Gimenezes weigh in on Hialeah

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has been silent on the upcoming elections in Hialeah, where one of the mayoral candidates and several council wannabes worked hard for his campaign and recruited family members and friends — even contributors.

But that silence will be broken before the Nov. 1 election.

Ladra had to find Gimenez at the Miami-Dade Young Democrats meeting Tuesday night– where he spoke candidly and confidently about the budget cuts he had proposed (more on that later) — because now that he’s got the job, he is so busy with the budget and assembling his dream team staff he is much less accessible and never calls to chat. Sigh. They all forget the morning after. When asked if he was supporting any Hialeah racers, he said “Not yet.”

Then he flashed that smile and repeated it. “Not yet.”

Which means that he will eventually lend his support, either publicly or privately, eventually. “I had a lot of those people support me and work hard in Hialeah,” Gimenez said. “I’d like to show my appreciation.”

The candidates that helped Mayor Gimenez are all on the Back To The Future slate against all the incumbents (yes, you are supposed to hear the theme song in your head). It starts with former mayor Raul Martinez, who went on Cuban AM radio regularly to defend Gimenez and blast his one-time protege and successor, failed mayoral candidate Julio Robaina for something or other and who is likely to have former State Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla — who was crucial to the Gimenez campaign’s turnaround — on his election team. The mayor may also show some loyalty to Professor Alex Morales — a former city councilman and housing director who was fired by Robaina and did some research and put together some of Robaina’s misdeeds for the media — and former cop-turned-housing-official Danny Bolaños (in this photo in a Gimenez caravan on West 49th Street in June), who put his own campaign on hold to stand for Gimenez at early voting sites for a couple of weeks (as evidenced by a window of inactivity in his campaign finance report). Former Mayor Julio Martinez, who qualified earlier this month to run against former police spokesman Jose Caragol, and former councilwoman and teacher Cindy Miel, who qualified Monday for a rematch run against Council President Isis “Guttergirl” Garcia Martinez — because someone has to stop Garcia’s public chusmeria — hosted a fundraiser meet-and-greet for Gimenez at La Carreta before the county runoff. Maybe Gimenez won’t go out on a limb and support all of them. After all, there are some colorful characters on this slate — which, by the way, could grow before it’s all said and done.

Las malas lenguas tell Ladra that Frank Lago, the chief of staff to Sweetwater Mayor Manny Maroño who lost his bid to replace Esteban Bovo at the state house to Jose Oliva, could join the Back To The Future slate with Martinez, et al. Sources close to the two campaigns say Lago has been courting both Martinez and former State Sen. Rudy Garcia to share resources and my gut tells me he is working the Martinez slate harder (and was spotted chatting with Professor Morales at Maruch recently). The former mayor told Ladra he had not spoken to Lago in weeks but that he had yet to return a call. Lago has told Ladra he was never going to go with acting alcaldito Carlos Hernandez, but felt loyalty to Guttergirl because she helped him with his state house run. Well, that was then. This is now: Guttergirl and perhaps other incumbents urged Lago to switch groups and run against the unbeatable professor — their only chance to keep Morales out of their hair — rather than Easy-out Paul Hernandez, another rubber-stamper.

Then there is this telltale sign: Attorney Carlos J. Gimenez, lobbyist son of our new mayor and “absolutely” a Raul Martinez supporter, and his boss State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, will host a fundraiser for Lago at their Coral Gables office Thursday, Sept. 8. Um… wait… Didn’t Lago support and help Robaina and his clan and talk badly about his dad and work against them? “Yes. But then he found out what trusting that guy does to you,” Gimenez Jr. said, adding that Lago, a fellow Christopher Colombus grad, helped his father in the runoff. “Was it disappointing to me that he would support Robaina even at first? Yes. But at the end of the day, the political reality is look at where he was running,” the future county commissioner (you heard it here first) said about the state house race, which included most of Hialeah in its district.

The fundraiser next week is Lago’s campaign kick-off, said Gimenez, who added that one thing became clear during the county mayoral campaign: “Hialeah needs a change for the better, a clean slate,” Gimenez said. “It needs people who are competent and honest. That’s what I want. That creates an even playing field.”

In that effort, he said, there will likely be more fundraisers as Gimenez Junior reaches out to other non-incumbents, council candidates, who supported his dad’s run for mayor.

“We are going to be supporting Danny Bolaños, Cindy Miel, Alex Morales,” Gimenez told Ladra. “In coming months, hopefully we’ll have events for all of them

Ladra just wishes that some of them had come before Lago.