Meanwhile, partisan politics creep into county office
Have you been arrested and actually gone to prison for mortgage fraud? Have you been caught drinking and driving on the job, or cheating taxpayers by running errands on the public dime? No problem! You can apply for a job at the Miami-Dade Elections Department. They won’t care.
Four months after newly-elected Elections Supervisor Alina Garcia took office in November, she hired a new executive secretary: Jenny Nillo, who was fired from the city of Miami Omni Community Redevelopment Agency after she was caught driving a city car to run private errands for former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, the CRA chairman at the time, and stopping for cans of beer along the way. How she was not arrested for drinking and driving is a mystery.
But whatever. That’s in the past, Garcia said. So, apparently, is Nillo’s 2017 arrest for mortgage fraud and subsequent conviction and sentence of 36 months.
Garcia did not return calls and texts from Ladra. But she gave a statement to the Herald that said Nillo “has performed her responsibilities with excellence, integrity, and unwavering commitment.”
She really laid it on thick, calling Nillo “a dedicated professional and valued member of our team who has paid her dues to society and has demonstrated through her actions and work ethic that she is an outstanding individual fully committed to public service.
“Ms. Nillo is also a widow who, since the passing of her husband in 2017, has been the sole provider for her family — supporting both her 80-year-old mother and her 19-year-old son,” Garcia said. “Her strength, resilience, and professionalism reflect the values we uphold in our office.”
Really? What about her theft of taxpayer dollars and blatant disregard for the law or even common decency? Does that reflect the values you uphold in your office? Which, by the way, is really our office.
At least now, if Nillo works on a campaign during her work hours — like she did when Renier Diaz de la Portilla ran for county commission — she is still technically working in “elections.”
Read related: Jenny Nillo campaigned for Renier Diaz de la Portilla while on the public job
Nillo is making $45,000 a year, according to Tess Riski, who reported the scoop in The Miami Herald. That’s what she started at when ADLP forced her on the city’s Omni CRA in 2020 as a community liaison. She was making $53,000 when she was fired the next year after Florida Department of Law Enforcement Officers observed her drinking and driving and stopped her so she wouldn’t hurt anybody. But she was only fired from the CRA. Diaz de la Portilla hired her back to his district office, and she worked in the city even after his 2023 arrest in September on charges of bribery and money laundering, which were dropped last year.
Strangely enough, Ladra expected Nillo to be working with the ADLP campaign for Miami mayor. She has worked on all the Diaz de la Portilla campaigns for decades. And when Ladra asked the former commissioner, via text, if she would be joining him at City Hall should he be elected, he said she would. “Are you going to take Jenny with to the mayor’s office with you,” was the question. “Yes. Part of my team,” Diaz de la Portilla said Friday morning.
After reading about her new job, which the Herald reported started March 3, Ladra texted him again on Saturday. “I thought you said Jenny was part of your team.” His answer: “She is.”
That’s concerning because the Miami-Dade Elections Department is the one that is going to tally the votes for the city elections on Nov. 4. There should not be part of anyone’s “team” working there.
But then we have Garcia, a longtime Republican operative who is going to have a very difficult time putting her job before her party. It seems like she is still campaigning from her social media feed, going to events all over the county, mostly with other Republican officials. She was there last week to celebrate the swearing-in of interim Hialeah Mayor Jacqueline Garcia Roves, along with Hialeah’s former mayor and former Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban “Steve” Bovo and Miami-Dade Commissioner and former state Senator Rene Garcia, who is allegedly running for mayor in the City of Progress, as well as a State Rep. Alex Rizo and a bunch of other electeds.
This is an election year in Hialeah, by the way. How is she going to remain objective? Ladra would be concerned if she was former Council Member Bryan Calvo. Looks like Calvo, who is also running for mayor, was left out of the group shot.
Read related: Meet our new Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia and her storied past
It’s kinda strange to see Garcia, the head of our county election, hobnobbing with electeds — mostly Republicans — in Tallahassee 
and at local events. It’s kinda strange to see her celebrating Women’s Month with the Republican Party of Miami Dade County, which had invited special guest, former Alaska Governor and one time VP candidate Sarah Palin. It’s kinda weird to see our elections chief in Washington D.C. at an inauguration ball for a president who still insists, to this day, that he won the 2020 election.
Garcia’s social media feeds look like she is still campaigning – and using election events to do so.
In February, members of the Republican Party of Miami-Dade toured the Doral office, where Chief Executive Officer Christina White discussed voter registration, vote-by-mail ballots, and the procedures involved in managing a county-wide election, while Garcia stood near the back of the room with Kevin J. Cooper, the newly elected Chairman of the Miami-Dade Republican Party, like they were conspiring or something.
