Ed Hudak says city can be a ‘transfer portal’ for cops
Union releases web video critical of administration
‘Mafia-like thuggery’ is tied to vote on city manager
DEVELOPING STORY: After a series of major missteps, a protracted and seemingly personal battle with the popular police and several threats, both public and private, to quit her job, Coral Gables City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark resigned Monday after almost four years at the helm of the City Beautiful.
Police Chief Ed Hudak wins.
The big question on everyone’s lips is: Does Cathy take Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez with her?
Probably. You can’t be the city manager and the top sworn police officer in the city, which Fernandez is — the crux of a lot of the city’s problems. Las malas lenguas say that Assistant City Manager Peter Iglesias — who may or may not have resigned previously — will be named interim until a replacement is found.
The resignation comes one day before the next commission meeting and two weeks after the last one, in which Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli basically called Swanson Rivenbark a liar.
The discussion item was Commissioner Mike Mena‘s, who was reporting on the ongoing “talks between the city manager and the police chief,” which is better described as mandatory crisis counseling with commissioners. It’s come up in several commission meetings and was likely to come up again on Tuesday.
But Commissioner Vince Lago told Ladra Monday that he would not let it become a drawn out swan song. “It is time to move forward and concentrate on Coral Gables businesses and its residents,” Lago said. “The separation agreement hasn’t been signed. But we expect to name an interim city manager at tomorrow’s meeting.”
As Ladra writes this on Monday afternoon, the ink is not even dry on Swanson-Rivenbark’s resignation and exit package, which may not be finalized until Monday evening. More details to come as story develops.
Swanson came back to Coral Gables in 2015 after Pat Salerno resigned abruptly, rather than face questioning about lies he told the commission. She immediately started to make changes, hiring her people from Hollywood, including Fernandez, who she put in charge of public safety.
The showdown that some people thought was gonna happen two weeks ago in Coral Gables City Hall over the city manager’s handling of the police chief may come Tuesday when commissioners finally talk about the strange structure that has an assistant city manager act as the de facto head of the police department.
Well, wait a minute. Nevermind. It might not happen at all.
Seems that the original item to discuss the administrative structure — which has been fueling if not directly responsible for serious issues from vacancies to morale — has been changed at the last minute. Now the mayor wants to discuss “constructive talks underway between the city Manager’s Office and Police Chief.”
Oh, really? You don’t say.
Maybe Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli is satisfied that the Fraternal Order of Police is now going to choose the investigative agency or investigator who looks into the “anonymous complaint” (read: trash job) against Chief Ed Hudak for dropping by, after being invited, to a pool party thrown for female officers. But this consolation prize is not enough.
The Coral Gables FOP is only getting this opportunity to find a truly independent investigator — and they’re going to suggest three options they are okay with — only after it was revealed right here on Political Cortadito that City Manager Cathy Swanson Rivenbark had tried to manipulate an investigation by the same agency once before. Emails obtained by Ladra show that Swanson tried to whitewash a background investigation that was done before the hiring of Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez, who s also the “director of public safety.” She asked the investigator to ignore and not seek any information from the Broward PBA because it would shed some negative light on Fernandez, who she apparently had already decided she was going to hire no matter what. What it means is that she wanted the information that she already knew existed off the reports that commissioners would get.
Wait a minute. Again? Isn’t this the kind of thing that did former City Manager Pat Salerno in? And how can anyone know when the city manager is telling the truth? Ladra would suggest you can’t. Swanson cannot be trusted. This is not the only reason why.
She already orchestrated a massive cover up when she put Maj. Teresa Molina on paid leave until she retired after the police officer was caught spying on citizens and electeds during a commission meeting, taking cellphone pics of text messages over Maria Cruz‘s shoulder. Everybody knows that Molina was doing this for someone, not for her own health and pleasure, but there was never an investigation into that and, instead, the major was given what amounts to a paid vacation for her silence.
