Miami Herald biffs Seijas recall story by gimleteye

We might be inclined to read in the bad Herald reporting of the Seijas recall, just another daily newspaper squeezed by Wall Street.

Natacha Seijas is the de facto chairman of the Miami Dade county commission. She sits astride the county commission like the talent agent on Borat and wears her authority with the demeanor of a petty despot.

Today, Herald editors frame the story as an escalating face-off between a popular mayor, Carlos Alvarez, also Cuban American, and Seijas.

Wrong: count one.

This is a pitched battle for our future—now held hostage by a majority of county commissioners—a place where dark shadows cast backwards as businesses and the middle class run away, toward sunlight.

(Instead of addressing what even the national media holds to be obvious, the Herald publishes “glass half full or half empty” stories, like today’s A1 page written by a reporter innocent of history and, so, capable of doing no harm to the Herald advertising base.)

“Getting a recall on the ballot was not a monumental task,” Charles Rabin writes on B1. Count two, only publish what you known to be factually true.

Petitioning one’s government is a fundamental principle of democracy, but not in Hialeah--political Bethlehem for a wealthy Cuban American elite that own homes in sheltered gated communities in Pinecrest, Coral Gables, and South Miami.

Shame on the Miami Herald that lightly reported the fearsome effort to gather 3000 signatures in the face of rabid opposition by a squad of intimidators, including the Hialeah mayor and police.

Seijas and her staff not only coerced and intimidated participants but engaged in a disinformation campaign that persisted right to this week at the county commission, in proposing and passing the new measure to prohibit “illegal” activities of signature gatherers.

Watchful county attorney staff must have been holding back their urge to vomit.

What happened in Hialeah—and what the majority of county commissioners agreed to cover up to protect their leader—was behavior typical of neighborhood block watchers in Castro’s Havana. You only read the gloss story in the Miami Herald.

Count three, here is the story: the Seijas recall is the run-up to the county-wide vote in January 2007 for strong mayor.

In publicly calling on Hialeah to recall Seijas, Mayor Carlos Alvarez made a bold and politically unpredictable move.

The strong mayor referendum will pass because voters are desperate for transparency in its government and to break the stranglehold of a political elite that is built around wealthy production home builders/campaign contributors.

We know these special interests and we know that those who support Seijas with open wallets today will support her in private life tomorrow.

Good soldiers are never abandoned just because they lose an election.

It is possible Miami Herald executives share this view from a different angle; because they believe there is not enough time or money to unseat Seijas—the only way to get along is to “go along”. Maybe Herald executives understand how the high stakes are, but believe that the public is asking too much of a business that must respond to Wall Street first and journalism, second.

Whatever the reason, the Miami Herald is headed toward the same mistake it made in its endorsements of incumbent county commissioners prior to the September elections: failing put the blame for Miami’s chronic ills where it belongs, on the county commission lead by Natacha Seijas who trashes the Herald at every opportunity under the principle that the best defense is a good offense.

Seijas is plain offensive.

We salute the anti-Seijas activists, waging battle inside a Miami district as intimidating as any Chicago ward.