Few endorsements, some debt and old arrests: Hialeah Council candidates sprint to Tuesday runoff
Hialeah voters anointed a new mayor on Nov. 2, but they’re voting again on Tuesday in two races that will finalize the new-look city council.
In the race to claim the Group VI seat, Bryan Calvo and Angelica Pacheco are facing off after Pacheco received 29.49% of the vote and Calvo received 28.29% during the first round of voting. In Group VII, the candidates are Luis Rodriguez, who received 42.35% of the vote, and Maylin Villalonga, who received 19.7%.
The winners will join the city’s seven-member council and influence how new Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo’s agenda is received. The council in the city of about 230,000 people is expected to have another opening soon after Bovo’s son-in-law, Oscar De la Rosa, said he would resign to avoid a potential conflict with his father-in-law.
GROUP VI
At 23 years old, Calvo is more than a decade younger than any other candidate.
“There’s a feeling out there that in government people want fresh faces,” Calvo said. “They want young people to take the reins … and public service has been in my heart since I was a little kid.”
Calvo grew up in Hialeah and then went to Harvard to study political science. Upon graduating, he returned to Hialeah, married his high-school girlfriend and is now in his third year of law school at Florida International University.
His goals if elected are focused on living costs.
“Our city is growing. … We need to make sure we can keep rent prices down, that is a number-one priority,” he said. Additionally, he wants to reduce water costs: “Whatever we can do to alleviate water costs, especially to those elderly residents that are on a fixed pension, I think is muchneeded.”
His opponent, Pacheco, 38, is a small-business owner, a married mother of five and a registered nurse. She also hopes to alleviate water costs, provide increased police pay and streamline the process for small-business registrations.
“Right now, the process for obtaining a permit or business license can be difficult,” she said. “A lot of people who want to start a business in Hialeah don’t have any experience so they need guidance. I want to focus on making that process a lot easier.”
Pacheco and her husband, Daniel Pacheco, own businesses, inckuding a rehabilitation center. During the pandemic, four of their businesses received over $500,000 combined in federal Paycheck Protection Program loans, which she says she used to pay her employees and keep her businesses afloat. Although the couple has donated or loaned more than $17,000 to her campaign, she said the money came from her savings.
“Because of that money we were able to keep our business open,” she said. “That money saved our business and I am very thankful for that.”
Pacheco has recently explained the loans to reporters and discussed several arrests after the blog Political Cortadito first reported them.
In 2004, at the age of 17, she was charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count each of battery and criminal mischief in what police described as a domestic incident. She pleaded no contest to four counts and received six months of probation. Pacheco says her stepfather at the time had locked her mom inside the house and she had an altercation with him. She says her stepfather abused her and her mother for years.
In 2011, she was charged with one felony count of child abuse without harm. She says her son reported a teacher had spanked him. When she refused to speak to a police officer, she says, police arrested her. She pleaded not guilty and prosecutors dropped the charge.
From 2002 to 2012, Pacheco received dozens of traffic citations for alleged infractions such as knowingly driving with a suspended license, driving without insurance and speeding. She says these problems stemmed from being a young mother in an abusive relationship.
“I lived with a man who beat me and my children,” she said. Pacheco says she worked 70 hours a week to support him and her children. “I had three accidents where I fell asleep behind the wheel . ... I am just thankful to God I didn’t die in a car accident. It was the darkest days of my life.”
When she was 20, she left her abusive partner. One month later, she says, she met her current husband. They have now been married for 14 years and have a child together.
“I have never pretended to have a perfect life,” Pacheco said. “I know what it is like to work hard, to be a survivor, to raise a family, to have a job and to pay bills. That is what has prepared me to serve the people of Hialeah.”
Bovo is not expected to endorse anyone in the race. But the scrutiny of Pacheco’s record, which some blame on her political opponents,
has driven at least one prominent official — Miami-Dade GOP Chairman and Hialeah-area County Commissioner
Rene Garcia — to support her.
“I was thinking of staying neutral until I saw these frivolous attacks on her personal character,” Garcia told the Miami Herald on Tuesday. “She’s a woman who has had a hard life, and they’re using that her against her.”
GROUP VII
Rodriguez and Villalonga, two longtime Hialeah residents, have similar messaging.
Rodriguez, 48, a married father of two, is the son of Cuban immigrants and a commercial-sales manager for an auto-parts chain. He grew up in Hialeah and attended public school. When he moved back to Hialeah in 2016, he noticed a change in the city’s parks.
“I grew up in the parks … but when I moved back, I didn’t see much activity,” he said.
Rodriguez said he hopes to make the parks a place where kids will return.
He said he has also noticed high turnover within the police department.
“A lot of our police officers are leaving and going somewhere else,” Rodriguez said. Although unsure of the cause of turnover, he hopes to reduce it.
Rodriguez, like Pacheco, is endorsed by Garcia, a longtime friend and his wife’s coworker.
His opponent, Villalonga, has lived in Hialeah since she immigrated from Cuba 23 years ago. A 38-year-old married mother of three, she earned her associate degree from Miami Dade College and works in banking. She owes $20,522.62 on a Chase credit card but is negotiating a settlement.
She too is concerned about the police turnover.
“A lot of cops start in Hialeah but move to other cities,” she said echoing Rodriguez’s observations. “I am here to support the local law enforcement. … I want to get people to stay here in Hialeah.”
She is also concerned about the city’s parks, which she says have been “abandoned” because they aren’t safe anymore.
“I have seen a surge in crime. … It’s not safe for a family to go to the park anymore,” she said.
Villalonga wants to bring more “surveillance” to the parks and make them a safer place for families to go. She wants to couple this with more funding for youth activities. “I want to have places for kids to go and interact with other children … not just being at home with video games.”