That didn’t take long.
Less than 24 hours after the Miami-Dade Commission waived an ethics rule that bars freebie trips from county vendors for hurricane relief reasons post Dorian, Mayor Carlos G
imenez flew to the islands Friday with four county commissioners, a deputy mayor and an assistant fire chief. They took off from Signature Flight Support at Miami International Airport about 1:45 p.m.on two helicopters courtesy of American Medical Response, a county vendor that provides supplemental ambulance service to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.
One has to wonder if Gimenez, who suggested lifting the prohibition right 
before Thursday’s budget hearing, already had the trip in mind and had reached out to AMR, which is in a real position to assist survivors and has mounted a huge relief effort. Ladra asked his office if Gimenez and his entourage was invited or if he invited himself, but has gotten no answer.
“I am on a flight to Freeport, Bahamas, to assess the damage of Hurricane Dorian,” the mayor announced via a statement about an hour after take-off.
He was joined by Deputy Mayor Maurice Kemp and Miami-Dade County 
Commission Chairwoman Audrey Edmonson, Commissioners Barbara Jordan, Dennis Moss, and José Pepe Díaz, and Arthur Holmes Jr., Assistant Fire Chief of Operations for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.
“We are dedicated to helping our brothers and sisters in The Bahamas,” Gimenez said, adding that the seven-member delegation would meet with county and city of Miami firefighters 
who arrived in Freeport less than 12 hours earlier.
But if he really wanted to help he would have called them up on the telephone — tomorrow.
Because, as most disaster relief experts know, unless you are a doctor or a trained relief worker, your very presence in a disaster zone could be a problem. Gawkers get in the way. First responders call them “tourists” and “rubberneckers.” Giving “damage assessment” tours to politicians who can see the same thing, or much more actually, on CNN (photos) is a distraction from the real work that needs to get done. That helicopter 
pilot serving as the Gimenez entourage guide could be delivering supplies or transporting stranded Bahamians instead.
Not to mention how a twisted ankle or a cut on a rusty piece of rebar can add an unnecessary emergency to an already taxed environment.
Airplane and helicopter pilots were already complaining that chaotic air traffic and inadequate control tower operations were hampering relief efforts. They don’t need anyone who is not a doctor or first responder to respond right now. Unless you are there to provide medical treatment or document the relief efforts — and even journalists are encouraged to keep their crews small — there is really no reason to go to the Bahamas. Not yet. That comes later.
Even Sen. Marco Rubio, who has access to federal relief, didn’t belong there. People are desperate to get out! And these politicos are flying in to get a view?
Edmonson told the Herald and other reporters that the purpose of the trip 
was to “assess the damage and see what we need to bring in.” What? Is she joking? Doesn’t she believe the professional disaster relief experts who are telling us what’s needed? It’s the same things that are always needed. There are lists. The county has one its been using to collect supplies. Will that change now? Betcha it don’t.
And they’re doing a great job collecting supplies. They don’t need to see the destruction first hand to do that.
Gimenez told the Miami Herald that the “timing made sense” because the county had paramedics fly in Friday morning. Really? So less than 12 hours later, he’s going to get a good report?
And he also thought it was important, given Miami-Dade’s ties to the Bahamas, for our electeds to see the damage and suffering for themselves. “Images never really quite tell the story,” he is quoted as saying.
Huh? Are you kidding me? Have you seen the Al Diaz videos and photos on the Herald website? He should win an award for them. Images quite literally tell the story. Words accompany them most of the time, anyway. You know, to tell the story.
Then there are always satellite photos.
What could Gimenez possibly learn being on the ground? Or is this just a way for Gimenez to reward the “good” commissioners with feel-good press and PR photo opportunities?
Read related: Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s $9 billion budget passes
Commissioner Xavier Suarez — the county mayor’s lead nemesis and father of the Miami mayor that Gimenez is in a pissing match with — was not invited on this damage assessment tour. Neither was Commissioner Joe Martinez, who often questions the mayor’s items and voted against his $9 billion budget Thursday. Neither was Commissioner Daniella Levine-Cava, the sole dissenting vote against waiving the ethics rule.
Neither was Commissioner Esteban B
ovo, who told Ladra he wouldn’t have gone anyway.
“Not my place. Others might have a justification,” he said. “I’d rather leave it to the professionals and the Bahamian government to assess what is needed.”
Bingo! What a concept!
Because this trip is nothing but a blatant photo opp by a bunch of political opportunists and posers.
Read related: Gimenez vs Suarez war of words heats up with new radio spot
And it is a prime example of how two-faced Gimenez is: He barred a press conference by Miami Mayor Francis Suarez at the county-run PortMiami Thursday because, pffft, this is “no time for photo opps.” Yet, he has had several press conferences himself and the county produced a slick, 
professionally edited video of the hurricane supplies drive in record time (more on that later). And Gimenez made sure he was filmed while he boarded the helicopter to post the video on his twitter feed.
Heck, the mayor even made room for a Herald reporter to go with his useless Bahamas delegation on the helicopter ride. And he had a press conference on his arrival back in Miami at 8 p.m. Friday.
Of course, there was a feel-good story about little trip in Saturday’s paper, in which the commissioners reminisced about their reaction after Hurricane Andrew while they look real serious in photos. They certainly didn’t share learning anything new.
Maybe it’s true, then. Maybe some images never really quite tell the story.
Carlos Gimenez, 4 commissioners are posers in storm-hit Bahamas added by Ladra on
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