New Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo ditches police chief Sergio Velazquez

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Newly-elected Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo replaced Police Chief Sergio Velazquez Monday, but it reportedly had nothing to do with the dressing down of a sergeant at his swearing-in ceremony last week.

Bovo relieved Velazquez of duty and named George Fuente the interim chief as he starts a national search for a new permanent top cop. The 24-year-veteran was No. 2 in the department and it is “protocol” for him to assume the job, the mayor explained.

But Fuente, who is also husband of outgoing Councilwoman Katherine Cue-Fuente, doesn’t necessarily have the job permanently.

Read related: Whistleblower Hialeah cop get stripped down at mayoral swearing-in

Bovo, who also made newly re-elected Councilman Carl Zogby the counci president on Tuesday, doesn’t talk to Ladra. He’s still mad about calling his Hialeah district county office a boletero central after his staffer was caught with dozens of absentee ballots in the trunk of her car. But he told other reporters that the police chief is the most important position in the city and it was among his first priorities.

“Every mayor has the right to name his own police chief,” Bovo said to a TV reporter. He said it had nothing to do with the stripping of Sgt. Marvin Alvarez down to his camiseta in the middle of the street Friday. It had nothing to do with Velazquez defending and promoting former Officrer Jesus Menocal while the FBI was investigating him for serial sexual assault. It had nothing to do with suspicions that he set someone’s truck o fire.

“I don’t have a negative comment about him,” he told the cameras. “On the contrary, I congratulated him on a job well done.”

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But that doesn’t explain why he just didn’t leave Velazquez in the job until the chief retired later this year. Why ditch him now if you’re going to do a regional or national search for a new chief? Why have an interim at all?

Las malas lenguas say Bovo wants to avoid any controversy that he knows is going to happen with Velazquez in charge. But is Velazquez getting paid his $211,000-a-year salary to sit at home? For how long? The city spokesman told the Miami Herald Velazquez was on leave without pay. But other media outlets, including Channel 7, said Velazquez was on leave with pay.

It’s hard to believe he’d go quietly if not.

The mayor says he wants to form a panel of advisors to help him find a new police chief and also analyze the police department to make recommendations. Former Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina was named as a possible member of that panel.

Bovo said they don’t what a repeat of what happened in Miami where the process was interrupted by the hiring of Art Acevedo, who was forced to resign only six months after he was brought on in April.

“We learned a lot from what happened in the city of Miami. If we’re going to have a process, we will see that process to the end.”

Read related: Miami commission votes to oust embattled police chief Art Acevedo

Bovo says he could have brought someone else as interim, but Fuente knows the community. Las malas lenguas in Hialeah call Fuente a “gentleman” cop, a “good guy” and “courteous.”

But some in the rank and file are unhappy and say that Fuente was part of the command staff that tolerated everything Velazquez did.

  Esteban Bovo, Sergio Velazquez