Of all the Florida constitutional amendments on the ballot — and there are 13 of them — Miami-Dade voters should be the most excited about Amendment 10, which gives us the chance to have an elected sheriff and tax collector and supervisor of elections.
And maybe end the series of abuses of power 
by a mayor who thinks he is all of these things.
That’s exactly the type of tyrannical dictatorship that Ladra’s parents fled when they left Cuba, a government without checks and balances where the leader appoints everyone and did whatever he wanted because he was the big boss of everybody.
Don’t think this is an exaggeration.
Read related: Carlos Gimenez abuses power in election interference for lobbyist son
It was less than two months ago that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez actually declared 
himself supervisor of elections — saying he only gives Christina White permission to act in the role for him — so that he could give his lobbyist son a week’s extension to write language for a ballot question. If that’s not an abuse of power Ladra doesn’t know what is.
And maybe he wouldn’t need or be able to justify his $100,000 raise if he wasn’t trying to do everybody’s job.
“I’m the supervisor of elections,” was his direct and arrogant quote to the Miami Herald, almost incredulous that anyone would even raise an eyebrow. “I delegate that power to Christina White.”
He delegates that power? Are you kidding me? That power should not be delegated and then taken away whenever the mayor gets a political whim.
If we had an elected Supervisor of Elections, that definitely wouldn’t have happened. If the mayor had called on a Sunday morning to see if an elected supervisor of elections could change her mind about a deadline she told another mayor was hard and fast, an elected SOE could have sent him to hell in a hand basket or somewhere less polite.
It also might have been more difficult for Gimenez to swoop in after hours, just before 11 p.m. on the eve of qualifying in the 2016 election with a replacement check — because the first one was invalid. An elected SOE would likely tell him to come by in the morning, like everyone else.
Read related: Carlos Gimenez submits late night campaign check
The measure on the ballot would make the five local constitutional offices — sheriff, tax collector, supervisor of elections, clerk of the court and property appraiser — mandatory and require elections for the offices in all 67 counties. It would also prohibit charter counties who opted out of these elected seats, like Miami-Dade, from abolishing or modifying those offices.
We already have an elected property appraiser and an elected clerk of courts. And if we need an elected clerk of freaking courts we certainly need an elected sheriff, who would have independence to run police operations without political interference — and investigate whatever elected official needs investigating.
If we had an elected sheriff, then Gimenez wouldn’t
have any authority over the police chief. Everybody knows Police Director Juan Perez (in the photo, right) doesn’t take a pee without asking Gimenez for permission. And the mayor wouldn’t have been able to completely eliminate the public corruption unit in 2014, after they found absentee ballot fraud in his Hialeah campaign.
Maybe if we had an elected sheriff, he wouldn’t have gotten away with the AB fraud to begin with.
An elected sheriff who did not have to answer to the mayor could more easily investigate corruption without fear that his or her boss would fire him. Because his or her boss would be us, not the mayor. These positions are too important to be handled just like department heads that can be hired and fired by the mayor, who could use such power to do, well, whatever he wants.
Why do you think the county sued to get this amendment off the ballot? Because Gimenez doesn’t want to lose that kind of power. Luckily, the Florida Supreme Court saw right through 
his agenda and refused to take the question off the ballot.
There were also challenges because of four linked items on what some call a clustered amendment. One would move up the state’s legislative session to January rather than March in even-numbered years. Another that would create a counter-terrorism office. And a third would make the existing state veterans affairs department constitutionally required.
All these are good things. But none are as good as having an independent elected sheriff in Miami-Dade. There is a reason why all other 66 counties all have an elected sheriff. Why do we think we’re so special? Because Miami-Dade is so morally superior? Riiiiiight!
It is true that Miami-Dade voters themselves did away with the sheriff’s office decades ago. But look at what’s happened! We have a mayor who eliminated the public corruption unit after they found AB fraud in his campaign! It wasn’t a good idea and we have a chance to fix it and we may not have another chance to fix it for another 20 years.
These should be independently elected offices accountable to the people. And if there is one place that ought to have an elected sheriff, it is right here.
Vote yes on Amendment 10.
Elected Miami-Dade sheriff, SOE could curb mayor’s abuse of power added by Ladra on
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