Looks like the airport vote is boarding two different flights in the Miami mayor’s race.
On Friday, former Miami City Manager Emilio González rolled out the endorsement of AFSCME Local 1542, the county workers union that represents the rank-and-file who keep Miami International Airport running — the mechanics, baggage handlers, maintenance crews, and the rest of the behind-the-scenes army. They praised González for lifting morale back when he ran MIA, giving workers “a renewed sense of purpose.”
“Emilio led with fairness and professionalism, setting an example as a dedicated leader who never lost sight of the people—union members — whose hard work powers MIA’s success,” said union President Antonio Eiroa. “Emilio Gonzalez is a leader of
honesty, accountability, vision, and character. We know he will bring those same values to City Hall as Miami’s next mayor where [he] will prioritize the needs of workers and public.”
Read related: In Miami mayoral bid, Emilio Gonzalez goes for the law and order vote
Said Gonzalez: “Treating workers with fairness and professionalism is the least we can offer on behalf of Miami residents who rely on good contracts and negotiations to deliver services fairly and effectively. I will ensure that the permitting and bidding process is done legally, fairly, and open to public scrutiny because I believe in government accountability which has been lacking in our city for too long.”
Whoa there, says Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, who has long considered herself the working people’s representative.
Higgins announced Monday that 32BJ SEIU — one of the biggest unions in Florida with more than 195,000 members, including airport cleaners, security guards, and janitors — is backing her campaign. They call her a “true champion for working families,” reminding everyone that she fought to expand living wage protections, stood with strikers on the picket line, and even testified before Congress about poor working conditions at MIA. That was before the recent poor conditions.
Read related: Ken Russell qualifies for November Miami mayoral race; ADLP dips one toe
“She has always stood with working people,” said Helene O’Brien, Florida District Director of 32BJ SEIU. “From expanding living wage protections to fighting for affordable housing and safer communities, to supporting commercial office janitors in their fight to raise standards, Eileen has proven herself as a true champion for working families.
“Miami needs a leader who puts residents first — and Eileen Higgins has the track record to deliver,” O’Brien said.
Said Higgins: “Workers keep our city running — they deserve fair pay, safe workplaces, and a government that has their back. As mayor, I’ll keep fighting to make Miami more affordable, opportunity-rich, and fair for everyone who calls this city home.”
So which one is the “workers’ choice” now? Depends on which terminal you’re standing in.
Higgins has the service workers in purple shirts, the janitors and security officers who greet travelers and scrub the terminals. González has the county employees in green, the ones who fix the broken belts and make sure the lights stay on. Both groups claim the high ground on integrity, accountability, and fighting for working people.
Read related: Poll has Eileen Higgins in Miami mayoral runoff with Emilio Gonzalez
Ladra’s take? The split shows how fractured Miami politics is — even at the airport. Instead of one big union army delivering a united front, the workers are divvied up like everything else in this town: by loyalties, leadership, and which candidate makes them feel heard.
It also sets up a nice little battle of contrasts between the two candidates that a recent poll have heading into a runoff: Higgins the progressive policy wonk with labor cred versus González the ex–airport CEO and retired Army colonel with managerial cred. The question is whether voters care who has more endorsements at Concourse D or if they’re more worried about corruption and skyrocketing rents at home.
Either way, both candidates just planted their campaign flags on MIA’s tarmac. And if the workers themselves are divided, it’s because that’s how Miami feels.
There are 12 other candidates who have expressed an interest in running, including former Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla and termed-out Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, who hasn’t filed any paperwork but keeps hinting that he might run. Only former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell and Laura Anderson, a candidate affiliated with the socialist workers party, have qualified so far. The deadline to qualify for the Nov. 4 race is Sept. 20. That’s Saturday.

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It looks like former Miami City Manager Emilio González has found his campaign sweet spot: the law-and-order vote. Six former police chiefs — count ’em, six — have lined up to bless the retired Army colonel’s run for Miami mayor.
This not the endorsement from the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, who have not yet made a determination. …
So, perhaps this announcement Monday about the blue backing is an effort to pre-empt that endorsement. Not that it matters. Two years ago, the Miami FOP endorsed former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla just weeks after he was arrested on public corruption charges. Commissioner Miguel Gabela won.
