Coral Gables City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark is about to announce a restructuring of the city’s police department in a move that makes her longtime 
confidant and brand new assistant city manager the top cop.
Frank Fernandez, a retired Miami Police officer who Swanson tapped as her chief and public safety director in Hollywood, followed Swanson’s southbound migration and joined her administration in May. He is technically still an assistant city manager and director of public safety, which oversees not only the police department, but also the fire department and the department of emergency management.
But there won’t be a police chief to report to him. Instead, there will be two — which really means two No. 2 guys.
Interim Police Chief Ed Hudak will be joined by Major Raul Pedroso as co-chiefs of Operations and Criminal Investigations, respectively in what looks like a carbon copy of what Fernandez did in Hollywood. They will each report to Fernandez, who de facto becomes the police chief in the City Beautiful.
In fact, he’s already the contact on the FDLE website directory, 
where mostly chiefs are listed. Even interim chiefs.
It’s exactly what police officers in the rank and file were afraid of. And it is exactly what the city manager told them she wouldn’t do.
“She lied to us,” said one police officer about Swanson’s visit to the roll calls when it was first leaked that Fernandez would be hired as an assistant manager in charge of public safety. He said she told everybody that Fernandez would be working on major projects — the video cameras program, the building of a new public safety building since the main police and fire department is on the verge of collapse — but not on day to day operations.
Swanson said she didn’t lie, that Fernandez is still 
taking on the big matters and that operations and investigations will be run by veteran cops. She said the situation in Hollywood was different because the existing police chief resigned and Fernandez took over. “But it was not my original intention to have him as chief,” she said.
In this case, it looks like it was entirely her intention. And she doesn’t have to wait for the chief to resign because Hudak has only been serving as interim chief and, according to inside police sources, crime has decreased about 20 percent since then.
Fernandez is not all bad. When he was hired as police chief, he said he would reform the department. He immediately hired an outside, independent consultant to assess operations. The findings were an embarrassing for the department: Dozens of forgotten rape kits, $170,000 missing from evidence and signs that officers either under reported use of force incidents or lied about them.
Fernandez quickly drew the ire of red-faced police union leaders. But the electeds and the residents loved him.
Cops outside Coral Gables and Hollywood are also wary of him and raise their eyebrows at his name. He was a Miami Police SWAT lieutenant when he was plucked by then Chief John Timoney to be a deputy chief. Both received a vote of no confidence by the police union members. And he retired just as Timoney was unceremoniously forced out.
Hudak, on the other hand, is a cop’s cop. Most of the rank and file support him and law enforcement officers even outside the city department have a
There’s more. Please press this “continue reading” button to “turn the page.”
Pages: 1 2
Gables police shake up makes new manager top cop added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
Nico Jones nice name is speaks volumes of the lack of spine you have. Sergeant Walter Rogers was a role model for the members of the Coral Gables Police Explorers Post 594. He did what he needed to do to get the job done without compromising his character. Can you say the same? You are opening your mouth and spill accusations without one ounce of creditable proof. Speak the truth sometime, try it works.
[…] Read related story: Gables police shake up makes new manager top cop […]
[…] Gables police shake up makes new manager top cop August 28, 2015 […]
I have lived in Coral Gables for the past 37 years and have never seen such an embarrassment for the Police Department. For the first time ever, I see an incumbent interim Chief rallying citizens for his job. This to me seems a bit sketchy. mr Hudak is married to the County leadership and he carries two young Gables Commissioners in his back pocket (Lago and Quesada). They always vote for him and raise cane when anyone goes against him. This is not what I pay taxes (huge taxes) for. I’m all about transparency and impartiality. It seems that Mr Hudak really needs to have the Chiefs position. It smells of M.P.S (Micro-Penis Syndrome). Maybe he needs a Chief job in order to show his wife that he can also get to the top. But sucking ass and making bad promises to young politically aspiring commissioners is not the way to go. No matter what, his wife will always have more balls than he does. Just saying…
Francisco, thanks for speaking up. I agree that this sounds sketchy. Hudak and Lago continue to drown Coral Gables public discourse with press-ready crises and propaganda. Remember the traffic palm trees? Yep, Hudak and Lago fired a city manager over that one. Remember the crime wave (that the FBI showed never happened)? Yep, Lago fanned the fire and Hudak became interim chief. And now another city manager makes a personnel decision, and Hudak and Lago run around crying wolf? It worked for them in the past, so it’s not surprising they keep doing it. But Coral Gables can do better.
Ladra,
Will you be doing a story or two on your ladies? I would love to read your political analysis. A dog like you who loves to bark don’t necessarily walk away when dropping the ball. So go fetch your story so we can play!
