Miami-Dade School Board Member Raquel Regalado — who in March became the first and, so far, only challenger to incumbent
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Mr. Giveaway” Gimenez — has been calling the mayor out for months on a number of issues.
She sued him on the value adjustment board and the $9 million in public funds going to Skyrise Miami. She wrote an op-ed piece with Commissioner Xavier Suarez asking real hard questions of the mayor’s planned privatization of Vizcaya. She has been front and center on the special taxing districts.
Oh, and let’s not forget last year’s courthouse tax that she helped kill.
Read related story: Raquel Regalado’s message: ‘I can be a better mayor’
On Wednesday, the other side fought back.
No, not the mayor himself, silly people. Gimenez sat back and seethed when Regalado spoke Tuesday at the commission meeting about the lack of transparency and the legal rights of people being trampled with the special taxing districts. On Wednesday, for a face-to-face with Regalado on Roberto Rodriguez-Tejera’s Prohibido Callarse show on Mira TV, he sent his mouthpiece.
Miami-Dade mayoral spokesman Michael Hernandez rebutted Regalado’s criticisms of his boss pretty 
well and stole the show with the one message he was there to deliver — that the budget the mayor will present next week shows $981 million in tax cuts over four years.
That changes the narrative. Ladra bets that is what everyone is talking about on Thursday rather than how the county bilked property owners in some special taxing districts to pay for others. That was Hernandez’s main mission Wednesday.
He was also about diminishing Regalado by telling her how she didn’t understand how things work at County Hall and calling her “Raquelita” in a diminutive way.
He was more than a bit smug.
But he was also effective. Regalado was not at her best, talking too fast like Ladra does (because she knows she has little time to get a lot of information out). And she seemed dumbfounded when Hernandez skewered the truth several times (after all, that’s his job).
He said “we have no evidence of that” when they talked about the special taxing districts co-mingling funds, even though the mayor himself admitted on Tuesday that the county stole from Peter street light fund to pay for Paul’s security guard and other county employees have talked about having pooled money together like a giant escrow account. He said that Jeffrey Berkowitz had never said he would not ask for public funds — but Regalado reminded him that the voters didn’t read that on the ballot language, which was to approve a “privately-funded” project.
Regalado also missed a couple of opportunities to put a little context in the Hernandez spin — and he’s really good at it — and cite the omissions that he was intentionally making.
On the special taxing districts: Hernandez said that only 3% of the 1,068 districts — which pay additional taxes for lighting, security or other neighborhood improvements — would be billed more than an additional $100. Regalado should have asked what percentage of those taxing districts were going to get refunds after a forensic audit finds that hundreds of property owners, if not thousands, paid too much instead of too little.
On the big $981 million tax cut: Regalado should have asked at what expense those tax cuts have come? She should have reminded viewers that more than half the libraries are closed on at least one weekday and that our fire boat was taken out of service. She should have told viewers the debt has grown almost as much, if not more, because the mayor has balanced the budget on the backs of future generations. And she could have reminded them that the budget has also grown in leaps and bounds, due to increased property values and new construction, but that we haven’t seen that reflected in the community as far as services or amenities. In fact, what we have seen, as she could have reminded viewers, are increases in park and garbage and permit fees.
Maybe Rodriguez-Tejera will let Ladra debate Hernandez next time. I volunteer to serve as Regalado’s spokesperson — and I will do it without the $140,000 annual salary, which Ladra guesses now includes being the mayor’s defender against political challengers. Is that in the county communications director’s job description? Wouldn’t we be up in arms if a commissioner’s staffer went up against a challenger on TV?
Hernandez constantly speaks for the mayor in interviews, practically every day. But he is not the mayor. He is not even running for mayor. Not yet, anyway, though everyone knows he has political ambitions of his own. He is simply paid to be there when the mayor cannot — or will not, as in this case.
He told Ladra before the show that he was simply responding to Rodriguez-Tejera’s request to be on the show to answer some of the questions or concerns.
“I’ve known Raquelita for many years so I said sure. It’s not supposed to be a debate,” Hernandez said.
“I am not a candidate nor am I representing a candidate. She is a concerned citizen and I am responding from the administration. That’s all.”
No, she is not just a concerned citizen. She is a real threat to Gimenez and your job is to reduce that threat. That’s why you let go with this campaign-sounding message toward the end: “The mayor is about deeds, experience and respect — and you don’t win the mayor’s office twice with lawsuits against the county,” Hernandez said in a dig to Regalado.
Ladra can’t wait to see more of these non debates.
TV debate: Raquel Regalado vs. Carlos Gimenez mouthpiece added by Ladra on
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