Controversial use of security guards under fire
The election is over, but Coral Gables residents still got a scary,
campaign-style flyer in their mailboxes this week that questions the city’s decision to hire security guards to fill the gap of police shortages in the City Beautiful.
“Public safety alert! Your families safety is at stake,” is says on one side, over a 
photo of three heavilly-armed SWAT-like police officers in front of the Village of Merrick Park, where a gunman killed two people and then himself last month.
“With a rise in crime, we can’t afford any mistakes,” it says, adding that $610,000 “of our tax dollars are being wasted on security guards. Instead of hiring certified police officers to fill the highest vacancy level that our police force has ever seen.”
It then tells residents to call the mayor and commissioners “and tell them to protect our families,” listing their numbers at City Hall.
Read related story: City uses legal muscle to gag Coral Gables activist
Coral Gables has 22 or 23 official vacancies, but because of officers who are on military duty or on injured leave or
special details, the city is really short more than 30 patrol officers. And this drain has been going on for years. Many people in the city and in the department blame Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez, the director of public safety, who acts como si fuera el police chief and who changed the qualifications for hiring at the city, making it much harder for candidates. Nobody who wants to be a Coral Gables Police officer must be 21, have a bachelor’s degree and can have no more than five traffic tickets in a lifetime, for example. No more than three in the past five years.
The city has repeatedly defended itself by saying that the Gables is holding out for a better caliber officer. But that’s what they also said last year around this time, when there were 17 vacancies and 11 new hires on the horizon. A year later there are at least five more vacancies.
They’ve got to change tactics before they’re down to zero.
The mailers that began to arrive Thursday were paid for by a political action committee called Citizens for a Safe Coral Gables, which is curiously not listed in state or city records. It’s address is a suite (P.O. Box?) across from City Hall.
Oh, and Ladra is pretty sure the three police officers in the picture are city of Miami or county cops who also responded to the Village of Merrick Park scene.
Beause there aren’t enough police officers in Coral Gables.
Coral Gables residents get mail questioning their safety added by Ladra on
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