DeFede Columns

MIAMI (CBS4) ― I've read the polls. I've heard the anger. I'm convinced. Let's spend the next three to six months, gathering signatures and holding a special election to recall County Mayor Carlos Alvarez.

Sure it will end up costing taxpayers a lot more than the $90,000 in raises he handed out to a dozen employees on his staff, but damnit, people are frustrated and they need someone to blame. So I'm with you, let's recall Carlos Alvarez.

Then what?

His most likely replacement will come from the county commission – which, according to the polls, doesn't fair much better in the trust department.

Okay, maybe we should think about this recall thing a little longer.

I actually didn't realize how bad things were for Alvarez until I read Sunday's Miami Herald. And I'm not talking about the Page One story about the CBS4 News/Miami Herald poll showing how a vast majority of people no longer trusts the mayor. I had seen the poll results on Friday.

I finally understood how far Alvarez had fallen when I read Myriam Marquez's column extolling the greatness of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, whose term in office, she said was "heading toward a strong finish." In the same column she derided Alvarez as "not living up to his promise as a reformer."

It was a column about a good mayor and a bad mayor and in Myriam's view Manny Diaz is the good mayor.

Manny Diaz – the good mayor? Excuse me a second but while typing that last sentence I threw up a little bit.

Knowing Carlos Alvarez I can assure you that Myriam's column angered and annoyed him far more than any poll result.

Carlos Alvarez has made many, many mistakes. And I will address those in a few moments. But to praise Diaz is laughable. For those of us who have actually lived here during the Manny Diaz Era, his term cannot come to an end soon enough.

As it stands, the city of Miami is on the verge of bankruptcy and it is not implausible to think that the city could one day soon be taken over by the state again.

And while everyone is upset with Alvarez over the pay raises he handed out to members of his staff, does anyone recall how Manny Diaz received a 55 percent pay increase back in December 2005, taking his annual salary from $97,000 a year to $150,000?

Well, let me refresh your memory: His good friend then-Commissioner Johnny Winton conspired with Diaz's other good friend, then-City Manager Joe Arriola, to slip the raise through without any public notice or hearing late night during a commission meeting. The other commissioners didn't even realize what they were voting for until after it passed. And only later did we learn that Diaz, Winton and Arriola were business partners in a secret land deal. (The Ethics commission ultimately found Diaz violated city rules in the land deal.)

When Diaz was confronted about the raise, he laughed and called it "A nice Christmas present." Before he leaves office, that little taxpayer present will total about $212,000.

Here's another Golden Oldie from Manny Diaz's term as mayor: Monty's. After his election in 2001, the mayor continued to be a partner in the seafood restaurant, even though it presented an obvious conflict of interest since the restaurant rented space from the city. Nevertheless, he kept his stake in Monty's.

Of course you would think – being as smart as he is – that Diaz would have made sure everything between Monty's and the city was above board and proper. But sure enough three years into his term, the public discovered the mayor's restaurant was behind almost $200,000 in rent payments to the city, that it owed the county nearly $100,000 in delinquent property taxes, and that it had stiffed the state almost $250,000 in sales tax payments.

It was only after I wrote about the mayor's problems in the Herald in 2004 that he finally sold his interest in the restaurant.

Friends of Manny have done particularly well at City Hall. Remember the stories about Manny's good pal and lobbyist buddy Steve Marin suddenly winning millions of dollars in no-bid contracts for his clients after Diaz was elected?

Let's also not forget the FTAA Summit in Miami in 2003 in which Diaz declared that his city's handling of protesters would become known as the "Miami Model" that other cities would emulate. I've actually lost count of the number of lawsuits and judgments and exactly how much money the city has had to pay out to protesters who were beaten and abused and whose rights were trampled on during the summit. The Miami Model turned out to be Miami's disgrace.

And there was the Fire Fee debacle. Myriam mentions the mess, but Manny's role in it could have easily been grounds for a recall effort. More than 80,000 people had been charged a Fire Rescue Fee that the courts later found to be illegal. In 2004, on the day the case was set to go to trial, Diaz and Arriola privately negotiated a deal to pay a handful of property owners $7 million to make the case go away – thereby leaving the other 80,000 or so people with nothing.

Diaz pleaded ignorance, but a judge in the case said it appeared Diaz and Arriola knew exactly what they were doing. It ended up costing the city $700,000 in legal fees to undo the chaos.

Reading Sunday's column about what a "strong mayor" Diaz is in the city, I couldn't help but think about Diaz's videotaped deposition in the Fire Fee case.

Diaz professed a level of detachment that was startling.

Had he kept track of the lawsuit that could potentially bankrupt his city? "No."

Did he ever ask how much the city might have to pay property owners in the case? "No."

Did he try to find out why the city was in such a predicament? "No."

Had he ever, as one attorney phrased it, "took the bull by the horns" to find out what was happening? "No."

The mayor's responses were so bad, that under questioning from attorneys as to exactly what it is that he does as mayor, Diaz felt obligated to defend himself by saying: "I mean, obviously I don't sit around my office all day playing Free Cell or something."

So what has Manny done? He is banking his legacy on Miami 21 – a project he has worked on for years to limit runaway growth and recreate a sense of neighborhoods. It is, however, the ultimate example of closing the barn door long after the horse has run off.

