PBA squashes anti-cop mayor

“It was a crucial election. We literally worked around the clock – it was a massive effort but it worked. The right candidate won. We unseated an incumbent commissioner, a feat that has only happened three times in 20 years here and the PBA was involved in two of those.” – John Rivera, President, Dade County PBA.

After an intense battle to stop the layoffs of more than 450 police officers in the Miami-Dade County Police Dept., the good news is the good guys won.

It wasn’t easy feat. It took a monumental effort that included appearances on talk radio and television – both English and Spanish speaking programs – an all-out effort to defeat Lynda Bell, a county commissioner aligned with the mayor, intense coalition building, extensive canvassing, talking to the community what these cutbacks would mean for their family’s safety, and getting PBA members engaged. It was a literal tsunami of effort that paid off.

Every story has a villain and the bad guy in this one is Carlos Gimenez, the Miami-Dade County mayor. Gimenez had promised the cops if they agreed to concessions for several years no one would be laid off. Well those promises were broken when the mayor announced this spring that budget shortfalls would force him to layoff over 450 officers unless the concessions continued and other changes were made.

John Rivera, the passionate president of the Dade County PBA, gathered his members together and told them everyone would have to get involved and they would fight to the end to prevent the layoffs and get elected officials to make public safety a priority. The Dade County cops led by the PBA were focused, they developed a strategic game plan, rolled up their sleeves and went to work.

Rivera felt to stop the Mayor from balancing the books and funding pet projects on the backs of citizens whose safety would be compromised if so many officers lost their jobs, they had to not only educated the community but defeat Lynda Bell the incumbent county commissioner who was a big supporter of the mayor.

“It was a crucial election,” Rivera said. “We literally worked around the clock – it was a massive effort but it worked. The right candidate won. We unseated an incumbent commissioner, a feat that has only happened three times in 20 years here and the PBA was involved in two of those.”

This sent a message to the mayor.

“Today I can announce that not a single sworn police officer will lose their job because of our budgetary challenges,” Gimenez announced just days after Bell was defeated. Gimenez, who has a reputation of being arrogant and condescending, was no doubt humbled by the outcry from the community and the organized forces that rallied against him.

The PBA was cautiously optimistic.

“This ‘dance’ never needed to happen in the first place,” Luis Fuste, the Dade County PBA secretary noted. “We knew all along the money was there. It’s all about allocation. It was clear the mayor’s priorities were not public safety and when we got that message through there was no way they were going to allow all those cops to lose their jobs.”

With upcoming county budget hearings and negotiations ongoing, we’ll have to see if public safety will rank as a priority.