Personnel Appeals Board - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Today is February 28, 2025. It's about 9.17 in the morning. We're here for the Personal Appeals Board, and I'm going to call the roll. This meeting to order. Board Member James McKenzie.

Here.

Board Member Lorraine Jimenez. Here. Board Member Michelle Klickman.

Here.

Board Member Jessica Nagy.

Yes.

Board Member Jocelyn Kinzer? Here. So we have a quorum, and then we're going to go to item 2A, which is selection of a shared person. If you guys want to go ahead and introduce yourself and give a little bit of background so everyone gets familiarized with each other, and then we'll go ahead and make a motion to select a chair. We'll start off with your orders, so if you want to go, Board Member, do you want to go first? Can you turn your microphone on?

Good morning, everybody. My name is Lorraine Jimenez. I'm a resident of Surfside for many years, since 1988. My name is Jocelyn Ginzer.

I've been a resident of Surfside for almost 45 years. I am currently a non-profit development professional.

Good morning, everybody. Good morning, everybody. My name is Michelle Kligman. I have been a Surfside resident for over 20 years. My parents have been a resident for over 40 years. I have two beautiful children. One is in college, one is in 10th grade, and they love Surfside too. I am currently the chief human resource officer for Jackson Health System. I've been there for about 13 years. And prior to that, I was the director of HR for the city of Miami for about seven years. I also proudly served as an elected official here in Surfside. And so I'm happy to serve in any capacity moving forward, so happy to be here.

Good morning, my name is James McKenzie. I've been living in Surf South for 28 years. I'm an architect, and I'm happy to serve.

Good morning, I'm Jessie Vinayake. I've been running the Bridge Street for, well, since 1998.

So is that a motion? All right. So I have a motion by Board Member Munagher to select Michelle Klittman as the chair. I second it. I have a second by Board Member Jimenez. And I'll call the roll. Board Member James Van Hansen?

Yes.

Board Member Jimenez? Yes. Board Member Klittman? Okay. Is that a yes?

Yes.

Board Member Munagher? Yes. Board Member Kinzer? Yes. And we have a quorum. Madam Chair, I'll turn the proceedings over to you.

Thank you. I think I'd like to start with asking the town attorney, hi, good morning, some clarifying questions so that we understand the board's responsibilities as it relates to process and procedure. And so... I've read the personnel appeals board rules and procedures and like to ask clarifying questions as it relates to whether or not this board, it appears to me from reading rule five as well as rule six that the board can ask questions or any clarifying questions of any witnesses? It can. Okay. Any other from a process or rules and procedures that this board needs to be aware of so that we can act in the fullest capacity of our function here?

The singular rule that I'm going to be reminding you of today is Rule 11. And I'll read it for the record. The decision of the board must be based on whether the town's discharge or reduction in pay or rank of the employee was for cause. In order for the board to find the manager or his designee active without cause, the board must find there was no basis for the adverse employment action. That language is very strict. You can see it's mandatory language in two instances. The board must find, the decision must be based on whether it was for a cause. In other words, no other factors can be considered, right?

So in light of that, will the board be educated on the state being an at-will Employment state, and can you go over that? Because I think it's important for the board to be educated about that in the context of the state is an affluent state.

However, in public sector, you need to have cause to terminate COVID. Now, with this language, and this is, and you're governed by what the charter says, so it's a little bit different from being a private sector. So what this language requires for you, as you consider the evidence that's coming in before you, you need to look for the basis of the adverse employment action. In other words, if you find any basis, then it needs to apply. Do you follow?

I do follow. Okay. However, The exception to that is if it's for discriminatory reasons or any retaliation, and I just want to point that out.

It is if it's for the wrong reason. For example, if someone is fired for a religious reason or because of a disability, that would be an exception to the rule. I'm not sure that those factors are in play in this case.

Well, the plaintiff, or the, I'm sorry, I'm not sure. Ms. Goldstein will have to refer to you, but she did file a discrimination EOC claim that's not part of this packet. So I think it is an important consideration for the board to consider so that we understand all of the factors that are at play here. I don't have any other further questions. I don't know if any of the board members do.

I do. So, I do know the definition of cause, but in this case, can you define cause for everybody?

The definition of, I mean, you have to have a reason for a fire, right? Now, what that reason is and how much it weighs is for the board to determine. Okay? So... IF YOU FIND A REASON FOR HER TO HAVE BEEN LET GO, THEN YOU, THEN THE POTENTIAL WILL LET GO FOR CAUSE. CORRECT. ALL RIGHT. NOW, THE QUESTION IS, IS IT ENOUGH OF A REASON FOR THE BOARD TO DETERMINE THAT? THANK YOU. OKAY. SO, BUT ANY REASON, AND THAT'S THE LANGUAGES IN THE STATUTE. YOU KNOW, IF THERE'S NO BASIS, NO BASIS IS PRETTY ALL ENCOMPASSING. RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. YOU DON'T, YOU DO REALLY GET THAT FEAR LANGUAGE.

IN THIS CASE, YOU HAVE THAT FEAR LANGUAGE. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS FOR ANY OF THE BOARD MEMBERS? Thank you. Can we go ahead and start?

Good morning, members of the board. Would you indulge me from seeking from this desk, or would you prefer that I seek from the board? Mark Blumstein, Town Manager for the Town Service Site of Florida. First and foremost, I want to thank each of you for volunteering your time to serve on this board. It's not a board that convenes very often, as we all know. I cannot remember the last time this board convened, but here we are in 2025. So thank you, each of you, for serving. You're going to hear a lot today about the case involving Ms. Goldstein, who I will refer to as the petitioner throughout the proceedings. She is petitioning an appeal of the town's decision to terminate her employment back on November 7, 2024. In advance of today's hearing and for the record, I just want to make it clear that The board was provided an abundance of materials ahead of today's hearing. And that was done purposefully so you all could be advised as much as your time permitted to go through those, I think it was 600 plus pages of history involving the petitioner, her employment with the town. the facts and circumstances that gave rise to this termination and the process that was afforded her in so doing. There may be additional documents that come to you here today that counsel for the petitioner made available to me, I think it was yesterday. I have no objection for his lord considering paying all information i i want you to be afforded of any and all information in rendering your decision to either affirm or overrule the town's termination decision so please understand that everything that is tender for your consideration i want you to consider In the end, the attorney already alluded to the fact that you essentially have to conclude, at least four of you, by the way, at least four of you must conclude the town had no cause to overrule the town's decision. Without that, the town decision is going to stand. And I think after you hear everything, that will be the right decision. It's not an easy one to make. I get it. We're all neighbors. We all know each other. We all have to see each other. This is a small town, and this is a difficult spot for everyone to be in, so I get that. But I think the evidence is going to establish that the town acted consistent with its policies and procedures, consistent with the town code. And the unfortunate result is that it resulted in a long-term employee's termination from service last year. So I just want to go to a number of documents that you already have for your consideration. Obviously, the letter of termination itself, dated November 7, 2024, that was signed and issued by my predecessor, grounds if you will because for the termination decision I also want to make reference to, and it's in your materials as well, the report. There's this document called the Internal Affairs Report. That's the document that essentially summarizes the nature of the investigation conducted by the town that ultimately led to the decision by the town to terminate The author of that report is present here to answer any questions that you may have in regards to that report, his actions taken, the nature of the investigation, the review of materials that are referenced in that report that he analyzed in issuing that report.

I apologize for the interruption, but if you could please point to the page number in order to assist the board in finding the documents. My apologies. I direct that to both counsel, just to make it easier for the board members to find the documents that we're referring to.

There's a reason to choose the attorney. Okay, so the letter I referenced, the termination letter, is at page 439 and 440. My apologies. The report is at pages 4... 41 and it continues on in sequence until the end, somewhere around 4, 56, 67. And additionally, I want to call your attention to a couple of manuals that i think were circulated at least i hope they were circulated if not i have been here today it's uh what is the uh what's called the agreement between the town of suicide florida and the florida state lodge return of order of police it goes from the effective period is october 1 2022 to september 30th 2025. And within that agreement, you should focus on Article 21 of that agreement. It says for the hours of overtime. It makes very clear at Article 21.1.1 the amount of hours that an employee may earn. AND IT MAY NOT EXCEED 300 HOURS. THAT IS A KEY POINT AS YOU ANALYZE THE DECISION BY THE TOWN IN RENDERING ITS DECISION. I ALSO WANT TO FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON A DOCUMENT THAT'S THE PERSONNEL POLICIES AND PROCEDURES MANUAL, WHICH WAS THE EFFECTIVE VERSION OF THAT WAS REVISED MAY 2023. In there, you will see at chapter 6, the chapter refers to discipline. And in subsection C of chapter 6, it sets forth the grounds for disciplinary action. You may hear today something about progressive discipline, and that certainly is a means, not the sole means, but a means by which to discipline employees. And of course, management, the town. depending on the facts and circumstances of a particular case, may choose to exercise progressive discipline or exercise its right as a management to terminate an employee, again, depending on the facts and circumstances of the grounds therefore. In this particular instance, the town decided that what it uncovered through its investigation was egregious enough to terminate this particular employee on the grounds that are essentially captured in the letter of termination. Obviously, those included the violation of excessive comp time that we obviously have read about. as well as the unilateral decision by this employee to alter the established parking rates, as well as the release of sensitive information before it was made public by the town because of the nature of her employment. These are the grounds for termination, if you will, the cause for termination. You will hear no evidence that the town made this decision because the petitioner was a certain race. You will hear no grounds that the town made the decision because the petitioner was of a certain faith. You will hear no grounds that the town made this decision because of the petitioner's age or any other protected reason for termination, including any retaliation. Simply said, the town made its decision because it uncovered this excessive comp time payout, which cost the taxpayers of the town of Surfside tens of thousands of dollars just in those two particular relates to certain particular offices. Obviously, the town is charged with safeguarding our tax dollars. That is, our fiduciary duty is to safeguard our tax dollars. And in this instance, both in the expenditure of comp time, as well as in the unilateral decision to reduce the established parking rates, this petitioner failed the town. And as a result, the town decided to terminate her. That is the cause. That is the reason. This is not about an EEOC complaint at all. This is not about anything else. In fact, I think the reference to the EEOC was somewhere buried in the petitioner's case file, but as it turns out, there really never was an EEOC complaint. And that didn't have anything to do with this particular time period. That was history. In any event, I have to present to the board the chief of police. Obviously, the petitioner served as the senior executive assistant to the chief of police at the time when all of this kind of occurred. And I would invite him up to basically inform the board as to how it was that this came to his attention in the first instance, and then what he tried to do about it before it went this way. And with that, Chief, if you don't mind, let's use the podium and we can swear you in. Or we'll swear you in.

If you could raise your right hand. Do you swear it out first?

I do.

Good morning, Distinguished Board. I'm humbled to come up here and honored to speak in front of you. And just as you may know already, I was hired Last year, I started on March 29th, officially in this town, and I was introduced to Gina Goldstein. She came highly regarded by Chief David Allen, who is a past boss of mine, and I have great admiration for Mr. Allen. And she was highly recommended. I came in here with the confidence. going forward. Sometime a few months later it became obvious that the budget finance person alerted me that my budget was in the red. I was astonished and bewildered as to how my budget was in the red and I was informed after digging that compensation payouts had drawn my There were several examples of employees, but one in particular was paid one year 730-some-odd hours of compensation time. I knew from studying the agreement with the FOP that the limit was 300. And I know that in September, at the end of the fiscal year, Ms. Goldstein puts out an email saying that those requesting officers would like to sell back their time are able to. suitable amount of power I was very concerned as to the process. It became so evident that we discovered the year before, we just went into the year before and looked at it, and again, it happened again. So for two years, this happened, and I was very worried that it would continue. So we spoke to

Dino was relieved sometime in August.

On September 1st, we took over business Blackard Parking, and we discovered that a lot of the businesses and employees were demanding of Sergeant Metellus to be issued special rates, half rates, and many managers were asking for their free passes in addition to I had no idea what he was referring to when he asked me, And that's how we are here.

