The new Mike Hernández at County Hall will be, drum roll please, former El Nuevo Herald Editor and Vice President Myriam Márquez, who left the paper last summer. She will start in April and her salary will be the same $175,000.
Ladra hopes Myriam remembers her fondly from our days together on the City Desk and that this means I will get better access to the mayor and county documents. So far, it looks good. This is what she tweeted me after we broke the news Thursday afternoon:
“It’s not a rumor. It’s official that I will serve as communications director starting in April. Look forward to chatting with you Elaine once I start. Saludos.”
Nobody looks forward to it more than Ladra.
Everyone knows that Hernández stopped talking to me and responding to my emails, even public records requests, two years ago when I worked against his boss with the only viable candidate there was. He forwards everything to one of his lackies. He just cut me off cold and started badmouthing me (you didn’t think it’d get back to me, Mike?). But he never told me why.
Hernández has always had one foot out the door, though. As a progressive Democrat in a Republican world, he was often at odds with Gimenez policy and admitted to me once that he had to hold his nose for some of the things he was defending or promoting. But he was good at his job. Maybe too good.
Hernández did a lot to improve the county’s social media outreach, hosting the first Facebook townhalls with the mayor. He also worked diligently to improve the whole communications network and the community outreach department, which was plagued (and still might be) with nepotism and cronyism.
But his proudest moment is, no doubt, that little piece of theater of the absurd he orchestrated about Gimenez pretending to toy with becoming a Democrat. It was brilliant media distraction.
Anyone who knows Mike knows that he wanted real bad to be on the Hillary Clinton team and even hinted several times that he was going to get a post there. He didn’t. But now he’s joining other uber Democrats — Congressman Joe Garcia, Juan Penalosa and Ashley Walker — at the Mercury Partners government affairs PR agency. He may, someday in the future, need Political Cortadito to push a progressive candidate or a referendum or something.
Ladra holds no grudges, Mike. This phone is open to you always. Despite the last two years of rudeness and lack of professionalism.
Marquez was an assistant city editor on the English side (putting together the old “Local” section before it was absorbed into the A) before she went to lead El Nuevo in 2013. She helped the Spanish language paper grow its digital operation and increased local digital traffic by 28 percent and video views by more than 100 percent. During more than a decade at the Herald, she has won awards from the Florida Society of News Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists.
On Thursday, a few minutes after Ladra broke the news on twitter about her joining the county, Márquez made the official announcement herself. “I am thrilled to be joining the leadership team of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and to work with the professional communications staff of the 25 agencies that serve county residents. I start April 2.”
Minutes later, Gimenez tweeted “I’m happy to announce I have appointed @MyriamMarquez as Communications Director and Senior Advisor” and linked the county press release.
“Myriam is an expert with nearly 30 years of experience in innovative and strategic communications. Her demonstrated history in her field will be an asset to the county’s communications team,” Gimenez said (or Mike said for Gimenez).
“I am honored to become a part of Mayor Gimenez’s administration,” Márquez added, “especially during this most exciting time when people are connecting in new ways to build community through social media and civic engagement.”
That’s true. But then she already went into spin mode.
“I share the Mayor’s vision of improving our residents’ quality of life in cost-efficient ways that protect their pocketbooks, and I am excited about all the innovations underway,” Márquez said in the press release. “I look forward to public service. Helping our residents with accurate information to find the services they need will be Job One.”
Maybe she doesn’t really know what she’s in for.

