Indicted Miami commissioner reelected

The more we stay the same… City of Miami voters yesterday returned Michelle Spence-Jones to power. She’s the commissioner who was removed from office just a couple of months ago by Florida Governor Charlie Crist. Spence-Jones is under indictment for allegedly sidetracking about $50,000 from the public kitty for a family business. And it’s not her first time under the microscope of public corruption. Spence-Jones has been implicated in several less than kosher cases since her rise to power (and before while a city employee). To date she has managed to stay out of jail. Her day may be coming, though.

Cting Crist’s action as a “public lynching,” Spence-Jones went before her district voters and managed to win a not-so-close election by garnering almost 54% of the vote, down from the 83% she received in November of last year. Turnout was less than 10%.

Who knows? Maybe voters just don’t care. Or if they care, they’ve determined whoever they elect will produce more of the same… so they don’t vote. Or, maybe, Miami voters are masochists. You choose, because I sure don’t get it.

Interestingly, statistics prove that Miami is one of the poorest big cities in the country. Spence-Jones’ district is the poorest of the five in that city. And voters from her district (vote twice) over a three month period to elect a commissioner who will probably end up in the clinker — for stealing public money that should have gone to alleviate some of the poverty in her district.

I guess it’s why they call Miami the magic city.

Alvaro F. Fernandez