Miami-Dade bandits

• This week, after a two-week trial, the former mayor of Hialeah, Julio Robaina, together with his wife, were found NOT guilty while facing numerous counts of fraud. They also had been charged with not reporting money earned (a word that can be used and interpreted in so many ways) to the IRS. That money “earned”, by the way, wasn’t a couple of grand here or there; we’re talking no less than 800,000 large ones. Robaina is alleged to have also charged clients beaucoup bucks to represent them in neighboring municipalities to “influence” fellow politicians to change their votes on zoning matters, for example.
• Robaina’s successor, Carlos Hernandez, now mayor of Hialeah, admitted, while under oath in the same Robaina trial, that he had participated in what would be considered illegal activity – that’s if it involved you or me – by lending money, also while he worked in the mayor’s office at city hall, at an annual rate of 36%. In the old days and where I come from, we’d call the mayor (and his predecessor) a loan shark.
• At county hall, where Mayor Carlos Gimenez wields the power and decides the future of stadiums, libraries and most everything else affected or dependent on our tax dollars, things don’t seem much better. Money seems to magically be available to help billionaire sports team owners who need a quick quarter billion to fix up their football palaces. And our most valuable land parcels, the kind that sit on Biscayne Bay with an amazing view of downtown Miami’s skyline, land worth millions, Gimenez is maneuvering to give away to pretty boy David Beckham for the phantom soccer team he’s promised to bring to Miami. What’s confusing is that Gimenez’ budget for next year (the one that affects you and me) calls for the closing of libraries and eliminating about half of the library positions. Then there are the county services, those that help our children and the elderly and the poor. Don’t count on much going there. Needed improvements and programs for our public parks, raising salaries for those at city hall making minimum wage, and a host of other really important day-to-day necessities – we’re being told to tighten our belts. Austerity measures, I think they call them.

• Then there’s Ed Marquez, the county’s deputy mayor, hired to handle the day to day for Mayor Gimenez. An expert, we are told, at making the county budget work efficiently. A man paid almost $300,000 a year – before perks. It turns out that Gimenez thought so highly of Marquez that he allowed him to pay himself extra for his arduous work schedule. Local 10 TV reported that “A four-month investigation in that budget found that $21,046,916 worth of pay last year went to ‘administrative leave.’ [Money paid to Marquez.] The county defines that as ‘time excused from work with pay’.” And we thought that salaried individuals making that kind of money should be satisfied with what they are receiving. Guess not…