All right. Thank you, Chief. Before you leave there, was there in your review a discovery of like a rate sheet? Pardon? Rate sheet? Yes, sir. Okay. And that rate sheet, was that the rate sheet that... charge for the use of the business parking permit? Yes. And when you transferred the duties from Ms. Goldstein to Sgt. Metellus, did you note any difference in the receipts to the town? Yes, there was a substantial more being collected, more money. Is that how you discovered that certain merchants were getting certain benefits? Yes, sir.

They actually admitted it when they went for the first time. They came in and said that for years they had been getting discounted parking.

And did it come to a surprise to those merchants that it was no longer the case? Yes. Did they ask why? And do you know the kind of income the town was generating after the business parking permit program was turned over to Surgeon Douglas? And was that a marked difference from what was previously collected when Ms. Goldstein was serving in the capacity of that role?

It was a substantial amount more per month.

And you mentioned early on that you had learned from your prior boss, your predecessor, Chief Allen, the capacity of Ms. Goldstein in serving as the assistant to the chief, is that right? Yes, sir. And did you have an understanding of what her roles and responsibilities were with the town?

Not in totality, but she did a lot of work and she kind of explained that she was the go-to for him and that I would be in good hands.

And did you understand her role and responsibility to include overseeing the police department's payroll function? Yes. And in fact, did Ms. Goldstein confirm that she was indeed responsible for the police department's payroll function? Yes. And did you review her personnel record at any time during the course of your employment with the county?

Not until later, but I knew that I was quite confident that she would be a good employee because she was highly recommended by the county.

Understood. So at some point during your service with the county, including today, did you review her personnel record? Yes. I'm going to highlight for the board particular pages that you already have for your review and consideration that essentially establish her experience and length of time by which she was responsible for payroll and business department permits, starting with page 97 of your materials. On that page, this is part of her performance evaluation report. You'll see in the middle of page 97, a reference to the fact that the petitioner manages the police department payroll. We looked at the additional comments by the supervisor. And if you next turn to page 105, Also, in her performance evaluation, she also is responsible for the police department budget, training records, community events, citizen police academy, and payroll. Her contribution cannot be overstated. On page 112, similar comments under additional comments by supervisors. She is knowledgeable and proficient. The department payroll, you know, is required to learn and adapt to a new payroll system. for non-FOP employees, which is referenced as the Tyler Incote Employee Self Services. Continuing on page 113, at the bottom, additional comments by supervisor, her duties include payroll, next line, parking permits. Continuing on page 121, additional comments by supervisor, her duties include payroll, parking permits, Continuing on page 129, additional comments by supervisor. Her duties include payroll, parking permits. Page 138, additional comments by supervisor. She is referenced here as using sick hours to ensure the payroll and monthly reports are completed on time, below last paragraph. She helps others with administrative or payroll questions. Continuing on to page 146. In the middle, additional comments by supervisor. She ensures the payroll and monthly reports are completed on time. Below, similar comments. Police officers with off duty and payroll issues. That's what she assists with. On page 154, additional comments. She even takes time off to ensure the payroll and statistics are done on time. Down below, she assists the command staff with administrative duties and police officers with off-duty and payroll issues. Page 161, in the middle, Dina oversees the administrative part of the police department including budget, payroll, and business parking permits. On page 169 of Traditional Commons, Dina oversees payroll, business parking permits. Continuing on page 185, middle of the page, she is responsible for the everyday finance obligations of the department, including payroll, business parking permit program. Next slide. Continuing page 191, She is responsible for the everyday finance obligations of the department, including payroll, next line, business parking permit program. Page 194, under quantity of work, it's referenced that she does the town business parking program. Continuing at page 197, again, reference to her involvement in administering uptown business parking permits. And that page goes back to 2009. She even received an award and commendation in 2016 under the narrative, Last sentence, she also undertakes the most complicated payroll system in town hall, as well as the voluminous off-duty detailed payroll. That's on page 230. As part of that, Dina also administers the business parking permit program. Page 244, the middle paragraph, second sentence, Dina also administers the business parking permit program. page 272, I believe it is. This one is signed off by Chief Yarrow, last paragraph. She was, I believe, nominated for civilian of the year. I think it's the second sentence. She also undertakes the most complicated payroll system in town hall, as well as the voluminous off-duty detailed payroll. Next sentence, Dina administers the business parking permit program. And on page 298, Chief David Allen authored this in 2014 in an email to Dina. We all know the PDK role is the largest and most complicated. Yesterday, you were tasked to get it done in order for all the town employees to get paid on Wednesday. So, Chief, is this the kind of knowledge you walked into when you started working here? Yes, sir. That's consistent with your recollection of what Chief Cannon told you about this particular employee? And until you were alerted by finance, did you have any reason to believe there was any problem in the oversight or administration of payroll or the business parking permit room?

No.

Now, there's also a reference in the petitioner's termination letter to the divulgence of sensitive or confidential information prematurely, did you speak to the court about that?

Yes, as I evaluated the police department and staffing and its 24 hour service to the town, I noticed one particular clarity was that we had staffing overnight. And I noticed I ran stats for the overnight staffing and what calls for service were coming through at night. And I noticed that after 10 p.m. at night, usually the Coastal Service mingled down to about nothing, zero. I saw that the officers That was a very pre, very pre, very initial conversation in which we all kind of were talking back and forth about how that looked like. And it basically was the county would take over the calls for service after a certain time. 9-1-1 is handled. to the street and use that person to patrol as opposed to staying inside. that person out of that secluded area whether or not doing anything after 10 p.m. and using their mom's surely get out there and do some damage control and explain to the town residents what that in the other place.

And Chief, did you make that information public at any time before you had to deal with the consequences of the early release of that information? No, that was all in-house communications with inside our police department. Did Ms. Goldstein learn that information from you internally as an employee of the town?

Yes, she told me that that was a terrible idea, that the residents are not going to accept that. And I told her that if I explained it correctly, I think the residents would get the idea of what I'm looking at. We're not giving the town to the county. We're actually just letting them answer a phone call, non-emergency phone calls.

got out in the public domain thereafter without you making a public attack on her. Correct. And you're attributing that release to the petitioner, is that right?

Yes.

And what was the reason for attributing it to her?

It was posted on, I believe, next door by her husband.

Her husband being Mr. Lillian Prince? Yes, sir.

And that's where you learned that it was made public the first time?

Yes.

All right. Chief, I just want, now that I have enough copies, I want to show you and then circulate to the board and, of course, Petitions Council, an exhibit document that's labeled business revenue permits. you have that gene yes right is is this uh what was the established rate at the time the town used to charge businesses to basically gain access to a spot apartment spot if you will The applicable charge for the 94th Street lot, that would be the lot across from Publix? Yes. And below the Abbott lot, that's a different rate, looks like a higher rate. Was that the rate charged for the parking lot essentially on Abbott and ICBS?

Correct.

And this is what you were referring to earlier, that employers or their staff were complaining about getting a discount? Yes, sir. All right, I'm now going to show you... It looks like some kind of blocker that says, Thomas, suicide, post-mortem, parking lot, only. That's circulated that way. Chief, are you familiar with this?

Yes, I became familiar with this when Sergeant Metellus brought it to my attention when the post office showed it to me.

Can you explain to the board what this reports to be?

Well, this was discovered by Sergeant Metellus. He brought this to my attention that if I knew about this parking permit, and I had no clue because it's not consistent with the hang tags that we were using,

Was this something else that the petitioner was overseeing?

Yes.

And you learned about it, obviously, when that duty transferred over to Sergeant Bell, so the first time, right? Yes. All right. Let me now distribute another document that's labeled business parking permits, some kind of notice. Okay. Chief, you have that in front of you.

What is this? This is an exhibit that we found in email for the charging of the parking permits on 94th Street.

This reports to state that the parking permits are $74.90 a month. her vehicle. Did you verify that this, in fact, was being charged? It was not. All right, let me now show you another exhibit. This appears to be an email exchange involving Ms. Goldstein. All right, Chief, turning your attention on this exhibit to the Ron portion, you'll see that there's an exchange between Ms. Goldstein and someone by the name of Jeanette. Do you see it there on the front? Yes, sir. And it says down there, Happy New Year. I hope you have a wonderful holiday. If you would like, I can charge you for the year for your parking permits. The total will be $42.50 a month. Is that ever a town rate for that parking? All right. Now I'm going to circulate a detailed report. I'm going to count detail as generated by the town's accounting system. So this covers the period of October 2023 through August 2024. You'll see the reference on the first of 25 pages here. It refers to the Municipal Parking Fund, specifically business permit parking. and then identifies the different businesses that were purchased from the town. Is that your understanding?

Yes.

And obviously this preceded your hire date, so do you have any involvement in collecting? And when you look at these numbers as compared to, you made reference to earlier, numbers that were generated for the same type of permits after Sergeant Metellus took over, are these numbers consistent with the amount of revenue the town generated before and after

as well as giving us oversight of it. This is much lower than we started generating after we took over the program from Wisconsin.

Okay, and did you notice that immediately? You're familiar with the FOB contract that I read? Yes, sir. And that FOB contract, is it your understanding that that's an agreement between the town and the police unit? It is. Now, that wouldn't cover a chief, right? No, sir. That's the ranking file? Yes, sir. And... Are you aware of any time whether the town altered or changed any component of that FOP agreement, specifically as it relates to comp time limits? And to your knowledge, the town never agreed to change that, is that right? Correct. In fact, it's this year when that contract is up for All right, thank you, Chief. I'm not going to have any other questions at this time. I invite the board or opposing counsel to ask any questions. Good morning. Good morning. Just press the button.

Good morning. Good morning. on your face time and you know whatever the board like the question first or whatever right just touch it should turn green and just ready to speak very close into the mic thank you I emailed over a packet. It indicated that it would be distributed to the board. I just wanted to make sure that that would occur.

I think the clerk thought you were doing copies. Do you want all that distributed?

Yes. We sent it over yesterday. Just after midday. If you understand it would be distributed, that's why we didn't bring anything in. to distribute today there was an email sent over indicating that if we wanted information distributed to the board to provide it in advance we did that yesterday i just want to make sure that the decision is going to be rendered today that the materials that we supply will be shared I didn't get an opportunity earlier to first of all thank everybody for taking time out of their days and schedules to indulge us in the appeals process. And I think for Dina, everyone here, including the board, and those on the consideration of the appeals, this is an opportunity and still confidence in the town for its employees and residents and for certain revolving doors that rules, policies, procedures that exist and don't exist are taken seriously and that there is no rush to judgment. And I think what's important is that there's a discussion of what constitutes cause And I think where we're at, we involve a situation where cause rises above the level of a suspicion and allegation or a claim. Cause needs to have some kind of substantiation, whether through documentary evidence, testimonial evidence, and not just a document summarizing documents summarizing, regurgitating claims, suspicions, or allegations. With that, I want to go ahead and ask Chief some questions so I can follow up just on a couple things and just get some clarity and help everyone here have some clarity of what we're talking about. Chief, good morning. Please forgive me if I'm not clear. Just let me know if you need me to ask something a different way or if you don't understand. We want to make sure that you understand my questions and the board understands what we're talking about. We talked about different issues that led to the decision to terminate Dena. The first question I have is really when was that decision made? TO TERMINATE DEAN'S APPOINTMENT?

WELL, I DIDN'T MAKE THE DECISION THAT WAS MADE BY THE DEPARTMENT MANAGER AT SOME POINT.

AND WHEN HE SAID THAT LETTER, I BELIEVE IT WAS IN NOVEMBER.

I'M NOT EXACTLY SURE. DID YOU MAKE A RECOMMENDATION IN ADVANCE OF THAT NOVEMBER 7, 2024 LETTER THAT ANY ADVERSE ACTION Before sending Dina's situation over to Sergeant Ramos at Miami Beach Police Department, the town conducted an internal investigation, did it not?

I was made aware of information. I handed that information over to Sergeant Ramos.

You say you were made aware of information. You were made aware that an investigation internally was conducted of Dina in regards to the comp time issue before it was sent over to Miami Beach Police in search of Ramos.

Is that right?

Well, we gathered information.

Gathered information, meaning an investigation was conducted and a written report was generated from that investigation sometime, let's say, July And then, was it before or during the investigation that you were texting with Mr. Blumstein about investigation as it related to, you know... I texted him a lot. I'm not sure what you're referring to, which one. Okay. There's a text, and it was in our submission packet. It looks like it's July... The top is cut off. It looks like it's July 3rd at 11.20 a.m. The next one is July 4th at 10 a.m. The text on the left, GM Chief, good morning, Chief.

