Carlos Hernandez uses Cuban seminar excuse to wage war on ethics board

In a sick plot twist worthy of M. Night Shyamalan, Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez flipped the script on the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust Tuesday and announced that his city had been investigating the agency’s possible expenditure of public taxpayer dollars on a seminar this past March about doing business in and with Cuba.

“I am concerned because this is my government,” Hernandez, who is Cuban-American, told the county commission in an unannounced visit to the county commission meeting. “This is what our tax dollars pay for? Are we going to do business with Cuba?”

While it is three weeks before his city’s election, it doesn’t seem like a campaign trick… Even though he showed up at the county commission meeting with his campaign consultant. Yes, this will play well with Hialeah’s stock voter, which is the 65 and over Cuban American. But Hernandez has really only a token challenge. Ladra doesn’t think he’s sweating it.

More likely, and even though he may genuinely be offended, the Cuba seminar is just an excuse and this is part of his war on the Ethics Commission. Hernandez, who has been the subject of quite a few investigations, has blasted the Ethics Commission on a regular basis, claiming that it has overstepped its authority and paying a $4,000 fine — levied for having lied, twice, on his loansharking activities (but not on the loansharking activities themselves, of course) — in buckets filled with pennies and nickles.

Ladra doesn’t really know what his beef is. He’s gotten away with, well not murder but loansharking at the very least and a bunch of other ethical lapses. It’s not like the Ethics Commission has come down very hard on him — and, boy, have they had the opportunity. Sure, there was that fine. But they had to do something. Ethics Commission Director Joe Centorino will confirm that Ladra has, more than once, become frustrated with his excuses and told him he was being too soft on the Hialeah hoodlums and turning the other cheek to way too many shenanigans: Absentee ballot fraud through the Hialeah Housing Authority, pancake breakfast campaign events paid by city funds, retaliation against city employees for political reasons, sending paid goons to harass candidates who challenge him or any of his Seguro Que Yes City Council, using the police department as his own little security force to harass and silence critics (and follow bloggers and illegally trespass them from public meetings), campaign checks to pay credit cards without itemizing the charges, diverting federal dollars for needy children to give his goons the political payback of a publicly paid Las Vegas vacation, doling out departments to his cronies (and at least one side hoe), violating the Sunshine Law on the regular and I’m sure I forgot something.

Now, he’s using city resources for his personal vendetta against the Ethics Commission.

Hernandez is a walking, talking ethics violation. So, por supuesto, he suggested the Commission be defunded and dissolved.

“This is an agency that hasn’t been checked for some time… a department that’s costing taxpayers more than $2 million,” Hernandez said, suggesting the money be diverted instead to the State Attorney’s Office or the FBI — two other agencies that have also been soft on him (some political observers speculate that Hernandez is an informant because he gets away with so much).

And while I uncomfortably agree with him (just this once) on the fact that public tax dollars should not be spent on promoting business with a murderous dictatorship that has caused this community so much pain — even if it is just in staff time for planning and manning the event — I don’t agree with dismantling the agency for it. Because while the Ethics Commission is certainly not as aggressive as I would like, it’s better than nada. Especially since Hernandez’s pal, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, dismantled the Miami-Dade Police department’s public corruption unit in 2014. At least it brings these transgressions to light. And whatever county time and dime went to planning the Cuba seminar — as wasteful and disrespectful as using my Cuban parents’ tax dollars for that may be — its probably a tiny fraction of the funds stolen and wasted by electeds at the county and several of our municipalities.

And, really, Ladra swears this Cuba thing is just perfect political cover. He’s been salivating after Centorino for a while.

Unfortunately, however, it looks like our county commissioners, some of whom have also been stung by the agency — most recently about their VIP escorts to and from flights at MIA — are willing to entertain Hernandez and consider removing this thorn in their side. Commissioner Rebeca Sosa already threatened to remove funding in March after she and some colleagues were chided for the VIP escorts to the airport. On Tuesday, Chairman Esteban “Steve” Bovo, a former Hialeah councilman whose district includes most of the City of Retrogress — and who has tried to get the county to pass a ban on contracting firms that also do work with partners in Cuba — asked county lawyers to bring the commission a report on the ethic board’s mission at a future meeting. He also wants a reponse from Centorino about the public funds for the Cuba seminar, one of multiple conference events the Ethics Commission hosts with participation from local electeds, lobbyists and government people.

“We will be looking into this,” Bovo said.

Might Ladra advocate for the opposite? Created in 1996, the Commission on Ethics and Public Trust has outgrown its original parameters as the corruption in Miami-Dade has gotten more creative and, dare I say, rampant. Perhaps it is time the agency evolved and got more funding with an independent, dedicated millage all its own like the libraries have. Yes, I went there. While taxpayers may be loathe to raise taxes for Gimenez and the county commissioners — because they give so much of it away to their bffs — they might be willing to separate the $2 million from the general budget they can redirect elsewhere, maybe even increase the funding and create a real Ethics Commission with teeth that can and will watch our electeds more closely since they aren’t tied to their purse strings.

How can we do that? Anyone? We can’t let Hernandez win this war.

Carlos Hernandez, Ethics Commission, Hialeah politics, U.S.-Cuba

Carlos Hernandez uses Cuban seminar excuse to wage war on ethics board added by Ladra on October 18, 2017
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