Read related: Emilio Gonzalez Miami mayoral PAC raises almost $700K in three months
Former Miami top cops Jorge Colina, Manuel Orosa and Rodolfo Llanes were joined by ex-Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Pérez, El Portal’s former chief, David Magnusson, and David Rivero, who ran the University of Miami police force after years in MPD,  to back Gonzalez. Together, they put their names on a press release Monday calling the former manager the only candidate with the “vision, integrity and courage” to lead Miami out of its mess.
That’s the polite way of saying they don’t trust anyone else in the race. For Oroza, Gonzalez is “the only candidate.”
The quotes read like copy-and-paste campaign fodder. All of them used the word integrity.
“It is not a matter of who we want, it is a matter who we need,” Colina said. “Only Emilio has the vision, integrity and courage to lead Miami forward.”
Pérez warns that the “city is in crisis.” Magnusson says that he “demands no less” than the same level of honesty, humility and integrity he demanded from his officers.
Nobody mentioned the corruption scandals that have plagued City Hall for years — including the years Gonzalez was there — or how many electeds in the 305 often end up in court — or handcuffs. But that was implied.
Read related: Poll has Eileen Higgins in Miami mayoral runoff with Emilio Gonzalez
Either way, González is clearly leaning into the badge. He’s got the endorsements from the guys who used to run the force, even if none of them could fix Miami’s policing or political problems when they were in charge. And it’s not lost on Ladra that these are all former chiefs. The current brass is staying out of it — at least for now.
This is a good look for El Colonel, who’s trying to sell himself as the “integrity” candidate in a field full of insiders, wannabes, and yes-men. Whether voters buy it is another story. Miamians love cops in theory, but they love deals and padrinos more.
And let’s be real: in a city where every other week someone is led out in handcuffs, promising “honesty and integrity” almost sounds like a punchline.

Help Ladra cover every inch and corner of the Miami mayoral election this year with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Thank you for supporting independent, grassroots government watchdog journalism.

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Was the county’s $402M budget gap just a drill?
Remember that $402 million budget hole Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said we were staring down back in July? The one that justified chopping arts funding, pulling the plug on charity grants, hiking transit fees and even grounding the county’s rescue helicopters?
Well, guess what. Most of it, somehow, went poof.
On Friday, a week and a day after a 12-hour budget hearing, Levine Cava rolled out a shiny new set of “short-term fixes” and surprise surpluses that let her walk back most of the doomsday cuts. Suddenly, MetroConnect is saved (though now it’ll cost $3.75 a ride, with fewer zones and capped trips), charities get their funding restored, the arts don’t get slashed, and the fire union gets its helicopters back in the countywide budget.
Funny how all that money turned up just days before the final vote, which is Thursday.
Read related: Madness marathon: Observations from the first Miami-Dade budget hearing
Levine Cava, of course, claimed a win. “Through hard work and hard choices, my administration presented a balanced budget that closed a significant gap without cutting core services or raising tax rates,” she wrote in her Sept. 12 memo. “After unprecedented community engagement and negotiations with our Board of County Commissioners, we identified additional savings and recovered unspent funds returned by the constitutional offices.”
Translation: the boogeyman is gone, thanks to some accounting acrobatics and departments freezing vacant jobs longer.
About $4.1 million is saved through attrition — or not filling jobs — at 14 departments (more on that later) and another $467,000 cut from marketing and $1.4 million cut from management consulting.
These savings will help put the $28 million air rescue cost back into the general fund. But that was not Levine Cava’s idea. Fire union president William “Billy” McAllister said at the first budget hearing that the move would go against what voters wanted when they passed the fire rescue taxing district in 1980. Not everybody pays into the Fire District tax because several cities have their own fire departments, including Miami, Coral Gables and Hialeah. They don’t pay into the fire district, but would get air rescue services nonetheless. Meaning that homeowners in Westchester would pay the bill when a Gables High football player is airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital.
“It’s illegal,” McAllister said. And the union willing to take the county to court for it.
La Alcaldesa and her new BFF, Commissioner Raquel Regaldo, worked hard into the 11th hour to negotiate what they thought was a compromise deal to smooth this out: Half the $28 million helicopter tab would go back to the countywide budget this year, another $7 million mid year and the final $7 million at the end of the fiscal year. So, a payment plan.
