A former Hialeah mayor is running for his old seat again, challenging Mayor Carlos Hernandez in this November’s coming election.
But it’s the other Martinez.
Julio Martinez, who ran for council in 2011 and lost to Councilman Jose Caragol, told Ladra he was driving to City Hall late Monday morning to qualify for the race.
When he learned that former Mayor Raul Martinez — who was mayor from 1981 to 2007 and had picked up a candidate packet, no doubt freaking the incumbent — was not going to run, he said he had to jump in.
“We can’t let this [hyphenated expletive deleted] go all by himself,” Martinez told Ladra, referring to the race the mayor faced against the unlikely Juan Santana, who was the sole opposition ’til now.
Expect Martinez to make the race much more lively: He is a longtime “Castro” Hernandez critic who will help expose all the garbage that the incumbent is up to, both in the city and in his personal business life. Expect Martinez to bring up how Hernandez has been or certainly should have been investigated for high interest loans he admittedly made — the same kind his old mentor, former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina made and is in trouble for — and, reportedly, for alleged malfeasance with city funds.
“I’m going to give him a run for his money, because I believe he’s going to be arrested,” Martinez said.
This Martinez might be a better opponent. The Don Martinez is perhaps too controversial to get the majority of votes in Hialeah, where he did win 9 other times — even under federal indictment — before he lost to Hernandez in 2011, by a 61 to 39 percent margin.
Even he knows that.
“I don’t want to be the issue. The issue is the city, not me. They are stealing it blind,” Raul Martinez told Ladra earlier today. “And you know how the [Miami] Herald is. If I was the candidate they would stop writing [about problems in the city] because they would feel they were helping me.”
And Julio Martinez is known for a fiscally responsible administration in which sports and park life flourished.
Those will be key among his issues, he said.
“My big problem with Carlos Hernandez — well, my biggest problem with Carlos Hernandez because I have a lot of problems — is that parks and libraries,” said Martinez, referring to cut hours and programs.
“Sports is what creates healthy minds and healthy bodies for the children of this community,” Martinez told Ladra over the telephone as he drove to City Hall to qualify. “We can’t have kids playing in the street or going to the bathroom behind a tree because we are closing parks.
“We used to be number one in the state for parks and recreation when Raul and I were mayors,” he said, hinting at the convergence of the once-opposed support bases. “And now, we’re probably last.
“It’s unacceptable that we are giving away our parks to private entities.”
Long before campaigning, Martinez has kept vigilant on parks issues. Particularly the city’s failure to open a Major League Baseball park with the Marlins, as they said they would during the stadium rebuilding, and the leasing of a park to a private company that offers programs at higher rates.
To be sure, Hernandez — more vulnerable this year since he doesn’t have the maquinita money and he does have the cloud of crookedness hanging over his head — will not be too happy about this turn of events. In fact, the administration seemed to want to thwart Martinez’s qualification before it happened, he said.
“I showed up at a quarter to noon and the city clerk is not there and there is nobody else who can take my papers,” Martinez told Ladra shortly after noon. “They told me to come back at 1 o’clock.
“I asked ‘What about if she is out sick?’ And the deputy clerk said that she would then be appointed clerk for the day. And people say this city is running okay? This is ridiculous,” Martinez said.
Ridiculous? Absolutely. But was this a deliberate attempt to shut Martinez out, since he was supposed to go back to work as a Miami-Dade County Court bailiff and was qualifying on his lunch hour?
“Of course it is,” he told Ladra.
But he’s taking a little longer for lunch today, he assured me.
“We will be back here at 1 p.m.,” he said, leaving City Hall with his friend, Vicente Rodriguez, who publishes La Voz de la Calle.
Julio “The Other” Martinez to run for Hialeah mayor added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
