Civil Service Board upholds demotion of Michelle Choi after revote on amended findings

The City of Miami Civil Service Board voted on a series of findings and disciplinary counts tied to the 2017 demotion of Michelle Choi, adopting second amended findings of fact and recommending the city manager uphold the demotion.

Board members reviewed a second amended set of findings prepared to comport with an appellate opinion. The board first voted to adopt the amended factual findings, then took separate guilty-or-not-guilty votes on eight departmental orders and related civil-service rules cited in Choi’s earlier disciplinary process.

Attorneys for both sides told the board the amended findings reflect the court’s directions and that, if any count were found guilty, the board would then vote on a recommended disciplinary level to send to the city manager. Terry Gutman Valdez appeared for Michelle Choi and Stephanie Panoff represented the City of Miami. Counsel noted the appellate court had reversed or disturbed some of the board’s prior factual findings, requiring the board to reframe the record and re-vote.

On the counts the board voted on, the panel returned mixed results: some departmental-order charges were found guilty by the board and others not guilty, with several unanimous guilty findings on counts relating to neglect or inattention to duty and to ignorance of rules. On one of the first departmental-order counts the board voted 3–2 to find Choi guilty; on multiple other counts the board recorded guilty findings by margins ranging from 3–2 to 5–0.

In the penalty-phase discussion that followed, attorney Terry Gutman Valdez urged the board to consider that Choi had no prior disciplinary history and that performance evaluations had been late. City counsel warned the board the practical consequences of reversing a demotion from 2017 would include potential back pay, pension adjustments and displacement of staff who had filled the position since. The city’s representative emphasized that some findings supporting the demotion were unrelated to Choi’s reported discomfort supervising officers with firearms and instead involved financial and contract-management matters the department said were supported by the record.

After the revotes on the cited rules and orders and after brief penalty-phase argument, Member Cabrera moved that the board recommend the city manager uphold the 2017 demotion; Member Solomon seconded. The motion carried on the recorded vote and the board formally forwarded the recommendation to the city manager.

The board’s action was procedural: it adopted amended findings consistent with the appellate decision, revisited the prior guilt determinations, and then made a recommendation to the city manager on the disciplinary outcome. The board did not itself reinstate or alter pay; it transmitted its recommended discipline to the city manager as required under the city’s civil service process.

The board discussed that the case had been through lengthy hearings years earlier, had been the subject of an appeal, and that the amended findings constrained what evidence the board could treat as supporting a guilt finding. Members stressed that the matter’s practical effects — back pay, pension and staffing changes — are functions of the executive branch and not resolved at that moment by the board recommendation.