Read related: Mayor Daniella Levine Cava wants Fire District to pay for air rescue helicopters
The union flat out rejected it. No half measures, gracias. They wanted all of it shifted off the Fire District and back onto the general fund — rápido.
Commissioner Eileen Higgins, at the last minute, told the mayor to come back to them with a new budget that funded the air rescue from the general fund. The majority agreed with herBut that means less money for equipment and staff — things that can bring down the response time from nine minutes, according to to the union leadership.
Nonprofits got a reprieve, too. Jewish Community Services, Farm Share, and dozens of others that provide services — from hot meals and teen jobs to eviction defense — were bracing for slashed grants until charity leaders and activists lined up at the first public hearing Sept. 4 to shame the mayor for targeting them. Levine Cava’s latest memo restores their funding at full 2025 levels.
And the arts? La Alcaldesa first proposed a $13 million hit to cultural programs, restored most of it last month, and on Friday threw the last $1.3 million back in. Crisis averted. Curtain call.
Read related: Facing $400M budget shortfall, Miami-Dade cuts senior meals, lifeguards, more
So who’s still paying the price? Riders. A 50-cent transit fare hike stays in the budget — the first since 2013 — along with higher shuttle costs for seniors and the disabled. But, hey, MetroMover is still free for the beautiful people.
Commissioners take the final vote this Thursday. Expect more speeches about “shared sacrifice.” Especially since the revised budget takes a whole $500,000 out of the commission’s budget. Because, you know, they can’t afford more than that if they want to keep giving gifts, er, grants to the people and organizations who drive votes on election years.
But Ladra can’t help but ask: if the hole wasn’t really $402 million deep, then what was all this drama about? A scare tactic? A political stress test? Or just the oldest trick in the book: cry crisis, then ride in as the hero when you “save” everyone from it.

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Congressional candidate Richard Lamondin must be feeling pretty good this week. His campaign’s first community town hall was drew a nice crowd Tuesday night at St. James Baptist Church in Coconut Grove. That already puts him ahead of Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, who hasn’t faced her constituents without a teleprompter or studio lighting in, well, ever.
The Miami-born entrepreneur and first-time candidate, a Democrat running to replace Republican Salazar, actually sat in front of real, live people — no Fox filter, no pre-recorded video, no carefully cropped backdrop of Little Havana cafecitos. Just him, a microphone, and a group of voters who have been waiting five years for their congresswoman to stop hiding behind a camera.
Read related: Democrat candidate Richard Lamondin steps up for absent Maria Elvira Salazar
Lamondin took questions from an audience of about 50 people on everything from housing costs to health care to small business survival, answering directly from the pews where voters packed in. It was the kind of event people in District 27 haven’t seen from their actual congresswoman in her five years of duck-and-cover representation.
“I would not be here if we had proper leadership,” Lamondin told the group. “We are a time right now where we have a congresswoman, Maria Elvira Salazar, who is viewed as elitist, because she is. She does not come into the community.
“She is viewed as out of touch, because she is. She only speaks to us through a camera,” Lamondin continued. “And when I knock on doors she is viewed as scared, because she is. She is scared of looking us in the eye and explaining to us, why some of us do not have healthcare… why, during hurricane season, she is supporting cuts to FEMA and to the flood mitigation that will lower our property insurance.
“She is afraid to look us in the eye and explain, especially to our seniors, why there are cuts to food assistance, housing assistance, the type of lifelines that this community needs… to pay the tax cuts for billionaires who don’t need the money.”
He also mentioned the cruel immigration policies that Salazar has supported with her silence — the ripping apart of families, sending teenagers into ill-prepared detention centers. “This is not the country I want my son to grow up in,” Lamondin said.
Read related: Maria Elvira Salazar’s ‘Dignity Act’ is about zero dignity and all a big act
The candidate told the crowd what they wanted to hear: that he’ll show up, that he’ll listen, and that he won’t disappear when the community needs him. But the biggest applause line wasn’t his. It came when someone pointed out the empty chair that would have been Salazar’s if she ever bothered to come.
In fact, dozens of attendees filled out question cards addressed to their absent congresswoman. Lamondin says he will personally take them to Salazar’s Miami office himself. Ladra can already see the campaign video.
