On the MMAP

The key to understanding the new corruption charges? Look at the old ones.

By Tamara Lush 

One secretary attended school and had skin treatments on the taxpayers' dime. Another employee was let out of work for jury duty ... on most Fridays between January 2005 and June 2006. And a third person — also paid by you and me — possibly used publicly funded help to feed clients to her realtor husband.

All of these allegations and more help explain why one of county hall's most long-lived and wily veterans, Metro-Miami Action Plan Trust President Milton Vickers, resigned last week. They give a pretty good idea as to why three prominent MMAP board members have quit in the past two months. And they almost surely had something to do with state prosecutors' December 4 raid of MMAP's offices.

The shenanigans might even shed light on why Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones is facing indictment.

"It's really, really bad over there," says one county employee familiar with the agency, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of losing her job. "MMAP used to be a good agency. Now it's foolishness — they just recycle money to each other and their friends." [Continue reading...]