Since taking over as president of the Latin Builders Association (LBA) last fall, Carlos Herrera has tried to chart a new direction for the powerful lobbying organization. He argues that over the past decade the LBA has lost sight of its real mission, which is to protect Dade County’s construction…
In May 1993, on her last day of work at the Miami Herald, Tracie Cone’s colleagues gathered to bid her farewell. During her six years at the Herald, Cone had become one of the paper’s rising stars, her talents having led her to a coveted position as a feature writer…
More than four months have passed since the Dade State Attorney’s Office began an investigation to determine whether certain county commissioners violated Florida’s Sunshine Law by meeting secretly to discuss — and presumably to influence — the selection of a new county manager last December. Violation of the law, one…
“You’re a genius!” the voice boomed over John Callahan’s telephone as soon as the Portland, Oregon, cartoonist answered it. “And you’ve just been hired by the Miami Herald!” That was six years ago, when then-Tropic editor Gene Weingarten was calling with the news that Callahan would begin running each week…
This past Wednesday, as the devastating Oklahoma City bomb blast sent the nation’s news media into a tizzy, the Miami Herald’s management was frantically conferring about a calamity far closer to home. Hands were wrung, teeth were gnashed. Fingers were pointed. It was an event that Tom Shroder, executive editor…
A group of Surfside police officers say they have been ordered to alter police reports, destroy evidence, downplay violent incidents, and, in some cases, to overlook criminal activity — all in an effort to maintain the town’s image as a peaceful hamlet by the sea. “They don’t want a police…
Steve Clark never really wanted to stop being mayor of Dade County. Though the post was largely ceremonial, Clark relished the kingly role, whether it was a photo op with retiring employees, or a ribbon cutting for a new community center, or a closed-door meeting with Dade’s most influential power…
It had been a long, hard-fought political campaign, and for months Katy Sorenson had been promising her family that when it was finally over, they would take a much needed vacation. And so this past November, during the week of Thanksgiving, Dade County’s newest commissioner flew off to Hawaii with…
If Dade County Commissioners hope for VIP treatment in the air, they virtually demand it on the ground at Miami International Airport. In fact, a fully staffed office is dedicated to ensuring that commissioners and senior county bureaucrats feel good about themselves. It’s called “protocol.” The aviation department’s protocol office…
When Joaquin Avino announced last October that he would be resigning as county manager at the end of the year to take a new post in the private sector, no one on the Dade County Commission publicly asked him what he intended to do after he stepped down from his…
Turning west off of Krome Avenue onto the Tamiami Trail, 32-year-old repo man William Negron began the eighteen-mile trek to the Miccosukee Indian reservation and what he hoped would be an easy automobile repossession. Riding with him in his customized tow truck was Dinavon Bythwood, a private investigator hired by…
A few months ago members of the Dade County Attorney’s Office were given a tour of several large hangars at Miami International Airport. Their guide, Buddy Klein, is a veteran contractor whose firm is a well-respected asbestos-removal company that does millions of dollars’ worth of work each year from Miami…
With Chairman Art Teele temporarily out of the chambers, Alex Penelas was running the October 20 county commission meeting, and doing his best to keep the agenda moving. “There are some items here that perhaps we can dispense with rather quickly,” he told his colleagues. Turning to Commissioner Javier Souto,…
Stripped to a pair of boxer shorts, the obese man leaped to the edge of the plastic tub. With his toes curled around the rim like a treed possum, he howled and beat his chest. Ripples of fat rolled across the expanse of his round belly. The tub beneath him…
Since this past summer’s Cuban exodus, Miami’s exile leaders have been biding their time, waiting for the right moment to exert their influence in delivering the nearly 30,000 refugees from the limbo of Guantanamo Naval Base and the safe-haven camps in Panama. Obviously, no massive immigration effort would be announced…
After ten successful years in the Miami city attorney’s office — first as an assistant city attorney, then as the chief deputy, followed by four years as the city attorney — Jorge Fernandez abruptly quit in 1991. He and his wife pulled their three children out of school, packed up…
This is Tence Wolfe’s story in its most succinct form: A trusted employee of the Dade County Clerk’s Office since 1989, Wolfe worked on the seventh floor of the Metro-Dade Justice Building, in the criminal courts division. Her job was fairly straightforward — when attorneys filed documents in a criminal…
Jorge Mas Canosa is running late. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says. “I was with the ambassador.” Mas turns and introduces Otto Reich, the former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela under President Ronald Reagan. “He was also a member of the National Security Council,” Mas says in a hushed tone. The…
They lined the walls, filled every seat, and stood two deep in the back of the West Miami City Hall chambers. Rarely had the Dade County Republican Party drawn such a crowd for its monthly conclave. And while the agenda contained plenty of interesting items — including a resolution calling…
TV Marti is dead,” Democratic Rep. David Skaggs of Colorado said one month ago. “Let’s hold last rites for it and move on.” “To stop funding for TV Marti would be a propaganda victory for Fidel Castro,” countered Andy Brack, an aide for South Carolina Sen. Fritz Hollings, a fellow…
On the highway of Dade County Republican politics, 32-year-old Emiliano Antunez is something of a go-cart — a relatively sturdy vehicle capable of puttering from one place to another. Trouble is, he keeps getting squeezed off the road by a Mack truck named Bruce Kaplan. Last year Antunez, a lifelong…
It’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m kneeling on the tile floor in my bathroom at the Fort Myers Comfort Suites Inn, puking into a toilet that earlier in the day, according to the paper strip I’m now clinging to, had been sanitized for my protection. Food poisoning, most…
