Lawsuit aims to take Carlos Hernandez off Hialeah ballot

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Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez is termed out and cannot run for another term. So says a lawsuit filed Monday by a former mayor that seeks to keep him off the ballot this November.

Hernandez was council president and automatically became the mayor when former Mayor Julio Robaina resigned  in May 2011 to run for Miami-Dade mayor. The city charter says he is to serve the remainder of that term until a special election is called to fill the vacancy. That happened in November of 2011, when voters chose Hernandez over both former Mayor Raul Martinez and former Sen. Rudy Garcia.

Because Robaina won that term in 2009, Hernandez had to run for re-election again two years later in 2013. He won again, handily, getting 81 percent against former Mayor Julio “The Other” Martinez and Juan Santana.

The lawsuit filed Monday by attorney Jose “Pepe” Herrera on behalf of Julio Martinez cites the city charter, which states “no person shall serve as mayor for more than two consecutive terms.” It doesn’t say two “full” terms, the lawsuit says. It doesn’t say two “whole” terms. It doesn’t say two “entire” terms. In fact, it doesn’t have any adjectives other than consecutive. It says two consecutive terms. Which Hernandez has served.

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“Simply put, a term is a term, and absent any durational adjective, section 2.01 of the city charter must be construed to its plain meaning and grammatical syntax,” the lawsuit states, adding that Hernandez’s argument that a partial term cannot be counted could be intentionally manipulated to “avoid the intent of the electorate” that passed term limits in 1996 and who didn’t include the word “full” when describing the two terms.

That would indicate that Hernandez, who launched his re-election campaign in March, can’t run again.

The lawsuit was filed against Hernandez, Hilaeah City Clerk Marbelys Rubio-Fatjo and Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Christina White. There will be a press conference Tuesday morning at Herrera’s office, 2350 Coral Way, Suite 201. Herrera is representing Julio Martinez pro-bono. “I like protecting the public interest and dislike bullies. It’s why I went to law school,” Herrera told Ladra.

Looks to Ladra like he’s got a case. Could we finally get rid of Hernandez based on a technicality?

“He paid Grodnick, but he can’t pay me off,” said former Mayor Julio “The Other” Martinez (photographed), referring to former Hialeah City Attorney William Grodnick, who apparenty provided an opinion to the mayor before he retired some months ago that says he does have the right to run again.

Funny enough, Grodnick had the exact opposite opinion in 2008 when then-Councilman Esteban Bovo wanted to run for a fourth term. Bovo, who was elected to fill out the term vacated by the indicted former Councilwoman Maria Rovira in 1999, had not served three full terms — the limit in the charter — but only two and a half. Grodnick told Bovo back then that he could not run again.

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“He contradicted himself.  But when you are three months away from retirement and Carlos tells him to do something… it’s just an opinion. A city attorney can do that and be wrong,” Martinez told Ladra. “You can’t buy me off. Now, we are going to a real judge.”

Martinez, bless his soul, doesn’t want to run for office. “No, I’m not going to run for shit. I just don’t want him to run,” he said, pardoning his own French. “We in Hialeah voted for our mayors to be limited in office to eight years. Now he is going to be there for 11? No. I don’t think so.”

While Martinez won’t run himself, he has plenty of ideas for who might be interested in an open seat once Hernandez is barred by a court from the ballot: Bovo himself, though Ladra thinks he is eyeing the county mayor’s seat, Sen. Rene Garcia, who is termed out, Council President Luis Gonzalez — who, las malas lenguas say, got peeved that Hernandez wasn’t giving him the seat, as promised — and even Councilwoman Isis “Gavelgirl” Garcia-Martinez, who was on the outs with Hernandez at the end of last year but seems to have patched things up because she won’t return anyone’s calls.

Ladra hears former State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, who has threatened to run for Hialeah mayor like the boy who cried wolf, is making too much money in the private sector, lobbying and “consulting” in government affairs.

Someone has to be thinking about it already. Herrera, who is on a roll recently, has a case here and Hernandez is due some cosmic karma.

Our only fear is that he would run for county commission or — dare I say it? — senate. God help Hialeah.

  Carlos Hernandez, Esteban Bovo, Isis Garcia-Martinez, Julio Martinez, Rene Garcia