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Miami-Dade made a very excited announcement Wednesday.
No, our county leaders haven’t solved the transit problem — not even close. They haven’t found a real, professional with airport experience to run MIA. They haven’t decided to respect the people’s vote and create the Pet’s Trust as they promised to. They didn’t find the perfect location and situation for a new civil courthouse. They didn’t pass any new climate change development regulations. And they haven’t discovered a way to save tapayer dollars in wasteful publicity stunts that only feel good but do very little to actually benefit the community.
No, the announcement made Wednesday was that our county had unveiled its very own condom brand. Actually, “its first branded condom,” according to the press release. Italics are mine. Because are we to expect more condom brands from our elected local leaders? Can Ladra suggest an erect palm tree against a sunset backdrop for the next one?
This first condom was unveiled on Valentine’s Day, for all the PR value. This is not a joke. Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Commissioner Sally Heyman and Commission Chairman Esteban Bovo even posed with a giant and (we hope) mock condom for the photo-op. At the press conference. Press conference!
This first condom is Miami-Dade’s collaboration with the Florida Health Department’s Getting 2 Zero HIV awareness campaign — because the goal is zero new cases and zero stigma — hence Sen. Rene Garcia also in the photo op. And this is not to take away from the campaign. Ladra is all for HIV awareness and free condoms for everyone — which the county is distributing all this week at locations near you. Miami-Dade has one of the if not the highest rate of HIV infection in the country. Currently, there are almost 27,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Miami-Dade — that’s one out of every 85 adults. We need as many free condoms as we can get. And it will rain condoms at FIU’s Green Library today, dubbed “Condom Day.”
But is this really what we want our county commissioners to be spending their time doing? Posing with giant condoms? Once they initiate/approve the collaboration, sure, they can do something to help the state campaign. But celebrating? With photo ops?
This is the hard work they want $100,000 a year for? (More on that later.) Already, Deputy Mayor Maurice Kemp (far left) has already spent too much time away from his $230,000-a-year job.
Perhaps it is because the pats on the back come few and far between at County Hall. So they just can’t help themselves. But, seriously folks, whatever time, cost and effort was made designing and/or printing this special wrapper and redecorating the lobby at County Hall and producing all this feel good publicity crap could have been saved and our community better served by hooking the state up with existing HIV awareness organizations that really know how the community and how to distrubute existing brands of condoms all year long.
What we really need is protection for when the county screws us. But in the meantime, here’s where to find the free Miami-Dade brand condoms.

Feb. 15 Health Fair at Curley’s House, from 10-3 p.m., 6025 NW 6th Ct.
Feb. 15 Educational Table at MDC-Kendall Campus, from 11-2 p.m., 11011 SW 104th St.
Feb. 15 Condom Day at FIU’s Green Library, 10:30-2 p.m., 11200 SW 8th St.
Feb. 16 Health Fair at Government Center, 10-4 p.m., 111 NW 1st St.
Feb. 16 HIV/STD Testing The Hub at LGBTQ, 10-2 p.m., 1130 Washington Ave., Miami Beach
Feb. 22 HIV/STD Testing at Flamingo Park, 2-7 p.m., 1200 Meridian Ave., Miami Beach

Use at your own risk.

