We did it! Natacha Seijas recalled by 88 percent of voters !!! by gimleteye

Eyeonmiami takes a measure of credit for that 88 percent. If our blog helped to inspire some of the volunteers who are substantially responsible for organizing for the recall of Natacha Seijas, all I can say is: at last. Where to begin? Perhaps 1993, when I began to have an inkling of the political order in Hialeah precincts that hold so much influence in state-wide elections. From that time-- as a citizen activist and environmentalist-- wherever there was a roadblock, Natacha Seijas was manning the barrier. No more.

I am certain commissioners who once quaked in fear of her power can't quite believe it. She is gone. Some will step forward to take the scepter from the builders, bankers, lobbyists and rock miners. They have a contingency plan (although none imagined this economic crisis would be such a lasting, deep fact. Not the board members of US Century Bank, or the South Florida Builders Assocation, or the Chamber of Commerce.) We'll get to that, soon enough. But first, a review of what happened yesterday.

Yesterday, the most powerful politician in Miami-Dade County, Natacha Seijas, was thrown from office in a special recall election by an astounding 88 percent majority. Certainly the outcome shows voters are furious. But do they know what Seijas really represented, never mind the issue of taxes?

We have 341 posts on Eyeonmiami, on Seijas. No other source of information is as complete and thorough, and that includes the mainstream media that shied away from telling how the political order kept Miami a speculator's dream, ending in the worst real estate bust in its history.

Seijas adapted, quickly, to her role as enforcer on the 13 member, single district county commission. When Art Teele left the county commission in 1996, she didn't need to be pushed to the role. Where Teele played commissioner against commissioner and lobbyist against lobbyist, in the school of Machiavelli, Seijas preferred direct, brute force. She had the unions and the real estate developers/lobbyists who understood that the way to a gated estate in Coral Gables was through precinct politics in Hialeah. What counted was that key lobbyists got their piece of ka-ching at the airport and the seaport. Chris Korge. Rodney Barreto. Sergio Pino. Miguel De Grandy. It was at the airport where fortunes were made. Seijas played the key role for many years, until the lobbyists became developers and suburban sprawl took off like a bottle rocket on the Fourth of July. Seijas, then, used the airport to enforce the majority on the county commission, but even as the plan to convert Homestead Air Force Base to a money pit collapsed under its own weight, the real money had migrated to the conversion of farmland and wetlands to suburban sprawl. In Florida, political power blossomed under the fertilizer of insta-grow suburbs and strip malls. Today Seijas' political fortunes now mirror her chief supporter, Pino, who built wealth first at the airport then in platted subdivisions in the western suburbs pushing up against Miami Lakes and the real estate fortune of the Graham family. It has all turned to shit, now.

As lead organizer against the hijacking of the Homestead Air Force Base to be a private commercial airport, I learned their playbook and game plan. Art Teele helped me understand it. It didn't change over the years and involved, at its most simple level, commandeering billions of tax dollars to support infrastructure projects to benefit insiders, all of whom were either lobbyists or developers or some combination of the two. Seijas was their all-utility fullback; she could block and tackle and could scare the daylights out of anyone in her path, especially staff at the county terrorized by internal meddling. Where Carlos Alvarez took his job as a largely ceremonial function, with the county manager balancing in between, Seijas lorded it over the county with a mean streak a mile long.

Seijas faced a first attempt to recall her in 2006. Supporters from the Growth Machine raced to her defense. Those in favor of her recall were a small group of civic activists including Pat Wade from the Redland, Michael Pizzi, and Millie Herrera who had enough of Seijas' reign. The fumes of the housing boom were still getting most people, high. Voters gave Seijas, thumbs up.

Yesterday's thumbs down could not have happened without the support of Norman Braman, whose multi-million dollar investment brought the recall to voters. The result depended, too, on a dismal economy in Miami-Dade where the real rate of unemployment is close to 20 percent. Last but not least an intrepid group of recall activists, led by Vanessa Brito, took the campaign into the heart of Hialeah where Seijas believed she was invincible.

It is hard to say what happens, next, in Hialeah. The sharks are circling for a chance to influence both Seijas' district and Miami-Dade County. Will they allow Seijas to have a role in choosing the new political order, to include Julio Robaina? What would be more astounding than yesterday's result would be if a grass roots movement took hold in Hialeah and re-arranged the dysfunctional political order organized around land use zoning changes and airport contracts to deliver state and national elections. Perchance, to dream.

Today it is enough to say, Seijas is gone. As for Carlos Alvarez, the best that can be said is that he was not Alex Penelas, his predecessor who badly tarnished the office of mayor in Miami-Dade. Perhaps it is a harsh judgment of Alvarez; but he never grew into the job. Alvarez was static. Invisible. Alvarez was strong on the Urban Development Boundary, but that left the work to the unreformable majority to override his veto, throwing cost and trouble back onto poorly funded environmental groups. Alvarez did not build constituencies so much as avoid them. He did not surround himself with leaders or thinkers or advocates so much as to insulate himself with friends and associates he was comfortable with. He made less of the job and some historic blunders as a result-- like leading on the Marlins Stadium-- or flinching from ethical standards in the police department when it looted environmental funds collected and dispersed by the US Department of Justice.

Alvarez' recall will make national news, but the more interesting event is Hialeah rejecting Seijas. The devastating avalanche-- 88 percent in favor of recall-- speaks volumes to those on the county commissioner who would be the next mayor, or, imagine that they can fill Seijas' double wide shoes. I doubt there is a single one who could survive a recall election. And if Joe Martinez or Pepe Diaz or Bruno Barreiro get it in their heads that they can commandeer the Urban Development Boundary arbitrage like Seijas did, think again.

Seijas once threatened a fellow commissioner, that she would be taken out of the commission chamber in a body bag. Citizens who testify at public hearings are now free from the receiving end of her rude comments and asides. (I was accustomed, when testifying, to her rising from her seat and disappearing from the dais to do something more important in the back hallway.) Yes, Seijas reserved special scorn for environmentalists, reminding them on behalf of her benefactors that she didn't represent the birds and the bees. Former Commissioner Katy Sorenson who Seijas spent years teasing and insulting should derive a measure of satisfaction from last night's result. To the citizens who mobilized two recall efforts, who were threatened, sued and intimidated by Seijas and the Hialeah police, thank you. If you listen very closely, you can hear the muffled applause of manatees floating beneath the calm waters of Biscayne Bay. Seijas didn't like manatees or their protections and never stopped enjoying, saying so. Don't think of what the manatees do, as squirting and farting. For now think of those watery noises, as the last word.