Ladra has not seen photos posted of a tour for the Miami-Dade Democratic Party.
This Jenny Nillo hire has to be a favor for somebody, right? Because a fair, competitive process in this economy would have drawn better candidates, for sure. But Nillo is a DLP loyalist lackey, a member of “my team,” as he says. And Garcia is self-proclaimed “Joe Carollo girl.” She worked with the Miami commissioner before she ran for the state senate before she ran for elections chief. Carollo and Diaz de la Portilla are both allegedly running for mayor of Miami against each other in another election this year that Garcia will oversee.
So, this favor of a hire only makes sense if what las malas lenguas say is true about a deal struck by Carollo and Diaz de la Portilla, for the latter to switch to the county commission District 5 race if, indeed, Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins runs for mayor, after all.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla is investigated on ghost city employee at Omni CRA
That’s one hypothesis, anyway.
Meanwhile, Ladra has some questions.
Does this mean Nillo, who worked at the county a long time ago, gets a third public pension?
Will she get to handle ballots in the Miami election?
What’s in the green gift bags that the Republican Party guests got at the tour?
Who is Garcia going to hire next? Perhaps former Florida Sen. Frank Artiles, who she also used to work for?
Artiles is appealing his November conviction and sentence — 60 days in jail and five years probation — in an election conspiracy case after orchestrating the sham candidate that thwarted the 2020 state senate race in District 37, tilting it for Republican Ileana Garcia and against Democrat incumbent Jose Javier Rodriguez.
So, he has election experience.
Miami-Dade elections supervisor hires no-show Miami employee Jenny Nillo added by Ladra on
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The Dems were offered to have a tour just like the REC and they refused.
When an entire culture is based upon lying, then passed on to each generation to come, telling the truth becomes a very uncomfortable thing to do ! The culture of liars views lying as the smart option and truth telling is seen as something for fools. The truth may even be impossible for these people to understand or speak to others. Truth becomes their burden while lying makes them feel free, that is until lockup !
Alina be sure to join the Ladra lawsuit that Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago filed against Political Cortadito! SueUsoon!
” Great article Elaine!
And this is just the beginning of the Republican take over of Dade county politics and government. Once DLC is gone, the rest is easy.”
Well this is what most voters here want and the rest remain politically apathetic incapable of voting
So you make peace with it and problem is not real Republicans is that Miami is an assembly line of crooks now MAGA style which are not republicans but a cult who bow / crawl before an insecure compulsive liar
TWO BAD CHOICES !
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava no longer has hiring or anything else to do with the Elections Department. It is now an independent office under an elected constitutional officer, who is now Alina Garcia, with it’s own budget, hiring and firing, and operational authority. Alina Garcia, the newly elected Miami-Dade Supervisor of elections is fully responsible for this nightmare, and YOU elected her, so now we all have to live with the consequences. Elections matter 🤦♀️
For those blaming Levine-Cava, they’re either ignorant or playing ignorant to mislead people. Levine-Cava did not hire Nillo – Alina Garcia did. Garcia was elected by Miami-Dade County’s “illustrious” voters. It’s just a matter of time before the elections department implodes under the weight of nepotism, corruption, and incompetence. This city is a cesspool.
Mayor Daniella Cava needs to take responsibility. Putting scammers and felons on the County payroll is a very bad look. Taxpayers are pissed off.
Alina won because most people don’t trust Democrats to run elections!
Que verguenza! O mejor dicho, que POCA verguenza!
Jenny Nillo. How did she pass any interviews? Last seen drinking while doing a No Show job?
Mayor Cava is looking bad, again.
Great article Elaine!
And this is just the beginning of the Republican take over of Dade county politics and government. Once DLC is gone, the rest is easy.
Ugh. I come back to South Florida after eight years’ absence, and I find it in worse shape than when I left.
That’s what the voters wanted, a political elections supervisor. We used to have a highly professional Elections Department. The voters of Miami-Dade County made it political.
This is what the voters of Florida/Miami Dade deserve. These constitutional officer have only bloated and burdened government in the name of accountability to the voters. These departments were better off under a mayor.
What did you expect from a boletera like Alina? I’m not a partisan hack but imagine you have a highly qualified guy like JC Planas running for supv of elections and this county elects an election denier and former boletera. Miami Dade County has the dumbest voters of any county or state. Vote solely along party lines and you get pure and unadulterated 💩