Miami Lakes Mayor for charter change (read: candidates)

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Miami Lakes residents could change the way that their local leaders are picked in a special vote later this month that would change the city charter to have all the council members elected at large rather than by district.

And at least one resident is supporting it publicly: Mayor Michael “Muscles” Pizzi.

After voters started getting their absentee ballots in the mail, which went out June 5, Pizzi (or someone on his behalf) delivered letters door-to-door Saturday that urged voters to approve this change. He has also sent out a mailer, to some or all of the 16,124 registered voters in Miami Lakes, paid for by his PAC, to urge Lakes residents to vote in favor.

“Join your neighbors and support good government by voting YES on your ballot,” says the mailer, paid for by the Miami Lakes Voters for Good Government PAC, probably done by the lobbyists/consultants at Genovese Joblove & Battista, P.A., which has handled the PAC’s previous mailers.

The mailer promises “more accountability, increased community involvement” and more efficiency, as well as “allow residents to vote for entire council.” Even though they are allowed to vote for the entire council now.

Right now, the town has a hybrid system where four council members are elected by district or zone and two are elected at-large, like the mayor. Every Lakes resident votes in every race, but only residents of the four districts may run in those groups. The proposed charter change would allow anyone to run for any seat.

“This means any Miami Lakes resident can run for any council seat and all residents continue to get to vote in all elections,” Pizzi wrote on city letterhead on a letter dropped at homes over the weekend. “Right now, over 80 percent of the town cannot run for certain residential council seats. This charter change — which is only going to be voted by mail-in ballots and not any in-person voting, according to the elections department — will allow all to run for every council seat.

“All council members should care about the whole town.”

But other municipalities — like Miami and Homestead, which have elections this year — elect their commissioners by group or district and they, we imagine, care for their whole towns. The Miami-Dade Commission is divided into 13 districts where voters choose who represents them and each of them, arguably, care for and work for the betterment of the whole county.

Is this really about that? Or is it, rather, about stacking the council with more Pizzi puppets and finding a place for one of his candidates to run in 2014?

Like maybe Mary Collins? Or a Collins clone?

Collins, a founding Miami Lakes council member, was one of Pizzi’s puppets until she was defeated last year by Councilman Manny Cid, who used to be a legislative aide to State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez. At 78, she was supposed to retire last year and, indeed, had told many that she would not run again. But, word is, Pizzi pushed her to run to keep one of his rubber stamps, even recruiting Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador, his own campaign consultant, to work for Collins.

Pizzi — who did not return several phone calls to City Hall and emails to his personal yahoo account — may want his rubber stamp back before Cid’s term is up and Collins can run in her own district. Or he may be looking at another Collins — after all, she’s pushing 80 — someone else in his pocket and in the “80 percent” that cannot run for one of the three council seats in play next year. Or one of the two belonging to his opposition, rubber-stamp free Councilmen Tim Daubert and Nelson Hernandez. The other seat belongs to Councilman Cesar Mestre, an ally who is rumored not to be seeking re-election (watch as Pizzi pushes him to run anyway).

And it also may have a lot to do with the proposed (read: pushed) annexation of Palm Springs North, which, with more than 12,000 registered voters, would almost double the town’s voting base (more on that later). This would allow someone from the newly annexed area to run against Daubert and/or Hernandez. After all, Pizzi is very involved in the annexation efforts, as chair of a task force that will provide recommendations to the county commission on annexation and incorporation requests, and he has made promises to those in PSN who support the annexation.

Someone may end up owing him their, um, loyalty. Or something.

Both Hernandez and Daubert — who was the sole dissenter on the 6-1 vote to put the question on the ballot  — know that they are the target of this. Hernandez said he voted in favor of putting the question on the ballot so that the constituents could decide — but he’s voting against it and doesn’t think it is a good idea.

“He is obviously trying to recruit candidates up there and stack the council,” Hernandez said, referring to the Palm Springs North area.

But they are both against the measure for another reason, they say: It could destroy the unique small-town character of Miami Lakes.

“Our hybrid system helps us preserve the unique small town feeling of Miami Lakes and guarantees you have representation from all sectors of the community” Hernandez said. “While Miami Lakes residents are pretty similar throughout, we have areas that are homeowner association areas and areas that are not, we have some areas that have deed restrictions and some that don’t.

“He’s going to sacrifice the town, and everything the town was founded on, for a power grab,” Hernandez said.

Said Daubert: “I think it’s wrong, not for the reason people might think. Not because Michael will put someone  against me. But because I truly believe that it’s important to represent the community you live in. And you can do that when you are elected by district. The people from the West rarely drive around the East and the people from the East rarely drive around the West.

“I’m able to see the little things when I drive home — the potholes, the lights that are out, the trees that need trimming.”

But, wait, is it even legal for Pizzi to have used the city’s letterhead — and, most likely, city paper on a city copier — to distribute this to residents promoting a “yes” vote. He can’t say it’s educational: Notice how there are no instructions on what number to bubble should you want to vote no?

Did the council approve such a move? Or is he doing it rogue, again?

Councilman Hernandez said he never gave Pizzi permission to use his name, which appears on the letterhead.

Town Attorney Joe Geller, who is planning a run for state rep next year, said he thought it was perfectly appropriate to use city letterhead to push for a yes vote on a charter change.

“I would think yes. It’s done in a lot of places,” Geller told Ladra, adding that Pizzi using he city copy machine would be no big deal either. “That’s kind of diminutive. The copier is there. What’s the copy cost?”

I don’t know, but that’s not the point.

Said Geller: “There’s kind of an obligation on the part of elected officials to explain as to why they propose the change in the first place. I don’t find it that unusual.”

Neither does Ladra — but only because this is Miami Lakes, where Pizzi rules how Pizzi wants.

  absentee ballots, Miami Lakes, Michael Pizzi, Nelson Hernandez, Palm Springs North, Tim Daubert