Commissioner Jordan nails it: Mayor Gimenez is ‘a chameleon.’ And worse | Opinion
Did you see the cloud of green fumes rising all over Miami-Dade County on Wednesday afternoon?
It was the collective envy of people who aren’t represented on the County Commission the way Commissioner Barbara Jordan has defended her Miami Gardens constituents: with extraordinary gumption.
It’s not something you see very often at County Hall, the vehemence and truth-telling with which Jordan stood up for the interests of residents who don’t want the toxic fumes, the crowds, and the deafening noise that Formula One racing will bring to their bedroom communities.
She didn’t have to say it outright.
You could hear the subtext to her anger.
The rich folks downtown didn’t want auto racing in their neighborhood, but it’s OK to impose the annual event, one of the many held at Hard Rock Stadium throughout the year, in the largest predominantly black city in Florida.
Unlike people with means who have options, these working class families just can’t pick up and move away when they see their quality of life threatened, their neighborhood turned into a perennial playground for noisy, rowdy adults.
But, as with other projects fast-tracked into fruition in this town without enough public input, Formula One is Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s baby.
If commissioners passed an ordinance sponsored by Jordan to block the races, he would veto it, Gimenez vowed, and in November he did so to the first piece of legislation Jordan sponsored successfully.
The commission predictably caved in to the second one Wednesday.
But Jordan wasn’t leaving the battleground quietly.
“Mr. Mayor, throughout all of this process, you have been my biggest disappointment,” Jordan said to Gimenez, whose son, Carlos Jr., was a lobbyist for Formula One when the proposal on the table in the City of Miami was to bring the Monaco auto racing flair to downtown Miami.
Gimenez should’ve never been allowed to have a say on this issue when it moved to the county, much less threaten a veto if commissioners blocked the controversial project.
But county ethics are Silly Putty.
Gimenez gets favorable rulings all the time from the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, and his two lobbyist sons get to live off representing people with business before their father and his politico friends.
The Commission usually looks the other way, so many times as the result of alliances forged between Cuban-American and African-American commissioners, who after decades of ethnic and racial divides, reached an uneasy truce: We all get a piece of the pie.
We handle our piece. You handle yours.
But Jordan broke the unspoken rules.
‘Chameleon’ mayor
“You convinced me you were the best thing since sliced bread,” Jordan told Gimenez, referencing her support when he ran in 2016, distancing himself from candidate Donald Trump (supported by his opponent) and pledging to Democrats like Jordan that he planned to vote for Hillary Clinton.
I had my serious doubts that Gimenez was being real back then. His support for Clinton, who easily carried Miami-Dade, seemed awfully convenient for a Republican who ran in the same circles as most Cuban-American Trump supporters.
But, most of all, it seemed inconceivable because his son Carlos Jr. served for more than three years as top consultant for The Trump Organization’s redevelopment of Trump National Doral Miami resort, the PGA Tour’s elite World Golf Championship event, and the Miss Universe Pageant.
Now that Gimenez has been termed out, and he’s running for Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s congressional seat, the mayor is back to being a gushing Trump-lover.
“Mr. Mayor, you’re a chameleon,” Jordan said. “You need to come with a warning label: Buyer beware.”
Cue in the applause.
As we say in the 305, dale!
We, Miami-Dade County voters, could only wish our own commissioners represented the rest of us like Jordan did Miami Gardens — and that they had the nerve to tell it like it is. At least then, when we lost, we’d have some fight, some dignity to show for it.
But ask, to name an example I know well, the residents of Miami Lakes and Palm Springs North.
Whether the issue is bringing to our doorstep the American Dream Miami nightmare, a mega mall and entertainment complex that will irrevocably change the area, or ruining master-planned communities by opening residential streets to highway traffic, Commissioner Esteban “Steve” Bovo is always voting against his constituents’ best interests.
But behold Jordan.
She and the Miami Gardens residents fighting Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and Formula One aren’t giving up.
Residents, led by former commissioner Betty Ferguson, have filed suit alleging that the races violate county and city noise ordinances.
“This fight is not over,” Jordan said during a rally on the ground floor of County Hall, shortly after a majority of commissioners, divided along racial lines, voted against her legislation to keep F1 from coming to Miami Gardens.
And that’s how it’s done, how you force ethically challenged, chameleon Gimenez and his cohorts to consider people instead of money first.
Bravissima.
This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
