with the faux reform majority purchased and led by Philip Levine as mayor.
Commissioner Jonah Wolfson was also instrumental in the capture of the city commission by
the so‐called reformers. He was scandalized by contributions from the towing duopoly based in
Sunset Harbour, and from a beach concession monopoly, Boucher Brothers, to his wife
Andrea’s judicial campaign while he deviously advanced a radical increase in towing fees and a
no‐bid renewal of the concession contract. Tobin, by the way, has often been at acrimonious
odds with him.
Wolfson’s wife, incidentally, was an assistant state attorney and has lectured on ethics for the
county ethics commission, whose director, Joe Centorino, was her former colleague at the state
Page 5 of 7
MIAM
MI MIR
RROR – TRUE
E REFL
LECTIO
ONS
attorney’s office. The
e ethics com
mmission did
d not respon
nd to repeatted requestss as to wheth
her it
had looked into the ccontribution
ns as possiblee violations of local cam
mpaign financce reform law.
Commissioner Tobin ggraduated from police acad
demy
n recently w
waived its ow
wn ethics req
quirements and allowed
d Mr. Tobin, who
The City Commission
n a state pro
osecutor in Broward County, to app
ply for a job with the po
olice department
had been
while sitting on the commission
n. He was apparently
a
b
becoming
diisgruntled with
w the mayoral
faction, wherefore
w
the
t mayor and
a commisssion highly recommend
ded him as the ideal police
p
officer caandidate. He
e reportedlyy failed the p
police deparrtment’s eth
hics test, and
d, citing personal
consideraations, decid
ded not to become a police officer.
Now Maayor Levine and Commissioner Wo
olfson have been taken
n to task byy Mr. Tobin
n and
Commisssioner Deed
de Weithorn
n for solicitting political contributions from city
c
vendorss and
developeers. Mayor Levine,
L
who
o had waxed
d eloquent on
o Tobin’s desire
d
to be a police offficer,
now refeers to Tobin’ss failure to p
pass the ethiics test, implying that hee is an uneth
hical man.
“R
Respected” po
olitical television reporter Michael Putn
ney raised helll about the sttinking PAC
P
Page 6 of 7
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
Levine and Wolfson’s excuse is that, unlike Scott Robins’ previous contributions to Tobin, the
donations were intended for a political action committee chaired by Commissioner Wolfson,
and that the funds received were not specifically earmarked for Levine’s re‐election even
though most of the advertising expenditures lauded Levine’s alleged accomplishments. If
extortion or bribery were at play, the malefactors could be subject to criminal prosecution, and
F.B.I. agents have been seen making the rounds again.
The stench over the stinking PAC ordure has provoked the lazy county ethics commission to
open an investigation. Absent proof of a quid pro quo, the contributions probably did not
violate the ethics code because the code does not mention political action committees,
although the motivation for the donations just may be unethical in a higher sense, Wolfson says
he will shut down the PAC and make proportionate refunds of any remaining money. That may
provoke possibly disgruntled donors to tell all given a promise of immunity.
All the above leaves the question as to why the same commission, when examining the
previous complaint against a commissioner, namely Ed Tobin, did not find probable cause when
there was not political action committee at play, although the ethics commission advocate’s
discussion of the case practically mirrored the city’s campaign finance reform prohibition. We
may have one big ball of wax in this county regardless of political subdivisions.
# #
Read the specifics about the failure of the county ethics commission to respond to questions as
to why it apparently ignored the contributions of Scott Robins to Ed Tobin as Sunset Harbour
was being put together for him and his friend Philip Levine, the future mayor of Miami Beach.
THE BLACK EYE OF THE MIAMI DADE ETHICS COMMISSION
http://miamimirror.com/2015/09/the‐black‐eye‐of‐miami‐dade‐ethics.html
Page 7 of 7
Sunset Harbour Towers and Mayor Levine’s Shopping Center
THE ROOTS OF EVIL IN SUNSET HARBOUR
BY
DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS
30 September 2015
When City of Miami Beach Commissioner Ed Tobin was running for the city commission in 2007,
his firm prepared an option agreement whereby Scott Robins, his client, would purchase a Bay
Road lot from the owner of Tremont Towing in the Sunset Harbour neighborhood, wherein
Sunset Harbour Towers condominium Tobin himself owned an interest in three units and
several parking spaces. Tobin, apparently violating local law, accepted campaign contributions
Page 1 of 7
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
from Scott Robins’ group of companies even though he knew that Scott Robins was seeking a
re‐zoning of the property and would need to come before the City Commission.