How's it going?

On the right in blue, your iMessage is, so the left is going to be the grayed out, the blue is going to be on the right. The writer is going to be in blue. The recipient's gonna be in gray, and the recipient's normally at the top, right? Right, their name would be at the top of who you're texting with.

Oh, yes, from initiating the text, yes.

There was a text from Mr. Bunsen, good morning, Chief, how's it going? Response, going well. I have internal affairs coming at noon for an interview of these cases. It is shocking to see these people in this scam. We are pulling as much paperwork as possible. Tina knew exactly what she was doing, which is so upsetting to me. In this text message, which scam are you referring to?

So I was alluding to the officer

And a scam usually connotes somebody getting a benefit for doing something illicit. What benefit was Dina getting from this comp time scam, as you've determined? Well, I don't know. That's why I would turn it over to the Internal Affairs Investigator. I didn't ask her about it. And just jumping ahead for a second, can we agree that the Internal Investigator made no conclusions? He was a fact finder. And in fact, through today, there is no evidence, witness, document, nothing to even suggest that the dean received any benefit as a result of this comp time scam, as you termed it. Is that right? I'm not aware that she received any benefit. OK. And so when you talk about this comp time for a second, I'm just a labor lawyer. My understanding is from comp time, whether it's under the collective bargaining agreement or under federal law, if you work an hour, you get credit to take time off for an hour and a half. Is that about right?

Correct.

Okay. So you can work up to 300 hours and bank up to 450. Is that about right? No, sir. Or 420. You'd only bank 350. You can bank 300 work, which gives you the same amount in time at half and time off? No, sir. It's banked at 300, you take 300.

Okay.

So you're banking it at one to one. When you work overtime, you convert that to hours of comp time. So let's say if you work an hour of overtime, it's an hour of whatever of comp.

So when you're doing that, whatever the rate is, and I just want to understand this, if you work overtime, normally that officer would get paid a time of one half of their rate.

That is correct, unless they called off sick day.

Unless they didn't actually work more than 40 hours. That is correct. So overtime is more than 40 hours. When you work over 40, it's an hourly non-exemptive. exempt employees, so they get paid time and a half when they work overtime under mobile services. Yes. When they bank comp time while working overtime, are they banking it at the time and a half or regular? They're banking it at the time and a half, so there is but it limits it. So you're banking it at the time and a half or if it's being paid out at the time and a half. So at the end of the day, when When you said that the town spent a lot more money because of this comp time, isn't it the same apples to apples comparison? It's time and a half at one end, it's time and a half at the other end. It's just the difference of when the payout happens, right?

hours in overtime doing a speeding detail, I know that that would eventually throw me off. I need to control it or cut it back. If you put it in a comp time for later, let's say later for people to take off time, I'm not aware of how much comp time people have until, you know, especially if there's no warnings or there's no one really monitoring what they're banking for. So this is something that I, that's very important to be able to monitor.

raise the flags like you would on another time no i understand your internal processes in tracking that are different however as it relates to the bottom line for the town and what they pay out in payroll it's the same money it's just paid out at a different time isn't that right it wouldn't afford the opportunity for the boss that we would control the amount of money spent okay he doesn't know what's being said again that would be Your administrative issue of whether you're controlling the expenditure, as far as the town is concerned, where the money is paid for hours that it worked, it's the same dollars. It's just a question of when those dollars are paid.

Do you agree? You can see it that way. I see it differently. I see it that I want to have complete control over what's going on weekly, and I want to know what I'm spending, and I want to be able to cut it back when needed. You can't pay for that, you can't budget for that.

And you're saying the reason you couldn't determine how much was being utilized or banked in comp time was because you were unable to liaise with the finance department who was responsible for managing and overseeing and paying that out?

We need to control and ask of assistance.

And I don't think we've talked about the process for sworn law enforcement officers who are entitled to the protections of the collective bargaining agreement and restricted by what's in the collective bargaining agreement for their working and requesting being approved for a long time. So am I correct in saying understanding that in order to work comp time, there has to be either a request by an officer or a directive by a superior.

Yes, there has to be detailed overtime approval, submissions of paperwork signed off by the bosses.

So overtime can be worked for detail. or it could be designated as comp time, the same for court appearances or mandatory trainings? Yes. Okay. And then a supervisor or now I think it's a member of the command staff either corrects or approves the designation as either overtime or comp time?

The request is made by the officer. So if he has enough time in his balance, if he has enough space in his bank account, balance of comp,

It's true that that was not always the case in that the officer didn't necessarily have to request it. It could be a superior indicating that you are going to do X and it will be designated as compliant. I've never given that direction. I understand you have it, but... the time period we're talking about with Dina is before your tenure as chief, right? Yes, sir. So it would relate to what your predecessors and those who were in supervisory positions in the police department had done, not what you had done, right? Yes, sir. So do you understand that there were other prior members of either the command staff or supervisors superior officers, who had directed the officers to designate a certain time as comm time. I'm not aware of that. And so when we're talking about emails in which supervisors are directing officers to do something, do the officers have any discretion? Okay. And so when you have the emails from computers indicating you're going to do this training, and it will be paid as comp time, or should be indicated as comp time, the officers have an obligation to attend the training and then designate the time as comp time, correct?

Sure. We have to follow the contract, though.

And the officers are responsible for following the contract, are they not?

Everyone is.

And in officers following that contract, they complete a slip indicating the time that they were working and the indication that it's either comp time or overtime? Yes. And that slip is then signed off by a supervisor who's responsible for ensuring that the officer completed the assignment, and two, that they were in compliance with the CDA, right? That's the way it should be. And with respect to the hours that are at issue by these officers, what review has the department done prior to terminating Deena's employment of those slips?

We reviewed quite a number of slips, and we

I believe, if I recollect correctly, we found some irregularities to it.

And the fact that they were putting their balances on it, so it was just accruing and accruing, so it would lead to a process where there was no known balance, so we could actually go way above, which happened, and there was no checks and balances. And...

It brings up a couple things, right? I mean, first of all, do you know why Mr. Ramos did not indicate in his report that his solitary will be located? Did his report indicate that he didn't see any, I think it's comp time or court, it's overtime or court appearance time. Did he indicate he couldn't see violations of the complex right and in his report specifically he never indicated that he asked for found or reviewed any of those slips you mean of the three officers involved of course I mean that that would have been important for an investigating officer to determine whether and who approved the And what we haven't talked about, we've talked about Dena a lot, but we haven't talked about anybody else other than the supervising officers and the officers themselves. We've talked about the information that you had available to you based on certain information that was input as far as overtime. But we're correct based on how you understand payroll works is that Dean is not responsible for finalization of payroll, is that right?

either myself or my designee, my deputy or my captain, and that should be required more than finance.

Because finance is ultimately responsible for issuing payment. When you say Dina processes, Dina takes the slips and she manually enters that information into the payroll system, right? And as far as you're aware, there's no, I mean, you haven't seen any policy or procedure in your department, the police department, that gives Dina any discretion as to whether she can or cannot enter information, transpose it from a slip and put it into the payroll system, is that right?

She enters it into an Excel sheet, like a calendar of sorts, and then she manually adds and subtracts whatever has to be done. And then she enters that into another slip, which she walks over to the payroll department, finance department, to cut a check.

And I appreciate that explanation, because processing can mean different things to different people.

And to make sure that the rules are followed, make sure that if somebody takes a day off, or takes a sick day, it's accounted for. That if a certain amount of overtime is paid, the person deserves the overtime and didn't call off sick that week, so there's a certain amount of money.

saying, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not here to put words in your mouth, but if somebody has on their payroll 43 hours, but they were saved for eight of them, even though it looks like over time it wasn't because they didn't actually work the 43, so they don't get paid time and a half that way. That is correct. You and I are talking, but I want to make sure everybody else understands what we're saying. The question that I had before was, and correct me if I'm wrong, there's nothing that gives Dean a discretion about adding or inputting or transposing the hours worked or the comm time hours from the slips into the spreadsheets into the payroll system. Is that right? Yes. So as far as when it gets to the ultimate decision-making of whether and how much to pay, that's at the next level when it goes to finance because they've got the obligation to make sure that you're paying out what's owed, that you're paying it properly, and that the city is compliant to not overspending on payroll and other expenditures.

Is that right? how the rules are supposed to be followed, the payroll work of the police department. We must follow the contract.

Without discretion about whether to enter the time or to input it in a certain column, whether overtime or comp time, how does Dina do that? I mean, if she doesn't have discretion and her role is to input information, Isn't her obligation to not reject it or to not recategorize it, but to bring it to somebody's attention?

Her job is to bring it to the boss's attention that we are over a comp balance, bring it to the officer's attention that he's over the comp balance, and obviously not process something that is incorrect, not continually process it.

And in her... internal affairs investigation, Dina indicated multiple times that she had brought these issues up to her superiors and to finance. To your understanding, wasn't there a cap in place in finance where Dina couldn't input that information other words dina couldn't input into the payroll processing system that an officer had 305 hours in their bank because there was a cap and that would prevent dina from inputting the information at some point you should be you don't know whether there was a cap that existed and that finance removed that cap i'm not aware of that we are the open

of comp you have currently, it should be listed, and I put that as a mandate to the folks to make her job easier to kind of put everybody on notice that nobody is to put in for comp beyond $200. You're not supposed to accumulate that comp.

And we talked a couple things, but first I just want to clarify. You indicated that we are the ultimate. In fact,

Well, they don't just process it. They approve it, don't they?

Well, they process it. I don't know how they work, but they initially will cut a check.

If the finance or the payroll coordinator puts over the paperwork, supposedly signed by the boss, they're going to process it.

I'm confused. So we're here because Dina inputs information into payroll and you just said that you're not sure what finance's role is in approving or having the ultimate say in paying? I'm not the finance director. I understand, but there was an investigation that was conducted as to whether Dina engaged in any misconduct in entering more hours than what the collective bargaining agreement allowed. And isn't it important to have an understanding as to what finance's role is and what boundaries they have set?

I can tell you nobody followed any boundaries to include money out of payroll court.

And as a result, there were investigations involving the finance personnel responsible, the officers responsible, the supervisors responsible. Who else?

We investigated Dena. We held accountable the officers. And there's no one in finance that was here back then. That was...

So the person who was in finance back then is no longer employed by the town?

I don't know who was in finance back then.

I couldn't tell you who she would take the paperwork to.

She said a name, but I've never met that person. As far as you understand it, Mr. Ramos, who did the material affairs investigation, never even spoke to her, right? I believe that he was unable to reach her. He placed one call to her work phone. even though she remains an employee of a different municipality, didn't send her an email, didn't follow up, just placed one call, right? That's your understanding? Yeah. And then you said that everyone else involved was disciplined. So the discipline that was needed to help the employees who, the officers, and the supervisors who completed the overtime and court attendance forms, which resulted in their accruing more than the 300-hour allowance in their bank, what discipline did they receive?

The three officers that were involved in the overpayment of time or the overcompensation of it were given this.

And what discipline was that? Verbal counseling. So the officers who, let me back up for a second. and you knew that they were going over the long-time balance. Would you have designated the time as, I guess your option would have been either designate the time as overtime or disapprove further work for that week so that you didn't have a budget issue? I would definitely take control of it like I did when I came in. And as a result of whatever happened by predecessors, in allowing or directing these officers to approve additional comp time. They got paid, when they cashed out at the end of the year, a lot more than they should have. Yes. So the officers who received the benefit of the additional comp time, who were responsible for the CBA, Dina, whose responsibility was to input or transpose the information from payroll into the different spreadsheets, and received no extra money, was fired. All right? Yes. Okay. And that seems fair and just to you.

That's what happens. Manager's decision.

I understand it was his decision. Your recommendation was to fire him.

Manager's decision.

I brought the facts to him. And my question was, did you make a suggestion or recommendation that he be fired? I brought the information to him and he was not happy with the information. I understand that you brought information to him. Did that information include your making a recommendation or a suggestion that Dina's employment be terminated?

No, he made that decision on his own.

