Where did the fees for illegal licenses go? Hialeah council members want to know
Amid suspicions of corruption, Hialeah Council members Jesús Tundidor and Oscar de la Rosa have called for an independent investigation into the issuance of temporary licenses to nearly 100 local businesses without the required approval of the Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management (DERM).
“We’re ready to start an independent investigation,” Tundidor told el Nuevo Herald Wednesday. He and de la Rosa had already requested an internal investigation of the case. They did not specify which outside entity could carry out the independent investigation.
The council members spoke to el Nuevo Herald one week after Armando Vidal, director of the city’s Department of Water and Sewer, told the council in a public session that municipal authorities are not certain that all the money received in payment for the illegal permits was actually deposited in city bank accounts.
“The commitment that the mayor has made is that the city of Hialeah will repay that money. The reason is hasn’t been done is because of concerns that I expressed with the city attorney, with the mayor, that ... we need to make absolutely sure that all that money made it to the city,” Vidal told the council Jan. 28.
“I want to put away the cloud that we may be dealing with a public corruption case,” he added.
The comment surprised several of the council members and business owners at the session.
Mayor Carlos Hernandez did not respond to a request for comment.
Vidal said the payments at issue total $263,000 so far, although the total money paid by the local businesses to the city could be higher. Many of the payments were made in cash or online, and the city has not been able to track down every one of them.
De la Rosa said the city administration clearly does not know the final destination of the money received illegally from local business owners.
“There is possible public corruption,” he said. “We need an investigation by an independent agency that determines where the money paid in cash wound up.”
An agreement signed Jan. 28 by Hialeah and DERM showed that as of May of 2019, 98 businesses in Hialeah were operating with temporary licenses, without the required DERM approval.
The county had restricted the issuance of business licenses because of a lack of capacity for sewage treatment, but says the businesses received city clearance over three years when Hialeah “bypassed” county limits that were designed to avoid spills and the discharge of human waste into neighborhood streets.
In response, DERM slapped a $75,000 fine on the city.
Univision 23 reported that an audit suggested the actual number of businesses with illegal licenses was more than 175.
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 6:15 AM.