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Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has basically taken over the procurement process at Miami International Airport, just like that, in what amounts to a seizure of one of the county’s fattest cash cows. Who thinks that’s a good idea?
Certainly not Miami-Dade Aviation Director Emilio Gonzalez, who suddenly resigned Tuesday. While his is among a bunch of names that have been floated for the next city of Miami manager (more on that later), the resignation comes just two weeks after Gimenez told county commissioners that the mayor’s office was going to directly oversee vendor bids and other procurement issues at the airport from now on.
Wanna bet the two are related.
Gonzalez said he was leaving to spend more time with family. But, in the same breath, he said he would pursue other opportunities in January. Political observers, which include two lobbyists who work with airport vendors, believe he would not have left the county job until he had the city job in hand — but then Gimenez basically slapped him in the face.
Despite winning a bunch of airport industry awards for this and that, despite adding airlines so that MIA has the largest number in the U.S., despite overseeing its $6 million expansion and earning high marks from everyone, Gimenez basically threw Gonzalez under the bus when he told the director in a memo late last month that he was no longer going to be involved in any procurement matters.
“There will be no exceptions,” the mayor’s memo to Gonzalez said.
Read related story: Aiport City is dead, but firm gets $65 mil consolation prize
Gimenez later told commissioners that he “realigned the concession area of MIA and the overall supervision of the business (non aviation) areas in MIA to report to me through a Special Assistant for MDAD Landside Business Operations.” He is also moving the procurement staff at MIA to the downtown building so “they can be directly supervised as part of the overall procurement function of the county,” according to his Oct. 30 memo to commissioners. And Leland Solomon, director of the departent of Regulatory and Economic Resources, is that special assistant.
“MDAD’s procurement organization has been operating independently at MIA for many years and I believe that these changes will result in a more streamlined, open and competitive with decision making reestablished in my office and with appropriate board approval,” Gimenez said in his memo, trying to make it more palatable because the commission has to approve anything anyway.
Really? More streamlined? Yes. More open and competitive? Doubtful.
The memo comes at the same time as Gimenez suggests Hurricane Irma breaks in the guaranteed minimum payments wanted by airport vendors who donated bigly to his re-election campaign. I mean, he has a lot of IOUs from his $8 million re-election pricetag and this is one way to pay that off. Which is why he also has a list of RFPs that need to go out “immediately” and other concession bids that need to be approved. It’s no coincidence that some of his campaign contributors are on that list, too.
Ladra is not the only one who thinks this stinks. Both Commission Chairman Esteban Bovo and Commissioner Bruno Barreiro said they were concerned about changing the current process so that the mayor’s office is more involved. Especially since things are going so well. MIA ranked 5th in the nation for customer satisfaction last year, up from 18th place in 2015.
Read related story: Miami-Dade’s problematic procurement helps county lobbyists
“The airport staff should handle procurement. I don’t think it should be the mayor’s office,” Barreiro said. “That should be under the airport professionals.”
He also said it was a “shame” that Gonzalez had resigned. “That raises concerns now about what we’re going to do to fill that vacancy.”
“I don’t know if it’s justified or not,” Bovo told Ladra about the change. “We do have vendors who on a continual basis are trying to get reduction of MAGs or extension of contracts and the director has been pretty steadfast against those things.”
Exactly! Concessionaires complain because “Emilio doesn’t play games,” as one insider said. That must be what Gimenez objects to: His friends and family aren’t getting the red carpet treatment.
But, as a strong mayor, he apparently has the right to just take over the airport procurement.
“This does not require commission action,” Bovo added. “He’s made the decision. He’s determined that this would work better under his perview.
“I would be very cautious about this kind of thing because that’s what we have directors for,” the chairman told Ladra. “This could be a slippery slope.”
Exactly! Because today it’s the airport and tomorrow it could be the seaport. Or maybe the water and sewer department. That’s a lucrative area.
What’s to stop Carlos Gimenez from taking over any other department and giving the county away one piece at a time?
Nothing. Except a recall.

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Well, what do you know? Pushed into a corner by a majority of Miami-Dade County commissioners and an army of activists and angry residents to restore the funding cuts he proposed for transit services (bus routes and Metrorail hours), Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez suddenly found at least $16.2 million we didn’t have before.

More found money!

Okay, it’s not like, “Oh, there it is! I was wondering where I put those $16 million!” It’s not like he’s a street magician making quarters appear out of thin air. Although sometimes it seems that way, don’t it? That’s because we’ve become accustomed to Gimenez just opening a drawer full of money whenever he is forced to go look for it.  We shouldn’t be too shocked. This always happens at budget crunchtime. In fact, Ladra is only surprised it’s a measley $16 million and predicts that figure could rise as he opens more hidden drawers and trap doors on the 29th floor at County Hall. Look for good news (read: more bait and switch) at Thursday’s budget hearing.

I mean, wasn’t it a $200 million shortfall in 2014 when Gimenez first threatened to fire 700 county workers, including 255 police officers, then it was 130, then 100, then 70 and then — abracadabra — none! The money was found to save all the police jobs. Just as it was found to save the libraries the year before and stop the fire station brownouts the year before that. Was it last year he found $5 million out of the blue to fund The Underline? Or was that the year before? It all blurs togegther, which Ladra thinks is by design (and, wait, is that money parked somewhere? Or was it spent? If so, on what?).