That wasn't part of your discussions at all? So, one of the other things I want to clarify and get them to think of is as a law enforcement officer, a sworn law enforcement officer, one of the roles is to receive a an allegation or a claim or a concern, and then to investigate whether there's probable cause to believe that there's a violation of some law or statute. That's what it is. That's the function of the paramilitary organization as a police department is to get an allegation or a complaint or a concern and then to, if it rises to a certain level, conduct an appropriate investigation. Yes. And that investigation is to gather evidence in the form of whether it's witness statements or documentary or judicial evidence. And then to write that up in a report, you're not the ultimate decision makers. There's superior state attorneys, et cetera, that make those decisions as to whether it rises to a certain level to bring forth charges. Do you believe that the internal affairs investigation that this town paid for was performed adequately in gathering documentary digital evidence as well as witness statements? So, we talked about how during the investigation itself, there was one call made to Marte Goyachea, right? She was at Finance. And that resulted in a... in not talking with her at all?

That was what the investigator gave to us.

We asked him directly for one. Then there were two calls that were placed to Mr. DeCenzo. DeCenzo. DeCenzo. And there were two calls placed to him, which also did not result in any... conversation or discussion that made its way into the initial report. Is that correct?

That is correct.

And when we look at the Internal Affairs Investigator Report, there were three calls that were successfully made. The way the report goes is you've got August 1st at 9.24 a.m. The investigation is commenced by a call. It goes on the 2nd, then it gets to the 4th. So we're able to start reviewing materials. And then it looks like the first call that was placed to the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office and there was a discussion with the assistant state attorney. In your experience in the performance of internal affairs investigations, is it normally the internal affairs investigator who initiates contact with the state attorney's office to determine whether they should take over an investigation for criminal prosecution, or is that something that's normally performed by either the chief or FDLE?

No, I'm very aware that the internal affairs investigator handed the investigation would have the ability to call directly to the state attorney's office to see if they would look at the matter if it's criminal or not.

I understand.

The normal course of procedure, would you agree, is for either the chief or FDLE to hand it off to an investigation or a request to be handed off to the state attorney's office? And this was an investigator who placed three calls to the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office before he spoke to Steve Owens, other than Ms. Goldstein, right?

You'd have to ask him.

That's the report indicates, is it not?

Yeah, you'd have to ask him.

And...

that the allegations or your internal investigation that was performed here in Surfside warranted a referral or investigation by the attorney's office here in Miami?

I found it to be highly irregular behavior.

He spoke with three different state attorneys, didn't he? Do you want to get somebody to take the case?

You might want to ask him. You read his report. It indicates he spoke with three different state attorneys, two that were lower.

One was, I think, an assistant chief. You might want to ask him why there was three calls.

Not because he didn't get his way. I'm sure there's another reason. But two of the calls happened. when he received nothing more than an email complaint, right? I mean, that's the timing of events that's indicated on here. Very important.

I don't know if at some point he did pick up the packet.

You might want to talk to him at what point he picked up the packet.

It looks like after calling speaking to the first assistant state attorney on August 26th, he received an email packet on September 12th. It also indicates, it kind of goes out of chronology, at least with the reports written, that on September 5th, he had another brief conversation with the division chief. There's several conversations that occurred before, unless... You might want to ask him why you have to call him division chief for more clarity, or I don't know, you might want to ask him. I appreciate that. And so, kind of getting back to this payroll processing issue, because I think there was an indication that this cost taxpayers... tens of thousands of dollars. The fact of the matter is that the taxpayers were going to pay this money because it's the same money, either one on a weekly basis or two at the end of the town's fiscal year. Is that right?

Again, if you hide things in a compound, I'm not able to review it, or a boss isn't able to review it on a weekly basis.

When you put it in overtime, a boss is able to be

There's nothing that Dena did to prevent your predecessors from finding out how much comp balance each officer had, isn't that true?

I have no idea how it worked before, it did not work well.

If we didn't have these guardrails in place, you could have a standing directive to the finance department that before processing payroll or at some predetermined time each week or every payroll period, that you'd be provided with a report of current balances because they're the ones who maintain the official balance for each officer. Is that right? The payroll coordinator gets that report every week.

I'm sorry?

The payroll coordinator and the ghosting gets that report every week. She gets the report from finance? From balance, for the balances, yes. How do you know that? It's in the internal affairs report. She gets it, she said it. She prepared her, she had her own spreadsheet. But she is supposed to control and follow the contract. The payroll process, after she prepares it, she'd go to the boss for signatures, for me to review. That was not being done.

So if Dina's boss... you're saying is Gaines-Boss was asleep at the wheel because they weren't checking the comp balances before their payroll approval, before finance approval, is that what you're the investigative report didn't know what they were thinking because they weren't contacted, right?

Well, these two years in question had probably several chiefs involved. And I don't believe they were contacted because we were going through what was in front of us, contract violations above and beyond the 300 hours. There was three officers involved. And you might want to ask the investigator

how we compile the information. You conduct investigations.

In fact, you're ultimately responsible in the department for every investigation that goes on, isn't that right? Yes, sir. And you're responsible for every criminal and every internal affairs investigation that happens here in the town of Surfside. Yes. And so it's not concerning to you that none of those who were ultimately responsible within the department for approving or disapproving payroll were... in the course of this investigation of someone whose job was to input data?

She's the payroll coordinator. She was supposed to be going and getting all the authorizations, and it wasn't being done.

I appreciate that. I mean, there's different labels. I mean, she was the payroll coordinator. She was processing payroll. But the function that was performed was transposing information from slips into Excel spreadsheets. Yes. And so... without the discretion of whether to enter that information you don't find it problematic that none of the decision-makers were contacted could we have contacted more people of course it would take a little longer and I don't have a problem with that but the ultimate They could have contacted anyone. We don't find it problematic that none of them were contacted. Nobody in finance, nobody in command, and nobody who was responsible for ultimately approving payroll within the police department. Any of your predecessors. That's not problematic to you. In the course of an investigation that leaves the termination of a 17-year employee, one of the only people who's had continuity within the department, that's not problematic to you.

Should have been done, could have been done. I wish it would have died. Got a hold of them, but I don't think they were around or willing to talk.

There's no indication that they were even called in the report. Isn't that right? There's indications of who was called. Right. None of them are listed. Agree? Agree.

Okay.

And just as far as the chronology of something else, Ena was suspended August 6th of 2024? Yes. She was terminated.

Her replacement was hired? I'm not sure. We started hiring administrative assistants.

And they were hired, what, September, October? Was it your decision to put out a request to advertise the administrative assistant positions for or while Dina was on leave?

When Dina was still

say that it was already in the process. Were those positions advertised before? They were advertised while Dina was on leave.

I'm not sure when it was advertised.

They were certainly hired while Dina was on leave. I'm not sure. It was processed. We hired several people, yes. And the several people that you were hired included the administrative assistants while Dina was on leave. Do you know when they came in?

They started sometime after she was on leave, but those were positions that had been advertised and spoken about while she was here.

Has anyone been hired for Dina's specific position?

No.

So, one of these two group hires that were made while Dina was only assumed, or has assumed, Dina's role.

There was two people hired.

Correct. That is Michelle Sanchez.

She's no longer with the department.

Why is she no longer with the department? She resigned. Had you worked with Ms. Sanchez before?

Not worked with. She was hired at your recommendation? She was hired, yes.

She was hired at your recommendation, right?

Yes, she was hired after we interviewed her and processed her, yes.

And as far as the investigative process, is there one that is conducted by the police department for civilians who are working at the police department that... It involves a little more scrutiny than someone who's working in another department. Yes. Not the same level of an officer, but yes. What normally would happen when you're hiring an employee to go work in the police department is you review their personnel file. If they worked at a municipality, have somebody go here and actually review the file at the municipality.

Madam Chair, I'm going to object to this line of questioning. I have nothing to do with termination. This has to do with hiring. Is inquiring about it? It's not relevant to this matter.

Can you give us a little bit more in terms of why it's important?

Yeah, I mean, it's really talking about thumb on the scale and predetermination because what ultimately happened was Sanchez is no longer with the city because She, I believe there was an issue with her employment in Miami Beach where, I forget, it was something with $800 or $900 missing from the evidence room in Miami Beach. which normally would have disqualified someone from working at a police department. But I think the investigation that was performed, and I'm getting to how these investigations are being performed and the results of them, specifically as they relate now to Dina.

That's an HR process, not a police investigation.

The police are the ones who are tasked with going to the different municipalities and reviewing the personnel files and then writing a report based on that to determine whether someone is or is not eligible for employment. Here we're talking about what wasn't done with this employee who was hired and what wasn't done with Deena who was fired. I just want to get to that little issue.

I'll allow it, but it's the same to you.

Through the chair, I remind the board that the only evidence material to the issue at hand can be accepted by the board. So please focus on the issue at hand, which is determination.

I think he's trying to establish a nexus here, and so I think it's important for the board to hear.

Well, close to the same thing. wanting a confirmation from you that before Ms. Sanchez was hired, no one from your department went to the city of Miami Beach to review her personnel file. Isn't that true?

That is correct. We went with the personal file from Mount Sinai after she had been at Mount Sinai for over five years.

Do you agree that it is standard operating procedure to review someone's personnel file prior to employment in or at the police department if they've been employed by a municipality in the past. I agree there.

I'm going to object again. This has nothing to do with the hiring practice. This case centers on determinations.

I don't think that's what I wanted to say. Simple issue. And so now we get to the investigation about the Pino. There were several allegations or several bases upon which her murder was terminated. The first we talked about, which is the compound issue and the slips that nobody apparently reviewed in connection with this investigation. We've got witnesses who were available but weren't spoken to, one of which was talked to afterwards, right? There was an investigation, there was a discussion with... Mr. DeCenzo, after the investigation had been completed and after Dino was terminated, is that right? Yes. And Mr. DeCenzo was upset that he hadn't been contacted because he did want to come forth as a witness to speak on the issues, is that right? I don't know if he was upset or not. I mean, those are the emails that were exchanged with Mr. DeCenzo that he was, said that he'd and was readily willing and able to speak on Dean's behalf and answer any questions that were posed, right?

I believe that they did contact him afterwards. I believe that Sergeant Ramos tried to, but wasn't able to.

Sergeant Ramos called the wrong number each time he tried to reach Mr. DeCenzo, is that right?

That's what was informed to me afterwards.

And Mr. DeCenzo learned failed attempts to reach him, and so he contacted the city of Miami Beach to get in contact with Mr. Ramos so he could speak on the issue.

Is that your understanding of how things went down? That is my understanding.

And then afterwards, there was first a failed or botched attempt, and then there was an actual discussion between Sergeant Ramos and Mr. DeCenzo, right? And so I don't think the supplemental report made it into the submission packet by the town, but it's in ours.

I believe that's incorrect. It's part of the packet.

Perfect.

It's been provided. OK, perfect.

And then tiered understanding, the memorandum of understanding allows your department to work with other departments when there's an unusual or challenging circumstance that's beyond the capabilities of your department. Is that right? Yes. So, in the past, you have an understanding as to the departments use of the memorandum of understanding to engage other agencies to perform investigations, internal affairs investigations, on behalf of town personnel.

Yes.

And in each of those prior instances, the MOU or memorandum of understanding, the investigations that were conducted as a result of those prior to your tenure, were done as courtesies by the other departments without charge? That is correct. And in this instance, there was a charge to the agency, to the town. Is that right?

We agreed, the Chief Jones and I agreed that if there was an overtime requirement that we would reimburse them for the overtime.

So in other words, whomever would be performing the investigation, they would be paid an overtime rate TO DO THIS INVESTIGATION ON BEHALF OF THE TOWN. IS THAT A FAIR STATEMENT? MR.

CHAIR, I'M GOOD, I'M CHECKED. AND I, AT THIS POINT, I NEED TO REMIND THE BOARD THAT THIS IS AN INFORMAL INFORMATION. THIS IS NOT A TRIAL. THIS IS NOT AN ARBITRATION. COUNCIL IS NOW FOCUSED ON OVERTIME PAY TO THE CITY OF MIAMI BEACH. WE'VE BEEN GOING AT THIS FOR TWO HOURS. WE'RE STILL ON WITNESS ONE. AT THIS RATE, THIS IS GOING TO TURN INTO A WEEK-LONG trial, it's not supposed to be that. This is an informal forum.