She then paid a $50,000 penalty fee to suspend a study in progress that the city commission had requested on the impact of recent and proposed development on the U.S.1 corridor, She did this on her own without seeking the commission’s approval.
She’s hired a number of cronies, some with six figure salaries for positions that didn’t exist before she got to the City Beautiful (more on that later).
And Ladra will bet that she knows more than she lets on about the “anonymous complaint,” which was really a planted precursor meant to trigger an unnecessary investigation meant to provide the city manager with fodder to fire the chief. When that didn’t pan out, after her independent inquiry cleared Hudak of any wrongdoing, the city manager stretched and misconstrued the investigator’s words to issue an obviously gratuitous and retaliatory reprimand — more than 10 years in the making — which she was forced to rescind two weeks later.
If not then why go to such extents to keep the investigation into the “anonymous complaint” from happening?
Swanson is a good actress and she is also a good producer. At the last meeting, a citizen who spoke seemingly spontaneously and of his own accord about not needing an independent investigation into the “anonymous complaint” — and, indeed, trying to discourage the city from pursuing it — seems to have done so at her request.
Emails obtained by Cruz show that attorney Terence Connor — who also, by the way, gave Commissioner Pat Keon $100 in her last election — may have gotten a call from someone in the city administration inviting him to come to the meeting.
The attorney had previously written an email to Keon in November saying that it would be inappropriate to end the investigation that was started by the “anonymous complaint” midstream. That email was apparently forwarded to Swanson, who then forwarded it to Raquel Elejabarrieta with one line from her. “You should drop him a note.” The email was sent at 10:18 p.m. the night of April 24 — after residents showed up at City Hall to support Hudak and, in many cases, trash her.
Hmmm. You should drop him a note.
Valdes-Fauli and other commissioners — and Ladra mean Vince Lago, because we know Mike Mena is a useless empty suit who won’t do anything — should ask Swanson what did she mean by that?
They should also instruct her to go back to the administrative structure that existed before she came to the city, where the police chief is the police chief and reports to the city manager and police officers don’t feel like they have two different bosses. Hudak needs to be able to be chief and control the department and be listed as the head of the agency at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, especially Internal Affairs, where Fernandez hired someone against the chief’s will.
And Fernandez should go with Swanson — they seem to be a package deal — and the city should look for a new city manager they can trust.
And maybe they need to add the Terence Connor emails to the scope of the investigation of the “anonymous complaint.” Ladra would seek his phone records.
Nothing to see here, people. Move along now.
This is what Coral Gabes City Manager Cathy Swanson Rivenbark was saying in her head at the last commission meeting when she rescinded her reprimand of the veteran, beloved police chief who was cleared of any wrongdoing when he stopped by an all female officer pool party last summer.
Most likely to thwart the justified criticism for a documented spanking that was misguided and unnecessary at best, intentionally toxic at worst, Swanson announced, just as the meeting began, that she had rescinded the reprimand issued to Police Chief Ed Hudak two weeks earlier.
I take it back. There. No harm done.
Except harm has been done. Not only has the reprimand already been distributed widely to the press — even the New York Post had a story — but it has become fodder for cocktail parties and a potential professional albatross for Hudak and, more importantly, the 14 female officers at that party, whose photo has been widely distributed and whose careers could be tied to this news story for the rest of their lives. (Ladra smells lawsuits.)
Swanson wouldn’t know that. Because she hasn’t talked to any of the officers. Maybe she is too embarrassed because she knows deep down inside that she caused this. At best she allowed a ludicrous complaint that should have been investigated from day 1 to smear a city employee with whom she has a difficult relationship. At worst she made it up herself.
Suuuuure, it was an “anonymous complaint” that came to City Hall, which by the way has been swimming in “anonymous commplaints” since Swanson came back to the city in 2014.
Evidence shows, however, that either Swanson or Fernandez knew about the photo and the party days before the “anonymous complaint” arrived. That’s because someone at a City Hall office accessed the LEOAffairs law enforcement blog site with posts about the cameo appearance at the party three days before they allegedly got the “anonymous complaint.” The dated print out was part of the materials delivered to the investigator. The time stamp of the printout shows someone at City Hall accessed LEOAffairs four hours after the comments about the party were posted.