Petition supporting Ed Hudak as Chief of Police: https://www.change.org/p/coral-gables-city-commission-petition-to-keep-ed-hudak-coral-gables-chief-of-police
Egos, egos, egos. The constant swooning over Swanson still continues, even after she pulled a punch on the police and brought in Fernandez. You have two on the commission who may be publicly against the move, Lago and Keon. So if the vote came to oust her highness, Ms. Swanson – what do you think the vote would be to keep her? I say 3 – 2 or even 4 – 1. None of their egos would allow them to say they screwed up again in the big hire. Quesada, as big as he is, would sway in the wind and go whichever way it blows. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It is what it is: corrupt favoritism in the City. I can think of 6 former City of Miami crooks who hold high positions in our City that need to be fired, period. Top heavy as always, the tower will eventually fall……………
Yes, the commission has options:
1. Allow the City Manager to destroy OUR police department
Or
2. Do what the City Charteriws them to do, direct the City Manager to stop the nonsense, appoint Hudak as the permanent chief with no strings attached.
A crying shame Ed Hudak has been sacrificed to make way for another City of Miami reject. On the lighter side, maybe his County Deputy Mayor wife Alina Hudak will get a taste of her own medicine being she has stood idle while hundreds of county employees have lost their jobs, and benefits under her administration for the sake of Gimenez’s puppets. Karma is a biatch Alina.
So who carried the water during the Salerno removal? And who will come in to resolve this issue? Does the commission have options?
2 Funny,
But Ladra, Got-A-Point, has a point!
Ladra,
In today’s Miami Herald.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article32751066.html
Ladra,
Perfect response from a true politician who pretends to be a blogger/reporter. I don’t have much respect for people who have hidden agendas or have a conflict of interest and hides it from the public. You committed a major blunder in my eyes when you decided to be part and took money from Ralph Cabrera’s campaign last year. You no longer are neutral and playing politics.
Now, moreover, to your City of Miami girls, who you committed to looking into and writing about several years back. You never did. Why? Because your girls were your sources. By the way, can you tell me why these two ladies have outrageous salaries. Remember, this was the story you were going to write about because they both got raises before Salerno resigned. Both of them are paid salaries close to those of an Assistant City Manager.
Can you inquire, why? Can you ask the City Manager. Can you ask the City Manager why is she allowing to employ a Finance Director who “cook the books” at the City of Miami, falsified Miami’s financial reports, allowed for illegal transfers, and under SEC investigation. Please write about your girls who similar to you pretend to City Administrators, but are truly politicians.
I will make a prediction. You will not ask the questions nor write the story.
Well, truth be told, Ladra drops a lot of balls. Not the first time she says she will write about something and doesn’t come back to it. Sorry. I regret lots of stories I didn’t get back to. This ain’t topping that list. But I’m only one dog. It’s a big, crooked county.
And I still have to work… ergo Ralph Cabrera. That doesn’t mean I can’t still cover the Gables truthfully.
News Flash: Ladra has never been impartial. This is political analysis. You want the Herald, read the Herald. You won’t be missed.
Love, Ladra
Of course she lied. She lied to the officers, to the residents, to the Commisioners…. It was quite obvious when Fernandez came in that there was a plan! But, she denied it. Now she is playing with words and titles: Director, Chief,chiefs: majors.i guess the big difference will be the pay scale and, of course, the complete disarray that is bringing to OUR Police Department. Who is ultimately in charge of the dept? The Director, ie, police chief in other municipalities!!! Now the question that needs to be asked is: did we elect a Commission that will allow the City Manager to hold them hostage? Do they have what it takes to stand up to her? Is this a repeat of the Salerno years when everyone, or almost everyone was afraid to cross him because he was doing “such a good job.”? We elected them to represent us, to be our voice. It is time for them to do that and direct the City Manager to do the right thing and appoint Hudak the permanent Police Chief with no strings attached. Let him do the work of THE Chief and just report to the iTunes Manager as it should be,
Then, Frank Fernandez could go back to being an Assistant City Manager, or, if that is not a powerful enough position. He could go somewhere else where they would take his big ego. Enough is enough!
Your manager is not known for making tough decisions. She wanted to oust Hudak and promote Pedroso. She’s now going to let them fight it out. This is a lot easier than angering everyone. Frank is there to take the fall for whatever problems occur. He’s not going to complain because let’s face it; nobody else would hire him.
In Hollywood when they needed pension reform, she punted to the voters. How are negotiations with the unions going? Is she actively participating or letting Denise Heekin be the bad guy?
