Charges of Bribery and Prostitution at North Miami Council Meeting

A discussion about privatizing garbage pickup turned personal Tuesday night

A North Miami City Council meeting turned heated and vicious when a discussion of the hot button issue of privatizing garbage pickup turned personal.

The dustup began when Councilman Michael Blynn pointed out that privatizing trash pickup would lead to the city losing more than $600,000 a year.

”Their fees are gonna go up. If we approve this, we’re actually gonna raise the fees for the residents who don’t live in apartments, and give the apartment holders as much as $8 million in rewards,” Blynn said, with Mayor Andre Pierre to his right. “That’s why they were so far to get Mayor Pierre’s cousin a bribery charge.”

“What happens if I say your daughter’s a prostitute?” Pierre responded. “What happens if I say your daughter’s a prostitute?”

As the blunt exchange continued, Blynn’s wife got involved, expressing her incredulity that the mayor would call her daughter a prostitute. At Pierre’s request, a security guard then escorted her out of the room.

Blynn was referring to the mayor’s cousin and campaign manager, who was arrested last year for bribery.

Pierre’s barbs about Blynn’s daughter were unfounded.

“These remarks are outrageous and totally false,” Councilman Blynn told NBC Miami Wednesday. “You know, anytime anyone makes a false statement you’re very upset.”

Blynn said he is looking into what his legal options are after the mayor called his daughter a prostitute.

Mayor Pierre told NBC Miami that “sometimes in the heat of the moment, things happen.”

”In the last six months he kept bringing up my family into it,” Pierre said of Blynn.

But, Pierre said, he has apologized because family should not be brought into politics.

“Sometimes in the political forum we say things that shouldn’t be said,” he said. “And I have already called Mrs. Blynn and I apologized to the family.”

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