Read related: Coral Gables: Manager’s petty reprimand on chief backfires on her
It’s almost like someone (read Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez) was flagged to it. Unless he posted it himself. No, wait, that’s not fair; he could have tripped over it while searching something else on the gossipy forum or posting something else on the site.
Either way, this “anonymous complaint” must be investigated so that one of those scenarios can be ruled out. You would think that an investigation was started immediately. Especially since none of the 14 women corroborated the original complaint — meaning that someone else made up the fake outrage — and that some of the officers demanded an investigation. But it’s not. At least it wasn’t part of the Internal Affairs investigation that was limited, for whatever reason, to the Instagram post and LEOAffairs forum posts about the party.
Ladra was told that the “anonymous complaint” is now being looked into. Like an afterthought? By who?
This investigation should be handled by an outside investigator or, better yet, an outside agency like the FDLE or the FBI. That is the only way we will know for sure that it is a thorough investigation that went wherever it had to go, including City Hall if need be. The new head of IA is Bobby Navarro, who was hired by Fernandez after Hudak indicated he wanted someone else. This is not who should be heading up this investigation that could, possibly, implicate Fernandez.
Read related: Coral Gables cover-up on police ‘spy’ protects managers
Especially since Swanson has interfered with an investigation before. Or, rather, tried to manipulate it to get the results she wants.
In May of 2015, six months after she was hired to replace former manager Pat Salerno, Swanson wrote to the International Association of Chiefs of Police asking them to completely ignore any information from the Broward PBA or its onetime president Jeff Marano when they were vetting her yes boy Fernandez for his job as public safety director — even though the documented friction between Fernandez and the top police administration in Hollywood, where Swanson also got into a bit of trouble, certainly seems relevant.
In an email, obtained by Ladra, with the subject line “Gables City Manager instructing no interview with Broward PBA,” she wrote:
“I am the city manager for the City of Coral Gables who has contracted with IACP to conduct a background check for Frank G. Fernandez. I have the ultimate decision making authority on hiring decisions. As the client and the sole decision making authority for hiring, I am specifically instructing you and IACP to neither seek nor include any information from Broward PBA or Jeff Marano individually as it will hold no credibility nor value in my decision making. I have included Sun Sentinel Editorial Board’s recent editorial on the significant and Herculean accomplishments of Chief Fernandez despite the disruptive and unethical tactics used by Jeff Marano to thwart and derail positive changes in Hollywood.”
A copy of the email was also sent to Elsa Jaramillo-Velez, who was the Gables’ HR director back then. Later that same day, Kim Kohlhepp of IACP wrote back to Elsa:
“I just received a copy of the email below from our investigator. I also understand that Ms. Swanson-Rivenbark called our investigator directly.
First, in all matters concerning the conduct of this investigation, please contact me, not our investigator.
Second, we will not comply with Ms. Swanson-Rivenbark’s request in any way. For the background investigation to have merit, we will not restrict the investigation in any way or limit access to sources.
If this is not acceptable, please let me know immediately and we will terminate the investigation ad bill you for work conducted up to this point.”
Two days later, Jaramillo-Velez told them to go ahead with the investigation anyway. But one has to wonder how many other times Swanson-Rivenbark has done this. It kind of kills her credibility, right?
And if she is bold enough to tell an outside investigator where not to go looking, why wouldn’t she do this with someone who works directly for her? Or directly for her through Fernandez?
I am specifically instructing you to neither seek nor include any information that leads you to the City Manager’s office.
Please tell me that the electeds on the Coral Gables commission — at least three of them (and yes, Ladra is talking to you Mike Mena) — can hear the little voice inside Cathy’s head as clearly as the rest of us can. And please let them call for an outside investigation to finally clear everything up.
There may be nothing to see here. But maybe there is. And Gables residents deserve a real good look before moving along.