I really don't understand the relevance of the investigation and the overtime payment. The investigation? Particularly to this case. In terms of whether or not the town made an agreement, whether or not that was... appropriate or not appropriate is relevant to this case.

I do want to speak to that issue. Because the decision to terminate the misappointment for false was based on the investigation. The investigation, this was the only instance in which the town had paid for an investigation and paid

I think that's a leap. I think rather stick to the merits of the investigation, the quality of the investigation itself. Fair enough. We've been at this for two hours.

Can we take a comfort break? It works for me.

No problem. How many minutes? Five minutes? Thank you.

Okay. We're okay? Hi, just for housekeeping issues, I don't anticipate that we're going to be done anytime soon because I see the witness list and there's a lot of people that are still on the witness list. So we're going to be breaking for lunch. Do we need to stay here? Can we talk about that? Just for housekeeping reasons.

Sandwiches. We actually counted them, so we ordered some sandwiches for the board. Okay. All right, thank you. Thank you. Go ahead.

All right, so I'll go on to the next issue, because there are three issues I think that you had talked about, which involve, first, the contact, which I think you talked about, The second was, that was brought up, was, I think it was called the unilateral decision in relation to the parking program. In the course of your review of the parking program, at what point were the different contracts, including what the post office considered, Because the, correct me if I'm wrong, but the post office contracts identified the number of spaces and the amount that the post office paid for each of them.

Twenty-seven spaces.

And the amount that was supposed to be charged for each of those? Twenty-seven spaces. Correct. And then the number of spaces, the lots, and the amount that the city was going to be paid for these spaces utilized by the post office. agree with me that the contract, the contracts, the addendings to the contract, identify how many spaces, where they're going to be, and how much the city is going to get paid for. Yes. And the amount that finance collected for each of those from the post office was the same amount?

Yes.

And as far as the revenue for after DNA versus before DNA, There's multiple factors that go into the change in revenue, including the number of spaces sold and the current or then current rate of what parking permits are sold for.

The current rate was changed to January 25th.

And so it's your department's responsibility to... Advertise it correctly and tap on the website.

I'm not sure if it's on the website. I know it's advertised when they come to renew their permit.

Your department's responsible, I mean, you know, beforehand updating the website to include the parking permit.

No way.

I'm looking at the website. It looks like last updated sometime in, let's say, 2020. So you're saying that it's been changed since 2020?

It has. Okay.

on the website, do you know if the rate is advertised as the correct rate? I'm not aware of what's on the website. As far as The parking permits, again, you're unaware of any benefit that you received as a result of how much was or wasn't charged to businesses? I'm unaware of that. As far as the discounted parking permits, you haven't seen any documents or information? You haven't been provided with any? All right. up to the time when the payments were terminated, indicating that she had been the one who charged her process and payment on behalf of the state. Is that right?

I'm not sure on that question. She collected or had them come in to pay a cashier. She also had

Well, when you talk about processing credit cards, there's different things that you can understand from that. Processing a credit card can mean running the number through a merchant service and that charges the card. You're not saying that Dina was involved in actually charging the card through some kind of merchant service terminal, right?

She would go to, with some authorization of credit card, authorization of credit card form, And that was processed.

So, finance would have the responsibility to charge the credit card, or process a payment, or whatever amount was approved by the finance department, right?

She would walk over the authorization form, whatever that form indicated how much to process, and it would process what was on that form.

And the finance department had the ultimate responsibility of deciding how much to charge and whether to charge it, as far as your understanding?

No. They had to charge what we told them to charge.

And through the police department and the town, there's policies, procedures, rules... um you weren't able to identify any written policies or procedures as relating to the parking program or offering discounted uh parking rates to businesses and vendors uh prior that existed prior to your tenure isn't that right that is correct there was zero guidance on that program so dina was terminated because of a program for which there was no guidance

Because there was an irregularity on how the program was being run. The program was being run at a heavily discounted rate without the authorization of the town manager.

As far as an irregularity is concerned, irregularity in this instance was a result of a lack of policy, policy makers.

There was a totality of misguidance or lack of guidance. to provide me some guidance. There was nothing asked of for the bosses to clarify. When I became aware of these discounted and free passes, I immediately went to my boss and sought guidance because I can't dictate policy or pricing on the parking. I only enforce it.

Was there any discussion with of the prior administration was talked to. We didn't indicate that she had permission from any of the prior administrations to charge variable rates. policy exists for violating a town policy and there was no town policy, what's the justification for terminating a gain over the parking program? And so there have been different personnel in finance who would have collected payment from different vendors, including Starbucks, who's a town partner, who hosts coffee chats with officers, gives out their coffee, which is kind of great because of their work with the city and the town. I'm just... I struggle, and I don't know if you pointed me in the right direction, as to how you fault an employee for violating a town policy that doesn't exist or that is modified by superior verbally. We follow rules. Rules are broken. We know what those rules are. When the rules don't exist,

where I don't have that ability to.

And so if, you know, Deena gave out a rate that was pretty low. She walked into, and the vendor walks into finances and says, hey, Ms. Goldstein gave me a rate. It's $3 a month, and that's what I'm going to prove today. Doesn't finance have the obligation to find out what error? That's accurate. That's approved by somebody else other than your executive assistant, the chief of police. Does finance have a role in, because they're the ones who collect the payment. You have a stopgap. what stops any business owner from coming in and saying, Dean had told me X. I had to pay a dollar a month for his parking permit. Finance had more of a responsibility than just to set the

He was advised that they're paying for, let's say, as an example, the Abbott lot is 85 plus tax. That's what Sergeant Metellus would advise that cashier to process for. At that point, when that is paid for, then he walks over and hands them a painting placard.

That is the process.

That's the process once Metellus started. The process when Dina started, which is my question, was didn't finance have a responsibility if

I don't think finance would have had that ability to. We walk over the person directly and should have been, the cashier should have been told, process this payment. If Nina's telling them to process a $33 payment or a $3 payment, that's what they're going to process.

There's a lack of procedure that's causing this and as a result, You first changed the procedure and then implemented an automated procedure.

When I became aware of the lack of procedure, I went to my boss, who developed guidance and procedures. We still followed what we were advertising, and we started charging them the rates that are advertised. There's nothing on that.

When there's town events, and owners have to come in and park, they don't pay full rate.

They pay discounted rates.

If there's a special event, they pull a special event permit, and they pay for parking.

And they don't pay for parking, I would presume now that that's pursuant to some written policy or procedure. Is that the case?

You indicated that they get free parking, so I'm just asking. I've never said free parking.

I'm sure I'm going to object again. This has nothing to do with business parking permit program. This is now talking about special events. That's a whole other chapter of the code.

I'm just confused about procedure. And please forgive me. I don't do these hearings a lot. Mr. Blunstein is here as the town manager, not as counsel. He's also objecting. The right to object. Does Fernandez object as counsel?

No, she serves the board. She guides the board. The rules are clear.

I think I do have the ability to object according to the personnel.

Is it counsel or is it the manager that's objecting? He is counsel for the time, counsel to the board.

So you're playing a dual role.

Not exactly. In this capacity, I serve the town. If you have a question about whether to sustain me or overrule me, you can counsel with Donaturn.

Okay.

I think my issue is the notion that there's standardized and there's procedures. I'm just trying to get to the heart of that, which is It wasn't a procedure. There's nothing written before. There's still nothing written to deviate now.

I think you've established them.

And I'll rebut that sentence.

The third issue that we're here to talk about was the release of sensitive information. There was a reference to a posting on Nextdoor. It seems like people here are more active than maybe other places on Nextdoor as an online discussion board. events that go on. I wanted to find out there was an issue here was that the dean had related information to her husband who posted confidential information on Nextdoor with a digital footprint, subpoena power, Somebody must have seen it. I haven't. I just wanted to know whether there's something that, a piece of a document, a screenshot, depicting what was posted on Nextdoor so we all can take a look at it. Can you direct us to that?

No, I don't. I was made aware by a resident that called to complain about why I was taking dispatch away in the middle of the night. went to that resident to explain and she informed that she had read it on the store it was posted there by someone that we know we confronted Dina with the assistant town manager at the time to kind of get the explanation understandings you know I need help I don't need somebody to kind until the sheriff was able to clearly assist the town.

Getting back to this, we got a complaint from a resident. An investigation was conducted. As a result of the investigation, there's been no documentary or digital evidence that anything posted on Nextdoor disclosed any information as related to a change in who handles dispatch for the department in the evening hours. Is that correct?

I'm not aware of what was posted on this. I never looked at that store, nor do I follow it.

It wasn't my question, but I appreciate that. My question simply was, am I correct in understanding that there's no documentary or digital evidence that you have reviewed that you've been provided with or that was in Sergeant Ramos' report as having been reviewed?

I understand you have not reviewed anything on Nextdoor.

My question is, you received a complaint from your resident that there was information about dispatch posted on Nextdoor that should not have been. The question I have is, am I correct in understanding that you haven't seen the post, you haven't seen a screenshot of it, you haven't seen a printed version of this Nextdoor post? I have not seen it on Nextdoor. You haven't seen it on Nextdoor. You haven't seen it printed from Nextdoor. And in fact, the report from Sergeant Ramos does not indicate that he reviewed any documentary or digital evidence depicting that post, correct? I have not seen that. So what we have is a suspicion from a resident about something supposedly posted on Nextdoor that nobody can substantiate with any documentary evidence. Do you agree? And there's no evidence that anybody else has either, is there? I don't know. The neighbor did. The resident did. Again, we have a suspicion from a neighbor. Your duty is to investigate as an officer. Go here to your department, find the beach, wherever it is. You're supposed to find evidence of it, and then you present that. As we sit here, up to the time of the assassination, even for today, Nobody's seen this post other than the resident, as far as you know, right? I'm not aware because I'm not looking at it. And that's the third reason why this decision was to terminate Dina's employee, Dina has an employee who received no benefit from comp time, parking permit, put her over the edge as to why she shouldn't just get a verbal counseling, but the officers who got paid out, Right over the edge is this complaint that you received by a resident of something posted on the next door. Seems a little nebulous, doesn't it?

I'm not aware of anything that was posted on the next door. I just want to find out what your neighbor told you.

What your neighbor tells you, that's a claim that's a suspicion.

on extreme details as to what I was going to do.

To date, nobody has been able to confirm or substantiate those details or any evidence other than what this one resident said. I mean, not only on Nextdoor, when we established the name there, not even in Sergeant Ramos' report, but he spent 19 hours preparing, excluding the investigative time. There's no evidence of any of that. Agreed? He didn't find it, and you didn't find it.

I don't look at Nextdoor.

until I have that. Appreciate that. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a brief rebuttal with Chief.

Yes, and I'd also like to allow the board members to ask any questions if they have any of the Chief, if that's okay.

Of course. Chief, very briefly. There was a lot of discussion, conversation about finance other personnel within the town. You should have been doing this, you should have been doing that. Let me ask you this. You're the immediate predecessor of . Yes. There was discussion about the town not contacting Chief Marciante as it relates to Ms. Gould. Do you remember that? Yes. Isn't this the same Chief Marciante who is being sued by the town for taking a severance that was unwarranted under Florida law?

Yes.

And his immediate predecessor is Chief Healy, correct? Yes. And is this the same Chief Healy who is being sued presently by the town for receiving an unwarranted severance pursuant to Florida law?

Yes.

With respect to the office.

