Two Hialeah council races head to runoffs, could swing power one way

Hialeah Councilman Carl Zogby, the former police department spokesman, won re-election outright in a three-way Group 5 race Tuesday, with 57% of the vote. Mayra Jimenez got 27% and Salvador Blanco got 16%.

But the other two council races, the open seats which had five and six candidates vying, are headed into a runoff after nobody got 50% plus one by the end of the Election Day Nov. 2. And in less than two weeks, the city will have two more fresh, new council members that, depending on who wins, could tilt power one way or another.

Will it still be a Seguro Que Yes Council for the new mayor, Esteban Bovo? Or will these two join the other new, independent members added in 2019 to the council, and shake things up a little?

In Group 6, Angelica Pacheco — a registered nurse and owner of a drug rehabilitation center who ran in 2019 and lost to Councilman Jesus Tundidor — got 29% of the vote and Florida International University law student Bryan Calvo got 28%. There were 246 votes between them.

Eddie Santiesteban came in a close third with 26.5%, even though he spent about twice as much as the top two with $76,000 as of Oct. 28, the cutoff date for the last financial reporting period. Calvo spent $38,500 and Pacheco spent $32,300, according to their campaign finance reports.

At least Pacheco is getting some contributions this time around. Two years ago, she totally self funded, loaning her campaign $51,000 at the beginning of the campaign. After she lost the race, she reimbursed herself $4,355, which means she threw $46,645 down the campaign drain.

Any normal person would be discouraged from doing this again. But Pacheco has lent herself almost $19,000 more this year, according to the campaign finance reports on the city of Hialeah’s website, which still does it the old one-by-one way so that you can’t see the candidates next to each other like everywhere else. That’s not unintentional

So, the total that Pacheco has invested so far in her attempt to join the Hialeah council is at least $65,650 over both election cycles.

The rehab business must be good.

But one also has to wonder if any of that money is from the four different Paycheck Protection Program loans that Pacheco and her husband, Daniel Pacheco, got from the CARES Act during the COVID-19 pandemic for more than half a million dollars. That’s right, a total of $558,714 in federal forgivable loans for four businesses, according to the ProPublica tracking site?

$110,300 to Farm Stores Hialeah 1104 Corp. for 9 employees
$322,652 to Florida Life Recovery and Rehabilitation for 8 employees
$104,962 to A&G Group Services Corp. for 8 employees
$20,800 to Mindfreak Tattoos, Inc. for 1 employee

All of these businesses, by the way, are inactive, according to the Florida Division of Corporations. The tattoo shop closed two months after getting the loan. A&G Group Services is located at the same address as the Farm Stores.

Maybe that’s why those two businesses, the Farm Stores and A&G, made $500 contributions each to Pacheco’s campaign.

The candidate’s husband also contributed $500 to the campaign. But he can afford it. He got $25,500 in PPP loans as an independent boat broker.

Approved by Congress last year to help struggling businesses survive the pandemic and save jobs, the $650 billion Small Business Administration program has helped thousands of companies stay afloat and keep workers on the payroll with forgivable PPP loans. But it has also been abused and cases of fraud are beginning to come up. This week, the former president of the Broward County Democratic Black Caucus pled guilty to defrauding the government by lying about having 18 employees to get $300,000 in PPP loans.

Ladra is not saying that the same thing happened here, of course. But still.

In Group 7, Luis Rodriguez, district manager at Advance Auto Parts, got 42% of the vote and will face off against Maylin Villalonga, who got 20%. Activist candidate Milly Herrera got 18% but lost for the second time.

Rodriguez spent $70,500 of the $98,500 in his campaign account by Oct. 28. So he’s got some leftover to fight Villalonga, who has spent almost her whole $3,000 nut. How did she get into the runoff with $3,000?

And why are all the pictures of her on her website taken on a beach? Where is Hialeah’s beach?

Slates are standard in Hialeah and, this year, there was the “patriot ticket.” But Villalonga is the only one on it who got to round 2. The others on the slate were mayoral candidate Fernando Godo, Ramiro Collazo-More in Group 6 and Jimenez against Zogby.

Luis Rodriguez was likely on Bovo’s slate because they share the same campaign consultant, David Custin.

Custin also worked on the campaign for Santiesteban, but he lost Tuesday so Bovo will have to pick from one of these two if he wants to be effective. Las malas lenguas say he has already picked Pacheco.

Bovo did not return calls and a text to his phone. He has previously told Ladra to write whatever she wants.

Esteban Bovo, Hialeah Elections, Jesus Tundidor

Two Hialeah council races head to runoffs, could swing power one way added by Ladra on November 4, 2021
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