Miami Beach Official Drops Re-election Bid Amid Facebook Questions

MIAMI BEACH, FL — One week after Patch published an article questioning his misleading Facebook posts during Hurricane Irma, Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Grieco, dropped his re-election bid on Monday. Grieco urged his two opponents "to run campaigns befitting the people they wish to serve" and he appealed for privacy. He was first elected in 2013.

See also Facebook Said Commissioner Was In Miami Beach As Irma Struck. He Was Not.

"Because of the many sacrifices I’ve had to make, my family, my clients, my health and my law practice, I have decided this is the right time to join Commissioner Malakoff and Mayor Levine in retiring from the Miami Beach City Commission," Grieco said at the outset of a public meeting. "I am no longer seeking another term. Effective today, I am withdrawing as a candidate for re-election."

The Patch article revealed that Grieco had made misleading Facebook posts during the worst of Hurricane Irma on Sept. 10. The posts said that "Commissioner Michael Grieco is in Miami Beach" while he later acknowledged in an interview that he was more than 200 miles away in Orlando at the time. (For more hurricane news or local news from Florida, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Miami Beach Patch, and click here to find your local Florida Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Grieco's first public Facebook post during the Sept. 10 storm came at 7:46 a.m. — an hour and 24 minutes before Irma would make landfall at Cudjoe Key in the Florida Keys. At 6:17 p.m. Grieco again posted on Facebook with the same location stamp as before.

On Friday, the commissioner released a campaign email referring to the report as a "questionable blog" but Grieco did not deny making the Facebook posts or apologize for them.

The former Miami-Dade County prosecutor also pointed a finger at political challenger Mark Samuelian for what he called "2017 gutter politics" in Samuelian's own campaign response to the Patch article. It was not clear how many people received Grieco's email addressed to Miami Beach residents.

"For years, my leadership and work ethic as your commissioner before, during, and after city crises has been recognized and unquestioned by Miami Beach residents," penned Grieco, who dropped out of the city's mayoral race in late July following a series of Miami Herald reports that claimed to link him to an outside fundraising group.

Prior to issuing the campaign email, Grieco stressed in an interview with Patch that there wasn't a requirement for him to remain in the city during Hurricane Irma nor did he believe that his posts were misleading. Despite his denials, Grieco acknowledged verbally and in a written statement that he was in Orlando during the storm.

"In response to Hurricane Irma, I have assisted thousands of our residents in multiple ways: through my staff, social media, and hands-on personal assistance," Grieco insisted in the campaign email. "During the hurricane and up until this week, I suspended my re-election campaign operations to ensure proper focus. Now challenger Mark Samuelian and his cronies have created a post through a questionable blog who's (sic) only source is a coordinated political out-of-state internet troll, and then E-blasted it out with a digitally-created newspaper image making the source look reputable, hitting a new low in 2017 gutter politics."

Photo by Paul Scicchitano