Double-crossing and ethically challenged Penelas wants to be mayor — again

Alex Penelas is hard to forget. And not for good reasons.

From 1996 to 2004, he was the young, up and coming mayor of Miami-Dade County. Fifteen years later, and now a greying 57, Penelas wants to become mayor of the county again. A registered Democrat, he will have to face his past in next year’s contest. 

He was the highest ranking Democrat in 2000 when he chastised the Clinton administration for returning Elian Gonzalez to his father. As payback, and in fear of the Cuban community critical of Democrats and him because of the Elian fiasco, during the 2000 presidential election between Vice President Al Gore and George W. Bush, Penelas “distanced himself from the vice president as Election Day approached, when Mr. Gore most needed his help. Mr. Penelas skipped the Democratic National Convention, which took place while he was campaigning for re-election. After he won, he spent the last two weeks of October in Spain, missing Mr. Gore’s final campaign events here.” (The New York Times, 6-8-2004)

Then making matters worse, Penelas hid during the Florida recount. As the highest ranking politician at the county, he could have set order while keeping the hordes of people, many of them Cuban republicans, from threatening and intimidating persons recounting ballots during that crazy (and what some believe was stolen) election. Penelas was nowhere to be found. 

No wonder that afterwards Al Gore referred to Penelas as “the single most treacherous and dishonest person I dealt with.”

Penelas is a Democrat only in name. Only because numbers favor a Democrat here. As of Oct. 3 of this year, there were 600,398 Democratic Party voters in Miami-Dade, to 377,567 Republicans. One last fact I found interesting, there are more No-Party-Affiliated voters in Miami-Dade than Republicans, 453,838.

Penelas’ ethics

Penelas has other problems. And this should worry voters. He is ethically challenged. During his years as mayor, his administration may have been one of the most corrupt we’ve ever seen. Interestingly, his form of corruption became institutionalized and therefore legal. Give him credit for his ability to achieve that. 

Penelas helped create a system at the county where lobbyists were assigned to a certain commissioner or commissioners. In other words, he or she (the lobbyists) specialized in one (maybe two) commissioner(s). And with nine commissioners, Alex did not allow any one lobbyist, and therefore no commissioner, to amass more power than he (Penelas) could control. So in the end, any big project in the county ran through his office, and had to employ a number of lobbyists in order to get things passed. 

Alex’s man, who made sure to steer the lobbyist(s) in the right direction and headed this stealth project, was a former mentor and Hialeah commissioner, Herman Echevarria. I never quite understood how Echevarria, who mysteriously died of “natural causes” in 2016, became so wealthy after Penelas became mayor of Miami-Dade. Prior to Penelas’ rise, Echevarria, who created and ran the Hialeah Chamber of Commerce as if it was his own piggy bank, was either bankrupt or nearly so. Suddenly in the late 1990s, he rose like the phoenix and became one of Miami’s most notorious bon vivant. He was known as a philanthropist and “very wealthy.”

In 2019, Penelas, an attorney, is said to be a real estate investor. I suppose it takes money to invest in real estate… 

As for raising money, I am certain that Alex has activated his old network of lobbyist buddies and fundraisers. He announced his candidacy in early October. Penelas has already raised almost $1.5 million. 

The Penelas administration is accused of being the architect of a failed county transit plan tied to the half-percent sales tax he helped convince voters to pass in 2002. Many still wonder where the money went.

I was a candidate for county commission in 2000, the year Penelas double-crossed Democrats. I became aware of Penelas’ style when I was informed by someone very close to me, a homebuilder here in Miami-Dade, who told me the mayor had given orders that anyone who contributed to my campaign might as well forget doing any business with the county in the future.

During that election I was visited by his fixer, Herman Echevarria, who offered me — I’m still no sure if it was a job or money — in order to get out of the race against then District 5 commissioner Bruno Barreiro. 

At the time I was running an anti-corruption campaign. And against the county ordinance that prohibited Cuban musicians from using county venues. Alex did not like the idea.

Next year’s election is still one year away. Penelas is a known name and commodity in this county. He will have plenty of money to create a false narrative of who he is.

Don’t fall for it — again.