To The Editor:
Recently, at a City Commission meeting regarding the development of 110 Phoenician Avenue, opponents of the development showed video indicating potentially fraudulent testimony at prior commission meetings. Everyone should watch the clip:
I have no opinion on the merits of the proposed upzoning or the project itself. But these videos appear to be evidence of an orchestrated fraud on the proceedings and the city itself. Someone may have paid these people to appear and provide false testimony. The issue is, who paid them? The issue is not the witnesses themselves. It appears that someone with a financial interest in the project may have facilitated a fraud. The commission should be outraged and follow the money, urgently.
And yet, the mayor, vice mayor and even the police chief show no real outrage and refuse to focus on the real issue: Who paid the witnesses to appear and lie? The mayor instructed the city attorney to investigate the testimony provided by people who appear to have been recruited and prepped by financial interests to commit fraud on the city. The police chief indicated perjury is a low priority and unlikely to be prosecuted, again focusing on the alleged perjurers themselves rather than the possibility of fraud by the entity or individuals who may have paid the witnesses to lie about their residence and provide false testimony.
The attorney for the developer was present, and yet no one on the commission asked the attorney if he knew anything about this alleged fraud or directed the attorney to speak with his client and report back to the commission regarding it.
Our commission simply shrugs its shoulders and effectively says there is nothing we can do. The project has been planned for five years, the upzoning is approved, and it must go forward because of state law and the tangential benefit to a worthy school.
Financial interests on this project may have paid people to commit fraud, but the project is a “go” despite this evidence of possible malfeasance. If someone is willing to promote a project using perjury, what else are they prepared to do or lie about?
Ends rarely justify the means. Our city will in the end be the poorer for it.
Tom Parker
Coral Gables