How is that relevant?

because counsel is alluding to the fact that they were contacted and they're adverse witnesses to the town as if they were going to complement the investigation by the town. So, next thing, Chief, counsel alluded to three officers who received a counseling. These officers are subject to the law enforcement officers and correctional officers bill of rights, correct? That is Florida law, correct? Yes, sir. That is Florida statute 112.532, correct? Yes, sir. Aren't there limitations on what you can do to sworn officers under Florida law that is set forth in that statute? Is Ms. Goldstein subject to the law enforcement officer's Bill of Rights? She is not. Is she just one officer? She is not. Is she a civilian? She is. Chief, I'm going to now hand you exception 74.57 of town code. You have that in front of you, Chief. I do, sir. Chief, is it your understanding that town code is enacted by the elected officials of the town? Yes, sir. Is it your understanding that you have no right to deviate from the directives of the town commission? I do not. Do you see section 74 then? 57 subsection a states the town manager is authorized and directed to enforce the pertinent provisions of this article in connection with the town's operation operation of such street and all street parking facilities and it goes on subsection B the town manager shall at any time and from time to time fix the annual rates and charges for parking stickers and placards issued under this division you see that language Your knowledge, did the town manager authorize anyone to deviate from the established parking rates as set forth on the exhibit I showed you earlier for those parking lots? Not to my knowledge. Must you comply with this code provision? We do. Do all your subordinates comply with or are expected to comply with this town code section? Yes, sir. and the sergeant will tell us in fact, in line with the established rates as designated by me, the town man. He is. My author has any deviation to those rates? You have none. All right, thank you very much, Chief. I tender the witness.

Thank you. Any questions from board members I can start with?

Can the officers receive additional discipline other than a verbal counsel for requesting the time that they were supposed to get?

No, ma'am. We have to follow the statute.

And do the town employees and officers, they take an oath to... SERVE THE TOWN AND PROTECT ITS FUNDS AND WHEN THEY GET EMPLOYED? YES, WE DO. OKAY. AND THAT'S TO PROTECT ALL THE FUNDS. AND IF THEY FIND SOMETHING THAT'S NOT APPROPRIATE, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO REPORT IT?

YES.

AND DO YOU KNOW AN AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT WAS COLLECTED BEFORE AND AFTER FOR THE PARKING um just the result for the difference is only fourteen thousand dollars i believe that uh before matilda stood it over he reported that there was under five thousand dollars in a month from the business record ribbon and our employees in the town allowed to get a look at that letter of demand with police officers um for the overpayment that they received

I'm not sure that's illegal.

When I worked at the post office, if you were overpaid, they would give me a letter of demand paying back whatever I was overpaid. Sometimes timekeepers did make a mistake.

I believe that finance would report that to the employee directly and reclaim that money.

Okay. All right. That's all I have for now.

Yes. Hey, Chief. Thank you for your service. Thank you. So you mentioned that with the comp time, you're only able to review that once a year.

It comes to my attention, or it used to come to my attention, September before the fiscal year ends, because the administrative assistant or secretary puts out the email blast to all police officers. Those wishing to sell back your comp balance, please advise.

So there's no way for you to request that? So, with regards to the Excel sheet, you've mentioned that Ms. Goldstein was adding figures manually. There are functions in Excel to do the adding for her. Is that what you mean by manually, or is she sitting there with a calculator?

But I know the program required a lot of manual entry, and that's where you can make mistakes and overload things.

Of course. And in terms of checks and balances, nobody was ever signing off on anything that was sent in. Nobody at HR was looking at hours. Nobody was reviewing it. I find that, I mean, I deal with grants all day in my life, and there's reporting. There are, I mean... I hate to say micromanagement, but to some extent, I know what is expected of me, it is put down, and I know that if I am handed a payroll, there needs to be some kind of oversight, whether it be finance or HR, and there is quarterly reviews, there are yearly reviews, so I'm very confused as to why there are no oversight, and also why there was no backup for a lot of the stuff in this whole scene was doing.

the check was cut.

So you're saying that the head of the department, I'll just say that the head of the department never had to check off on what she was submitting?

They did, but they never were presented. I got the paperwork only because the new finance signature was not on that paperwork when she handed it to me and says, hey, did you get a chance to what, did you forget the sign? And I said, what are you talking about? It was not practice. It's not the common practice. It was not past practice. I don't know when that started, when it was that omission of the boss not being shown the payroll.

Is there any documentation anywhere that says that she had to provide a signature or some kind of approval for payroll or anything else she was doing with money to be approved.

It had it on the sheet that she provided where there was a boss's signature.

Okay, and so they were just turned in blank when you guys reviewed them. Also, you mentioned you have an IA investigation, which I've seen. Again, I am more familiar with an HR practice than I am with an IA investigation, except for police procedurals. But during the time that Ms. Goldstein and or her witnesses or anybody was called, were they represented by somebody?

I believe they were. Mr. Ramos could probably further advise on that, but I believe they did have .

And there was some sort of HR professional involved in this?

Correct.

But do you know if there was an HR professional sitting with Ms. Goldstein while she was interviewed? Was there somebody, I don't want to say protecting, but was there somebody with her interest at heart at all times?

When she was interviewed?

Yes.

She was out of the church.

Okay. Thank you. And Chief, last question. There was absolutely no documentation anywhere with regards to maybe giving Surfside a free permit because they gave the town food for conversations with the cops, anything like that. There's absolutely no documentation from your predecessors with any kinds of, I hate to say quid pro quo, but no. And no documentation of her procedure, no clear Job descriptions and what she was doing?

She had a job description of what she did, but there was no procedures for the parking permits.

But in regards to payroll, was there a clear procedure that said not only on the form, but is there any documentation that said Ms. Wildstein must present this to a superior for a signature?

I'm not aware of that right now.

Okay. And in regards to the Nextdoor app, Do we know if there was any kind of, I say NDA because that's my life, I need to protect donors' information, was there any kind of NDA signed by her or anything that the police gets that says, you are privy to sensitive information, you share this, bye-bye.

I think that comes with the job. that should be kept in house.

I understand, but unfortunately in this world, we assume quite a bit. And again, if somebody can find out if there was an NDA, I'm just interested. I think that's, you know, while you and I may know that that's not, if it wasn't clearly stated, that's a problem. Thank you.

I have a question.

attorney for Ms. Holstein associated with the fact that she has not benefited financially, it seems like it was suggested, by any of her actions.

feedback system or anything like that so there's no accusation of social okay just clarify i just have one question because i guess i have all the other answers um so the cops get a verbal counseling um what they do wrong right so yes uh so what i understand is this simply you guys get to go one path and policy the police goes another task that you're not allowed to fire people or we are going to return the money that they will have to pay depending on the egregious of the matter i think that we had agreed that uh to the town manager that it would be a verbal council to the officers as a first step that remains in their file for a year is any other steps we can do it's already

Issued, ended, and done. Can I go back?

Thank you.

Through the chair, to respond to Board Member Kinster's inquiry as to non-disclosures, the code provides section 2-233 conflict of interest. To avoid misunderstandings and conflicts of interest which could arise, the following policy will be adhered to by employees and officers of the town. This policy is in accordance with Florida's statute, section 112-311, Code of Ethics for Public Officers and Employees, subsection 4. Employees and officers shall not disclose confidential information gained by reason of their official position, nor shall they otherwise use such information for their personal gain for them. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Jenny. Hi, Chief. Good morning. I should say good afternoon. How long have you been with Surfside?

I started on March 29th, 2024.

So not a long time. You've been in the job for... Less than a year. Less than a year, right? Less than a year. So I would imagine that coming into the role, you're looking at making improvements, you're looking at where are the deficiencies and where you can add value. given that and looking to see where there's opportunities. Yes, ma'am. So would you say that in assessing not just the police officers and the programs and I imagine you're looking at data and assessing how we're doing. Of course. From a chief's perspective, you're also looking at our civilian work group that's reporting to you as well. Yes, of course. Okay. And I would imagine that part of Part of what you wanted to do coming in is making sure that things are run tightly, that there's any deficiencies that you can address. And as a matter of doing that, this is something that you uncovered.

Yes.

Would you say that in your assessment of looking at the town, looking at the police department, would you say that there are opportunities that the town of Surfside has in internal controls, standard work, processes.

Those opportunities are there. We have started that by implementing a tele-staff program to make sure that those working that day clock in through or not, there's no question, we clocked in that date. We're also merging that program with a program for payroll processing, onboarding, retiring, all that, and daily check-in called EKG. And we're in the midst of implementing that. That is a four-month process.

So in coming into the town, I would imagine that you have the opportunity to sit with Ms. Goldstein and review her duties and responsibilities, roles and responsibilities.

We had a lot going on, and I tried to learn as fast as I could. I was reassured, and I had that kind of comfort with her.

She's now in the adventure.

And I really was comforted by that. So I really did trust her to do what she did every day and go forward, and I was taken

So did you have that opportunity to sit down with her and discuss her roles and responsibilities?

We did, but she does so much that I was also concerned that it was overwhelming. And that's why I approached her and said, I want to hire an administrative aide for you.

Um, was there, um, concern about, um, some of the lack of processes and internal controls as it relates to overtime, comp time, uh, coming into the job?

When I started doing, yeah, I was, uh, I was always, always inquisitive. that were not important details as an example we had on every sunday we had a group of officers that would go to the creek village and go to the marine patrol boat and hang out so those officers were getting compensated for contact every day or every sunday it could range from four officers to a group of five and they would go they were not certified to grab the key off the rack and So I ended that detail. There's a few other details that I ended as well in trying to bring control of the overtime

So you would say that there was a past practice that was allowed and for many years?

I can't tell you how many back because I know Chief Allen is a very strict boss.

Chief Allen hasn't been here for a while.

He ran a very tight ship because I know him well.

they work, but Chief Allen hasn't been here for how long?

Six and a half years.

Six and a half years. So that's a long time.

I've been here six and a half years since I left.

So Chief, you would say that there were some past practices that have been allowed and since you've come into the role, you have really tried to get your hands around that. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And you mentioned that there were some... Let's go through each issue just for clarification. And please be patient with me because I have a big book in front of me. Over 600 pages. So I'm going to go to the letter of determination, which I think is for... 439. As you started finding out about some of these irregularities, some of these lack of controls in town, obviously you're coming into the job with new eyes, fresh set of eyes, and you're trying to make improvements and really get your arms around some of these inconsistencies. In the letter of termination, It cited the violation of the town's compensatory leave policy. The collective bargaining agreement, if I recall, and Madam Attorney, keep me honest here, from my recollection, it says that the chief of police or his designee is responsible for comp time.

Can you repeat the question?

The, in the collective bargaining agreement, the language, and somebody please keep me honest because I read it last night, but I don't remember per se, but there is some language that says the chief of police or his designee is, is it responsible or is it?

So you're referring to article 21.1.1. Second sentence reads, subject to operational needs, as determined by the chief of police or his designee, each employee may choose the option of being paid for the main compensation bank balance on the last payroll of the fiscal year at the existing pay rate or continue the current balance of the compensation bank to the next fiscal year, period. And that follows after the... Yeah, that's the paragraph that I was...

Thank you so much. Was Dina Goldstein your designee? Okay, so ultimately you were responsible, she was never designated that role or responsibility?

No, it would either be, it should have been captain, deputy chief, or chief was her designation. Okay.

She's not sworn, so. Okay. So, and I would imagine that you have a budget, and you have a budget for overtime? Yes. And you have a budget for comp time?

There is a budget for comp time.

Okay. And was there a regular monitoring of that budget?

For the overtime, yes. When I came in, the comp time I had not wrapped around because I had just been there a few months. I do now. Okay. But the overtime, yeah, definitely I was taking a look at the overtime. The comp time became evident when all.

So, there's been a lot of conversation about accountability in different forms here today, in terms of who's ultimately responsible. I think Ms. Goldstein's attorney referred to her having the role and function of data entry clerk and process. There was some discussion about the finance department and controls, which I think it's there's been some discussion about what role did the finance department have here. In your professional opinion, do you think that this was solely the responsibility of Ms. Goldstein? It's everyone's responsibility. Okay. So she had one portion of accountability from a data entry perspective?

As a personnel and Okay.

Was feedback ever given to Ms. Goldstein about process as it relates to compensation? Has she ever been coached, counseled? Has there ever been a record of counseling, written reprimand? Anything at all within to give her feedback about any process related to the compensatory process or procedure?

Prior to me, no. When I was made aware of the issue, it was so irregular and so suspicious that if I continued questioning and asking, I would limit my ability to ask her under an investigatory situation. So I'm not going to double-check with her, ask her now, get her to move out.

Okay, so that step would never happen and it went directly into an investigation? Yes. Okay. Did anybody tell her to stop? Yes. And did that practice stop? Yes. Okay. In terms of leaking sensitive privilege information, Was there anybody else that this issue was discussed with that could have leaked the information?

