Hernandez critics barred from Gimenez endorsement

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Ladra would like to tell you what it was like at the big brouhaha in Hialeah where Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez and his crew endorsed Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez in his bid for re-election in front of friends and the media.

Well, most of the media.

Ladra would love to tell you what it was like but I can’t, because I was barred entry into the second floor salon at La Carreta on West 16^th Avenue.

“You’re not welcome here,” said Hialeah Police Commander Luis Lahera at the door. “This is a private event.”

I said I had received a media advisory, like an invitation, from the Gimenez campaign. Well, two. One last night and one this morning. Lahera said he was told not to let me in. “You can wait in the parking lot.”

El Nuevo Herald reporter Enrique Flor was walking by, the mayor had not arrived yet. “No, you’re kidding,” Flor said, nearly laughing at the incredulity. “Just her?”

“Just her,” Lahera said.

After I asked for him to get campaign communications G-Man Tom Martinelli for me because I was invited to the event, he went in and came back out and told me that I was not to go in. He said the instructions were from the Gimenez campaign.

I’m not sure I will go so far as to believe that — right away. But Gimenez should know they said that. And, the truth is the G-Men, if not the Golden Boy Mayor himself, knew that I was being barred as the event began. They tolerated it and justified it and legitimized Castro’s continued efforts to silence me by allowing it to happen.

I’m not surprised that I was barred from a Hialeah event, since it’s happened so many times before. Actually, I am just glad I didn’t get another illegal trespass warning. I am a little surprised, however, that I was barred from a Gimenez event in Hialeah. He always shook his head in disapproval when he heard about their systematic repressive government before.

Guess now it’s a convenient trade. Ladra is not worth as much as Castro in this election. I realize that and am okay with it. But it’s not about me. It’s about Gimenez aligning himself with an elected official who systematically does this kind of thing and has a whole bunch of underlings who do it, too.

And I was not alone. The police also barred Fire Union Vice President Eric Johnson, an ardent Gimenez supporter and damn-near boyfriend who just happens to also be a vocal critic of the administration, which just happens to be harassing him with a bogus investigation that is a violation of Johnson’s civil rights. They also barred retired Hialeah Police Det. Ricky Garcia, another vocal critic who has been investigated, and his sidekick, George Morffiz. All three of them supported former Mayor Raul Martinez in last year’s Hialeah city elections.

So, Johnson, a public servant with a heart of gold who has given his blood, sweat and tears to the Gimenez campaign, was not allowed in but Dr. Victor Verjano, a podiatrist who is part of the Hernandez absentee ballot collection team, and “Chef Marin” – whatever his real name is — from the Casa Marin restaurant, where he has bragged something around 600 voters drop off their ABs, got a green light?

Was Emelina Llanes, the AB runner used by Hernandez et al and caught on tape red-handed last year collecting ballots in a city building, there? I don’t know. I couldn’t get in, I tell ya. But she was there last night, when the two mayors first announced their unholy alliance at a gathering of about 500 or so Hialeah people. I was going to ask the mayor what he and Llanes talked about, but I didn’t get a chance as he blew me off to go have a cafecito with Castro.

Also there: the entire Seguro Que Yes council and the Hialeah political hierarchy – Sen. Rene Garcia (R-Hialeah), Rep. Eddy Gonzalez (R-102), Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban Bovo, Miami Lakes Councilman Nelson Hernandez and former State Rep. Marcelo Llorente, a key member of the Gimenez campaign machine. Forgive me if I forgot anybody. Like I said, I wasn’t allowed in.

When Gimenez walked down the stairs with Castro Hernandez and the bunch and saw me, he greeted me politely and asked how I was. I asked why I was barred from the event. He said he had no knowledge of that — although I later found out he did learn about it as he arrived — and would find out what happened. I told him he tolerated it and was allowing that type of behavior. He gave me a sideways glance, like “c’mon,” and said that wasn’t true.

C’mon you, Mayor. We’ve never minced words before. And something stinks about this. Because the series of events allowed for you and/or someone on your campaign to intervene and do the right thing. After I called Tom Martinelli and texted him, because he wouldn’t pick up his phone, and got no answer, I saw Josh, one of the younger G-Men, downstairs by the cafecito window. He was talking on the phone, giving directions to Ralph Garcia-Toledo, the mayor’s driver, who was coming north from West 49^th Street with the mayor. I told him what happened and asked him to please call someone and make things right, as I was getting no answer. Before we finished talking, he got a call. “Jesse,” he said. It was Jesse Manzano, the campaign manager. Josh told him – in front of me – to please come down to the café window because there was “a situation.” I could not hear the rest as he started to run toward the mayor’s SUV. But nobody came down. And the mayor went upstairs through another entry, not the one where me and Eric and the other rejects were hanging around.

We waited as the press conference started upstairs, thinking that this couldn’t really be happening, making phone calls to a couple of people close to the campaign to tell them and see if there was still a way to make things right. They couldn’t believe it. One of them called Manzano, who came down to the parking lot around 12:30 or 12:45 p.m., as Gimenez finished up inside. He apologized profusely and said he would find out what happened to both me and Johnson. I told him we would just go up with him and catch the end of the press conference, since it wasn’t them who blocked us. But he didn’t seem to welcome that idea. Another opportunity to right the wrong completely discarded.

“If your intent is to talk to the mayor, he will come down and you can talk to him then,” Manzano said. Really? Really?  Are you questioning my intent? Looks like you’ve been listening too much to Castro crony Arnie Alonso. Well, that was part of the intent, the other part was to watch the goings on with my own pair of eyes, just like everybody else. But Manzano’s words indicate he knew I had been barred and he was was part and parcel of the “situation.” Besides, they never made the mayor available to me. He talked to me in passing, without stopping a step, before he rushed to have a cafecito with Castro. And I had no further opportunity.

I’m guessing they knew that Eric and I and the others had been barred. And it was simply too hard, too awkward, too inconvenient to start five minutes later and make sure we were allowed access. And as much as they may not like me saying so and as much as they apologized after the fact, and asked me to be measured in how I wrote this, it is what it is. We were shut out. And Gimenez people knew about it as the event unfolded.

Manzano and Martinelli — who said his phone was on the side charging when I tried to call and texted him — asked me to give them a chance to find out what happened.  They apologized again and again. “On behalf of myself and the campaign, I am very sorry. You shouldn’t be treated that way,” Manzano said.

I said, go ahead, although at this point it’s moot. Because what are you going to do? Are you going to chide Mayor Castro for being a bully? How can you make it right at this point? Looks to me like a case of mejor pedir perdon que pedir permiso.. “It’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission” – of Hernandez, that is.

Maybe it is part of the price of the Hialeah hoodlum establishment endorsement: “We give you our nod, but you let us keep hammering our critics and violating their rights, firing employees who don’t tow the line or have the gumption to support someone else, harassing those we deem enemies, investigating civilians for political reasons. Just look the other way, Mayor Gimenez.”

If I was disappointed yesterday when I heard that Gimenez — who Ladra has always been loyal to and who I still think is the best candidate, despite his lack of quick action today and courage today — had joined the dark side, I’m completely disgusted now that he has legitimized and allowed this type of bully, oppressive behavior from an elected official in his county. Even if said elected official endorsed him.

I wonder what Gimenez would have said if Hernandez et al had endorsed Commission Chairman Joe Martinez, instead, and barred me. He might have been quicker to blast that kind of bully behavior. Like he used to be.

The second debate between Gimenez and Martinez, who just grew a couple of inches, starts in a couple of hours at the Biltmore Hotel, hosted by the Latin American Business Association.

Let’s see if Ladra will be barred from that.