Mayor Suarez blew the chance to be a leader
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s experiment to hire an out-of-thebox celebrity police chief could enter its final chapter Thursday during a special meeting, where the full commission will hear out the chief, then decide on his fate.
Barring a miracle, Chief Art Acevedo is likely done. Suarez held a new conference Tuesday to say no one is to blame for this fiasco. We disagree.
Acevedo, on the job for only six months, was suspended Monday night and seems sure to be fired by the commission. And after weeks of silence and, worse, inarticulate evasiveness from the mayor over his pick for police chief, the best Suarez could say was that Acevedo’s “personality and leadership style are incompatible with the structure of our city’s government.” How lame. How late to the game.
Suarez’s decision to bypass public scrutiny and secretly hire a flashy police chief has crashed and burned, embarrassing the city and distracting its police force from its public service mission, while stopping vital police department reforms in their tracks.
CHIEF’S MISSTEPS
Never mind what Acevedo did wrong, though the list long: his thirst for the spotlight, his ignorance of the city’s complex ethnic politics, his blunt public criticism of colleagues, his haste in firing or demoting some leaders in his department, while continuing to embrace bully cop Javier Ortiz, his stupidity in posing for pictures with the Proud Boys and his failure to understand just what the words “Cuban Mafia” mean in this town.
Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo, who led the charge to get rid of Acevedo, insisted the chief had not been properly vetted for the $315,000 a year job. He was right. Regardless of Acevedo’s antics, the original sin here is how he was hired.
Suarez came up with this cockamamie plan to bypass a search committee’s detailed recommendation for finalists for chief, cajoled the city manager to buy into it and spirited Acevedo from Houston to Miami in secrecy.
The week of Acevedo’s unveiling to Miami, this Editorial Board pressed the mayor about hiring a police chief for a worldrenowned city in a process cloaked in secrecy. But we also said Acevedo deserved a chance to serve this city, expressing high hopes that he would succeed.
That day, and time and again since, Suarez maintained that his way was the only way to do it without tipping his hand. After all, Acevedo was “the Michael Jordan” of police chiefs, a frequent CNN commentator. The mayor bought the hype.
NO HIRING PROCESS
We warned that skipping those necessary steps — to ensure a responsible decision, engage the support of key stakeholders, and give all applicants a fair shot — would come to no good one day. In fact, it took 189 days.
If the mayor had made his intentions to hire Acevedo public, we might have found out that many in Houston were glad to see Acevedo go, as we have learned since.
When Acevedo began to fal
ter, Suarez publicly distanced himself from Acevedo.
If the mayor truly believed in his decision, why not stand by it?
Why wasn’t he out there defending his guy?
Acevedo didn’t help his own case. City Manager Art Noriega, his direct boss, deemed an action plan that the chief turned in “materially deficient” in his suspension order. It also detailed other offenses by Acevedo, like taking more than 20 days off without listing them as vacation days. But at this point, the city manager was only setting Acevedo up to fail.
Acevedo doesn’t have much support on the dais. Miami City Commissioner Manolo Reyes indicated to the Editorial Board that Acevedo is likely out, and Alex Diaz de la Portilla has joined in on the assault on Acevedo. Commissioner Ken Russell and Jeffrey Watson could be swayed. Maybe.
WHO’S AT FAULT?
Carollo, Acevedo’s main nemesis, told the Board Monday night he will not comment on how he will vote on Acevedo’s future at the crucial meeting if the police chief appears before the commission.
“But if Chief Acevedo wants to be heard by the commission, I’m going to allow him to speak, which is more than what he did for all those Miami police officers he has demoted or fired without allowing them to have their say,” Carollo said.
At his press conference on Tuesday, the mayor said: “This is not about fault,” adding he now supported the recommendation to fire Acevedo. “I and every elected official had the expectation and the hope that this would work out.”’
No, Mr. Mayor, it’s all about fault. And the fault is all yours.