Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Commissioner Rebeca Sosa will have to testify, after all, 
about the intimate conversation they had during a police union impasse meeting that may be a violation of the cone of silence rules, a judge said this week.
But they didn’t want to.
When the mayor and Sosa — who was commission chair at the December 5, 2013 meeting — got subpoenas for a fair labor practices violation filed by the Police Benevolent Association, they did what you’d expect them to do: They balked.
County attorneys went to the Third District Court of Appeal to get them out of testifying, but their motion was denied. Judges Leslie Rothenberg, Vance Salter and Edwin Scales, III, all concurred.
The PBA — which is most probably going to impasse once again after failing to come to an agreement on this year’s contract — filed a fair labor practices violation based on the quiet chat Gimenez and Sosa had just off the dais for a few minutes during the meeting where the police union impasse was being discussed because they suspect it was a violation of the cone of silence on the issue.
Round II: PBA meets again with county honchos over contract
“They can’t speak to each other and they were talking very privately, off to the side of the dais,” PBA President John Rivera told Ladra. 
County attorneys reportedly told him that the chat — seen here in this grainy photo from the PBA video — was unrelated, about something else. But Rivera wants them to testify to that under oath.
“There was no other item on the agenda,” he said.
But las malas lenguas at the 111 building downtown is that they were giddily talking about David Beckham and the possibility of a Miami soccer stadium. And that’s probably why they are not going to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court, a County Hall insider told Ladra.
Except, then, why wouldn’t they want to testify to that in the first place? Why would they fight the subpoenas at a cost to us taxpayers if all it was was some silly chatter about a celebrity crush?
Sosa, by the way, voted in favor of the PBA at that meeting and against the mayor.
The whole legal wrangling and the thousands of dollars associated with it could have been avoided, Rivera said, if the mayor had agreed to sign a statement saying he would not “break the law again,” Rivera said. “I guess he didn’t want to put his name to paper on that.”
Yeah, I guess he’d rather spend the county attorneys time and the taxpayer dime fighting it. Or maybe he’s embarrassed that he was talking — yet again — about his bromance with Beckham.
“The mayor’s stubborness is costing taxpayers because he doesn’t pay for these legal fights,” Rivera said. “It doesn’t come out of his pocket.”
No, it comes out of ours.
I’ve asked how much time and money this silly fight to avoid testimony has cost the county — and will let you know when the county tells me.
Mayor Gimenez, Rebeca Sosa must testify re private chat added by Ladra on
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