Miami Mayor Francis Suarez received at least $170,000 in monthly payments beginning in late 2021 from a developer building a complex in Coconut Grove, according to Location Ventures documents obtained by the Miami Herald.
Miami Herald
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s disturbing business dealings with a frustrated developer trying to obtain city permits for his stalled $70 million project in Coconut Grove have attracted the attention of the county’s two top local law-enforcement and ethics officials.
On Wednesday, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and Jose Arrojo, executive director of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, told the Editorial Board that Suarez’s actions may be reviewed by their offices.
It’s unclear if Arrojo or Fernandez Rundle have officially contacted Suarez or his office with questions about his actions as a public official/private consultant. They should, immediately.
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Independence impaired?
They are right to be concerned.
”Our agency has jurisdiction to investigate whether an elected local government official has accepted employment which would impair his or her independence of judgment in the performance of his or her public duties, whether the official has used or attempted to use his or her official position to secure special privileges or exemptions for a third party,” Arrojo told the Board in an email.
And there is local precedence for a sitting mayor working as a private consultant — and then running afoul of the law.
Arrojo recalled the case of former Homestead Mayor Steve Bateman, a probe that began as a county ethics violation case and evolved into a criminal prosecution. Bateman had been accused of illegally wielding his influence as mayor while secretly on the payroll of a healthcare company needing government clearance to build a clinic in Homestead. In 2014, Bateman was sentenced to 22 months in state prison.
Arrojo said the results of his probes, like Bateman’s, are usually forwarded to Miami-Dade County prosecutors.
On her end, Fernandez Rundle told the Board she has consulted with Arrojo. ” We will coordinate our review of the allegations with them. At this early stage, it is premature for us to opine on the allegations.”
So far, what we know, according to the Miami Herald, is that the mayor was quietly paid as much as $170,000 for serving as a consultant for Location Ventures’ CEO Rishi Kapoor. The developer desperately needed Miami city permits to finish his stalled mixed-use project.
Denies meeting occurred
Allegations found in internal corporate records obtained by the Herald say the developer, Suarez and and City Manager Art Noriega met to discuss Kapoor’s permitting problems. The mayor and his spokeswoman deny such a meeting took place or that anything inappropriate occurred.
Still, we look forward to Suarez explaining why corporate meeting records obtained exclusively by the Herald include notations such as “the mayor will take care of this,” written down as the developer tried to assure jittery investors that Suarez would help resolve the problems.
Suarez, whose post as mayor is primarily ceremonial and who makes his living as a private equity executive and attorney, wears many professional hats.
And it seems he expects — mistakenly — Miamians to accept that when he was working for Location Ventures, he was not there as the mayor of Miami but as a private consultant.
But, come on — there’s only one reason Kapoor paid Suarez that $170,000 as opposed to, say, one of the guys who collects residents’ recycling every two weeks.
That just doesn’t sound right. Investigators need to step in. Fortunately, it looks like they’re ready to do so.