When the cranes were everywhere and neighborhoods were being lost in the shadows of now empty mega-condos, Diaz did nothing. His 11th-hour conversion in defense of the neighborhoods in Miami 21 is too little, too late.

Manny Diaz was always style over substance. He had the slick appeal of a politician who knows how to read a poll or follow public opinion. He jumped on trends – like the move to turn the city more environmentally efficient – not because it was the right thing to do, but because it might get him national attention or an invite to the White House. Every move Manny Diaz has made or will make is a calculation designed to advance one person – Manny Diaz.


Okay, now let's talk about Carlos Alvarez.

What I always liked about Alvarez is that he is nothing like Manny Diaz. He is not a politician. He is not slick. He does not try to figure out where people are headed and then quickly runs out in front of them so he can take credit for leading them where they were already going.

Whereas Diaz is about playing the angles, Alvarez sees only straight lines.

It is both his strength and his weakness.

Five years as mayor and Alvarez still thinks like a cop. When his back is against the wall he will stiffen, not bend. Never has that been clearer than in the firestorm surrounding the raises he gave his staff.

Let me say at the outset the raises were stupid. Incredibly, horrendously, mind-blowingly stupid. In fact they set new standards for stupidity.

Nevertheless the anger surrounding them has also become a bit untethered from reality. Partly it is how the media has reported the issue. In every story, the raises are described in percentage terms – members of the mayor's staff receiving raises between 10 and 54 percent. Big numbers, no doubt.

But what you don't often see is that the total dollar amount of all the raises for all the mayor's staff is approximately $90,000.

The county needs to cut $444 million to balance its budget.

Those raises are not the reason the Meals on Wheels program may be cut. They are not the reason why pools and parks are being shut down. They are not causing your property taxes to increase.

Rescind every single one of the raises to the mayor's staff and the county would still need to cut $443,910,000.

(For that matter, fire every person working in the mayor's office and everyone in the county manager's office, including the mayor and the manager, and you would only save $8 million leaving you a budget gap of $436 million.)

The raises, however, have come to epitomize the public's feeling that government is out of touch with the world around them. The raises give credence to a larger belief that government is inefficient and bloated.

And Alvarez's insistence to stand by those raises has come to represent the arrogance of government. It is why in the latest CBS4 News/Miami Herald poll he has lost the trust of the people.

Of course that is not the way Alvarez sees the issue. He believes the raises were justified because of the increased workload his staff assumed after passage of the strong mayor form of government. To rescind those raises or even admit they were a mistake would be an act of cowardice. It would also be abandoning those around him.

The cop in Alvarez will never allow himself to be disloyal to his staff or appear to back down in the face of criticism. So I understand that Alvarez is not likely to alter his stance on the raises, and in a way I respect the fact that he is willing to risk his future as mayor over it.

But this affair does reveal Alvarez's limitations.

He is politically tone deaf. It is one thing not to be obsessed about public opinion it is another to ignore it completely. Sometimes you have to deal with the perception as well as the reality of a situation.

He has to realize that symbols do matter. And the symbolism of granting raises to his staff when the county was heading into a financial tailspin is awful. Alvarez – and by extension his staff – needed to lead by example in these tough times.

The other issue about the raises that hasn't been addressed is how they came about. Whose idea were they? What kind of internal process did they go through? And perhaps most important of all: Who was advising the mayor on them?

Alvarez has never had someone on his staff strong enough to stand up to him. His chief of staff is someone who he has mentored for years, going back to their days together on the police force. His communications director comes out of the media and has never been a political insider. His county manager is worn and tired and too busy making sure his own ass is covered.

Here again, it is the cop in Alvarez that becomes the problem. As police director he led a military-style organization. But County Hall is more nuance. And in the mayor's office I don't know who truly advises Alvarez. I don't know who on his staff can walk in his office, close the door, and privately tell him he's wrong. Every mayor, every governor, every president needs someone around them who can protect them from themselves.

I don't think Alvarez has that person. And I don't think Alvarez wants to have that person. He's happy being king. And therein lies his greatest flaw.

But before we declare Alvarez a failure, let's remember a few of things.

Under Alvarez, gone are the days when lobbyists ruled the 29th Floor of County Hall. Since he became mayor there hasn't been a single story or scandal about politically connected friends of the mayor winning sweetheart deals from the county. When Alex Penelas was County Mayor those stories were constant.

And while I thought the deal to build the Marlins stadium was a bad one for taxpayers, Alvarez never hid his desire to build a stadium. In fact, he made the stadium one of his campaign pledges. Compare that to his predecessor, Penelas, who ran for office on a platform of opposing a new taxpayer funded arena for the Miami Heat. Penelas won and within months of being elected he went back on his pledge and struck a deal for the new arena. (And of course Penelas' closest lobbyist pals got a piece of the deal.)

Manny Diaz may talk a good game about his concerns for the environment, but it has been Alvarez who stood up to developers and fought against proposals to extend the Urban Development Boundary line. Every time the county commission voted to expand urban sprawl by pushing further west into the Everglades, he vetoed it.

And finally, he brought clarity to government. By fighting for a strong mayor form of government, he limited the role of county commissioners and made the bureaucratic nightmare of County Hall easier to understand. Now one person is responsible for the good and the bad of what happens.

Alvarez wanted a strong mayor form of government. Well that's what he's got. Now we'll see if he'll survive it.

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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