Miami News Blog

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​Watson Island is the redheaded stepchild of Biscayne Bay. Star Island gets Shaquille O'Neal and Madonna. Fisher Island has its own private ferry. And poor Watson is stuck with a field of dry grass and a theme park full of restless parrots.

Sure, it's home to the Japanese garden and has one of the best views of the Miami skyline. But it's in rough shape, says Jim Villacorta of the city's Community Redevelopment Agency. "It's counter-intuitive," he says. "You drive past and you think: Isn't that beautiful? It's on the water. But we've got pictures of drug use, needles, crack pipes, and people living under the bridge." A bad oil spill recently ravaged the land and streets are sinking into the bay.

County commissioners vote today on whether to grant the island a tax break from the CRA. If the vote goes through, Watson Island will join the ranks of other badly blighted spots such as Overtown and Park West. A large amount of its property tax would then go right back to the island -- instead of the county -- to clean up the place. (Check out CRA's report on the subject here.)

Not everybody is thrilled. Commissioner Joe Martinez argues: "Redevelopment areas are really taking a lot of money away in a time when we need it."

violentz via flicker cc

​Miami's crop of the very, very wealthy is an odd breed, and Riptide can't help studying it the way Marty Stouffer scoped out bobcats on Wild America. Observe the insanely rich woman in her natural habitat. Watch her peculiar mating habits. See her messy court case.

Take Alice Takach for example. The Key Biscayne woman is the great-granddaughter of an enormously wealthy steel magnate named Henry Phipps. Although she doesn't work, according to court papers, she has a trust worth somewhere in the ballpark of 75 million. Back in the '90s, her autumn Lutheran wedding was even written up in the New York Times.

An open court case tells another story. In 1969, Alice married a strapping financial executive named Eduardo Tarafa. The two lived the high life in New York until 1983, when Eduardo was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She filed for divorce shortly afterward, remarried, and agreed to pay alimony to help with his sickness.

via flicker cc

​It keeps happening in Miami Beach. Cops pull up, tell demonstrators to put away their bullhorns, and to stop banging those drums. Then an officer whips out a small pad of paper and writes a noise code violation. That's how it went on three occasions in front of Loews Miami Beach Hotel. Each time, the ticket got more expensive and the sign-wavers got more pissed off.

The protesters are Miami-Dade carpenters --men with thick biceps, mostly -- who have been there for two months. They are fighting for fair wages, they'll tell you. And they aren't going anywhere.

Florida Carpenters Regional Council, the group that's making the noise, has a director named Terry Darling. He's a man of few words who sports a salt and pepper goatee. There's fire behind his voice when he says, "There is a criminal element that exists in the construction market...and we want Loews to be a responsible corporate citizen."

via justomedia.com

Francisco Tudela

​Francisco Tudela's resumé could inspire a kick-ass James Bond flick. The former vice president of Peru, he once shared an office with a spy, was held hostage at the Japanese embassy, and worked under a world leader who was convicted for murder and kidnapping.

via NiteFlirt.com

Jenny, AKA ObeyME999

The email arrived just before lunchtime June 15. In it, a photo showed a tanned nude blonde bending over, underpants around her thighs. With seductive eyes, she gazed at the camera. Below the image was a list of her interests: "Role-playing, cuckolding, slaves, ATM piggies, verbal humiliation..." The subject line read, "Porn star... Jenny Santana Ballman want[s] a fight."

The email came from a 38-year-old Coconut Grove pilot and Internet-multimillionaire-gone-bust named Glenn Ballman. The sexpot in the photo was his wife, Jenny. Recipients included at least 30 parents of students at the elite St. Stephen's Episcopal Day School, where the couple's kids attend. The message also went to attorneys at one of Florida's most prestigious law firms, White & Case.

Some of the St. Stephen's parents were angry. Jenny had chaperoned field trips and attended morning flag ceremonies at the half-century-old school.

The email chronicles six days of text messages, apparently exchanged between Jenny and several men. It begins with the following note from her husband: "Times have been tight since the recession hit. [She] has been home alone for 28 days in May of 2009 when this starts. I am up in Canada starting a company, working very long hours, and sending everything home to make ends meet."

It continues with transcripts of text messages allegedly pirated from Jenny's BlackBerry. The first one includes conversations with men named Brad and Jeremy:

Update: Jenny Ballman claims Glenn penned the text messages himself. "Those are not facts, those are all written by him," she says.