Remember way back when in June, when Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez wanted to raise taxes just a bit, less than a 4.5 percent, to keep services in tact and libraries open all the hours that we are accustomed to?
Well, he didn’t do backwards flip flop to a zero increase because it was his own idea to second guess himself. Gimenez was basically politically bullied by at least seven of the other commissioners on the dais.
Nobody will outright just tell me on the record who they are, but we can surmise from the upcoming election calendar who is most vulnerable.
County Hall insiders told Ladra that among those who pressured the mayor to change his mind, basically telling him that they would not vote for any increase, were Chairwoman Rebeca Sosa, who faces re-election next year and Commissioners Lynda Bell and Xavier “Mayor Sir” Suarez, both of whom have relatives with the same last name in elections this year.
Commissioner Mayor Suarez, father to Miami Commissioner and mayoral candidate Francis Suarez, admitted that he let the mayor know that he would not approve a tax increase for firefighters, blaming the bloated salaries at the top of the ranks. He told Ladra over lunch at El Pub Friday that he got his message across.
But Bell, whose husband is running to be the second Mayor Bell in Homestead, told Ladra she absolutely did not talk to the mayor about the budget before he proposed the zero increase. None of her staff did either.
“I didn’t make any comments on it until he brought it to the commission in July,” Bell said.
Both Vice Mayor Chip Iglesias and Fernando Figueredo, the spokesman for the mayor, have publicly said that the mayor did not have the political support for a tax increase and that is why the coward stepped back and bent to the pressure making a total flip flop that cut services in a way that is arguably irresponsible, risking lives.
Whooops. No, wait, that second part from, like, the word coward, was not what they said. That second part is mine.
“There was not enough BCC support for it,” Iglesias told me in his exact words. Figueredo was the one who said the seven commissioners made it impossible for Gimenez to stay his course.
“He didn’t have the votes.”
But it is still the same gist. We elected Gimenez to be a leader, and when faced with a commission that basically blackmailed him, we get no backbone. He should have presented his budget and let them make the cuts.
We know now that the advocates for each of the three cut areas — animal services, libraries and firefighters — have been working on those same 13 commissioners, trying to get a seven of their own. And that is no way to run a county government: Whoever has the mayor and/or commission hostage gets what he or she or they want.
Still, we’ve been giving it to the mayor for these cuts for six weeks. And he deserves it. But I think it’s time to make the commissioners — who are just as culpable — squirm a little, too.
Blame commissioners, not just mayor, on budget cut woes added by Ladra on
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