Sweetwater election fallout creates anti mayor majority

Who is really in charge in Sweetwater?

Some might think it’s the newly elected mayor, Orlando Lopez, who won Tuesday with 55% of the vote after he booted his main opponent, defacto incumbent acting mayor Jose Diaz, off the ballot when a court agreed with his lawsuit that said Diaz should have resigned his commission seat before he qualified.

But Diaz, who now goes back to being a commissioner, helped elect all three of his slate mates, which gives him a majority on the dais. That includes newcomer Idania Llanios, who unseated Commissioner Jose Guerra with 52% — a margin of 90 votes. She will join Commissioners Prisca Barreto and Manuel Duasso in the ceremonial swearing-in Monday evening.

That makes four votes for the Diaz faction, when you include Commissioner Jose Bergouignan. Five, including his own. The mayor does not vote.

And if Diaz and those allies are able to use their political muscle to bring in a sixth commissioner when someone is appointed to fill in the seat left open by Lopez — whose term was not up when he resigned to run for mayor — well, then, he has a super majority. Actually, sort of a super duper majority.

He will have basically neutered Lopez, who is left only with Commissioner Isolina Maroño, the mother of former Mayor Manny “Maraña” Maroño — who was arrested in 2013 and later found guilty of federal bribery charges in a bogus grant scheme — in his corner.

Ladra expects a lot of six to one votes in Sweetwater’s future.

Lopez, who will be sworn in this Friday afternoon but was reportedly beginning to plan changes in the police department even before he won Tuesday because he knew he would, did not return calls and texts made to his phone Friday.

But the new mayor has already called a special meeting for Wednesday to appoint the chair and vice chair of the commission — and, he’s going to hate this, but Diaz is practically a shoe in. The meeting will also serve to discuss the appointment for his vacant seat.

Deborah Centeno, who has run unsuccessfully for office twice, has sent a letter to the commissioners asking to be considered for the post. She got 35% of the vote last week in the mayoral race — in part because Diaz endorsed her at the last minute — and argued that her appointment would respect the wishes of those 598 voters (936 people voted for Diaz).

“I would also like to mention that I live in the annexed area of Sweetwater whose residents also deserve representation in the City Commission,” wrote Centeno, who would be the first Nicaraguan-American commissioner in the city with a high number of Nicaraguan residents. “This decision would be highly appreciated by the community and would also display much needed diversity representation within the City of Sweetwater Commission as stated in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”

Centeno would be a great choice. Not onlly it would send the message to nearly 600 residents who voted for her that their voice matters. But it would also show the rest of the county, South Florida and the world that Sweetwater is not the backwater, throwback, guajiro town that many think it is.

Imagine the example they could set for everyone, especially other politicos, if the commission appointed a woman who has, basically, railed against all of them and especially Mama Maroño, a long suspected boletera whose son is serving three and a half for public corruption, who she ran unsuccessfully against in 2013, gaining only 28% of the vote.

The message would say “We are bigger than that. We are above this petty crap.”

And also: “We are in charge.”

Is that just wishful thinking? Because Centeno is a half bulldog, half chihuahua (like me) and she has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, which is not good if you want to be in office.

Obviously, Maroño is going to balk. We should expect Lopez to complain also. Something about Centeno being “rejected” at the polls. Just watch. Even though only 100 or so fewer people voted against Lopez himself when you add Centeno’s votes to ballots cast for mayoral candidate Douglas Mayorga.

And I hear that even Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz, who endorsed Jose Diaz and his slate, has issues with her. Even Diaz, who endorsed her at the 11th hour after his candidacy was invalidated, might have done so reluctantly because of her attacks on anybody tied with the former administration. She might be too independent to be a solid sixth vote.

But she would also bring diversity and a breath of fresh air to a stale government — two of the commissioners reelected Tuesday have been there for decades and all of them are Cuban-American — and an air of transparency and openness at a time when the city is under multiple investigations and the FBI is practically parked at the corner.

And what better way could there be for Diaz and his pals to show their muscle?

Jose Diaz, Orlando Lopez, Sweetwater politics

Sweetwater election fallout creates anti mayor majority added by Ladra on May 15, 2015
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