Last year, Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez was caught up in an ethics scandal over his business connections to Luis Felipe Pérez, a Hialeah
The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust investigated. Hernandez wasn't actually punished for those business dealings. Instead, he got a relative slap on the wrist for lying to the public. He was ordered to pay a $4,000 fine. It didn't help that Hernandez also refused to comply with the investigation, and then intentionally skipped hearings.
Well, last November, the 54-year-old mayor had operatives show up at County Hall with 28 buckets filled with 400,000 pennies to pay the fine. Yep. The Ethics Commission reply: "Haha, yeah, no," basically.
Here was one of the buckets, lest you forget:
Instead of just writing a check like a rational person, Hernandez wouldn't back down. According to The Miami Herald,Centavo a centavo quiso pagar una multa el alcalde de Hialeah Carlos Hernández ¿Como termino todo? @Univision23 6pm pic.twitter.com/aFBZFh4Skw
— Jenny Padura (@JennyPadura) November 5, 2015
So today, Hernandez had $3,500 worth of boxed pennies and $500 worth of boxed nickels delivered to City National Bank in Downtown Miami. The County keeps an account there.
Hialeah mayor pays $4,000 ethics fine — in pennies and nickels https://t.co/jUjg8W7LD5 pic.twitter.com/6Y5yH5SJZZ
— Pierre Taylor (@newspeepers) May 5, 2016
Let's talk about what this doesn't do:
- Make a valid point about anything whatsoever.
- Wastes the time of the taxpayer-funded Ethics Commission.
- Wastes the time of the employees of City National Bank, who really had nothing to do with anything.
- Brings ongoing attention to the fact that Hernandez was slapped with an ethics fine in the first place.
- Makes him look stubborn and petty as hell.
He originally showed up back in November with a bunch of pennies. Apparently he got tired of counting all of them and decided to take a shortcut by including nickels into the mix as well.
Politicians can never follow through on any promises apparently.