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez’s new bait and switch — pay cuts to benefits 

This year, the bait and switch is with — what else? — transit, the obsession du jour. Gimenez and, by extension, the county budget director, Jennifer Moon, were hard pressed to find the $19 million that had been cut from the transit budget after the first budget hearing earlier this month and dozens of people spoke about the hardship this would cause transit-dependant workers. A majority of commissioners — in a rare but welcome momentary reunion with their respective spines — refused to pass the budget. Commissioner Xavier Suarez suggested dipping into the reserves to cover the transit cuts, but before that could happen, Commissioner Jean Monestime changed his vote and the budget passed 7-6. But staying with Suarez in dissent were Bruno Barreiro, Audrey Edmonson, Barbara Jordan, Daniella Levine Cava and Joe Martinez.

Some said they would vote against it again at Thursday (Sept. 28) meeting if the transit cuts were not addressed. Or even switch their vote. “Yes, for now,” said Chairman Esteban “Stevie” Bovo. I mean, how could they be taken seriously about the SMART plan and expanding mass transit if they were cutting services wholesale?

“We do have a lot of money. We just don’t allocate it properly,” Suarez said.

And, on Wednesday, the mayor proved him right.

“At the first budget hearing, the board made it clear that your priority for funding was public transportation. I share your opinion that in order to be a truly resilient community now and in the future, we must solve our mobility issues,” the mayor said, and suuuure he shares their opinion noooow.

Gimenez found $2.6 million by adding more limited holiday schedule dates to Metrorail and another $4.4 million by cancelling four bus routes that overlapped with free trolleys and municipal circulators. Really? How many years have we been wasting those $4.4 mil? He also “redirected” about $5.5 million in People’s Transportation Plan funds, just when we are supposed to start weaning ourselves off those funds (futher “redirecting” $6 million in road impact fees to replace it), and saved another unexplained $900,000 in overhead. Just like that. Snap!

And voila! You have $13 million for transit.

Read related story: Libraries saved! Carlos Gimenez performs another magic trick

In his memo to commissioners, Gimenez also laid out additional savings of at least $3.2 million he found in “additional carryover,” whatever that is, since the last budget hearing and which he has applied to the commissioners’ wishlist — including $200,000 for an additional doctor to perform spay and neuter operations at the animal shelter (which doesn’t seem like the best use of funding), $500,000 for an additional police cadet class, $340,000 to cut the grass on medians 17 times a year (current budgeting), $250,000 for canopy replacement and $270,000 for 900 more hours of tutoring at select libraries. Another $1 million was found to practically double the Hurricane Irma reserves (and the commission will be briefed at 1 p.m. on clean up and other recovery efforts).

Is anybody else at all concerned with the ease with which these monies were, once again, moved around like peas in a shell game?

“The idea that we were headed into approval of a budget and now, lo and behold, $13 million, $14 million, $15 million appear out of nowhere all of a sudden,” Suarez said in a telephone interview after Wednesday’s government operations committee meeting and you could practically see him shaking his head through the phone waves. He also said that he hopes the mayor can look a little harder and find more funds now for housing and capital projects, too.

Hopefully, the other commissioners will be as unsatisfied with this bait and switch and see it for the mismanagement and evidence of ineptitude that it truly is. Because if a reluctant and petulant mayor found $16 million in a week, how much is really padding the budget that a more motivated individual might find?

And what does this really tell us?

It tells us that there is overlap in functions and services — you think trolleys and buses are the only example of that? — which are also wasting resources we need for other things like full-time park employees and recreational programs and a civilian oversight board for police and compliance officers to investigate possible violations of the human rights ordinance.

It tells us that the mayor and administration are not reflecting the priorities of the commission — or the community — in the budget.

It tells us that we should have zero confidence in the budget that Gimenez produces and the figures he and Moon provide to the commission. After all, they both presented a Doom’s Day austere budget and said that there was no money to be found for anything else — and then, bingo, here’s $16 million.

And it tells us that former Commissioner Juan Zapata was right when he kept insisting, like forever, that the commission should have its own budget director.

Read related story: Miami Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez saves us — from himself

“It’s the same story every year,” Zap told Ladra Wednesday. “Absolutely the county commission neeeds their own budget director and staff. I advocated and filed legislation to push for this for years. Budget staff would misinform my colleages and purposely sabotage my efforts.

