In his quest to be the next Miami Lakes mayor in the whiplash election that ends today, Councilman Nelson Hernandez is trying hard to set himself apart from the last 
Miami Lakes mayor, who was arrested last month on charges of public corruption.
Almost too hard. Some might think Hernandez is running against former Mayor Michael “Muscles” Pizzi, who was charged Aug. 6 with federal bribery and extortion charges.
Others say he is trying to rewrite history with his whole “I told you so” campaign, which might be (read: hopefully is) backfiring.
Hernandez, whose main weakness is being considered part of the establishment, sent out mailers last week that try to show his longtime opposition to Pizzi, who the FBI had been recording for months as he allegedly oiled the wheels for a bogus government grant in exchange for kickbacks to his pocket and his campaign coffers.
“Councilman Hernandez stood up to Mayor Pizzi and opposed his hand-picked preference to be the town’s state legislative lobbying firm. In the end, the Fuentes Consulting Group won the contract, later joined the Becker & Poliakoff law/lobbying firm, and had a team member implicated in the recent federal corruption sting,” the mailer says.
Ooooh. A moment of clarity in years of inaction.
What the mailer doesn’t say is that Councilman Hernandez voted for the bogus grant application that said lobbyist brought to the council, even though there were a few red flags — the item had been pulled from the agenda a month earlier and brought under a different council member’s name — and without asking a single question. He went along with Pizzi on that one.
It also doesn’t say that Hernandez also voted with Pizzi on the special absentee vote only election last June that changed the way council members are elected. He went along with that one, too. Asked questions, there, and said he was against it. But voted with the mayor’s initiative to give people the choice — at an expense of about $50,000 to the city in what seems to everyone like a scheme connected to the Palm Springs North annexation effort.
In fact, besides the three times he notes in his mailer (sent to me by a voter who apparently doesn’t swallow the $8.3 million quoted for the new town hall), Ladra is hard pressed to find any other time that Hernandez has voted against Pizzi. Another voter, not the one who sent Ladra the mailer, told me that she checked with the city clerk’s office and, indeed, he had not voted against Pizzi at any other time.
Yes, Hernandez has been a critic of Pizzi. A soft and quiet critic who has let civilians take the lead on the opposition. But he has been all talk and no action. Certainly not a “proven leader.” That title would have to go to activist David “Doc” Bennett, who has been a better watchdog for this community than Hernandez, who was already elected to do so. It’s time to give Bennett a chance.
The only bigger disappointment to me than Hernandez winning is that he didn’t stay put in the first place, as he should have if he really were interested in the town’s future instead of his own. But this guy can’t get stars out of his eyes. Tallallassee stars. Make no bones about it: He will run for state rep eventually, as the hand-picked heir to one of his sugar daddies — either State Rep. Jose Oliva (R-Miami Lakes) or Sen. Rene Garcia (R-Hialeah), names he loves to drop.
Too bad I can’t ask him which. Hernandez the candidate has not returned my calls since I started to criticize his posse, who are known abusers of the absentee ballot system, and questioned some of his motives and tactics, especially the use of questionable PAC money at the hands of political hitman David Custin. So, naturally, now I can’t ask him why the ith a PAC that seems to have overspent it’s contributions by more than double, according to the financial reports posted online on the city’s website. The Tell the Public the Facts PAC (pft!) has collected $11,250 in contrbutions but spent $23,300 as of Sept. 24, according to the reports. That has to be a violation of law, isn’t it?
And is this what we can expect from Hernandez if he were to be elected? He can just ignore anyone that questions him or objects to his ideas? That might include you dear voter. Maybe he isn’t so different from Pizzi after all.
Hernandez could have brought stability to the changing council and stayed out of the mayoral bout. But he saw it as an opportunity for himself, not for the town. And he took it, making an opening for another one Oliva’s hand-picked politicos, his employee and husband to his district secretary Frank Mingo, to run for his vacant council seat.
I hope that Miami Lakes voters are not fooled and remind Hernandez today that he is not the “proven leader” against Pizzi and that they will not let the professional political mafia plant representatives in their small town.
‘New & improved’ Nelson Hernandez runs as the anti Pizzi added by Ladra on
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