Sound the trumpets and break out the champagne! Our Miami-Dade State 
Attorney announced another public corruption arrest of someone stealing the taxpayers’ dollars, a public official on the take.
But instead of looking into the lobbying connections at County Hall and kickbacks or the half a million in PAC money from Miami Beach vendors and special interests, or the Sunshine Law violations in Hialeah and Doral, our watered-down public corruption squad has nabbed a county parks employee stealing gallons of gas.
Less than $20,000 worth of fuel in all.
After a tip off — it’s not like investigators developed this information on their own, pffft! — they watched Siul Delgado pump gas into tanks and containers in the bed of his county truck and take it home to dispense it to, we assume, friends and family members. Customers, probably. He’s supposed to be driving that gas around to different parks to fill up the tanks on county equipment. Instead, he is selling it.
But hey, he’s learning the friends and family plan from the public officials above him.
Read related story: Miami Beach $500K+ PAC tied to vendors, city contracts
Total cost of this scam: Under $20,000. That’s probably less than the cost of the investigation, which is almost the real crime here. The tip-off came in April. Who knows how many hours of investigation and surveillance it took to make the case. It looks like a smokescreen. Like an easy “A” to score so the public corruption watchdogs can pat themselves on the back and say, “See? We are fighting corruption after all! Look at us! 
Look at how great we are! Working for you!”
And it looks like State Attorney Kathy Fernandez-Rundle only wants to go after the small fish. Today it’s a landscape supervisor. In February, it was a facilities supervisor who filed false sprinkler reports and a nobody candidate with zero chance in the last Miami mayoral election who plead guilty to campaign violations. I’m certain I remember another facilities manager arrested for some piddly little thing last year.
Can’t you see what they’re doing? This makes them look busy so they don’t have to do any of the real work and can turn their eyes the other way with the more hardened public corruptors.
I mean look at how much stuff happened under their nose with former Sweetwater Mayor Manny “Maraña” Maroño before the federal authorities stepped in cuando ya no se aguantaban más.
In fact, just a few hours after the SAO announcements the feds trumped her again with self-absorbed trumpets of their own. After almost five years — five years, people — the U.S. Attorney’s office got guilty pleas Thursday from former Congressional candidate Jose Arrojo and his campaign candidate Jeffrey Garcia (more on that later). This investigation stems from the 2010 District 26 race eventually won by former State Rep. David Rivera, who has always been the alleged target of multiple investigations that never go anywhere.
It’s insane how these investigators and prosecutors spend their time — which, by the way, is on our dime. It almost stinks of corruption in and of itself. At the State Attorney’s office, they would rather question private investigator Joe Carillo a dozen times about his uncovering of absentee ballot fraud than question Sen. Rene Garcia or Hialeah Councilwoman Vivian Casals-Munoz, both of whom went to boletera Deisy Cabrera‘s home with a “pan con bistec” (wink wink) the night after she was released from custody.
The best they can do is former Homestead Mayor Steve Bateman?
But I guess the bread and butter are guys like Delgado, a $34,000-a-year employee who also stole a couple bags of fertilizer.
Read related story: SAO scores campaign plot plea deal with a political nobody
Ladra is not excusing this fuel thief. But I think we can do much better. And the back-patting, self celebrating remarks are uncalled for.
“Individuals who feel that they are entitled to use and steal county property have no place in our county workforce. A public salary never allows anyone to become a public thief,” KFR said in a statement in which both she and Inspector General Mary Cagle beat their chests pretty hard for this paltry arrest.
“We value our continuing partnership with the Miami-Dade Police Department and the State Attorney’s Office. Confidential complaints from honest employees and citizens sent to us enable our agencies to root out those who violate the public’s trust,” Cagle said.
Are you telling me you don’t have any information on the bigger fish? Do you need to have an anonymous tip or a call in from an honest employee or can you just observe the shenanigans yourself? You don’t have to be watching local politics too long or too closely to connect the dots and see and hear about the graft and corruption and kickbacks going around.
The kitchen that was totally renovated using county crews and vendors.
The contributions made to a PAC solely because you are going to vote a certain way at a commission meeting. The jobs for electeds’ kids in exchange for no-bid contracts and insider deals. The absentee ballot scams run out of taxpayer-paid county offices. Questionable campaign expenditures and “reimbursements” for whatever for candidates’ relatives want without so much as a batted eyelash.
That’s what should be investigated. Oh, what Ladra would do with subpoena power. Can you imagine, Kathy? Then do it. Please. Get those phone records, mileage readers and GPS trackers, even bank records. Question witnesses and the many electeds and public employees who know stuff and are willing to talk. They are everywhere. Plant an undercover if you have to.
But get those big fish.
Public corruption watchdogs let the big fish swim free added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