Of course, this isn’t just about the Q&A. It’s about optics. And the optics were clear: Lamondin looked like the candidate who actually wants the job, while Salazar looked like she couldn’t be bothered. He looked like someone running toward the community, while Salazar continues to run away from it. And the optics of a packed Grove church versus a green screen studio are not good for a so-called “voice of the district.”
That could be a problem for the incumbent, especially since the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already put her on their target list. While Salazar enjoys incumbency in a GOP stronghold district that has about 30,000 more Republican voters than Democrats, her constant taking credit for things she didn’t do and the lack of spine on the immigration policy issue in a community full of immigrants, has made her increasingly unpopular within her own base.
Salazar beat former Miami-Dade School Board Member Lucia Baez-Geller last year by more than 20 points. But she won’t have Donald Trump’s coattails in 2026.
The Grove church crowd wasn’t just polite applause, either. They were fired up, laughing at the empty chair where Salazar would have sat if she had the guts. And if Lamondin can keep filling rooms like this, María Elvira may have to start doing more than reading carefully-crafted scripts in her journalist voice and recording dramatic kitchen-table monologues for Twitter.
Because the one thing voters in Miami hate more than corruption is being ignored.

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Hialeah’s first budget hearing for 2025-26 last week turned into another political telenovela, with interim Mayor Jacqueline Garcia-Roves and Councilman Jesús Tundidor digging into their rival tax-cut proposals like two kids fighting over the last croqueta. And since the council is still missing a seventh member to break ties, nothing got done Thursday. Nada.
The meeting will be reconvened Monday evening to continue. Maybe this time they can vote on something.
Read related: Dueling tax cut proposals in Hialeah means campaign season is in full gear
Garcia-Roves, who wants to keep the mayor’s chair in November, floated a 1% cut to the millage rate. That would save the average homeowner about $11 a year and businesses about $248. Ladra has seen bigger discounts in a clearance bin at Sedano’s. Still, the city’s first female mayor — although interim — is also promising more: she wants the city to eat the $12.5 million in water and sewer fee hikes from the county, drop the $3.7 million franchise fee for electrical service, and cover an $852,000 bump in garbage fees.
Add it up, and the average homeowner could save about $306 a year under the interim alcaldesa‘s plan.
Tundidor — who just so happens to also be running for mayor — thinks that’s crumbs. He wants a 10% cut in the millage rate, which would mean $200 or more in savings.
But his plan would blow a $13 million hole in the budget. Hialeah’s finance director called it unaffordable, warning it could mean pink slips for 88 firefighters or 63 cops. Tundidor waved that away, insisting the money could come from Public Works reserves, which city officials say can’t legally be used. But hey, what’s a law or two in Hialeah?
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it is.
The last time Hialeah played tax-cut roulette was under Mayor Carlos Hernández in 2013. He handed residents a 1% break and left the city $3.2 million short. The fallout? Furloughs, pay cuts, padlocked parks, shuttered pools, pension hits, and the exodus of more than a hundred cops and firefighters. A decade later, the City of Progress is still fixing roofs and relighting parks from that mess.
Hernandez is reportedly backing Garcia-Roves (so are former mayors Esteban “Steve” Bovo and Julio Robaina)
Read related: Three former Hialeah mayors ‘host’ quiet fundraiser for Jackie Garcia-Roves
Firefighters Union President Eric Johnson wanted the council that this is déjà vu. “We are here today because of bad governance in the past,” said Johnson, who later told Political Cortadito he had no intention of speaking, but couldn’t help himself.
“Continuing to do the same things and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity.”
Meanwhile, council members bickered like it was a campaign debate. With five council seats and the mayor’s race all on the ballot this year, nobody wants to be the bad guy raising taxes — or the fool cutting too deep. And with Hialeah still basking in its Trump-Ave. glow, the pressure is on to prove Republican leaders can hand out relief like Democrats promise freebies.
The first budget hearing will continue at 5:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 501 Palm Ave., and can also be seen on the city’s YouTube page.
A second public budge hearing is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 25. The city has until Sept. 30 to pass something or it reverts to last year’s budget. Which, knowing Hialeah, might be exactly what happens.

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The post Hialeah budget impasse: 1% vs 10% and the ghost of Mayor Carlos Hernández appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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