The showdown that some people thought was gonna happen two weeks ago in Coral Gables City Hall over the city manager’s handling of the police chief may come Tuesday when commissioners finally talk about the strange structure that has an assistant city manager act as the de facto head of the police department.
Well, wait a minute. Nevermind. It might not happen at all.
Seems that the original item to discuss
the administrative structure — which has been fueling if not directly responsible for serious issues from vacancies to morale — has been changed at the last minute. Now the mayor wants to discuss “constructive talks underway between the city Manager’s Office and Police Chief.”
Oh, really? You don’t say.
Maybe Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli is satisfied that the Fraternal Order of Police is now going to choose the investigative agency or investigator who looks into the “anonymous complaint” (read: trash job) against Chief Ed Hudak for dropping by, after being invited, to a pool party thrown for female officers. But this consolation prize is not enough.
The Coral Gables FOP is only getting this opportunity to find a truly independent investigator — and they’re going to suggest three options they are okay with — only after it was revealed right here on Political Cortadito that City Manager Cathy Swanson Rivenbark had tried to manipulate an investigation by the same agency once before. Emails obtained by Ladra show that Swanson tried to whitewash a background investigation that was done before the hiring of Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez, who s 
also the “director of public safety.” She asked the investigator to ignore and not seek any information from the Broward PBA because it would shed some negative light on Fernandez, who she apparently had already decided she was going to hire no matter what. What it means is that she wanted the information that she already knew existed off the reports that commissioners would get.
Wait a minute. Again? Isn’t this the kind of thing that did former City Manager Pat Salerno in? And how can anyone know when the city manager is telling the truth? Ladra would suggest you can’t. Swanson cannot be trusted. This is not the only reason why.
She already orchestrated a massive cover up when she put Maj. Teresa Molina on paid leave until she retired after the police officer was caught spying on citizens and electeds during a commission meeting, taking cellphone pics of text messages over Maria Cruz‘s shoulder. Everybody knows that Molina was doing this for someone, not for her own health and pleasure, but there was never an investigation into that and, instead, the major was given what amounts to a paid vacation for her silence.
She then paid a $50,000 penalty fee to suspend a study in progress that the city commission had requested on the impact of recent and proposed development on the U.S.1 corridor, She did this on her own without seeking the commission’s approval.
She’s hired a number of cronies, some with six figure salaries for positions that didn’t exist before she got to the City Beautiful (more on that later).
And Ladra will bet that she knows more than she lets on about the “anonymous complaint,” which was really a planted precursor 
meant to trigger an unnecessary investigation meant to provide the city manager with fodder to fire the chief. When that didn’t pan out, after her independent inquiry cleared Hudak of any wrongdoing, the city manager stretched and misconstrued the investigator’s words to issue an obviously gratuitous and retaliatory reprimand — more than 10 years in the making — which she was forced to rescind two weeks later.
If not then why go to such extents to keep the investigation into the “anonymous complaint” from happening?
Swanson is a good actress and she is also a good producer. At the last meeting, a citizen who spoke seemingly spontaneously and of his own accord about not needing an independent investigation into the “anonymous complaint” — and, indeed, trying to discourage the city from pursuing it — seems to have done so at her request.
Emails obtained by Cruz show that attorney Terence Connor — who also, by the way, gave Commissioner Pat Keon $100 in her last election — may have gotten a call from someone in the city administration inviting him to come to the meeting.
The attorney had previously written an email to Keon in November saying that it would be inappropriate to end the investigation that was started by the “anonymous complaint” midstream. That email was apparently forwarded to Swanson, who then forwarded it to Raquel Elejabarrieta with one line from her. “You should drop him a note.” The email was sent at 10:18 p.m. the night of April 24 — after residents showed up at City Hall to support Hudak and, in many cases, trash her.
Hmmm. You should drop him a note.
Valdes-Fauli and other commissioners — and Ladra mean Vince Lago, because we know Mike Mena is a useless empty suit who won’t do anything — should ask Swanson what did she mean by that?
They should also instruct her to go back to the administrative structure that existed before she came to the city, where the police chief is the police chief and reports to the city manager and police officers don’t feel like they have two different bosses. Hudak needs to be able to be chief and control the department and be listed as the head of the agency at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, especially Internal Affairs, where Fernandez hired someone against the chief’s will.
And Fernandez should go with Swanson — they seem to be a package deal — and the city should look for a new city manager they can trust.
And maybe they need to add the Terence Connor emails to the scope of the investigation of the “anonymous complaint.” Ladra would seek his phone records.
Coral Gables leaders to discuss police structure; or will it be more theater? added by Ladra on
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