Recall effort to be set against 1 of 8 county commissioners

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Pick a commissioner, any commissioner.

A group of activists will go to County Hall this afternoon and pick a name out of the hat. The winner, if we can call the chosen that, will face a recall effort for their vote on keeping the tax rate flat and slashing county services.

“We are on a downward spiral,” said Fred Frost, who used to be president of the local AFL-CIO but is now vice president of an organization called Miami Economic Sustainability Alliance, which tries to improve the quality of life for all residents. MESA will be joined by activists with the Pet’s Voice at a 1 p.m. press conference on the steps of the historic Miami-Dade Courthouse on Flagler Street, about a half hour after they file the paperwork, he said.

There will be eight names in the hat: The eight commissioners that voted on Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s about-face budget that called for no tax increase when he had said a day or two earlier that the county needed a small tax increase to maintain services. That means that Commissioners Barbara Jordan, Bruno Barreiro, Dennis Moss and Audry Edmonson (who was absent that day) are safe.

The others are all fair game.

“We’re talking about $46 a year for the average household,” Frost said. “Most people don’t know that.

“We want to restore services, our libraries and our rescue firefighters,” he added.

Frost told Ladra that they have the recall paperwork ready to submit to the county clerk — just the name has to be filled in the blank.

In Miami-Dade, we don’t need a reason — like we do at the state level or at municipalities — to oust one of our electeds when we get the whim, as we all know from the historic recall of former Mayor Carlos Alvarez and Bovo’s predecessor, Commissioner Natacha Seijas.

And ever since, we’ve heard repeatedly about efforts mounting against others, specifically Commissioners Lynda Bell, Jose “Pepe” Diaz and Esteban “Stevie” Bovo, who has dodged the most whispered recall rumors since his district aide was caught collecting absentee ballots at his Hialeah office during last year’s primary election.

First it was former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who was just on a warpath because Bobito Bovo was helping State Rep. Manny Diaz, Jr., against the Dean’s baby brother, former School Board Member Renier Diaz de la Portilla, in the House race for 103. What do you think all those absentee ballots were for?Then there were rumors last week that labor unions would fund a recall of the commissioner in District 13, one of the biggest bashers of public servants on the dais (which is why I suspect that a fix is in, though others suspect the target is really Bell).

Because recalls can be expensive. Just as auto mogul Norman Braman, who almost single-handedly financed the recalls of Alvarez and Seijas. Labor unions may have the money to back this kind of campaign.

Frost said that the recall will be a grass roots effort and he hopes to get $10 and $20 contributions from thousands of people who don’t want animals killed and who want their libraries open and who want to make sure that response times do not increase and rescue firefighters reach them in time.

Let’s stay tuned and wait for them to pull the rabbit out of the hat. Then let’s see where they pull the money out of.

  budget cuts, Carlos Gimenez, Esteban Bovo, Lynda Bell