Hey, President Obama: We don’t want your stinkin’ Cuban consulate here. Okay? Let the spies go to Tampa or Key West.
That’s what Miami-Dade Commissioners told the leader of the free 
world last week when they voted to approve a resolution that urges the federal government to seek another location for a consular office to celebrate the renewed relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
The measure was sponsored by Commissioner Esteban Bovo, the son of a former political prisoner and Bay of Pigs veteran, who also sponsored the ordinance to prohibit the county from doing business with businesses that do commerce in Cuba, which was deemed unconstitutional.
It was inevitable that Bovo got the other Cuban Americans on board.
“With something like this, we have to be so sensitive to the people we represent,” said Commissioner Rebeca Sosa, comparing the plight of Cuban Americans to the civil rights movement.
“For the black people who suffered years of discrimination, the Mississippi burning was the other day.”
But Bovo also got some of the commissioners who don’t agree with him to vote with him anyway. Out of respect. Or fear of riots. Or both.
Commissioner Audrey Edmonson said she didn’t want to antagonize the exile community.
“I’ve always felt that if something would create friction or unrest or make a certain ethnic group of the community feel uncomfortable, then we should take that into consideration and be sensitive to the needs of all,” Edmonson said.
“I don’t care if you are Cuban, if you are somewhere from South America. If it makes this group uncomfortable, if it’s going to cause unrest in this community, I don’t want to see it happen.”
Commissioner Juan Zapata, a Colombian-American, offered an amendment — a line that reads “until there is democracy in Cuba” — because he doesn’t want to miss out on that consulate office in the future and lose the flights that Miami International Airport is serving to Cuba.
“I would hate to see us not doing it, ad then Broward does it and then people start flying out of Fort Lauderdale airport,” he said.
Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz — who said his family got out of Cuba “in the nick of time” or his father would have been executed — agreed with the addition.
“Eventually, yes, change will take place… then I can understand fully and I don’t think there would be a better place to have it than right here,” Diaz said.
Commissioner Dennis Moss voted with the Cubans, even though he took issue with comments Bovo had made about Obama being closer to the Castros than he was to his people.
But Commissioners Barbara Jordan, Daniella Levine Cava and Xavier Suarez (como?) voted against. Jordan cited how Mandela had once deemed that the white rugby team, not the black team, would represent South Africa in national games. “Because you have to build from somewhere… you don’t get change by closing things. You get change from opening things up.
“I can understand the pain you have because of the pain I had with South Africa and apartheid,” Jordan continued, clueless to the multiple political prisoners that are sitting in Castro’s jails right now. “What Nelson Mandela did was pull the community together. To me, I cannot support this because to me we are missing an opportunity to pull the community together.”
Bovo reminded her that there are still political prisoners who are held and beaten for the things they say and the way they think.
“There is a Nelson Mandela in Cuba. 
Coco Farinas, Oscar Elias Biscet. There are many Nelson Mandelas in Cuba and the way the Cuban government deals with them is the exact same way the South African government dealt with Nelson Mandela,” Bovo said.
He said he didn’t agree with Obama’s policy of negotiating with the Cuban regime and was against the trading of three convicted Cuban spies — “spies that were corroborating to murder Americans” — in exchange for Alan Gross, who was jailed in Cuba when he tried to bring laptops to the Jewish community.
People like to say that the embargo hasn’t worked for more than 50 years and that is why it is time for change. But the Cuban spies who conspired against us and were tried for the murder of four Brothers to the Rescue pilots were not working undercover in our organizations and on our military bases 50 years ago. It was less than 20 years ago.
“I know we are very concerned because its so chic and cool right now to say we are going to invest in Cuba,” Bovo said, assuring his colleagues that when the time came, Miami would be the eventual location for a consular office for a free and democratic Cuba.
“They could open a consulate in Tallahassee or in New Orleans. They could open it wherever the hell they want. Sooner or later they are going to open it in Miami. Because we are bound. Economic opportunities are going to come,” the commissioner said.
“But think for a second. A Cuban consulate opens tomorrow in Miami and the county police department is in charge with providing security for the facility. The same community that has been beaten and had to flee that country and is now paying taxes in this country has to foot the bill for spies to be safe in this country.”
County commission says adios to local Cuban consulate added by Ladra on
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