She is simply hiring, or in the process of hiring, her “buffers”. She hates complaints and loves to be swooned over. So she hires an “assistant city manager for public safety” so her boy Fernandez can deal with residents and police/fire complaints. She is in the process of hiring a “community recreation director” to deal with the complaints in parks and recreation, which under director Fred Couceryo, have been and remain too many to count. She likes sitting on her throne and letting her loyal subjects deal with problems. She is not known for success in dealing with unions, whether its FOP, IAFF or Teamsters. Power went to her head in Hollywood and now as manager in the City, a 10 gallon hat would not fit on her enlarged head………….
Then Lt. Fernandez (MPD) was rumored to be related by marriage to the Manny (Money)Diaz clan and promoted to Dep. Chief. Keep an eye to that connection in future Gables contracts…..
This new city manager knew exactly what she was doing, she knows the commission is powerless to stop her, unless they fire her,which they can not, or buy her out,which they can not afford, I would love to see her contract.
Why aren’t saying the same thing about other corrupted individuals like Elsa Jaramillo-Velez and Diana Gomez? Both corrupted officials from the City of Miami. In the case of Diana Gomez, she was involved in illegal transfers and fraudulent activities still being investigated by the SEC.
Ladra has known this for quite some time, but fails to report about it because the two ladies leaked information to Ladra about Pat Salerno, the former City Manager.
Ladra- protecting your sources. Once again both so called ladies have come through for you again with information regarding Frank Fernandez.
Elsa JV and Diana G, along with a few other Salerno recruits from the City of Miami are indeed the most corrupt, vile, rude, self-serving thieves in the City (ahem) Beautiful. He recruited them to hide and move money around, just as they did at Miami. Not sure if Swanson is too busy swooning over Fernandez to be aware of it or if she is just plain ignorant and blind to it. Besides pissing off employees and residents, what in the world has she done in her almost first year at the helm of the sinking ship?
My loyal Mr. or Ms. Point: I never tell anyone who is or ISN’T my sources because then, through the process of elimination, you can find out who is. But I think I am safe here to tell you that you are barking up the wrong tree. Really, really wrong. These ladies are not chatty with me. I wish they were.
Elsa, Diana… should we schedule a coffee chat?
Love, Ladra
Corruption run amuck. God only knows the favors she owes Fernandez to create a position for him of this magnitude. This position WAS changed from Finance to Public Safety under her direction so she could bring him in. Lets see who else she gives the thumb down to, so that she can bring others from Hollywood that she owes favors to from her short time as manager there. Ask City of Miami officers or Hollywood officers their opinion of Director Fernandez (as he wants to be called) and you will be hard pressed to hear anything positive about him. This is beginning to sound more like Salerno in a skirt as time goes by. He brought in the City of Miami “SOUND MACHINE” to move and hide money. Curious as to why she finds it necessary to bring in Hollywood………..
City Manager Swanson-Rivenbark has been trying to prevent this from becoming public. Here are the Crime stats on Chief Ed Hudak’s tenure as Chief Of Police.
It shows:
1) a 19.5% reduction in crime;
2) a 19.4% reduction in Burglaries;
3) a 20.7% reduction in Larceny;
4) an 18.8% reduction in Robbery;
5) an 11.4% reduction in #ehicleTheft;
6) and a reduction of Total Offenses from 1063 to 856.
So why does Swanson-Rivenbark appoint one of the former Chief’s closest advisors as “Co-Chief”?
Ariel “Jaime Edward Hudak” Hernandez…nice try buddy! Posting fake stats on here to try win over more losers is a desperate move. I know the true stats of the department. Ed, your stats are way off big guy. Have you taken into account that the department morale is at an all time low due to the obvious relationships between you, Commissioner Quesada and Commissioner Lago. The Union and its leadership (all a collective bunch of nothings) are also in that California King size bed. It’s pretty pathetic that you have to use an alias with bullshit stats to try to win more votes as if this were a general election. You must be getting your stats from Fox News. Face it, your time is up. Stop bothering dead people and political wannabes to do your dirty work. It’s good to see that you are having some stress over this. Come out from under your wife’s dress and stand like a man and take your ousting like a real man. You coward.
