More than an hour after sunset the temperature inside the gym at Booker T. Washington Middle School is still over 90 degrees. Trapped like most everything else in Overtown, the air is heavy and damp. On the floor, two dozen teenage boys race up and down the basketball court, running…
Hello, registrar’s office.” “Hi, is this the registrar’s office at Columbia University?” “Yes, it is.” “Well, I was hoping you could help me. I’m calling from Miami and I was trying to track down some information about a former Columbia professor, Alex Cooper. I believe he taught bullshitting.” “Excuse me?”…
This past Sunday Rev. Cleo Albury, Jr., of the Bible Baptist Church in Liberty City, exhorted his congregation to believe in the power of prayer, and he used the parable of Daniel in the lion’s den as an illustration. Daniel, the pastor reminded everyone, was a servant of the Lord…
Next Tuesday, for the fourth time in their political careers, Maurice Ferre and Xavier Suarez will appear on the same ballot, their futures left to the fancy of an electorate that in the past has been both loving and cruel to each man. On three separate occasions — in 1983,…
Nothing about Arthur E. Teele, Jr., is simple. He is a black Republican. He is mercurial, Machiavellian, and manic. He is paranoid, but often with good reason. He is charming in person, but can be abusive toward his staff, and he once punched out a lobbyist. He is married, but…
In 1858, when Abraham Lincoln ran against Stephen Douglas for the United States Senate, a series of debates was held across the state of Illinois. Thousands attended the now-legendary affairs, and to accommodate the sizable crowds, the debates were often held outdoors with the candidates standing atop raised wooden platforms…
Sizing up his chances for victory on September 3, County Commissioner Dennis Moss says, “I believe we have done a good enough job in District 9 to be re-elected.” In one sentence Moss expressed both the optimism of his campaign and the problem with it. Politically, that sort of assessment…
The defining moment in the political career of Dade County Commissioner Alex Penelas came on April 22, 1993, shortly after he and his colleagues were sworn into office as part of an expanded commission elected from thirteen newly created districts. After taking the oath, each commissioner delivered a speech, and…
ART TEELE: In order to make it to a runoff, Teele’s strategy is to capture 80 percent of the black vote (45,000), 25 percent of the Jewish vote (6000), 30 percent of the non-Jewish Anglo vote (19,000), and then scrape together another four percent of the Hispanic-related groups (5000). His…
This was supposed to be Steve Clark’s election. Eighteen months ago conventional wisdom held that Clark — the City of Miami mayor turned Dade County mayor turned city mayor — would return one more time to county hall and easily outpace his younger, more energetic rivals for the coveted and…
On June 27, Sen. John Chafee, a Republican from Rhode Island and chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, signed a letter asking the head of the General Accounting Office (GAO) to launch an immediate investigation into the environmental impact of Dade County’s plan to transfer Homestead Air…
The mean season is upon us. The Dade mayor’s race is in full swing, a half-dozen county commission seats are up for grabs, and after months of wrangling over fractious issues such as building a new arena, repealing the county’s gasoline tax, and leasing portions of Homestead Air Force Base…
Poor, poor Micky Arison. You gotta feel for him. How misunderstood he is. How wrong the public has been to judge him so harshly, to question the propriety of taxpayers spending more than $130 million to build this gazillionaire a new basketball arena. At least that’s the impression South Floridians…
In the coming months, the federal government will relocate the headquarters of Radio Marti and Television Marti from their current home in Washington, D.C., to Miami. The move from the capital of the United States to the capital of Cuban exile politics represents more than a 1200-mile trek down Interstate…
By all accounts the fundraiser held a few weeks ago at the Biltmore Hotel for President Bill Clinton was a huge success, as the $1500-a-plate affair raised $3.4 million for the president’s campaign coffers. It also raised the profile of disgraced former county commissioner Larry Hawkins, who was dumped by…
A subpoena can be a marvelous thing. Just ask Tony Ridder. For weeks the Knight-Ridder chairman refused to release documents in his possession regarding a proposed new arena for the Miami Heat. He told reporters, including those at his own newspaper, the Miami Herald, that he was beyond the reach…
Chapter Nine EGO, EGO EVERYWHERE, AND NOT A DROP OF SENSE Earlier this year, when it looked as though the Miami Heat almost certainly would move to Broward, Dade County Commission Chairman Art Teele sat at the downtown arena watching the team take on the Chicago Bulls. Alongside him during…
Chapter Five THE RETURN OF CRAZY JOE CAROLLO Within hours of his election this past November as a Miami city commissioner, Joe Carollo was busy extracting promises from his colleagues to appoint him chairman of the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority. More commonly known by its acronym MSEA (pronounced mee-suh),…
Last Wednesday a group of South Florida labor unions held a press conference announcing a campaign to urge their brethren to cancel their Miami Herald subscriptions in a show of solidarity with striking newspaper employees at the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News. The next day, a story on…
For twelve years Charles Felton had not smoked. He’d quit cold. Quit forever, he told himself. Never again would he light up a cigarette and invite demon nicotine into his body. Then in October 1993 he went to work for Dade County, and within a few months of taking over…
Sal Magluta visibly trembled with fear as he waited to hear the verdict in his drug-conspiracy trial. The jury slowly filed into the tenth-floor courtroom of federal Judge Federico Moreno, and Magluta’s breathing increased rapidly. His attorneys, Roy Black and Martin Weinberg, were sitting on either side of him, and…
A week before Christmas, as Peter Dolara, a senior vice president for American Airlines, was hosting a party for friends and business associates at his Coral Gables home, a parking valet pulled him aside. There was a man outside asking a lot of questions and offering money for information about…
