A municipality of 230,000 registered residents, but in reality inhabited by many thousands more, some newcomers to the country in the last wave of migration and the new tenants of the luxurious condominiums that grow like mushrooms in the City that Progresses. Summarizing the year 2023 of such an active city will always be an act of injustice.
Green I want you green
The urban reforestation plan was the program with which Hialeah broke the ice at the beginning of 2023. Endowed with a fund of $135,000, the city proposed to plant nearly 400 trees.
“I want to ensure that our parks are attractive, not only for the activities of youth and children, but also so that families can enjoy a walk and sit in the shade coming from these trees,” said Mayor Bovo, along with William Sánchez , director of the City Parks Department.
Police violence
The city’s police department was shaken when the disturbing news of the arrest of two of its officers spread like wildfire. Former agents Lorenzo Rafael Orfila Rodríguez and Rafael Otaño were charged with kidnapping and assault for allegedly handcuffing and beating a homeless man, as announced by Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle. Finally, Otaño, months later, was sentenced to 66 months in prison and five years of probation. The trial of the other defendant has not taken place.
No solution to water issue
In February, the announcement of the retirement of engineer Armando Vidal, who for 25 years was in charge of the Department of Water and Sewerage, was understood as a break in the dynamics of this essential service plagued by major problems. At the time, Mayor Bovo stated that it was an opportunity to change the culture within the Department.
“We want to focus on improving customer service and service to companies that come to do business in our city,” said Bovo, in charge of managing one of the cities in South Florida with the most expensive water rates. However, in the last budget, the bill for the precious liquid, far from going down, increased and an additional deductible paid by city residents to receive the service was also maintained.
Closer to residents
Still in the second month of the year, Senator Marco Rubio, Congressman Díaz Balart and Commissioner Marino Cabrera opened offices in the Hialeah City Hall “to facilitate attention to federal or county issues for the residents of the City that Progresses.”
Sports for children
Spring brought Hialeah an important announcement: the MLX NEXT soccer league began working with Hialeah soccer teams, in line with Mayor Bovo’s idea to reactivate the parks and re-create programming in them “so that children and young people from the city can play sports.”
Brownsville said I don’t want to
Hialeah is looking for new areas to build to enter its coffers through new taxes. In April, a study was presented at the regular Council meeting to analyze the possible annexation of a small part of a neighboring neighborhood, Brownsville. The study, commissioned from The Corradino Group at a cost of $20,000, was to analyze the viability of the idea proposed by Councilman Jesús Tundidor regarding the potential annexation.
“We only made a preliminary presentation. The Council is not voting on anything, we are only analyzing the area that interests us. Even the data they presented to us at the meeting was incorrect,” said councilor Mónica Pérez. A month later, it was Mayor Bovo who declared that “Hialeah gave up the intention to annex the industrial or any other part of Brownsville.”
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911 crisis
The news about the lack of operators in Hialeah’s 911 emergency service began to gain relevance in local newspapers at the end of June. The alarms went off after Councilman Bryan Calvo’s request for an investigation into this problem which, according to him, has the potential to affect the safety of the community.
The 911 dispatch unit, with a budget to employ 21 operators, employs only six, Calvo said after visiting it and seeing the empty positions with his own eyes. However, Mayor Bovo considered that the commissioner’s alarm was unjustified, since “the level of abandoned calls in Hialeah in 2022 was 5.6%, better than the County’s 9%.”
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The streets pay tribute
In May, Hialeah named one of its streets in honor of Jorge Acevedo, the successful founder of the Colonia Medical Center. Hialeah was the city where the first of the eleven clinics the Colony now has, spread between Miami-Dade and Broward counties, was located.
Two years after the historic July 11 uprising that occurred in more than 40 cities in Cuba, Hialeah also paid tribute to the Cuban people by naming one of its squares “Homeland and Life,” the most chanted slogan during the protest against the Castro government. . Present at the event were the singer Yotuel Romero and his wife, the actress Beatriz Luengo, authors of the song Patria y Vida, the influencer Alex Otaola, the human rights activist Rosa María Payá, and the federal congressman Mario Díaz Balart.
In November, the City Council unanimously approved naming Palm Avenue President Donald J. Trump Avenue.
The biggest budget
In September, the city began discussing the $426 million budget for fiscal year 2023-24. The mayor defended his position against reducing the millage rate, despite inflation and the high cost of living that affects residents.
“It is no secret to anyone that many police officers are leaving for departments in other cities, where they earn more… In the long term, lowering the tax rate would be a mistake… although it may be politically convenient for me, I think it would be failing the the city of Hialeah,” said the mayor.
The new budget exceeded that of the previous year by 38 million dollars.
Local services
Many entrepreneurs and residents of Hialeah benefited from participating in the event that took place at Milander on October 5, where they were able to answer their questions about licenses, permits and the different services available in the city.
They don’t let me work
Another piece of news that made the front pages of local newspapers was the lawsuit filed in October by Councilman Calvo against Mayor Bovo for denying him access to information from the 911 emergency centers.
“The lawsuit does not seek financial compensation, simply what we are asking the Court to do is to allow me to do my job as an elected official,” said Calvo.
Calvo complained that the city was forcing him to pay almost $7,000 to receive public information. “Never in the history of Hialeah has an elected official been asked to pay to receive public documents that are essential to be able to do our job and make decisions for the well-being of the community.”
However, one day before the elections, the Hialeah Council, at the initiative of Tundidor in a special session, approved a resolution condemning Councilman Calvo’s lawsuit against Mayor Bovo. The resolution received unanimous rejection from residents attending the special meeting.
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Angelica Pacheco
Another independent voice
On November 7, in her fourth electoral attempt, Angélica Pacheco managed to occupy a seat on the Hialeah Council under the promise of being an independent voice at the service of residents. In these same elections, councilors Jesús Tundidor, Mónica Pérez and Jacqueline García-Roves retained their seats.
Households
The affordable housing crisis has resulted in the proliferation of recreational vehicles parked in the yards of properties rented as residences.
The attempt to regulate the location and number of these caravans in the urban areas of the municipality, which are rented to low-income people, is only one side of the coin of a city where construction is taking place at a dizzying pace, not exactly housing. affordable. In the last year, more than $600 million dollars have been invested in new projects. Developers like Prestige Companies, Ares Management MG Developer, Baron Property Group, Dacar Management, JVC Management and many others, coming from all over, have set their eyes and their wallets on Hialeah with the intention of changing its face, by building modern buildings, shopping centers, offices and industrial projects.
“The city that stops growing stops being a city,” said Mayor Bovo.
“We have to do it smartly. I know that some people are afraid of development because the city is changing and is not the same as it was 20 or 25 years ago. The balance is welcoming that growth while protecting the city’s traditions.” A reality that Mayor Bovo boasts about and says: “Hialeah is fashionable.”
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