MIAMI.- One of the residents who opposes the land exchange involving Three Friends Park as a condition for building a CVS pharmacy in Okeechobee was expelled from the last Hialeah Council meeting after having a heated argument with the mayor and calling him liar.
“You are a liar,” José Azze snapped at Mayor Esteban Bovo at the moment when the president said he was not going to play along, when the resident asked those present if they had visited the park that in recent days the Council had stated that It was abandoned.
Instead of answering about the visit to the park, the mayor said: “You can go to the Ethics Commission to complain as you often do. In short, they have discarded all your allegations,” Bovo said at the regular meeting on Tuesday, December 12.
“Don’t lie, they haven’t ruled out anything. This is public information. You are lying about everything,” Azze refuted heatedly.
Then, the mayor lost his temper and yelled, “You are the liar.”
“We’re done,” Tundidor intervened as president of the Council. But Azze refused to leave the stand, arguing that he had not taken up all of his time speaking. “I have 30 seconds left.”
Tundidor told him that he could not act that way and let him continue, “go on, you have 40 seconds left.”
Azze intended to show some photos where you can see the conditions of the city-owned Three Friends park, located at Park Drive and SE 8th Court, very close to Okeechobee. But the images were not downloaded and could not be displayed. As time ran out and he tried to continue speaking, several city police officers approached him and asked him to finish his speech. Councilor Mónica Pérez intervened and said that someone from the public gave her three minutes, she could continue speaking, but no one agreed. Azze then stated that he had the right to speak and the agents removed him from the plenary room.
The controversy is that the Hialeah city council approved exchanging that small piece of land so that CVS could build the parking lot for a new pharmacy that would be built in Okeechobee.
Some residents consider the arguments used to award the park to CVS false and want a judge to return the land to the City. “There we celebrate our picnics and neighbors meet.”
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Hialeah
Councilor Angélica Pacheco, very upset with what happened, said that it was an abuse to remove him from the room as if he were a criminal. “I do not agree with the way the Council has acted today.”
For his part, Tundidor called for calm. “Things are getting out of control. We are trying to conduct a meeting, we have a protocol. The city’s rules are clear and say what is expected of people who come to speak at Council meetings.
“We need understanding and we don’t want anyone to be insulted here. Everyone gets three minutes. “There are other people who want to participate and Mr. Azze was preventing it.”
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