Ladra and Ariel
It’s interesting that you and others believe the 20% drop in crime is due to Hudak, that statement is easily being thrown around by some people but no one mentions what actions he has taken to reduce crime. Why is that you may ask? It’s because he has not done anything to contribute to that. I guess you might as well give him credit for the rise in property value too since he has been “sitting in office during the rise”. In reality, he has not implemented any initiative to reduce crime. Unless he is personally out there catching the bad guy everyday with the Officers , which I doubt, he is not doing anything but taking credit for other peoples work. Before being named acting Chief, he was in charge of the traffic division, which again he did nothing to reduce crime. I think credit should be given where credit is due, if an Officer catches a bad guy then credit should land with the Officer not someone else. So who has been in charge of those Officers catching the bad guy for the last couple of years? Who has been in charge of coming up with ideas and plans for reducing crime over the last couple of years, to include the last 6 months everyone seems to be talking about? Who Ladra? In case you don’t know, his name is Major Raul Pedroso and he too would be a great Chief of Police. He’s the one people should be crediting for the 20% reduction in crime. I’m sure if you ask around you can find many initiatives he has done to reduce that crime you talk about Ariel. He has been implementing new ways to fight crime before Hudak was acting Chief and continues to do so up to this date. This leads me to my concern, why are the commissioners trying to give credit to someone who does not deserve it? Why do they hire a very qualified City Manager and not let her do her job? It seems there are people out there trying to manipulate the outcomes of certain positions and they are not liking it when they do not get their way. It happened on “9-11”, the day the commission met and asked the acting city manager at the time to name a chief, they did not like her response so they kept making different motions. And now it’s happening again, it seems they didn’t like the current city managers decision so they are scrambling to change it. The City’s day to day operations should be left for the person they hired to do the job and the Commissioners should stay out of it.
I retired from the City Beautiful on February 1, 2005. The last 6 years I was their I was President of the Fraternal Order Of Police, Lodge 7. I love the City and enjoyed interacting with various Mayors, and Commissioners as well as a couple of City Managers and the people of Coral Gables. I saw the Police Department suffer badly by some the Chief’s that were hired. Ed Hudak was and is the right guy for the job hands down! Manager Swanson is making a big mistake in the direction she is going. While Ed has been Chief, the Department has got back to where it should have always been, with good police work and good police morale. I have stayed out of the City and Police Departments business since I retired 10 years ago but I had to speak up on this. I hope the Manager comes to her senses and re-thinks this issue!
Walt Rogers….I remember you! Your that spineless, worthless piece of garbage who fucked to the FOP hierarchy as soon as you could. You should be ashamed of yourself calling yourself a cop. You, Ed Hudak, and Sam Whitley cheated on the Sergeants exam by paying some 2-bit douschebag for answers on the test. All of you have a legacy in the department for being an absolute waste. None of you have ever done anything in police work except for getting ejected out of specialized units as fast as you got there. The only respite for worthless people like you was to the Union. You chose easy work with easy days off with the badge of honor as being a suckass! Hudak is an adulterer, a political snipe who hides behind his wife’s influence. He doesn’t have the balls to man up to people who are better qualified than he. Instead, he rally’s dead people (Roxy Bolton) and politically connected idiots to raise the alarm for him. What an absolute loser. You, Walt Rogers, were a terrible and unsuccessful Union president. You were never a cop and should never call yourself one. Hudak is another that walks in your shadows. The only thing Hudak is known for is having an affair with an Gabkes HR female whom he hired with a felony background whom he covered up a narcotics investigation for. As a result of that attempt to influence an officer to not arrest the female during a narcotics arrest, information of him carrying a loaded CGPD issued pistol on chartered aircraft while working a private detail for the University of Miami surfaced. He was not on official duty. Nor did he need to carry the firearm for security reasons. He can’t even shoot for Christ sakes. Last I heard, he did not even qualify with his pistol at the last departmental qualification. Who wants a man who hides behind his wife and can’t even shoot his pistol straight as the Chief of any department?
I moved to the Gables in 1969, joined the police explorers in 1973, became a Gables Police Officer in 82 and I was sorry I ever left. CGPD has survived traumatic officer killings, underpaid officers, no-cohabitation policy, no mustache policy, riots, no equipment, no decent health insurance and even corruption during the river cops case. We survived and the old guard changed, we made more money, officers got promoted, and take home cars and equipment became a reality.
The thing I loved about CGPD was we stayed together and no matter who they hired from the outside as chief, they went away. The Naui’s, McNicholes, & Hudak’s came from the City, they loved that funky police station and were true brothers and yes cops cop’s. Ed most definitely deserves the permanent position of Chief. The department was built on officers who made a difference like Avery and Bobby Thompson, Ronnie Cason, Pilar, Martin and Harry. Oh not to mention my mentor Bruce ” John Wayne” Richards.
These were only a few of the pillars who loved the City. So take it from me at almost age 60, the bad people go away, they all go away. This obvious pre-meditated concocted scheme is only motivated by money and greed for power. Ed has no greed for power, he doesn’t need power, he has the respect and admiration of all of you. So Mr. Fernandez and Ms. Rivenbark watch out for that career dissipation light to go off your office is only temporary.
Get out if you can, your agency is destroyed. He’s an idiot who suffers from ” little man” syndrome, and she is worse. Good luck!!!