Miami-Dade’s first female mayor was sworn-in Tuesday at a ceremony that was long on pomp and circumstance — there was even a marching band — and short on specifics. It was a bit anticlimactic.
La Alcaldesa Daniella Levine Cava, who alternated to short brief Spanish summaries of what she said in English, did name the county’s Chief Medical Officer, which is her main promise from the campaign trail. He is Peter Paige, chief clinical executive and chief medical officer at Jackson Health System, “who will work alongside me to ensure our pandemic is driven by data and science, not politics.”
But, wait. Doesn’t that mean he was already here and should have already been working with the previous administration on a COVID19 plan?
She also announced that she was creating a joint county/municipal response and recovery task force to guide everyone out of the COVID19 crisis — and it wasn’t lost on anyone that this is a stark difference to former Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s approach, which was pretty much “my way or the highway,” and pissed all the other mayors off. Levine Cava said task force members representing a cross section of the county would be named soon, “so we can have one response that is guided by mutual respect and cooperation.
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“I will begin to work right away with our city and community leaders, business and medical experts, to ensure we are speaking with one voice…to keep residents safe and help us get back to work,” La Alcaldesa said.
“We must and we will get through this pandemic and we will do so together.”
Like it did throughout the mayoral campaign at every debate, “the unprecedented health an economic crisis that has taken too many lives and shuttered too many of our businesses,” dominated DLC’s installation speech.
“The last seven months have been some of the hardest we’ve faced. Nearly 4,000 homes are missing a loved one tonight because of COVID19,” Levine Cava said, stopping and asking for a moment of silence.
“I’m ready,” she said, thanking the county’s 2,500 or so employees for everything they’ve done and everything they still must do ahead. “We are united in our stand against a deadly virus. We are united in the struggle to rebuild and rebound our economy, to make sure that no business and no families are left out of recovery.”
She wants to build a community “where all our children, no matter the zip code or the color of their skin, can look forward to a brighter future.
“My new pledge is to work harder than ever — mas fuerte que nunca.”
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Other than the news about the task force and Dr. Paige — who was in the sparse, social distanced audience — everything else was more of the same.
Affordable housing, mobility, resiliency from climate change, saving Biscayne Bay, deep-seeded inequality, chronic underinvestment and systemic discrimination in the black community and social injustice. In a way — and Ladra is loathe to say this because the argument is wrong and manipulative and shouldn’t be tolerated — DLC just played into the forces that call her a socialist. From a pastor who spoke, one of four religious leaders, on the redistribution of wealth and balance between the “elite communities” and the downtrodden to her own comments about raising all the boats — like did anybody else read this before she went with it?
Levine Cava said she was going to be everybody’s mayor. But, having beaten Republican former Commissioner Esteban “Stevie” Bovo with the help of unions and progressive groups, she sounded more like she’s going to be a more of a mayor for them.
Bueno, it’s better than being a mayor for developers and relatives.
Speaking of which, former county mayor and newly-minted Congressman Gimenez had a video message moment during the celebration — and only after Commission Chairwoman Audrey Edmonson made her remarks, Taylor Moxie, a 14-year-old entrepreneur, read a poem and Raul Vergara, the owner of Cutler Bay Solar COMPANY, spoke about Levine Cava’s assistance to small businesses. It was short and unmemorable. And then Gimenez had his three minions, er, deputy mayors hand DLC a pen.
“With this pen, you have the power to do many great things,” Gimenez said. Like he would know.
Everyone knows that what Levine Cava needs is John Wick’s pencil. She was surrounded by quite a few hypocrites who are not happy that she is the first female mayor but are kissing the ring nonetheless because they must. She’s the second most powerful politician — and the most powerful woman — in the state now.
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She kissed their butts back. The new mayor — who has always been the gringa version of Commissioner Rebeca “Kumbaya” Sosa — had something nice to say about everybody. Every. Body. She went district by district, in numerical order, to note what she admired and/or learned from each commissioner and what she was looking forward to collaborate on with them: Curbing gun violence with Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, former mayor of Miami Gardens. Increasing access to healthcare with Commissioner Rene Garcia, the former state senator.
When she said she was also excited to work with the 34 municipalities, Ladra cringed thinking she might have something nice to say about every one of those mayors. She didn’t. It’s probably good enough she wants to work with them and consider their needs and opinions.
A lot of people believe in her. Important people. Smart people. Other public servants like former Miami Dade College President Emeritus Eduardo Padron, who said that DLC asked him to introduce her.
“I find it amusing because she is someone who needs no introduction to this community,” he said. “But I feel extremely privileged to do so.
“Daniella Levine Cava has spent 40 years working on behalf of this community,” Padron said. “First, as an advocate in the non profit world and then, as an elected official who never let down her constituents.
“There is hardly a place in Miami-Dade County that has not been touched by this extraordinary leader.”
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Padron said he met DLC in the early 80s. “She immediately made a great impression on me. Her passion for community building and her empathy for the less fortunate in our community was evident in everything she did.
“This extraordinary public servant has a strong belief in collaboration and that’s the way she will govern, right,” he asked, jokingly turning to her for assurance, which he got anyway.
The audience at the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center was dispersed as per social distancing rules and dominated by COVID19. But the ceremony was still too long and there was too much air being blown on that stage — both literally and figuratively — during the Florida Memorial University marching band drum line performance.
For all the care they took, Ladra would be surprised if nobody got sick.
But for many, it was a historic moment they could not pass up and Levine Cava likened it to the history of the election of the first woman Vice President, even quoting the victory words of Kamala Harris about not being the last to hold this position.
“To all the girls and young women watching in Miami-Dade, my cousins here,” she said, “the future is as big and bright as you imagine it to be.
“Today is about making history for all our residents by making sure all their voices are heard.”
La Alcaldesa Daniella Levine Cava gets installed, declares war on COVID added by Ladra on
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