The new August issue of the PBA’s Heat newspaper — published by the Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association 
— takes aim at an old target right out front and center. On the cover is Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez, primping in the mirror as he “readies for the budget.”
Looking back at him is his face — with a growing, Pinocchio-like nose that pokes out of the looking glass.
“That picture says more than 1,000 words,” PBA President John Rivera told Ladra. “We need to be clear.
“He’s proven to be less than truthful, especially about the police force and how short we are. He’s been telling the media. He’s talking about numbers that were pre-incorporation but the last incorporation was not Miami Gardens in 2003 but Cutler ay in 2005 and from then to now, he has depleted the police department some 500 members. “
Rivera also brought up the health insurance trust, an additional 5% taken from employees for several years — returned to them by the commission last year — for a health insurance pool that he and the budget director later admitted were just going to the general fund.
Rivera has long called Gimenez a liar. And in the August issue of Heat, the president’s message casts doubt on the mayor’s rosy colored budget announcement.
“These days, I sort of look forward to hearing of yet another county blunder,” Rivera writes . “From not knowing what fleet of vehicles they have… to co-mingling of funds from the special taxing districts and, quite frankly, everything else in between. These are the issues that have been spoken about.
Read related story: Carlos Gimenez admits overcharging special districts — ‘So sorry’
“How many other mistakes have been swept under the rug?”
The PBA has long had a tenacious relationship with Gimenez, dating back to before Ladra.
A couple of months ago, Rivera went under fire for comments he had made on a Spanish-language TV show — hosted by none other than School Board Member and 2016 mayoral candidate Raquel Regalado — about the body cameras to be mounted on police officers. He said that Gimenez was doing it to placate the black community, which he is.
Sure, it’s a good idea. But Gimenez also knows that this will help him with the black vote in 2016. That’s why he is pushing so hard for it now. Body cams and Liberty Square Rising are his attempts to get the black vote behind him.
In his president’s message, Rivera talks about a protest that was staged in front of the PBA after he made those comments about the body cams. He said the protesters were summoned and paid by the Gimenez campaign.
“The group’s leader was shouting ‘Apologize John!’ They were supposedly upset over my exposing Gimenez’s weak attempt to win over people with the body worn cameras. The thing is that I was on Spanish TV with mayoral candidate Raquel Regalado and not a single protester knew the language. Nor did they know the name of the show I was on or the channel it was on,” Rivera wrote in the August Heat.
He also published a photo of himself delivering water and boxes of Papa John’s Pizza to the protesters.
Ladra wonders if he’ll have to buy Domino’s or Pizza Hut this week for any protesters who don’t like the Pinocchio cartoon.
PBA paints Carlos Gimenez as ‘Pinocchio style’ liar added by Ladra on
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