Sweetwater plaza name veto previews divisive mayoral race

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Sweetwater Mayor Jose Diaz just won’t have it. He says that a Brothers to the Rescue Memorial Plaza on 109th Avenue just across from FIU will not have to share its name with the Nicaraguan poet hero Ruben Dario.

He vetoed last month the commission’s actions to do just that and the veto is expected to survive any override attempt at tonight’s meeting.

But you can bet that won’t be the last of it and that the issue will become favored fodder during the upcoming mayoral election in May, where Diaz is being challenged by Sweetwater Councilman Orlando Lopez, who sponsored the Ruben Dario plaza item.

Lopez told Ladra that he only suggested the west side of 109th Avenue, where a crosswalk from FIU is expected to land in the city, would be named for Dario, to honor a community icon, he said. There were also rumors that it would be called Police Plaza, he heard, and wanted to suggest an alternative before that became a discussion.

“This new site was nowhere on the plans three months ago, Once it was identified, I said let’s try to honor the large amounts of Nicaraguans we have in the city,” Lopez said.

But, he admitted, that what he was talking about was “probably nothing more than a wide sidewalk” with an obelisk and plaque.

Diaz told Ladra that Dario deserves more.

“They both deserve a plaza, not half a plaza. Each one deserves a complete plaza that properly honors both Ruben Dario and Brothers to the Rescue” Diaz said, adding that he would propose some alternate sites, including a city property that could be turned into a passive park.

Because an override would need five votes, and Lopez’s renaming item last month passed with only four votes, it seems likely that the mayor’s veto will stand.

But Lopez already openly and admittedly told Ladra that he will challenge it. And, if he fails, he will politicize it for the campaign. I mean, of course he will. Can’t you see the mailer now? “Mayor Diaz vetoed an item to honor Ruben Dario. Mayor Diaz doesn’t represent us.”

Diaz said he knows that was the intent to begin with.

“This was a political move, done to provoke my veto,” Diaz said, “so they can then say that I was against the Nicaraguan people. It is a desperate attempt to bring Nicaraguan votes to his side. And it is going to divide this community.”

But then he basically admits he would have done the same thing, in reverse.

“The politically safe thing would be to just let him make this change, and then use it against him. To honor somebody else, it doesn’t have to be at the expense of Brothers to the Rescue,” Diaz said, giving us a glimpse into what could be an election that tries to pit Cubans against Nicaraguans.

Maybe this will all be good for Deborah Centeno, the Nicaraguan activist who ran for council unsuccessfully in 2013 against Commissioner Isolina “Mama” Maroño, mother of the former mayor who is serving time for public corruption charges like bribery, who got 72% of the vote.

Centeno, who already has her campaign photos with Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, said early last year that she would run for mayor in this May’s election, where Ladra suspects she’s got a much better chance.

The Sweetwater City Commission meets at 8 p.m. the first Monday of each month at City Hall, 500 SW 109th Avenue.

  Jose Diaz, Orlando Lopez, Sweetwater