Sec. 2‐489 of the Ordinances of the City of Miami Beach provides that, “No real estate
developer shall give a campaign contribution directly or indirectly to a candidate, or to the
campaign committee of a candidate, for the offices of mayor or commissioner.”
The Miami‐Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust and its prosecuting advocate,
Michael Murawski, almost always lenient on political shenanigans on the beach, ignored that
apparent violation, and the COE dismissed several counts against Tobin and issued a letter of
instruction. Another complaint brought against him would be similarly disposed of in 2013.
Fines when imposed are picayune given the power and wealth of the persons involved, yet a
conviction may have political consequences due to adverse publicity, which is rare given the
market needs of the only major daily newspaper and its television affiliate. Substantial
politicians may go to considerable expense to hire lawyers to represent them, or simply
badmouth the ethics commission as incompetent and irrelevant.
Tobin himself has publicly scoffed at the ineptitude of the ethics commission, which has been
dubbed “The Unethical Commission of Public Distrust” in urban lore. The commission
frequently requires that complainants themselves conduct the investigations that it is supposed
to conduct with the legal tools it has; it often takes the word of officials for granted without
asking for rebuttals; it is overly lenient towards certain officials; it appears to violate its own
ethical standards with impunity; ‐‐and then it has the gall to offer to teach ethics to
municipalities for a fee.
Scott Robins, Philip Levine, Jonah Wolfson, Jimmy Morales
Scott Robins and his partner Philip Levine would ultimately assemble properties and sell $20
million of air rights to the city, resulting in the shopping center and parking garage across the
street from Sunset Harbour Towers. Commissioner Tobin, by the way, would be instrumental in
the ouster of City Manager Jorge Gonzalez, who on behalf of the City Commission arranged the
Page 2 of 7
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
“partnership” or condominium agreement between the city and Robins/Levine although he
objected to what he believed was an exorbitant sum, $20 million, paid for the air rights.
Jorge Gonzalez
Forced to resign with a handsome severance package in the wake of a scandal over the arrest of
an handful of code enforcement officers, Gonzalez claimed that there would always be some
corruption in the lower ranks of governments, and that here the highest level of government
had been corrupted as well. That would be his boss, the city commission, whose commissioners
he said had been fixing code compliance cases in return for campaign contributions. So he
maintained that he was ousted because he bucked the will of corrupt commissioners.
The mayor’s Sunset Harbour area given priority for stormwater protection
Furthermore, he claimed that the roots of evil extended into Sunset Harbour, where today we
see the roads being raised around the mayor’s shopping center to protect the area from
stormwater, with considerable work being done by Lanzo Construction, a donor to the
scandalized PAC featuring the mayor’s alleged accomplishments. The flood control project,
Page 3 of 7
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
initiated prior to his advent by the previous regime, is the main accomplishment advertised by
the PAC and the mayor, a professional propagandist, via his personal vanity mayor website.
Indeed, he seems to have taken his cue from Mussolini’s popular swamp recovery program,
which ultimately failed, not to mention taking control of committees and suppressing dissent.
At the beginning of what has been a severe drought, he claimed that the streets were bone dry
after a slight rain although nearly five square blocks were ankle deep in water. A more
substantial rain occurring later on the full super‐ or red‐moon resulted in the closing of several
roads for flooding, but the ones protected by the pumps were dry.
Lanzo Construction contributed funds to the “stinking” PAC
Gonzalez concluded that corruption was given full sway with the faux reform regime led by
Clinton pal Philip Levine. He characterized the mayor’s henchman, city manager Jimmy Morales,
a political insider shoed into the job despite the recommendation of several outsiders by a
professional recruiting firm, as “spineless.”
Page 4 of 7
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
On June 2, 2013, before Gonzalez was shown the door, I made the following recommendation
in a town forum email exchange:
“We should not be deceived into thinking that changing city managers is going to change a
longstanding culture, much of it informal. Whosoever takes the office will have to adjust to the
status quo unless a radical is brought in and given temporary dictatorial powers except over the
budget (as in Rome). The salient features of his background should be courage, honesty, and
intelligence. Formal education and whether or not s/he inhaled or not should be at the end of
the list. Jorge should have remained in his position for another year in order to take advantage
of the impetus for reform i.e. a real crackdown, and save some face to boot. Obviously, certain
reformers did not want that crackdown, and have interests rooted in the very corruption they
pretend to root out. All the current commissioners should be replaced as soon as possible with
a slate of clean candidates. Perhaps Jorge should considering running for mayor on a strong‐
mayor charter‐reform plank.”