“The current process allows for no checks and balances or accountability to taxpayer dollars. It’s a joke and in desperate need for reform,” Zapata said. “If the commission doesn’t take steps to bring about change, citizens should start a petition drive to place the issue on the ballot.”

Why wait? Ladra smells a passion project. And if the people at New Florida Majority or Engage Miami really want to make a permanent and significant difference, here’s something palpable.

The second and final public hearing on the mayor’s proposed $7.2 billion budget begins at 5 p.m. Thursday (Sept. 28) at County Hall, 111 NW First Street, and will be broadcast live on channel 77 and online at the county website.

Thank the political gods that millionaire Miami pioneer heir Bruce Matheson also smelled something fishy about Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s special no-bid deal to sell a county-owned parcel in Overtown to the Beckham United group that wants to build a soccer stadium there.

Matheson — who has the money and gravitas that comes from a track record of fighting Big Sports — filed a lawsuit last week to stop the sale of the property at 684 NW 7th St., used by the county’s water and sewer department as mostly a storage depot for equipment, to David Beckham and his business partners. They want to put it together with other adjacent parcels they have bought so they can build a stadium for a promised but as-yet unexisting professional soccer team. And the county commission approved the sale for $9 million last month.

The crux of the lawsuit is that the county should have issued a request for proposals for the property once the property was deemed surplus, and that the commission should then have chosen the highest paying bidder, as state and county laws require.

Because, after all, the process is not supposed to be rigged to benefit any particular person or soccer star. And the mayor of the county isn’t supposed to arbitrarily put a property on surplus all of a sudden to benefit the father of his campaign fundraiser.

That is what happened, folks. This property was not on the surplus list already. In fact, the 7 and 7 building — as it is known among county employees because it’s on 7th Avenue and 7th Street — was getting ready for renovations to remove asbestos. Furthermore, Ladra has been told by a couple of different sources that the county is looking to buy or lease another property so it can house the overflow of equipment and trucks — as well as staff parking for a nearby facility — that are at the 7 and 7 building now.

But the property was curiously put on the surplus list after the Beckham group purchased an adjacent lot owned by Chris and Tom Korge and Barry Goldmeier, father of Brian Goldmeier, who makes a great living raising campaign funds for Gimenez and his allies. That 1.37 acres, purchased in 2006 for $1.3 million went for $6.2 million to Beckham. But it is arguable that it wouldn’t have sold at all if the county land, which is three adjacent acres needed for the stadium site, wasn’t suddenly made surplus with a wave of the mayor’s magic wand. Remember, Gimenez signed a letter of intent to sell the land in December of 2015. The subpoenas that come with a lawsuit may tell us whether or not he was pressured or convinced to put the property on surplus so he could sell it cheap, like the mayor did with the land up in Northwest Miami-Dade that was subsequently bought by the American Dream Mall.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez’s pals own land for/near new soccer stadium

Matheson’s lawsuit states that the county sold the land based on an old appraisal — before adjacent land sales — and at $69 per square foot, when the lot next door was purchased by Beckham’s group for $103 a square foot.

Talk about a sweetheart deal. Such a deal that Matheson said he would buy it himself at that price. I bet a lot of people would.

Ladra thinks the lawsuit will shed light on many irregularities in the process. We will get a full vetting of the history of this property and find out things that Gimenez certainly didn’t want us to know.

Like the fact that this parcel was originally taken by the county in 1971 through eminent domain proceedings against the Canada Dry Bottling Co., which was paid $60,445 for the land and moving costs, and a few other property owners, according to Miami-Dade Circuit Court records (case nos. 69-12503, 69-15943 and 69-16872). J. C. Devine Company, an Ohio corporation, owned one of the lots taken through eminent domain for $225,979. Eric and Fay Manville owned a third parcel with Minnie Barnett Johns and Chauncey and Estelle Walden. Manville was paid $21,940, Barnett $28,325 and the Waldens got $24,650 for their losses.