I don't believe so. We had a conference with her and Marisol Vargas, the interim manager back then, where the manager discussed with her that she should keep information inside. That's where I believe her and

I know that you mentioned that you have a strong suspicion, a correlation in your mind that there was a nexus there between Ms. Goldstein and her husband and a posting that occurred next door. Do you have any evidence? As it relates to the town's parking permit program, Is there anything that the town has, and I think this is a question for the manager slash attorney, do we have any instances where businesses apply for hardship? Is there a process for that in town?

Obviously, I have only been in this role for three months, so one of the first things policies I issued pertaining to this program so that there was no ambiguity. But really, there's not like a variance to the parking rate. This is a discount, just so you understand, instead of paying $5 an hour.

No, I understand that. I vaguely recall a process, but I don't want to sway I vaguely recall a process for hardship that may be a past practice that probably should be looked into. I vaguely recall a process. That's why I'm asking.

And that's fair, but I will say if there was this, I have encountered a number of instances in which administration has done things or taken actions that are not authorized by code. Or the city manager. or the town manager correct in other words what i'm trying to convey is things that are on the streets invisible to all of us are not authorized by code or law but yet are on the streets so would you say that um mr manager would you say that there has been a culture in the town

of empowering employees to make these decisions without necessarily connecting with the town manager or following process due to a lack of process?

I am coming to the conclusion, sitting in this position as opposed to sitting in my home, to believe that there was a, I wouldn't say empowerment, I would say a lack. of oversight, a lack of procedure that essentially left employees to their own devices, inconsistent with what the code authorizes. And that is something that's becoming more evident to me as I see it.

Thank you. Is the HR director here?

She is not. She's out ill because she had mouth surgery, so she's not here today.

Okay, will you be responding through this in lieu of her?

I'll answer any questions you have. If I don't know, I will tell you soon.

Okay. And then what we haven't discussed here is incompetence in job performance. Can you tell us about that?

Well, I believe that as a senior executive assistant to the chief, as a stellar employee in the past with all these awards, It's very concerning how for the last 15 years or 10 years you've been running a program and all of a sudden the last two years you don't know how to do it. The system allowed it and you didn't know how to fix it and nobody was not brought to boss's intention to immediately fix we're talking about a substantial amount of voltages that could have been handled we're talking about practices of not uh knowing balances uh not reporting balances or not following procedures or not coming up with procedures to make sure that the rule violations don't happen we're talking about which if we don't follow, we are in violation of a strict contract. It's what we want them to follow, and we should be following it as well.

Chief, you've been a leader in the Red Beach. Yes, ma'am. So you've been in a leadership position for how many years?

Over 15 years now.

Over 15 years. So you've had other executive assistants. Yes. So in your professional opinion, was Ms. Goldstein given executive assistant duties, or was she given duties that far exceeded what would be expected of a job description of an executive assistant?

I think she took a lot more than she should have been given.

So through the years, she's been delegated far more responsibility.

Yes, or assumed to help out maybe.

Okay, thank you. Those are all my questions. I had a follow-up.

Okay. I had a follow-up. There was some questioning that was asked about why the verbal counseling The reference I think the chief made was because of the CBA and Florida law. And so in reviewing the collective bargaining agreement, you as the chief are responsible for deciding what discipline officers receive following a conclusion of an internal affairs investigation. As part of the collective bargaining agreement, one of the least, after a verbal counseling or written counseling, those are the most minor versions, and those are permissible. After that, you can suspend an officer with pay without implicating or having any consequences resulting from either the law enforcement officer's Bill of Rights, 112, or the collective bargaining agreement. Is that right? Correct. These officers, you know, instead of or in addition to the verbal counseling, they could have received a discipline that could have included it up to suspension with pay. Right? Could have, yes. But it was your decision, because you're the ultimate decision maker, to sign off on this position after a completed internal affairs investigation to just give them the written one?

Yes, and I sought guidance as well.

I just want to be brief, so I appreciate the adultism. And I appreciate your time.

Thank you, Chief.

Appreciate your time.

Next witness, I guess. Actually, in the interest of time, I am not going to present you any further witness testimony, because it would be redundant. And I'm not trying to overcomplicate this proceeding, as this is supposed to be an informal type of proceeding. The town will essentially rest its case based on the documentation provided, the testimony provided. And if you want to break for lunch now, that might be a good time. Or you can continue, whatever you wish.

up to my fellow colleagues here whether they want a break for lunch or whether we want to continue.

So do you know how many witnesses you're going to be calling? It kind of depends on what everybody says, but I'm going to be as brief as I can in the interest of just kind of moving through things if we're not going to have I have certain questions for Sergeant Ramos.

I think it's important because it is the crust, crux of the investigation and certainly the employment action that I'd like to ask him some questions. I don't know if I'd probably be able to respond.

I don't have to give my motion now. I can kind of talk about it later. But maybe we can start to bring this one up. I don't know if you'll be able to ask questions first. Or Mr. Ponce, if you want to ask. I know you're not.

Anybody else on the witness list? I guess I'm trying to understand and assess how much time. And I don't want to rush this process. I understand that everybody's time is very valuable. But I also want to give Ms. Goldstein her due process. And I don't want to rush for the sense of rushing. I want to make sure that it's fair and equitable.

I'd have to talk with Dana for a moment, so maybe it makes sense so we can go through with Sgt. Ramos, let him get in and get out, and then maybe have a brief discussion and give an idea as to time. I don't think I'm going to be, because I've covered so much with the Chief, I don't need as much, I don't need to go over the same thing with Sgt. Ramos, so I can kind of run through other issues. So what do you think?

Okay, so we're good until 1 o'clock, I think. We have snacks, and we can always take a five-minute break. Okay, so is Sergeant Ramos the next witness? Sergeant Ramos?

Yes. So the first question that really kind of speaks to me is and that

I mean, because here the allegations are that Dina didn't do her job correctly, and that's the basis for terminating her employment. You contacted the state attorney's office three times. They prosecute people criminally. And so I'm just kind of curious as to why if not, you know, running the middle of not doing your job correctly isn't, why the three calls to the state attorney's office to get them to do something

Put it in perspective and give a little background. The microphone. I'm sorry. Put it in perspective and give a little background. So I've been an law enforcement for quite some time, 31 years to be exact, 26 years with Matt Beach. I was a homicide detective for almost eight years, and then I was in internal affairs for 10, of which I was attached to the FBI, Public Corruption Unit. I was attached to the FDLE, Public Corruption Unit, for two years. So I spent a lot of time when it comes to internal affairs and public promotion investigations. In internal affairs investigations, the station deep process, at least in Miami Beach. And what I am accustomed to is to first take the information from the complainant. And that could be a person out in the street. It could be from a poll worker. It could be from a boss. You have your complaint on an employee of the city X. And as a matter of process, we contact the city attorney and provide them a synopsis of what the allegation is, whatever the allegation is. In this case, it was a document on the board that there was some alterations with the comp times, something with the parking department, parking placards, and it's simply just a phone conversation. And they either will tell me, we're good, we're not interested in moving forward, or they will tell me, well, when you have more information, follow up with us. As it stands right now, move on. Why do we do this? Because there's two types of investigations, at least when it comes to the political corruption world. It could be a criminal investigation, administrative investigation. And I need to know which had more. If it's a criminal investigation, the world opens up. I have subpoena powers, I have access to other type of information and other types of avenues that I don't normally would have on the administrative investigation. Also, what protections do I have to give to the subject of the investigation? am I going to have to Mirandize the individual, or am I going to have to provide them Garrity? Okay, so those are, and what Garrity's on the administrative side, and obviously Miranda will be on the criminal side. So, there's a lot of things that I need to consider. So, first thing off the checklist, state, this is what I have. They will give me clearance, move forward, we're not looking at this criminal. So to answer your question, Kathleen, yes, I contacted the state, and they gave me clearance to move forward.

You contacted them three times, and those are the only phone conversations that you had with anybody relative to this investigation. So we're concluding the, before concluding it, and I'm not talking about the supplemental, but before concluding it, which resulted in Dean's getting fired, you called them three times, and I'm just trying to understand What, I mean, you're a law enforcement officer. You know, you've been doing this 26 years with the city of London Beach. You know, in order for the state attorney's office to get involved, there has to be a violation of the law. I'm just trying to have an understanding as to what law were you concerned that could be implicated, which could require you to change or someone to change the investigation from a personnel investigation as it relates to Dina or a criminal investigation?

Well, Senator, like I said, I did not have any indication that this would actually go criminal, but this is a matter of course. I'm going to have the conversation with the state, at least put it on their radar. For all I know, and it's happened before, where the state goes, oh, hold on, we have something else going on in Dina. or we are investigating another matter that may be related. So it's basically just communicating with the city attorney's office to see if I'm going to cross paths on some other investigation or I might want to step on anybody's toes. So this is a matter of course for us. But so you understand that a second call to the city attorney as to what I had already reviewed and about the parking situation, because if I remember correctly, I did not have enough information at the time about the parking. And the third communication was actually them calling me, because apparently your office had called the city attorney's office, and gave me 10 degrees and wanted to know what was the status of the parking.

Are you saying that the policies and procedures of the Miami Beach Police Department as they relate to internal affairs investigations is, once a matter is referred to IA, that the investigator first contact the State Attorney's Office? Or is that your practice?

Sort of, of course.

Which practice? Could you ask if it's your practice or if it's the Miami Beach Police Department Internal Affairs standard operating procedure?

No, it is, it was my practice, the practice in my office at the time when I was in Internal Affairs.

It was the Miami Beach Police and so what they would do is when they were investigating an officer, the first thing that they would do is to contact the state attorney's office and my understanding is that's because If the state attorney's office picks it up criminally, then the IA has to stop, right? The administrative investigation stops.

The internal affairs doesn't necessarily stop.

It just continues in a different way. 112 requires it to be paused pending the conclusion of the criminal investigation.

So 120, what that report requires is that you told the case.

and you are administratively holding the case, but you continue to investigate, we would be the same investigator investigating, but now it's criminal investigation.

And in Deanna's case, I'm just, you know, you're contacting them, you know, you're responsible for enforcing the laws, and you wouldn't contact the state attorney's office if you weren't concerned about a law. What law were you concerned that she could have possibly...

at the matter, there was money involved, and I wanted to get clearance from the state to see what direction I'm going to go in the investigation. Is it going to be a criminal investigation or purely a legitimate investigation?

So, no laws. And As far as the investigation was concerned, I mean, you talked to this chief . Let's talk about the low-hanging fruit first. There is an allegation or a claim or suspicion that Dena had leaked sensitive confidential information, which made its way onto Nextdoor. Was there any subpoena or request for screenshots? What did your investigation produce as a result of whatever you did to either confirm or He bugged the claim that there was this posting on that day.

I asked the chief if there were questions you asked, if he had any screenshots or any information about the situation of the posting, and I have the same answer you did. I have no civilian power or any ability to force anybody to provide anything to me because it's an administrative investigation. And the third step I did was ask her.

Your report seems to lack any kind of conclusion as to whether you were able to locate any corroborated information about the next-door posting or leaked sensitive information. Your report doesn't say, although this was a claim, I couldn't find anything.

As you can see in my report, there is no conclusions whatsoever.

Normally, an internal affairs investigation does have a conclusion or at least a recommendation that's made to the chief who requests it, right? No. It has conclusions.

It has a synopsis of what the facts are, but there is no conclusion by the investigator and or suggestions. And yours doesn't have a conclusion or a synopsis? It has synopsis of the entries. It has... Synopsis of what? Of the entries? Of entries. Interviews. Correct. And a synopsis of all the documents I reviewed. And then some notes of additional information that were pertinent to the investigation. And then a listing of all the documents and information that I reviewed in preparation for this report.

But it doesn't have a synopsis of what you found or didn't find as related to what you were tasked to investigate. Is that fair?

Sir, there's synopses throughout the entire report of all the different documents that I reviewed. I understand.

I mean, you're investigating certain issues, and normally you would find a synopsis. Hey, I was able to find this evidence, or I was able to, yes, there's evidence substantiating, or it's not substantiated. There's nothing in your report saying what you... which you found or didn't find in relation to any of the issues your tests were investigating.