Commissioner Tobin responded: “Can i buy some pot from you” (sic)
So Jimmy Morales, a sophisticated Harvard Law grad, former city attorney for the scandalized
City of Doral, good old Miami Beach home boy, was wheeled in as city manager, crying when he
was appointed.
Morales is well known locally as a nice guy with an open door as long as he is gone along with,
and as a vindictive bureaucratic thug behind closed doors when resisted, but not nearly as
vindictive as the de facto strong mayor he depends on—weak city managers come and go with
strong mayors. He is praised by some as a moral man while others warn that his last name
should not be confused with morality and that morality should not be confused with the Good
of ethics. Ironically, the city might be better off if he were the political mayor and Philip Levine
managed the city business under the city’s weak mayor, strong city manager, fascistic charter.
Tobin was allied with the faux reform majority purchased and led by Philip Levine as mayor.
Commissioner Jonah Wolfson was also instrumental in the capture of the city commission by
the so‐called reformers. He was scandalized by contributions from the towing duopoly based in
Sunset Harbour, and from a beach concession monopoly, Boucher Brothers, to his wife
Andrea’s judicial campaign while he deviously advanced a radical increase in towing fees and a
no‐bid renewal of the concession contract. Tobin, by the way, has often been at acrimonious
odds with him.
Wolfson’s wife, incidentally, was an assistant state attorney and has lectured on ethics for the
county ethics commission, whose director, Joe Centorino, was her former colleague at the state
Page 5 of 7
MIAM
MI MIR
RROR – TRUE
E REFL
LECTIO
ONS
attorney’s office. The
e ethics com
mmission did
d not respon
nd to repeatted requestss as to wheth
her it
had looked into the ccontribution
ns as possiblee violations of local cam
mpaign financce reform law.
Commissioner Tobin ggraduated from police acad
demy
n recently w
waived its ow
wn ethics req
quirements and allowed
d Mr. Tobin, who
The City Commission
n a state pro
osecutor in Broward County, to app
ply for a job with the po
olice department
had been
while sitting on the commission
n. He was apparently
a
b
becoming
diisgruntled with
w the mayoral
faction, wherefore
w
the
t mayor and
a commisssion highly recommend
ded him as the ideal police
p
officer caandidate. He
e reportedlyy failed the p
police deparrtment’s eth
hics test, and
d, citing personal
consideraations, decid
ded not to become a police officer.
Now Maayor Levine and Commissioner Wo
olfson have been taken
n to task byy Mr. Tobin
n and
Commisssioner Deed
de Weithorn
n for solicitting political contributions from city
c
vendorss and
developeers. Mayor Levine,
L
who
o had waxed
d eloquent on
o Tobin’s desire
d
to be a police offficer,
now refeers to Tobin’ss failure to p
pass the ethiics test, implying that hee is an uneth
hical man.
“R
Respected” po
olitical television reporter Michael Putn
ney raised helll about the sttinking PAC
P
Page 6 of 7
MIAMI MIRROR – TRUE REFLECTIONS
Levine and Wolfson’s excuse is that, unlike Scott Robins’ previous contributions to Tobin, the
donations were intended for a political action committee chaired by Commissioner Wolfson,
and that the funds received were not specifically earmarked for Levine’s re‐election even
though most of the advertising expenditures lauded Levine’s alleged accomplishments. If
extortion or bribery were at play, the malefactors could be subject to criminal prosecution, and
F.B.I. agents have been seen making the rounds again.
The stench over the stinking PAC ordure has provoked the lazy county ethics commission to
open an investigation. Absent proof of a quid pro quo, the contributions probably did not
violate the ethics code because the code does not mention political action committees,
although the motivation for the donations just may be unethical in a higher sense, Wolfson says
he will shut down the PAC and make proportionate refunds of any remaining money. That may
provoke possibly disgruntled donors to tell all given a promise of immunity.
All the above leaves the question as to why the same commission, when examining the
previous complaint against a commissioner, namely Ed Tobin, did not find probable cause when
there was not political action committee at play, although the ethics commission advocate’s
discussion of the case practically mirrored the city’s campaign finance reform prohibition. We
may have one big ball of wax in this county regardless of political subdivisions.
# #
Read the specifics about the failure of the county ethics commission to respond to questions as
to why it apparently ignored the contributions of Scott Robins to Ed Tobin as Sunset Harbour
was being put together for him and his friend Philip Levine, the future mayor of Miami Beach.
THE BLACK EYE OF THE MIAMI DADE ETHICS COMMISSION
http://miamimirror.com/2015/09/the‐black‐eye‐of‐miami‐dade‐ethics.html
Page 7 of 7
