In what many residents saw as a return to the town’s roots, Miami Lakes founding Mayor Wayne Slaton won the whiplash election that resulted from the arrest last month of former mayor Michael “Muscles” Pizzi on public corruption charges.
According to results released by the town clerk just moments ago, Slaton won with a large margin over former Councilman Nelson Hernandez, who resigned to run for the mayor’s seat. His defeat may spell the end of a promising political career. But more on that later. Slaton got 48 percent to Hernandez’s 33 percent.
With almost 3,400 people voting, Slaton won with a more than 500 vote lead. He will be sworn in on Tuesday.
Slaton won the Methodist Church and the recreation center precincts while it looks like Hernandez won the Hispanic stronghold that is Barbara Goleman High.
The absentee ballot margin was much smaller between the two leaders, almost neck and neck. But at least 60 ABs were reportedly found to be invalid because the signatures did not match the signatures on file.
Supporters who gathered at the Beverly Hills Cafe Tuesday night were jubilant. At the same time, the fantastic salsa music coming out of The Pampered Chef, where the supporters for Hernandez had gathered, suddenly stopped.
“I really think that people wanted to know for sure that they were going to have an experienced leader that would never do any wrong in Miami Lakes,” Slaton told me as he was congratulated by supporters.
“The thing that really made it was the fact that I have a proven track record. Right now the city needs stability more than ever and I can bring that stability,” Slaton said, adding that the first thing he will do is call for a change of the city attorney, who is now Joe Geller, and who many believe was a strong ally of Pizzi’s.
Hernandez had been a councilmember for less than his four-year term and was seen as inexperienced at best, led by nefarious forces at worst. He seemed unfazed by the loss, surrounded by friends and supporters, including Vice Mayor Cesar Mestre and Councilman Tony Lama. He reportedly told the small crowd before Ladra got there that he would stay involved in politics.
All Hernandez would tell me was that he would take some time off now. “I guess I will take a vacation,” he said, nursing a Corona.
Before he walked away, Hernandez said he blamed low turnout for the loss, not necessarily the negative campaigning he had directed against Slaton in the last week — including a piece that landed Tuesday morning (you know, because consultant David Custin needs to rack up his bill).
“I was trying to differentiate myself,” Hernandez told Ladra, before walking away and being swallowed up in a sea of supporters that seemed to thwart any attempt I made to take his picture.
But many voters and observers, even some who supported Hernandez, thought the attack mail pieces backfired on him. That’s just not the way to sway voters in Miami Lakes, they said.
Slaton told Ladra that he was going to clean house in the city, especially after the former mayor was arrested on bribery and extortion charges that stemmed from an investigation into his possibly greasing the wheels for a bogus grant company to, according to authorities, knowingly steal hundreds of thousands from the federal government in exchange for kickbacks to him and to his political campaigns.
Slaton said that the first thing he will do is change the city attorney but that he also wanted to look at everything that Pizzi had done to see if there were more problems. Whew. Ladra is so glad to hear that.
“There’s a lot of things that need to be done. I believe we need to go through every contract, every ordinance, every resolution,” Slaton told me, adding that he hoped to make some policy changes that would undo some of the “damage” Pizzi wreaked on the town, specifically the charter change passed in June that changed the way council members can run for office (at large rather than by district) and fees that are charged to residents at the community center.
“The community center is for the residents of Miami Lakes. They already pay for it with taxes. The town should not be renting it out,” Slaton told me. “That’s one policy change.
“I intend to lead the council back to what it was previously.”
And he said he will ask for a forensic audit and that he expects to find more Pizzi secrets hiding between the lines.
“I believe we are going to find there’s a lot more going on in the town of Miami Lakes,” Slaton told Ladra.
Frank Mingo won the council seat vacated by Hernandez.
Wayne Slaton wins post-scandal Miami Lakes election added by Ladra on
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