Mayor Receives Support Following Recall Effort
MIAMI (CBS4) - A day after auto tycoon Norman Braman said he has collected nearly twice the signatures he would likely need to force a recall election of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez the battle lines are being more clearly drawn.
The Dade County Police Benevolent Association is backing Alvarez. PBA president John Rivera told CBS4's Michael Williams, "We are loyal not only to people like Carlos Alvarez but loyal to this community. We will not abandon Carlos and we will not abandon this community pure and simple."
Alvarez, the former county police director, pressed for a nearly 13 percent tax rate hike which commissioners approved. It spared public safety and largely spared many social services. The budget included a pay raise for county employees, including a 13 percent pay hike for Miami-Dade police. Unions argue the pay hikes make up for pay cuts last year and other concessions.
Braman is channeling public anger over any tax hike. He told reporters on Monday, "I think people have reached the point where they are tired of complaining and they are ready to do something about it."
Politics is about perceptions. Mayor Alvarez still can't convince many voters that the Marlins stadium deal makes sense even though it is funded with tourism—not property tax—dollars.
Alvarez would not bend to the populist mood in tough times this year and give up the keys to his county leased BMW. Then, of course, there is that recent property tax rate hike and the spark it now provides for the recall effort.
If Alvarez is recalled before his term ends in 2012 it would only happen after petitions have been certified, legal challenges, and a hotly contested recall election which the mayor vows he would wage.
That is a lot of "ifs" but the scramble for his seat if it was vacated, another complicated process, could include names like Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina, as well as Miami-Dade commissioners like Joe Martinez, Rebeca Sosa and Carlos Gimenez.
That is only a partial list. Few politicians will openly acknowledge interest in the mayor's job. Gimenez, however, does not demur. He says he would be interested. And he, like so many others, would try to position himself as the anti-Alvarez.
Commissioner Gimenez told me, "I would never have asked for an increase in property taxes. I would never have penned the Marlins stadium deal. It was a bad deal all along."
Such debates will shape political futures and decide if Mayor Alvarez's ends well before he planned.
