Elections: Clerk of the Courts Miami-Dade veteran Ruvin draws opponents for first time
Daily Business Review
October 31, 2008 By: Billy Shields
Daily Business Review
October 31, 2008 By: Billy Shields
Harvey Ruvin is facing opposition for the first time in his 16 years as Miami-Dade County’s Clerk of the Courts.
This time, he has plenty of opponents vying for his job, which pays $173,000 a year. The four-way race to be decided Tuesday includes Alfredo Perez, a minor-league baseball player turned lawyer; Darrin McGillis, the former promoter of the Hispanic boy band Menudo.
"This is an elected office, and I honor anyone who’d put their hat in the ring to run," Ruvin said. Let’s hope the best man wins."
Perez is an attorney who was a catcher in the Houston Astros organization for four years in the 1980s before he was sidelined by a knee injury. He became a Miami solo practitioner after going back to school and hanging up his baseball career.
Perez is running on a green platform - he wants to make the courts paperless with electronic filing and mandatory recycling throughout the courts system.
Ruvin said courts already recycle with the exception of sensitive sealed documents that can’t be recycled for confidentiality reasons.
Perez also advocates the elimination of outsourced collection efforts for traffic citations and other court debts. Firms in Texas and California currently handle that function.
"Why can’t we have our own departments here that collect our own traffic citations?" he asked.
Ruvin said his office is collecting debts left for dead in the range of "tens of millions of dollars" annually.
McGillis’s signature issue is electronic filing and putting all court documents online as so-called portable document format files.
"You can’t access an order, you can’t access a motion, you can’t access any document filed by a litigant," he said. "Even appellate courts have documents in PDFs."
McGillis wants to create a countywide database modeled on the federal PACER system and hopes to turn it into a template for other Florida courts.
At the moment, few court documents - usually final orders, judgments or notices of appeal - can be downloaded. In contrast, the Florida Supreme Court and the five state district courts of appeal offer same-day opinions online.
Ruvin notes the available documents are in PDF format, but he said the kinds of documents available on a court’s Web site are limited by Florida statute.
The clerk’s post is one of the most unsung but important positions in the court system. Miami-Dade is the largest circuit in the state, and its clerk’s office is the fourth-largest in the nation with 1,500 employees.
The clerk is responsible for keeping court records, securing evidence, collecting fines, summoning jurors and recording deeds. Its influence extends to the use and receipt of county funds. The office generates about $100 million in annual revenue outside the court system and processes about $1 billion in annual revenue.
Ruvin reached the general election by handily defeating David Nelson in the Aug. 26 primary. He has name recognition built up through the years, said Miami campaign consultant Steven Ferreiro, who is not working on Ruvin’s race.
Daily Business Review
Reporter Billy Shields
Reporter Billy Shields
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