On April 9, 2024, City of North Miami Council members Kassandra Timothe, Mary Estimé-Irvin and Pierre Frantz Charles voted to fire City Manager Rasha Cameau, The City attorney, Jeff Cazeau, advised that a list of reasons for dismissal must be cited in a resolution 30 days before such removal, but no such list has yet been made public.
The decision was made during that council meeting to present the resolution on May 14, 2024 (meeting from April 9, timestamp 1:01:30) . But then, on May 3, 2024, the three council members called a special meeting for May 7, 2024, to suspend Mrs Cameau, but scheduled it at 5:30 PM, when many members of the public would be at work.
At the April 9th meeting, Councilwoman Mary Estimé-Irvin, the representative for District 3, had originally introduced an item to grant $100,000 of North Miami funds to a music festival in downtown Miami. This item was tabled, apparently in order to bring it back after Ms. Cameau’s firing when the purse strings will be looser, since Ms. Cameau did not support it.
On top of endemic wasteful spending, the City of North Miami has a record of hiring incompetent friends and family of local lobbyists and existing City officials. Wasteful spending and mismanagement recently plunged the City into a$14 million deficit, which was covered by a loan from the water and sewer fund to avoid a “state of financial emergency as defined in Section 218.503(1), Florida Statutes.” ( $14 million deficit exerpt from financial report} The city then used COVID pandemic funds and the sale of City assets to repay the water and sewer fund. Furthermore, the city operates with a single bank account in which the enterprise funds are mixed in with the operating fund. This allows uncontrolled spending, with the enterprise funds being used for overdraft protection. Ms Cameau, who has only been in office for a year, was working hard to clean up these financial deficits and mismanagement that she inherited from the City Council and previous City Managers.
The attempt to fire Rasha Cameau shows the extremes to which North Miami’s Council members are willing to go to preserve their self-appointed privileges and personal agendas, even when they endanger a $400 million dollar water plant project and the property, health and safety of our entire community.
So how did we get here?
Ms Rasha Cameau outlined the events leading up to her termination in a document “Events That Led Up to My Termination.” ( events document) Dr. Aneisha Daniel, Deputy City manager completed a report regarding the water plant project. ( Dr. Daniel’s report)
According to these two documents, Mayor Alix Desulme returned from a trip with information on EPA grants and the WIFIA loan and presented them to the city manager for evaluation. Ms. Cameau decided to apply for the WIFIA loan, and the Public Works department was responsible for providing the data needed to complete the application. Due to performance issues in Public Works, Ms Cameau assigned Dr. Aneisha Daniel, Deputy City Manager, to evaluate the problem in Public Works and spearhead the WIFIA loan application.
Dr Aneisha Daniel determined that Public Works Director, Wisler Pierre-Louis,“failed to provide critical information due to competing priorities and shortages of key personnel, with two vacant Assistant Director positions. It should be pointed out that several good applicants were interviewed and considered; regrettably, no offers were made to any of those candidates since the Director desired to promote from within, despite the fact that staff lacked the necessary abilities to do the job adequately.” ( Timeline report by Dr. Aneisha Daniel )
Ms Cameau wrote that Dr. Daniel then realized that the information she was getting from Public Works was outdated and inaccurate. For instance, the estimated cost of the water plant at $150 million was based on a 2006 estimate. With the help of Black & Veatch and City staff, Dr. Daniel was able to submit the LOI around January 5th, 2024. We now know that the actual cost of the water plant will be $400,000,000, not $150,000,000.
There were many other performance issues with the Public Works department described in the aforementioned report, but we will only address the one pertaining to the lack of funding for the drainage project on NE 3rd court.
After annexing the area, the City of North Miami authorized new development WITHOUT first putting in drainage, which led to severe flooding. There is currently no drainage on NE 3rd court. In December of 2022, the City of North Miami announced that it will install drainage on the street. One of the residents, Eileen Bicaba, has been making inquiries on both the schedule and funding for the project. In response to Ms Bicaba’s inquiry in a 9/20/2023 email, Mr. Wisler Pierre-Louis responded that the median construction cost estimate is approximately $1.2M, and that the City budget included $1.5M for basin construction.
In February 2024, Ms Bicaba contacted the Mayor and a meeting was set with the City management and Public Works Staff for March 27, 2024. According to the Performance Issues in Public Works memo, Ms. Cameau called a virtual meeting with the Public Works staff to go over the timelines, etc. At that meeting, the Public Works Operations Chief asked [how this project was] going to be funded? To Ms. Cameau’s surprise there was no money set aside, despite the question being asked several times and emails being sent to Ms. Bicaba alluding to $1.5 million budgeted for the basin project. In reality, no money at all was earmarked for that project. ( performance memo )
Ms Cameau then created the Performance Issues in Public Works memo and sent an evite to Mr. Wisler to review the memo. Mr. Wisler sent a text message to Councilman Charles. Both Timothe and Estimé-Irvin sent individuals to intervene on Mr. Pierre-Louis’s behalf. Ms Cameau wrote in the “what led up” document that Mr. Pierre-Louis “cannot be touched.”
Ms Cameau updated the Performance Issues in Public Works memo as follows:
“Updated March 29 to add that Ms Cameau was contacted by 2 individuals on behalf of elected officials.
On Friday March 29th, in the evening I was contacted by two (2) third parties on
behalf of elected officials concerning the possible termination of the Public Works
Director.
Tuesday, April 2nd I met with the Personnel Director to discuss my concerns. I then
scheduled a 2:00 pm with Mr. Pierre-Louis, which I subsequently moved to Friday at 9:00
- The purpose of the meeting was to go over this memo and address my concerns
about his performance. Before 2:00 pm the Vice Mayor contacted me to ask if it was true
that I was going to terminate Mr. Pierre-Louis at 2:00 pm. I asked her how she knew I
had a meeting scheduled with him. She did not provide the information. I later met with
the Vice Mayor because she asked to understand what my intentions were and I walked
her through my memo. She stated that it sounds like a communication problem.
Wednesday, April 3rd I had a Teams meeting with Mr. Pierre-Louis, the Personnel Director
and Chief of Staff and I explained to him that there is zero tolerance of employees”
Frustrated that Mary Estimé-Irvin continued to lead the Council in approving more developments on NE 3rd Court without resolving the infrastructure problems, and suspecting that there was still no money for drainage, Ms Bicaba made inquiries to the Miami-Dade Ethics Commission. At that point in time, the Commission advised Ms Bicaba that she appeared to have a valid ethics complaint against Mr Pierre-Louis, but not against Mary Estimé-Irvin, since she is just a politician and not allowed to be involved in the day-to-day administration of the City. Ms. Bicaba told the Miami-Dade Ethics Commission investigator that Mary Estimé-Irvin was meddling in the running of the city, but that she could not prove it at that point, and so did not proceed further.
Now armed with evidence of clear interference leading to efforts to fire Ms Cameau, Eileen Bicaba, Laura Hill and Stefano Campini have filed a complaint with the State Attorney’s office ( State Attorney’s office complaint)
4/9/2024 Timothe recommended firing Cameau (timestamp 1:01:30)
5/3/2024 Council members Kassandra Timothe, Mary Estimé Irvin and Pierre Frantz Charles schedule a special meeting
5/7/2024 – vote to fire Rasha Cameau special hearing and meeting packet and resolution
6/4/2024 – Rasha Cameau’s Public Hearing