Everybody saw it coming: Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez and the two councilmen up for re-election coasted back 
into office Tuesday on what looks like a mandate from the people.
But what most people don’t realize is that, much more than simply an absentee ballot problem, Hialeah has a wider “hostile election climate” where many people may not feel free to vote as they want, but rather held hostage by Hialeah Housing, for the most part, or caretakers at random ALFs which proliferate in the city because they are vote-generating machines.
Hernandez — who should be arrested on rampant abuse of power instead of sworn in for yet another reign of terror (his last due to term limits) — got a whopping 81 percent of the voters’ love, almost 15,000 of the 18,250 votes cast. Almost 8,000 of those were by mail.
Is that a record? That’s gotta be a record.
“People are afraid to lose housing, hot meals,” said former Mayor Julio “The Other” Martinez, who lost with an abysmal 15 percent.
“I’ve had viejitos who have told me this, but they won’t talk about it because they are fearful,” Martinez told Ladra.
Does anybody else find it even a little bit odd that Martinez only got 15 percent of the vote, doing worse than he did two years ago when he ran for council against Councilman Jose Caragol? Is this because people think he is tied to former Mayor Raul Martinez, as the incumbents said all the challengers were in Hernandez’s paranoid mind?
And does anybody else find it even a little bit hopeful that first-time, fresh-faced challengers Julio Rodriguez and Marcos Miralles, who went up against Council Vice President Luis Gonzalez and Councilman Paul “Pablitiquitico” Hernandez, respectively, got a quarter of the absentee ballots?
A whole 25 %! Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot in a lot of places, but we are talking about Hialeah!
After all, they were not just running against the incumbent electeds. These two lookalike raspaditos were running against the incumbents’ veteran campaign manager, Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador. You can just see Sasha now, shaking her head wondering how these neophytes got one of out every four of her adored ABs.
Since they are relative unknowns, Rodriguez and Miralles can be proud of how they did, approaching 25 and 24 percent of the vote, respectively. And Ladra hopes they build on this apparent name recognition for 2015. This year’s campaign may have just lay the groundwork for next time.
In fact, they should not stop campaigning.
Miralles, for one, says he is going to stay involved. He plans to take a group of people to City Hall with a neighborhood issue in coming days. “I have gotten to know so many people. I can’t turn my back on them now,” Miralles told Ladra.
Rodriguez has been involved since before 2011 and said Wednesday that he wasn’t going anywhere. He’s already waiting on some public records request he filed related to the Sunshine Law violation many think was committed en masse by the council, despite a quick investigation by the ethics commission that lacked any real zeal.
He said he was happy with how he performed and felt that the low turnout was a sign to the incumbents that they did not have the support they used to.
“I’m going to stay involved. Will I run two years from now? You can bet on it,” said Rodriguez, who plans to target 20,000 new voters between now and then.
Martinez said he would not run again. But that he would stay involved as a citizen. In fact, now that he retired as a court bailiff, he has “plenty of time” to dig into city business, including rumors that there are efforts underway to privatize the solid waste collection that he says involve former Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas, lobbyist Jorge Luis Lopez and former Hialeah Councilman Herman Echevarria (gonna have to do more on that later).
“I love this city. And I’m not going anywhere,” Martinez told Ladra, adding that he chalks the numbers up to low turnout and the fact that Hernandez spent more than $300,000 to his $20K.
All that money, and Castro didn’t even get rid of him.
“I may travel a little, but then I’m going to raise hell in Hialeah,” Martinez told me.
Wait, didn’t that happen Tuesday?
Hialeah incumbents slide in easy, challengers hang around added by Ladra on
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