That is not my job as a substantiator, but we're going to substantiate. Actually, I think that's actually what we're here for. We're supporting that information.

There's nothing here to even kind of summarize what you found as related to each individual application. I've acted differently. Sorry? I've acted differently. Okay. So your report indicates on which part, and I'm talking about the one that you signed, it looks like, October 31st of 2024. Where in that report do you indicate that you were able to find no documents or information to substantiate the claim that any information was posted on that day?

Or is it on that story? I document the campaign itself, and I think it's on page, Yes. And then I send the answer. What was the situation for Jean then? Is she providing an explanation? And is there an upside to that information?

So an allegation and a denial. You have an allegation and a denial. Yeah. OK. So that's all your report provides is, in summary, an allegation and a denial as it relates to leaking sensitive information. We get to the issue of comp time, and you didn't review any of the overtime and court attendance forms, because I think you indicated they were available. Is that right, I'm sorry? The forms, the overtime and court attendance forms?

You didn't see those? Yes, there's a bunch of them included in that, yes?

You reviewed all of them to see who signed off and what was done? Or you didn't do that?

I was not part of any of those issues.

As far as interviewing finance, you made one call to Ms. Goyachea, to her work phone, and that was it? Yes, that's it. Send her an email saying, hey, I'd like to talk to you. I know you're not the subject of this investigation. I just want to find out some information. Send any emails to her or anybody else who was identified for you and who you could have contacted.

And again, this was an administrative investigation, and my job as an administrative investigator is to identify either failures of policy, failures, or... or what established policies exist, if the employee failed, what the employee did or did not do. I'm not, once she provided me a statement, and I found it to be truthful, that was pretty much it. This is the information she provided, and then I turned that over to the city, and then the city made the decision they were gonna make based on what she provided to admit them insured.

I mean, were you tasked with, correct me if I'm wrong, but you were tasked with investigating Dena, not the policies, right?

The administrative investigation, sir. As soon as this was not a criminal investigation, I am not necessarily investigating Dena, but

In this investigation, you don't identify any failures in the process either.

I identify, sir. Well, we look at the last page. I make note of what some of the guidelines that are the FLSA, the contract, some ordinance that are pertinent to, and again, my job is not to interpret any of that. My job is to point it out and document it in my report.

Okay, but, I mean, where do you point out, hey, there's no policy about parking. There's no policy about what to do if you find that there's an officer who's had too much comp time. I mean, the investigation seems to focus on Dena, Dena, Dena, not policy, procedure, policy, procedure, right? Doesn't it? It just focuses on Dena.

She is the subject of the investigation.

Okay, so she's the subject of the investigation. or is it you're looking for a failure of policy or if policy exists?

My point is that this is not a homicide investigation. This is an administrative investigation where you're looking at the documents, you're looking at the information that is in question to be able to sit down with the employees and have a knowledgeable conversation with the ministry so we can either answer questions what the situation was, and that was my role.

Well, you received, in order to start the investigation, written directives from command staff at the town for the parameters for your investigation. Am I right?

I was provided information that was relevant to the concerns that they had.

I mean, there's this email from September 12th, 2024. It's in a packet I'll provide from Assistant Chief Holbrook. Good morning, Sergeant Ramos. What discussions find you well? As part of your ongoing investigation into the comp time payout irregularities involving Gina Goldstein, we've uncovered significant additional evidence relating to her handling of business parking permits. I've attached the full summary of the parking investigation along with the supporting documents. I'd like you to formally add this parking investigation to the existing case you're working on. Please review the attached material thoroughly, and once completed, we ask you to clear this matter with the state attorney's office to ensure there is no criminal liability involved. If there's no criminal matter, please proceed with scheduling an interview with Dean Adam Goldstein. And so, you were tasked with investigating as related to comp time and then this email adds parking irregularities, not failure of policies or policies exist. You're investigating Dino. First of all, it's an administrative investigation involving a failure of policy or if policies exist, but you're given written directives to investigate Dino on several issues. One of them is the comp time irregularities, and the second issue that was formally brought up was, or added to this, was the parking investigation, right? You just told us that you were performing an administrative investigation into the failure of policy or policies exist. Isn't it true that you were, in fact, investigating, you were directed to investigate Dino with regard to comp, time, payout irregularities, and the handling of business parking permits?

Dino was the subject of the investigation, and as so, I'm looking at the process that she used and what she did, and the policy and the emails and the policies related to those processes. That was my task.

That was my mission. And in what you were provided to start your investigation were the investigative reports that the town had completed about Dina. The first email that you got contained the investigation report, unauthorized compensation and policy violations in the town of Surfside. That was the first one we got, right?

I don't remember specifically what you referred to in the report, but yes, I received several emails and communications from the town of Surfside with information that was pertinent to this investigation.

And I think Tina got these from a public records request, not as appended to your report, but there was background information and the police department provided you with findings as well to initiate your investigation. Is that right?

That was part of my case file. Those emails and those background findings.

So you got the findings from the police department before you conducted your investigation on... all the issues you were tasked with investigating, is that right?

Well, those were synopsis there. What they had uncovered or what they had seen, I wouldn't say they were findings. They were, you may be able to call that, but the way I looked at it was a synopsis of concerns that they had because they had not spoken to anybody. So it was,

They just had findings and then they had summaries of findings, right?

Correct. So there were summaries, but it wasn't just about her. It was about other concerns that they had pertaining to other individuals and other situations within the city.

It's odd. Isn't it odd that you get findings to start an investigation?

I mean, like I said, I don't think that there are actual findings. That's what they titled it as. I didn't take them as such. But there was basically a framework that they were providing to me for this investigation.

When you conduct your investigation, you receive the course of your investigation. You have the two investigator reports with their summaries, the investigation that was performed, their findings, and their summaries of findings. You've got the other documents that were submitted, and then you speak with Dina. as your investigation, is that right? Yes. And then your investigation does not provide any guidance as to whether the issues being investigated, whether they be claims, accusations, whatever you want to label them, are substantiated Unable to conclude or unfounded. You don't label them. You don't come to a conclusion as to what you do or don't find. You just kind of lay it out as you receive the information.

Well, typically, what would happen in Miami Beach, a case like this would go in front of a panel, and the panel is the one who makes the determination if any allegation or either substantiated or substantiated. But that is not my job.

And in here... Based on your report, let me ask you this. Did you also, in the course of your investigation, receive letters, I think, that were drafted but not provided to Dina, relieving her of duty from July of 2024? And then to prepare your report, Your report was, I think you wrote down 19 hours over here. Is that right? You wrote that down when? I think you tallied the hours when you did the key.

Are you counting my overtime slips? Is that what you did? Were you doing the 19 hours?

What I did was I looked at your overtime slips, and then I matched those up to the entries. And when the entry says, let's say, for September 25th, 2024, from 1600 to 1700, and it has one hour, and then we look at your investigative report, to what happened to that day, they should match up. And I look at August, and I don't see anything for the 25th, I see for the 26th. Can you explain that discrepancy?

So you see an overtime set for which one? Hold on just a minute. Sure. And so these are... So, which day are you submitting it to?

Sure. I'm looking at the invoice that was submitted by the city of Miami Beach. I'll repeat it, October 1st. Okay. Okay. I attribute the cover sheet on that. Is it October 1st? Correct. 9-25-2024. From 1600 to 1700. One hour. And then I look at your report. to see what was done that day, and I can't find anything. Actually, it's here. It's the interview with Tina. 925. 925. It's the interview with Tina, right? Can you talk about the time that you start and the time that you end?

Where are you going with this?

I'm going to talk about the time issues. Because here we've got You build one hour on that day, but you spend, your documents show two, right?

But where are you going with this as it relates to, that's something that the town needs to deal with in terms of whether illegal hours were, how is it relevant to the case?

What I want to get to is, this was an investigation, this was an investigative report that took 19 hours to prepare, just the report itself, which It doesn't show it. It's going in circles. It's reviewing documents and going with allegations, but it's really nothing more. And so what I wanted to do was find out what was spent, because what we do have also is, and there are other time records that predate September 13th, because there's activity that happened beforehand, which isn't on here. It's just built. There's Zoom calls that are referenced

Are you trying to establish what was part of the investigation? Correct. What was part of the investigation? Why don't you just ask him?

What was part of the investigation? What was done other than preparing the report and reviewing the documents that were submitted by the town? and the investigative summaries that you were providing, which already had foregone conclusions in them. I'm trying, there's really, are there, what witnesses, independent witnesses did you speak with? What documents did you ask for that weren't provided that you consulted in your investigation? All right, so to clarify a couple things.

A lot of this investigation was also done under, I am an active member of the, under working, Not everything was done in overtime. If I had to go home, review something, or type something up, I may have incurred some overtime. But a lot of this investigation was done on duty. So some of the phone calls that you're referring to were not billed to the talent service side because I was on duty getting paid from my department. Not that I wasn't paid by my department for this overtime. I was. would reflect on any type of ailments, specifically. And sometimes, I know we all watch TV, we watch movies, and we see police investigations, and they're supposed to be sometimes very complex or involved, and some are, and I've been involved in many of those. So this is not one of those. This is simply an investigation where, yes, I reviewed documents. I tried to understand what the concerns were for the city. And sometimes it's as simple as just sitting down with a person and having a conversation. So either clarify the issue or they don't clarify the issue. And again, not my job to determine if she did or she didn't. I documented what the documents I referred to. I documented the information that was provided to me either by an email or by one of the concerned parties. And then I sat down with her and had a conversation for four hours and documented that. And I recorded that conversation for future review. And in a lot of instances, she provided an explanation as to why she did what she did or why the decision or somebody authorized her to make a decision or not. And there was no reason for me to believe that what she was telling me was not the truth. I think she was very candid and forthcoming, and yes, she was represented by an attorney, and the entire process was recorded. So I hope that that helps you verify the situation.

Why didn't you talk to anybody else? I know you tried to call Mr. DeCenzo, but you called the wrong phone number. Yes, that's true. You called Ms. Gamita once on October 22nd. And that was it.

And, sir, I've been doing this long enough that I can tell you that if I would have called the world, you would be sitting there telling me that I was obviously trying to get her, and that would be the questioning. In this situation, you're questioning because I didn't do enough in your view. So I understand that that's the way that this goes. I get that. And I'm not upset. But yes, I did what I did. That's all I did. I contacted these individuals. won't really again she had already provided a statement in my mind she had clarified all the concerns uh or at least answered for those concerns if somebody in this city decided that she it was going to take it to my stuff that's there that's on them not on me these are the facts but i mean your test was performing an investigation in my mind i've never been a law enforcement i've never you know walked in your shoes

But in my mind, pardon me if I'm wrong, but an investigation involves considering what the claimant is, considering what you're tasked with looking at, and then you try to speak with not only the person who's accused, but also try to find the witnesses, try to find your own set of documents. try to ask for, and ascertain what really happened, not just by talking to the two sides, but by talking to the third, the outside. And I'm just kind of baffled or would love an explanation as to why he didn't do more than to try to contact two outside witnesses of everybody that would have been involved in any of these processes, whether it's overtime or comp time issue, or the other issue of... You know, what happened with the parking permits? I mean, nobody in finance was talked to. No requests. I mean, there's no indication there was a request that you made to ask about what are the policies. I'm just trying to find out what investigation was actually done other than talking to Dina and making three phone calls, which was a voicemail. What was the investigation that was done of independent witnesses?

I'm sorry, I think I already asked to answer that. It was done. I mean... That's all I said. I actually went to all the houses when I did.

But you didn't speak to, at least by the time Dina was terminated, any independent witnesses, did you not? Not one. What you said was, if you investigated a lot of people, I would be here complaining that you're out to get her. The converse is, you don't ask anybody because the decision is already made. I mean, here, there was no independent witness. What was the investigative process that you utilized?

I went through all the documents. I interviewed her. I don't know what else to tell you. There was nothing else done. That's it. That's all we have.

Do you believe that that's an adequate basis to terminate somebody's employment? I have no. Is the process that you utilize in conducting internal investigations the same one that you utilize in conducting the investigation of being?

I use the same process I would normally use in internal affairs investigations, yes.

So in internal affairs investigations, you don't talk to witnesses other than the accused?