Records show that the court allowed Dade County to take these lands from these private land owners through eminent domain “for the public purpose of urban renewal contemplating the clearing and redevelopment of a slum area.”

Apparently, the county felt that using the lot as an overflow station for trucks and backhoes and excavating equipment for most of the past 45 years was “urban renewal.” In light of the use its had, then certainly a stadium may be more in line with that public purpose of redevelopment.

But so would a park. Or affordable housing. Or an artists’ co-op space. Or a tech start-up hub. At the very least, shouldn’t there have been a conversation about what to have there? The lawsuit seems to have opened the door for that chat. Better late than never.

Mike Hernandez, the mayor’s mouthpiece, has already blasted the lawsuit (like he blasted the Skyrise Miami lawsuit and we saw how that went). His comment in the Miami Herald story, as always, targets the messenger in an obvious attempt to change the narrative. “It’s apparent that Mr. Matheson hates professional sports,” Hernández said, referring to the man’s fight to keep the Miami Open tennis tournament at Crandon, public land his family donated to the county, from expanding and privatizing the park.

“He’s doing his best to drive out the Miami Open from Key Biscayne, and now he hopes to block Major League Soccer from coming to Miami,” said Hernandez, who is an extraordinary spin doctor and is taking the side of Big Sports against the Joe Public. Notice he did not even address the procedural irregularities. Because it’s easier to create a boogie man and make it about that than it is to defend the lack of transparency and due process in this administration.

Read related story: King Petty Carlos Gimenez gets goofy over soccer stadium

The county will say that Beckham got the no-bid deal, approved by the commission last month, in exchange for a package of community benefits that include hiring locals and salary requirements. The problem is that those things have become common requests of any developer coming to town asking any kind of variance or site plan approval and commissioners certainly could have offered the same opportunity for others to bring those same benefits to the table.

Also, to comply with the requirements of eminent domain, at least some of the proceeds from that sale, we believe, have to go to some kind of urban renewal project in the neighborhood. Not to the lease or purchase of an additional property to take the facility’s place (because it wasn’t really surplus to begin with).

Wouldn’t a bidding war — or even just selling it at true market value — benefit the taxpayers of Miami-Dade? Especially at a time when the mayor is saying we have no money for light rail and, in fact, cutting transit services and hiring only a net gain of 12 new officers for 2.5 million people? Wouldn’t a full conversation about options for “urban renewal” on this property benefit the people of Spring Garden, who are afraid the stadium will break their quality of life, and really everybody?

Of course it would. Yes, yes and yes. But there was never an honest conversation about options because this was rushed through. Hurry, hurry! Mr. Beckham needs this to get his team. Mr. Beckham needs this vote to get his financing. Hurry, hurry!

Also, by the way, a judge is not the only one that can stop this stadium or slow it down if she or he rules in favor of Matheson, who lives in Spring Garden (and thank the political gods he does because that gives him standing in court). The county commission may have to revisit the sale it approved June 6 anyway, regardless, because of a requirement — imposed by Commissioner and DUI ducker Jose “Pepe” Diaz, channeling the Godfather — that county cops be hired for overtime inside the facility. The city of Miami has an issue with setting a precedent on a private facility hiring county officers for OT rather than city cops.

Gimenez already publicly said that he could renegotiate the deal to address that issue. But if the county can undo the police OT requirement that means they can likely undo more. Maybe all of it? At the very least, they can try to get a better deal for the taxpayers they are supposed to represent. Or a better project.

Commissioners are always saying that they wish they could rewrite the Marlins stadium deal and here is a chance to rewrite the soccer stadium deal. They could open it up to proposals and let the highest bidder win. If the best use and highest bidder happens to be the soccer stadium, then so be it.

If not, then they’ll know they did the right thing.

Oh, who is Ladra kidding? It’s going to take a judge. Thank the political gods for Bruce Matheson.

If or when Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez gets his grant to put a spy plane in the sky — a wide area surveillance program that will capture video indiscriminately over 32 square miles at a time — he may find a few no-fly zones over some of the 37 municipalities within the county boundaries.

