DEVELOPING STORY: Two months into the fiscal year, after approving what Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez promised was a balanced budget, the City of Retrogress announced this week that the city is actually facing a $28 million shortfall and may have to lay off dozens of police officers. Hernandez blamed the “unsustainable” union benefits as the […]
Ladra hopes Miami-Dade Commissioners packed a lunch and a snack for what looks like a marathon meeting Tuesday that brings back several controversial issues — including transgender rights, the $65 million consolation prize to Oderbrecht for taking away their Airport City hotel, body cameras for cops, the crumbling civil courthouse and millions of dollars in […]
Newly-elected Doral Councilman Pete Cabrera has not been on the job for a month even, and already he wants to fire City Clerk Barbara Herrera. Is he a savvy professional businessman who knows when administrative changes need to be made? Or is this, as some believe, the first salvo in a series of attempts to restructure […]
Miami Beach Commissioner Ed Tobin, who has reportedly wanted to be a police officer since he was a child, will have to wait a little longer. And Ricky Arriola, who was thought to be the mayor’s pick to replace Tobin and serve out the rest of his commission term (through November), will also have to […]
It was a week marked by the installation or swearings and the choosing of electeds to lead governing bodies. But it was also a week marked by the first of what is surely to be multiple holiday bribes — you know, the frozen turkeys and bags of accompanying Thanksgiving feast items given away to grateful […]
The violence that erupted in Ferguson — as well as the police shooting that started it — has refueled the debate about body cameras on police officers, including in Miami-Dade, where the mayor and commission have set $1 million aside in this year’s tight budget to equip 500 county cops with video recorders worn on […]
UPDATED: He doesn’t take the helm of the ship until January, but the Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Elect Jean Monestime issued his first statement Monday in his new role — hours after his colleagues voted unanimously for him as their leader — urging the community to keep calm when the grand jury decision in the Ferguson, […]
Next week will be all about the free turkeys given away by the costly turkeys, but today Political Cortadito’s Political Pics of the Week are kind of scattered about. We have county commissioners in their districts doing their thing and Congress members being honored or interviewed on the immigration thing. We have Coral Gables Commissioner […]
Nobody thinks that the single, unimportant mathematical error made by the county when advertising the budget hearings on page 6B of the Miami Herald is that big a deal. To err is human. And while nobody expects that we should just immediately forgive and forget, either, the punishment should fit the crime for those who […]
The power at Miami-Dade County Hall is going to shift over the next few weeks as commissioners play musical chairs. Not only because they are expected on Monday to name the next chair, and all eyes are on Commissioner Jean Monestime for that. But also because in January, Monestime will dole out the committee leadership […]