When we in South Florida read about a place where government officials use the armed forces to investigate and intimidate opposition leaders and independent journalists because they threaten their iron-fisted rule, we are usually reading about Havana or Caracas. Not Hialeah, U.S.A. But Ladra’s suspicions that the mayor and perhaps one or more council members are abusing their […]
At the 11th hour — and on the eve of the all-important absentee ballot mailing in Hialeah — el alcaldito Carlos Hernandez stood for a photo op on the back of a fire rescue truck with the president of the firefighters’ union, a man he has maligned for weeks, and basically thumped his chest. He’s […]
He’s baaaaaaaack. Former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina has been lying low since he lost the county mayoral race against Carlos Gimenez in June. Save for one radio interview — where he declined to say who he was going to support (but, c’mon! We know it’s el alcaldito!) — he’s been kind of MIA on the […]
What? It can happen! Ladra saw it with her own very eyes. Eight council candidates were at the Hialeah Association of Commerce and Neighbors for the group’s 30th anniversary dinner Saturday night — including the four Back to the Future slate mates who mugged for the camera with incumbent Councilwoman Vivian Casals-Muñoz. And Ladra really, really wishes […]
Wanted: Surrogate reporter to attend the next Hialeah Council meeting or two since Ladra may be ordered to stay 500 feet away. Duties include listening to the back-patting council rubber stamp everything before them. Pay is in shots of Cuban coffee. It was not enough for Council President Isis “Gavelgirl” Garcia-Martinez to have me ejected […]
One of the candidates in the Hialeah elections may be in the race or may have switched his group at the last minute to get favorable treatment for his business from the city and alcaldito Carlos Hernandez. Tony “Phony” Vega, the owner of a gun shop cited for building an illegal gun range last year, told a […]
Guerilla campaign tactics in Hialeah elections are not always very sophisticated. But they are almost always kind of unique to the flavor of Hialeah. And sometimes that makes them silly. Ladra went from the surreal to the completely ridiculous when she stepped outside City Hall during Wednesday’s budget hearing after she was trespassed from the building by police on orders […]
Just when you thought the election season in Hialeah could not get more surreal, the Seguro Que Yes council passed su alcaldito Carlos Hernandez’s bogus 2011-2012 city budget Wednesday night calling for the illogical and unnecessary termination of 105 of 271 firefighter paramedic positions despite a packed house of protestors and a barrage of honest, researched, logical and impassioned pleas from residents, employees, […]
While Papi has been mum on the threat to fire firefighters in Hialeah — and potential impact to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue when the county starts taking up the slack on the city’s 911 calls — Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s namesake son and spitting image has been spotted in Hialeah in recent days. Attorney Carlos “Junior” Gimenez was seen […]
We saw this coming. We told everyone that this alarmist threat to fire 105 of 271 firefighter paramedics in Hialeah was blackmail, or extortion (you pick your term), and that the very politicians who proposed it would come in at the 11th hour with a salvation plan or last-minute Holy Mary pass. But I didn’t […]