“He’s going to have to do it in unincorporated Dade because he has no jurisdiction here,” said Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado. The county department has an interlocal agreement with Miami Police that allows them certain cooperation and limited authority within 500 feet of the city limits.

“But investigations have to be done by Miami Police,” Regalado said.

The mayor’s intent to spy on the entire county population indiscriminately was first disclosed by Miami New Times and details were later explained in a Miami Herald story. The Iraq war technology was first used in Baltimore after the police shooting and it became controversial because it was implemented in secret — kind of like Gimenez did here, again going ahead with the application for a $1.2 million federal grant for a pilot program before asking the commission for approval. Of course the police director is saying that they had to apply before the deadline, but it could have been brought up in the last meeting. They did it on purpose because it’s easier to say “oops” than to ask for persmission.

This isn’t even a crime fighting tool. This is $1.2 million for an investigative tool to use after a crime has been committed. The cameras mounted on a small plane that orbits a designated area records 32 square miles at a time and the footage is reviewed later to see if the police can track the perpetrators back to where they came from after a murder or bank robbery. It’s invasive and violates people’s right to expected privacy, because in the process of video taping the bank robbery or the purse snatching, the wide survillance eye also captures your backyard barbecue. You can’t make out the faces, but you can count how many people were there, maybe who was dancing with who? And if the same public records rules apply, does that mean that wives can now ask for video tapes to see if their husbands were cheating or parents can ask to see where their kids go when they skip school? Who gets to decide?

And how do we know it won’t be used for code enforcement? To catch someone with an illegal gazebo and fine them for it? (Count on Commissioner Rebeca Sosa to ask.)

Ladra hopes that the commission balks but they’ve been rubber stamping everything of the mayor’s lately, even after they question it and hem and haw and say they shouldn’t, they approve whatever he brings them. Maybe the municipal mayors will come and speak out.

“I am a big believer in the right to privacy,” said Miami Lakes Mayor Manny Cid. His town was one of the first to adopt their own policy — even before the state legislature — that does not allow police to use drones without a warrant. He was a councilman when he voted in favor of the policy.

“That said, look at how much the private sector has invaded our privacy,” Cid told Ladra, adding that the GPS in our phones tracked our every move. “Google and Facebook have more information on our residents than we do.”

Cid said he wants to look at what Gimenez is proposing and give him a chance to explain. “But our mission is to make sure we are a private community, that people know that they can go into their backyard and it is their domain,” he said. “Our number one objective is obviously public safety, but we need to prote our residents’s privacy as well.”

South Miami Mayor Phillip Stoddard said he can only see using the wide area surveillance for a live chase. “If they can put a plane up when they are looking for a fugitive, then maybe. But without probable cause? I cannot imagine my residents tolerating that,” Stoddard told Ladra.

Ditto for Homestead: “I’m certainly not going to be in favor of having silent drones flying over Homestead spying on people,” Mayor Jeff Porter said. “You can’t cast that large a net. Don’t spy on all of us.”

The plane would likely fly in neighborhoods with high crime statistics. That means low-income inner city residents would be spied on more than affluent white folk. Miami Gardens will get it more than, say, Coral Gables. Now, sit back and watch as very little public outrage comes forth. Mayor Oliver Gilbert was out of the country and Ladra could not reach him to get his feelings on the spy in the sky.

Two other mayors who Ladra did connect with didn’t like the idea too much but didn’t want to get into a pissing match with the county mayor on Political Cortadito. Gimenez apparently reads it because el les hala las orejas when they talk to me.

Mayor Gimenez told the Miami Herald that we, the taxpaying property owners of Miami-Dade, can’t expect privacy even at our own homes. “You have no expectation of privacy when you walk outside. I have no expectation of privacy in my backyard,” said the mayor, who happens to live in Coral Gables where the plane will likely never fly.

So Ladra invites readers to prove him right: Go to the mayor’s house, 4061 S. LeJeune Road, and see if he’ll let you take pictures of the family in the backyard. Then post it with a new hashtag. Something like #privacyisfortheprivileged or maybe #yourbackyardismybackyard. Or even #Iamspyplane