Miami-Dade has an important election on Aug. 18, vote for Daniella Levine Cava
A week or two ago on Facebook, of all places, a friend posted a column I wrote last year in reference to Alex Penelas and the 2020 Miami-Dade County mayor’s race. He wrote, “You may have noticed that Alex Penelas is running for mayor again. Please don’t let your nostalgia sweep you away. We can thank Alex Penelas and his lack of ethics for the presidency of George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.” He referenced my column titled, “Double-crossing and ethically challenged Penelas wants to be mayor — again.”
This comment followed the posting, “Wow! This is an outrageously unfair article.” She was referring what I had written about Alex. The fact is that I’ve known Penelas since he was a young, up and coming politician in Hialeah. I thought then there was great potential, but… read the column and you’ll understand. This election season, in 2020 when we’re trying to right what’s been wrong for too long, why look back and vote for a scoundrel who set us on the path we’re on in this county. A county with the richest zip codes in the nation, and also some of the poorest. A South Florida where there is so much beauty and wonderful things only a very few can afford, only blocks from places so full of blight and despair that most politicians seem to skip over them when referring to our area. In other words, large swaths of Miami that are ignored, forgotten, and the people living there considered the collateral damage of our 21st century society — more focused on what’s good for the economy than the lives of our people, all our people.
It is why I’ve already mailed-in my county election ballot. In case you live in Miami, before the presidential election that’s on Nov. 3rd, we have a pretty important election coming up on August 18. And for mayor I cast my vote for Daniella Levine Cava. Her campaign website explains that “Daniella Levine Cava has been a tireless advocate for South Florida residents and communities for almost 40 years. She came to South Florida in 1980, to join her husband, Dr. Robert Cava, a Miami native. Daniella and Robert raised two children, Eliza and Edward, in Miami-Dade. After a decade of work as an attorney with Legal Services of Greater Miami and the Guardian Ad Litem program, in 1996 Commissioner Levine Cava founded the Human Services Coalition, now known as Catalyst Miami.”
Double-crossing and ethically challenged Penelas wants to be mayor — again
But she’s so much more than that. I met Daniella about 20 years ago in a social equity meeting in Telluride, Colorado. We were a small group of no more than a dozen people, but it was a high-energy bunch who all cared for the community they lived in. It was a bright and high-energy gathering with a number of important social activists and future politicians and public servants. The person that stood out and impressed me the most during those three or four days up in the mountains was Daniella. She always had a smile on her face, and when she spoke, you listened. She was always on point and with important things to say.
We became friends and on our return to Miami she invited me to participate in projects with the Human Services Coalition (now Catalyst Miami), an organization she founded to help those most in need in our community. To put it simply, this woman is a dynamo who, if elected, I am convinced will become the finest mayor this area has ever known, and also the first woman ever elected mayor of Miami-Dade County.
If you’re from Miami and have yet to vote, please consider casting your ballot for Daniella. If you believe in a better Miami — for every person who lives here — then she is your candidate.
But allow me to share two short stories that if you think like I do should seal the deal.
Recently I called a good friend to ask for his vote for Daniella. He had yet to decide who to vote for, but informed me that it would not be Levine Cave. I asked why. “She will not be focusing on Key Biscayne,” he replied. “She’s probably the most honest of the bunch, but with her Key Biscayne loses.”
I hung up dejected. Not for losing that vote, but the reason for losing it… Key Biscayne, for those who do not know, is one of those zip code areas where if you purchase a home for only a few million… you’ve found yourself a great deal. I sat in my couch at home thinking about this and thought back to a recent conversation I had with my 15-year-old daughter who, thank God, has her priorities in a rightful order.
When protests began several months ago about the #Black Lives Matter issue, she was the one to explain to me that surely all lives are important, but that our focus at this time must turn to Black lives. She then explained it to me this way. She said, “Imagine my house is burning. I call the fire department. You are my next door neighbor and worried about the fire affecting your house too. The firemen arrive and you insist that the fire department take care of your house before attending to the one that is burning…”
In other words, and what I am trying to say, there are many fires burning in the Miami area. Daniella Levine Cava knows where to send the fire department to put them out. And it won’t start in Key Biscayne.
Vote for Daniella Levine Cava. Early voting has begun, or you can vote on Election Day, August 18. Her number on the ballot is 362.
