HIALEAH CITY HALL
Our mayor has been in power over two decades. As a realtor, builder, and local newspaper owner, he's had a great patriotic vision for our city. Like his newspaper slogan says - Hialeah ciudad que progresa (city that progresses), city hall has been renovated with Cuban royal palms, exterior walls in yellow, three flag poles displaying the American, State, and City flags. Best of all was the funding and creative imagination for the colorful mural with the downward facing American flag while the large Cuban flag in proper hanging position swings in the breeze. Not a bad move for a mayor raised in Miami that never mingles in exile politics.
Most employee's at city hall are Cuban's with a small minority of Anglo's. There may be a couple of African American females. Walking through the hall's is a cultural experience. Once you've entered the lobby at the left is the Code Compliance office. At the center of the lobby are two elevator's. The far right corner houses the License Department.
A ride over to the second floor which is under renovation houses the Building & Zoning, Planning, and Permit departments. Construction goes on during business hours. A blur of circulating dusty particles does wonders for allergy sensitive people. Extreme dedication to the job can be observed. One workers face looks like a Mc apple turning red. A waive of people sneezing, and sniffing, combined with a shot of Cuban cafe is an interesting scene.
The third floor of the pyramid is interesting. That's where the council chamber, city council offices, city clerk, Law and microfilm department are at within short walking distance from each other.
At the very top of the pyramid on the fourth floor is the strong mayor's office and his assistants. The central command is most feared. A strong mayor system means being the chief administrator and mayor, with a weak legislative body called city council. Our mayor and his entire council are all Cuban male's.
We can say that our City Hall operates in a true Cuban spirit. It's like having a government office operating in Cuba. Most of the population speaks Spanish as their first language. Business and general conversation is automatically conducted in Spanish but an occasional English is heard.
Gossip intermingled with business is a real form of folk art that travels to the fourth floor faster than using DSL. The art form consist of gathering intelligence which becomes processed in the forth floor. The system is being improved. Camera's are being installed throughout the building. But big brother has decided that camera's are needed inside offices to monitor workers. However, the mystery is that nobody knows if audio will be included, who's going to do the monitoring, or how much it will cost.
People are also wondering if the rules of subordination and penalty will be tightened. As it stands, the rule and penalty is not consistent with the usual policy of "most restrictive means" even when "enforceability" is not possible. To be consistent any slight hint of subordination should be cause for removal without an opportunity of suspension or appeal. Any criticism of city operations, policies, and ordinances, could be considered an act of "treason" against our mayor.
Treason under civil service rules and regulations could be considered a capital offense enough to throw the worker out on the spot with an imposed penalty on his or her pension - that's real Home Rule authority. After all, the policy change where new employee's are not entitled to vacation in the first two years of employment is working well.