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City Commissioner Tommy Ruzzano {Facebook}

Margate city commissioners last week ousted Tommy Ruzzano as head of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency board, with one colleague citing Ruzzano’s “inappropriate” Facebook posts and business practices as the reason for the change.

The commission voted Jan. 22 to replace Ruzzano with Commissioner Anthony Caggiano – formerly the CRA’s vice chair – as chair of the agency’s powerful board.

Ruzzano headed the governing body for seven years until Mayor Arlene Schwartz, Commissioner Joanne Simone, and Caggiano voted to replace him at last week’s contentious commission meeting. Commissioner Antonio Arserio was absent.

Simone said she voted to replace Ruzzano, in part, due to his social media posts and his doing business in the city through his construction company. Ruzzano has regularly solicited and received business from Margate residents who received money through the CRA’s Property Improvement Program Grant program.

Ruzzano has touted the grant program to residents in Facebook posts while simultaneously soliciting their business in connection with the funds.

The commissioner’s company has performed paid work on the homes of numerous Margate grant recipients, city records show.

Ruzzano, first elected in 2012, has also posted photos on social media in which he appears to expose himself in front of hotel windows, or while standing on hotel balconies, in an effort to amuse his followers.

“I think that things on Facebook have been inappropriate, inappropriate postings, I don’t think they have presented a good image for Margate,” Simone said before casting her vote. “And I know all the ethics training … including the last one by [City Attorney David Tolces’] law firm, said that you should not do business within your own entity. And I know that that has been done, and those would be my reasons for picking a different chair.”

According to the Miami New Times, Ruzzano has also used social media to make off-color comments, has advertised Rolex watches for sale, joked about having “coffee cannabis with the commissioner,” and described a Las Vegas trip during which he was “spanked by two female cops.”

Ruzzano, a commission member since 2012, was unapologetic.

“As far as the Facebook comments, nobody’s going to shut me down. I am what I am. I am who I am,” he said during the meeting. “As far as me doing business in the city, there’s nothing wrong with it. There were former mayors here … they all did business in the city, every one of them.”

Ruzzano added: “I’m making a living. Not only that, but if you look at what I’m charging people, I’m charging them a lot less because I’m doing it from my heart … and I’m doing it because I want to beautify my city.”

“I pay my full share of taxes. That’s number one. I don’t rob the city. Okay? I have a business, I have a family, I have a lot of friends. I would never hurt the city.”

Margate’s CRA, which oversees major development projects in the city, is a separate legal entity from the commission. Commission members, however, serve as the appointed board governing the agency.

Ruzzano said he did good work for the city as CRA chair and characterized his ouster as being either political or personal. He suggested the move by his colleagues may have stemmed from his not backing Schwartz during her successful reelection bid in November.

“It’s not personal,” Schwartz said.

“Bullshit,” Ruzzano replied.

The CRA’s PIP program provides a 50 percent reimbursement grant of up to $750,000 for commercial properties and up to $10,000 for individually owned single-family, condominium, and multi-family homesteaded properties in Margate.

Residents can use the PIP grants to pay for improvements to the exteriors of their properties, including landscaping, driveway improvements or replacements, paving of parking areas, walkways, or patios, and roof repairs or replacements.

Residents typically hire professional companies like Ruzzano’s to perform the work, which they pay for with CRA grant money.

The CRA under Ruzzano has focused on plans for Margate’s City Center project, long envisioned as a retail, residential, and leisure destination on 36 acres off State Road 7.

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Kevin Deutsch

Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning journalist and author of two nonfiction books. He covers general assignment news and Jewish community issues for Talk Media. He has also worked as a staff writer at The Miami Times, the Rio Grande SUN, the New York Daily News, Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Palm Beach Post, The Riverdale Press, and Bronx Justice News.