For more than a decade, North Bay Village Mayor Oscar Alfonso has evaded repeated ​attempts by city building officials and code inspectors to correct unauthorized construction work at his three bedroom house at 7520 W. Treasure Dr.And his next-door neighbor James Carter claims Alfonso will continue to thumb his nose…

North Bay Village residents believe Mayor Oscar Alfonso (left), city attorney Joseph Geller (center), and city manager Matthew Schwartz (right) are in cahoots, doing bad things.​North Bay Village manager Matthew Schwartz is under fire. This past Tuesday, during the city commission’s regular meeting, a small group of upset residents called…

You can always count on Jose “Pepe” Diaz to give Miami-Dade residents a reason to impose term limits on county commissioners. Seriously, who is advising Diaz? Scott Rothstein?How else can you explain the scam Diaz wants to pull on county taxpayers. Last week, he unveiled a legislative measure that would…

Woodward Brooks finally lost his badge for his bad cop behavior. This past February 3, the 46-year-old lawman was kicked off the Surfside Police force following his arrest on three felony counts of official misconduct, grand theft, and filing a fraudulent insurance claim.This is the second time the tiny beachfront…

News that Rep. Kendrick Meek is sponsoring NASCAR driver Mike Wallace’s car in this weekend’s Daytona 500, as well as being part of Wallace’s pit crew, had Banana Republican scratching his peel.The South Florida Democrat, who is giving up his congressional seat to run for the U.S. Senate, does not…

Over the weekend, Florida International University men’s basketball coach Isiah Thomas denied a Foxsports.com report that the Los Angeles Clippers were courting him to be the NBA team’s president, general manager, and coach.During his postgame conference following the Golden Panthers’ latest home loss, Thomas said, “I’m very happy here at FIU…..

Turns out North Bay Village Mayor Oscar Alfonso is not so neighborly. James Carter, a mortgage broker who lives next to Alfonso’s three-bedroom waterfront house at 7520 W Treasure Dr., says his property gets completely soaked in water every time hizzoner turns on the sprinklers.Carter says he’s angry that the…

Can’t blame Commissioner Katy Sorenson for calling it a day. Sixteen years is a long time to spend battling the unreformable majority on the county commission.For a decade and a half, Sorenson has consistently been the voice of ethical reason on an elected body that has often voted in favor of…

​North Bay Village is a place where corruption and unethical behavior rolls in with the tide on a regular basis.The small three-island city once saw four elected officials indicted and removed from office in one fell swoop.But that hasn’t stopped Mayor Oscar Alfonso from throwing ethics into the murky bottom…

Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein bilked investors out of $1.2 billion, but at least he didn’t bamboozle a poor one-armed handyman like Karl Thompson did.The 40-year-old scammer defrauded friends and business associates in Aventura, Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, Miramar, North Miami, and North Miami Beach between 2008 and last year.Franklyn Walsh, who…

As reported here earlier, Cobb frantically tried and failed to ditch a caravan of Miami Police officers last Friday. Along the way, he smashed up other vehicles and a couple of squad cars. Turns out investigators wanted to question Cobb about the murder of Arsenio Harden. The 20-year-old victim was shot…

Last Friday, I told you about a wild police chase on NE Second Avenue. Well, here’s a mug of the culprit who thought he was reprising Wesley Snipes’s role in U.S. Marshals. His name is Jonathan Henry Cobb, a 25-year-old Brownsville resident who booked it when a blue-and-white attempted to…

Apparently, tidings of booze and gourmet appetizers were not enough to sway young Miamians to support the Miami Art Museum, the local arts institution that desperately needs to raise private funds for its new home.Taxpayers approved the use of $175 million in county funds to build the $275 million project…

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. You can always expect a little urban drama near and around 29th Street between NE Second Avenue and Biscayne Boulevard to liven up your work day. Earlier this afternoon a black male suspect in a stolen four-door Hyundai with Arkansas plates led…

A two-year investigation by the Miami-Dade Inspector General found that the former principal of John A. Ferguson Senior High School in West Kendall deliberately diverted over $200,000 in taxpayer money to pay for hotel lodging, booze and grub for school employees, as well as their friends and relatives, who attended…

For a story in this week’s Miami New Times, I dialed up a few of the ladies suspended West Miami Mayor Cesar Carasa befriended during his sojourns to the Dominican Republic. This past November 30, Carasa was arrested on two misdemeanor counts of exploiting his public position. The unemployed real…

The folks who set up the Haiti earthquake relief donation site at First Street and Alton Road ​in Miami Beach need to raise $50,000 to send air-conditioning units and generators for the Project Medishare hospital being set up in Port-au-Prince to treat victims. You can make your donation here.What this…