Voters in Sweetwater will choose today between an incumbent commissioner who is also the mayor’s mama and an activist and political neophyte run
ning mostly on an anti-nepotism, anti-corruption campaign in the only contested race in the city election.
Or maybe they already decided.
A little more than 1,100 of the 1,800 absentee ballots requested have been returned and, if history repeats itself, the majority of those will go to the incumbent — Commissioner Isolina Maroño, mother of Mayor Manny Maroño (on the left in the picture), and a suspected boletera who worked on several campaigns before she was appointed unanimously by the commission.
But challenger Deborah Centeno, an activist (on the right in the picture) and former Community Council member who was annexed into the city a couple years ago, may very well show a better performance this time than she did two years ago when she ran against Commissioner Prisca Barretto and came in third behind a suspected plantidate. If not for the ABs, Centeno would have come in second.
Centeno has been campaigning far more aggressively, with the benefit of leftover name recognition, and she has run on a campaign as much about voting against Maroño as it is about voting for Centeno.
Not just the commissioner. The mayor. The family.
“People in Sweetwater are going to vote for her to vote against Manny, really,” said Pedro Diaz, Centeno’s campaign manager. Of course, the reverse could also be true: A vote for Commissioner Mami could be a seal of approval for the mayor.
But Centeno told Ladra that voters are not happy with the arrangement. Maroño was appointed after the death of the city’s vice mayor. In addition, the mayor’s wife works for the city.
“The people I’ve been talking to agree — the mayor’s mother should not be sitting on the council,” Centeno said. “This city needs to be brought into the modern world. It cannot continue to be run like family grocery store.”
People she has been talking to have also told her that they always give their ballot to Commissioner Mami, who also happens to distribute the city’s food baskets to needy families, or two or three other people – the same names – who allegedly work with her.
Las malas lenguas say Maroño is a longtime boletera and has been paid for campaign work by the campaigns of Gov. Rick Scott, State Rep. Frank Artiles and Sen. Rene Garcia — who also hired arrested Hialeah boletera Deisy Cabrera. Mami Maroño also told Ladra that she did the same work for former State Sen. Rudy Garcia, when he ran for Hialeah mayor, and State Rep. Carlos Trujillo (R-Doral), even though I could not find her in the legislator’s campaign report. Still, his opponent, perennial candidate and radio personality Paul Crespo, had hinted last year that she was collecting ballots for Trujillo. While the two came close with in-person votes (early voting got Crespo 172 and Trujillo 196 and Election Day saw 576 votes go to Crespo and 733 to Trujillo), the absentee ballots turned in showed that Trujillo had beaten Crespo nearly two to one (1,348 to Crespo’s 677).
Maroño has told Ladra that she is not a boletera. She says candidates pay her for her recommendation.
Diaz thinks Centeno’s chances are good and that, despite her reputation, the ABs are not going to be as big a problem. “I highly doubt they will get the numbers from previous elections. They’re not going to be getting the 850, 860 absentee ballots they’re used to,” he told Ladra, adding that the boleteros that allegedly work with Maroño have not been out as much.
“It’s been calm and surprisingly nothing has happened. There have been no bags of ABs or anything like that,” Diaz said. There have been the usual claims of sign stealing. But nothing out of the ordinary.
Early Election Day morning, Commissioner Manuel Duasso caused a little stir at Jorge Mas Canosa Youth Center when he tried to enter the polling place with pastelitos, crossing the 100-yard line required between campaign workers and voters. And while he is not technically working, everyone knows he is there for the incumbent. But that’s standard, too.
Diaz, who also represents a candidate in the city of Miami commission races, has been practically working pro bono, aggressively treating this race in a tiny, ignored city like any other campaign — with phone banks, mailers and door-to-door walking, brazenly going to the city’s elderly centers (read: AB hubs), including the one run by the mayor’s wife and commissioner’s daughter-in-law.
They have also been competitive on the ABs, he says.
“We took some of their votes,” Diaz said. And he expects to do well today as the campaign provides transportation for voters he says are going to vote for Centeno. He says that, while Maroño will likely still have the majority of absentees, the narrower margin will give Centeno an edge on Election Day.
“Icing on the cake,” Diaz called it.
Yes, perhaps it is premature. It seems overly confident. Not just because Centeno lost to Barretto in both ABs and Election Day voting, but also because there is no reason to think the Maroños will not pull out all stops to get their people to the polls.
Diaz recognizes that Centeno would benefit from a higher than average turnout. And he would have liked to have the Dolphins stadium measure on the ballot because that would have driven voters out.
“That would have helped us out big time,” Diaz said.
Sweetwater race could hinge on absentee ballot margin added by Ladra on
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