Eliott's Insight: What Really Frightens Mayor Carlos Alvarez
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez says he has no trouble sleeping at night knowing he might be recalled. But he didn't sleep well on January 17, 2010.
On that day, a cyclist on the Rickenbacker Causeway was struck by an alleged drunk driver and left to die on the pavement. Frantic witnesses who tried to save Christopher LeCanne say they waited for what seemed an eternity for an ambulance to arrive. While they waited, LeCanne lost massive amounts of blood. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Tragically, the closest fire rescue station to the accident was a Miami-Dade Fire Station at Crandon Park. It was only about a mile away, but it was closed on that day due to county budget cuts.
That scenario gives Carlos Alvarez nightmares. It is one reason, he told me, that he presented a budget to the Miami-Dade County Commission that contains a 14% tax rate increase.
"I don't want to be known as the mayor who laid off firefighters and police officers. I don't want to be known as the mayor who closed fire stations," Alvarez told me during a taping of News & Views.
"There was an uproar after that cyclist was killed," he added. "We ended up funding the station because of the uproar. What do you think will be the reaction of people when they realize the fire department has an $80 million shortfall and has to close fire stations?"
Another reason for the tax hike, the mayor said, is that he was bound by collective bargaining agreements with county employees. He said contracts negotiated in 2008 included 3% wage increases in the third year of the agreement. In the previous two years, he said, county employees took wage and benefit cuts of about $224 million."
What about the perception that county bureaucracy is bloated and that the mayor and commissioners enjoy perks that are way too generous?
"In the last 3 years the executive office budget at county hall has been cut by $2 million," he said.
"We had a $444 million budget gap. If you do away with the entire 29th floor at county hall; fire the mayor, the county manager, the lady who makes coffee, everyone, it would be a $7.3 million saving that would still leave us with a budget gap of $437 million."
Alvarez has formed a political action committee and hired a lawyer to fight the recall attempt by businessman Norman Braman. Part of his strategy will be his contention that he already survived a recall campaign earlier this year, even though that recall committee did not submit the signed petitions to the Supervisor of Elections. Alvarez contends that a second recall drive this year may violate the Miami-Dade County charter.
