Tomorrow, voters in the Miami Dade County Commission District 13 including Miami Lakes, Hialeah, and Palm Springs North, will decide whether or not to recall Natacha Seijas, de facto chair of the Miami Dade county commission.
As if to address this embarassment, Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina pouted to the Miami Herald, “Most of the people fighting for this recall are definitely not from Hialeah and are not from Miami Lakes, and that’s what bothers me.”
It's the theme that plays well on Spanish language radio with paid-for news "commentators". Xenophobia is a traditional tool to enforce political orthodoxy in Miami’s Cuban American community—just like in Castro’s Havana.
These manipulators slip by the fact that Seijas' treasure chest filled with special interest money is mostly from outside District 13, too.
Do you think for a minute that the wealthy outsiders supporting Seijas live in Hialeah?
Not the executives of powerful rock mining industry, whose explosive blasting she defends and is causing a cancer-causing chemical to infiltrate Miami’s drinking water aquifer, or the big lobbyists or managing partners of law firms like Greenberg Traurig who count on Seijas’ leadership to plow through zoning changes at the county commission, and especially not the biggest of the Cuban American developers for whom Hialeah is a political Bethlehem: all of them fled Hialeah as soon as they could afford to.
Seijas big money supporters live in gated communities in Coral Gables, Pinecrest, South Miami, and Miami Beach.
Hell, even Seijas doesn’t live in poor Hialeah with the majority of her constituents.
What Miami Dade county voters are witnessing through the spectacle of this special election is how every day corrupt influences on the majority of the Miami Dade County Commission make a better case for an executive mayor than Mayor Alvarez could ever make himself.
You may not follow every time county commissioners like Seijas, Joe Martinez, Barbara Jordan, et al "think outside the box" on behalf of big campaign contributors, but you know it is time for change.
In late January, the entire county will have the chance to vote on a proposal which the County Commission has bitterly resisted: to empower an executive mayor and clarify the lines of authority within county government.
Poor Natacha—who sits astride the county commission like the talent agent on Borat—and doesn’t read the Miami Herald.
Until the executive mayor special election in January, all we can do is implore the voters of Miami Lakes and Hialeah to take this opportunity to and vote out Natacha Seijas now.
3 comments:
You are right on the button with your commentary. Unfortuneately, the apathy the avergae Miami-Dade County voter shows at all elections will also show itself at this recall vote...only a very small percentage of voters will show up to cast their vote and the special interest people will have their "groups" who they have pandered to there in force to keep the corruption in place. Sejas is calling in all favors on this one and if she remains in office, will only be more "obligated" than prior to the recall vote.
And also, don't forget that the Seijas backers can't afford losing her, because Hialeah has a big influence on state-wide elections. The same interests supporting Seijas lost their influence in Congress in November's Republican implosion. Yeah its a non-partisan race, but why else spend half a mil on a recall campaign.
I guess more like Natasha than hate her.....
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