City paid for campaign pancakes

Two weeks after that infamous lunch with senior residents from public housing at IHOP — you know, where Alcaldito Carlos Hernandez insulted balseros and divorced women and Council President Isis “Gavergirl” Garcia-Martinez had a hissy fit when we caught her in a blatant lie — we still don’t know what the real cost was and who paid for […]

Ladra y Raul, slated on flyer

Guerilla campaign tactics in Hialeah elections are not always very sophisticated. But they are almost always kind of unique to the flavor of Hialeah. And sometimes that makes them silly. Ladra went from the surreal to the completely ridiculous when she stepped outside City Hall during Wednesday’s budget hearing after she was trespassed from the building by police on orders […]

Sasha, Alex: Unlikely cafecito pals

Sasha Tirador hunting forclients at a recent meeting. Who would have thought that the two warring sides in the Hialeah elections could sit down to a cafecito at Chico’s on West 12th Avenue over race relations? Not Ladra. But that is what happened Saturday afternoon when former councilman and candidate Alex Morales — who is […]

Hialeah’s padded, bogus budget

The proposed 2011-2012 Hialeah budget is an almost two inches thick and divided into sections that lay out the plan to operate the city’s departments and services with $263.4 million. But it is so full of holes that it shouldn’t weigh as much as it does. Only about $115.6 million is in the general fund, […]

Hialeah: Campaign $ before safety

Hialeah’s alcaldito Carlos Hernandez and his yes council would have people believe that they have to fire almost half the city’s firefighter paramedics to balance the budget without raising taxes. But a closer look at the city’s checkbook may indicate that what they really want is to take money from the fire department budget so […]

Kicked out of a campaign kick-off

There was a large crowd Saturday at the grand opening of the campaign headquarters for Hialeah’s unelected alcaldito Carlos Hernandez and his Yes Crew Minus One. But even if it ws just the immediate families of the five incumbent candidates there would have been a big crowd. Still, two people were very conspicuously MIA from […]

Two moves fill out Hialeah races

Longtime Hialeah Planning and Zoning Board member and council candidate Ramiro Sicre sat on a bench on the third floor outside the clerk’s office at City Hall Friday afternoon and waited. And waited. And waited. Sicre, sitting here next to former councilwoman Cindy Miel, who filed to run against Council President Isis “Guttergirl” Garcia-Martinez in […]

And then there was one…officially

The first endorsement is out in the Hialeah mayor’s race — which is becoming more contentious (read: interesting) by the day — and the firefighter union’s pick of former mayor Raul Martinez is both surprising and expected. It may surprise those who remember Martinez’s reign and hostile “If-you-don’t-like-it-here-go work-at-the-city-of-Miami” rapport with the firefighters that the […]

Gimenezes weigh in on Hialeah

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has been silent on the upcoming elections in Hialeah, where one of the mayoral candidates and several council wannabes worked hard for his campaign and recruited family members and friends — even contributors. But that silence will be broken before the Nov. 1 election. Ladra had to find Gimenez at the […]

Poll: Hialeah incumbents weak

A poll of 300 Hialeah residents paid for by the city’s firefighters union puts former mayor Raul Martinez in the pole position for the mayoral race this November with a double-digit lead over incumbent mayor, Carlos Hernandez. But while former State Sen. Rudy Garcia has been in the number three position before, he is now […]