But some at the center ride in slightly better style. Carbonell drives a leased $40,000 BMW paid for by the center. (Little Havana claims Carbonell contributes about twenty percent to the lease payment.) Mario Miranda, who worked at Little Havana for six months before being asked to step down, says he drove a $50,000 Lincoln Navigator comped by the organization.
Fortunately for Carbonell and Little Havana, the horse-trading runs smoother than the buses sometimes do. Perhaps accustomed to the agency's way of making up rules as they go along, Perez Goizueta asked Wall about the possibility of either amending the Living Wage ordinance or finding an exception for Little Havana.
Steve Satterwhite
Gema Hernandez, Florida department of elder affairs secretary, bringing the bacon to Little Havana
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"They wanted to pursue all options," Wall says.
He did not hear from Little Havana again until mid-July, when he called a meeting with Perez Goizueta and Assistant County Attorney Terrence Smith. After an afternoon spent hashing out details, Perez Goizueta vowed the Little Havana Activities and Nutrition Center would bring the workers, whose wages are covered by the Ryan White fund, up to the county's living-wage figure.
After the speeches on the government center terrace, the politicians patted a few elderly heads and beat a hasty retreat. A group of seven women sitting at one of the tables compared the lunch they had just eaten with the fare at Little Havana's cafeterias. The women ranged in age from sixty-five to early eighties.
"The day to go [to the comedores] is Monday," explained one of them.
The rest of the week can be troublesome apparently.
"Like Fantasy Five day," another vieja interjected. They go on to explain that the joke name refers to a dish consisting of five small meatballs of unknown origin.
In June 1998 questions about the quality of Little Havana's food made it past the torrents of praise for Carbonell normally published in El Nuevo Herald. Reporter Jeannette Rivera-Lyles wrote about 52 viejos who signed a letter and described the food as "very bad" and "unpleasant." Carbonell dismissed their objections as an isolated incident.
In their defense Little Havana officials point to a survey they commissioned that gave high marks to the food, which is planned by a nutritionist and developed to Cuban tastes.
Little Havana's meal contract -- at more than two million dollars -- would be the envy of any big company. The sum breaks down to $2.29 for a lunchroom meal and 60 cents more for home delivery.
What is truly remarkable given the juiciness of the contract is that one provider, Migdalia and Esteban Bencomo, have prepared Little Havana meals since about 1984. (The Alliance for Aging must approve the contract that Little Havana sends out to bid -- the center is left to its own discretion in terms of choice of caterer.)
If the Bencomos' meals have helped fuel Little Havana's growth, a federal initiative to provide job training may have taught Carbonell that her agency had grown too fast. The South Florida Training and Employment Council gave $688,000 to Little Havana to run the program, which rewarded the agency for each person for whom they found a job for between October 1, 2000 and June 30, 2001. But Carbonell's group had to give back the money, purportedly because it did not have the bare minimum of space required, even though funds existed to rent additional rooms.
"After a couple of meetings with the management personnel of Little Havana, they decided that their real niche is in terms of serving the elderly and immigrant population," says Joseph Alfano, executive director of the South Florida Training and Employment Council.
But a Little Havana employee complaint involving allegations that she was asked to falsify documents to show the agency had obtained jobs for people also could have played a role in the sudden shutdown of the program. Both the person who made the complaint and a supervisor were removed from the agency, and the latter was convinced to sign a confidentiality agreement. The council investigated the allegations and deemed them "vague, unspecific, and unreliable" -- though they did chide Little Havana for using Wite-Out on official documents.
Current mayoral candidate Maurice Ferré does not believe Carbonell does anything untoward. "I don't think she crosses the line," says Ferré, who terms Josefina a "superstar."
"Sometimes she goes right up to the line, but it's the only way to survive in this town."
Carbonell also has survived by maintaining that solid and loyal group around her. Ramon Perez Dorrbecker, her successor, for example, is married to her half-sister Teresita. (Perez Dorrbecker has been at the center for as long as Carbonell.) Some rival social-services providers hope Perez Dorrbecker will not be able to exert the same influence as his sister-in-law. They hope her departure could increase the number of organizations that receive money to help the elderly.
But Washington, D.C., is not Miami. Carbonell might find the capital a cold and inhospitable place. Press scrutiny is a little more severe. The kind of loyalty she demanded from her employees at Little Havana will be in short supply in a giant federal bureaucracy. And no longer will a comedor filled with adoring and like-minded elderly be just a stroll away.
Intern Daniela Lamas contributed to this story.
