What will county’s new elected sheriff do? Time to f igure it out
The next head of MiamiDade County’s law enforcement will have an R or a D next to their name.
Mixing policing with partisan politics in a county with a history of abuse and power-hungry politicians can be tricky, but we have no choice. Thanks to a
2018 voter-approved constitutional amendment that the state shoved down our throats, county voters must elect a sheriff in a partisan race in 2024.
But before that happens, 13 county commissioners must make what’s likely the most consequential decision in their political careers: How much power the county, which currently runs the Miami-Dade Police Department, should cede to the new sheriff.
Will they make that person simply a figurehead with few responsibilities beyond what’s required by Florida law? Or will the new sheriff oversee Florida’s largest law-enforcement agency with nearly 4,400 sworn and non-sworn employees providing routine patrolling to 1.2 million residents in unincorporated parts of the county, plus PortMiami, Jackson Health System and some cities? Will the sheriff take over the county jail? Fire rescue? Homicide investigations? Rape kits?
This is no small potatoes, but the commission hasn’t even started a discussion. It’s been crickets since 2018.
GET IT RIGHT
Two years may seem like plenty of time to get their ducks in a row before the 2024 elections, but we suggest they start now. Given our history, this is not something we can afford to get wrong. The last time MiamiDade had an elected sheriff — in the 1960s — a grand jury found the office essentially functioned as a criminal enterprise, so voters transferred functions of the sheriff to the mayor, who delegates them to an appointee.
“Once we create the [sheriff’s] office, we cannot edit it,” Commissioner Raquel Regalado told the Herald Editorial Board. “Whatever you have now that’s what you live with, which is more of a reason for this to be an open public debate.”
No one has presented a proposal on the duties of a new sheriff because of an obscure rule known as a “legislative hold.” When a commissioner places a “hold” on a topic they have exclusive rights to draft legislation on it. They can also stall discussion indefinitely.
The commissioner who has the hold on legislation related to the sheriff — since February 2019! — is Joe Martinez, a retired MiamiDade police lieutenant who’s considering running for the position. That doesn’t look like a coincidence.
Regalado, who wants to limit the sheriff’s power, is putting Martinez on the spot for the delays and is urging her colleagues to start a discussion. She’s concerned about the cost to taxpayers of transferring law enforcement to a sheriff’s office and the necessary re-branding, as well as a sheriff’s ability to ask the state to override a budget set by the commission.
This is a lot more inside baseball than voters might care to know. What they do care about is how the sheriff’s office will impact their lives.
Martinez told the Editorial Board he expects to file legislation after the holidays and that he’s in the process of setting up meetings with sheriffs of nearby counties and citizens to hear their expectations when they voted for the 2018 constitutional amendment. The amendment didn’t meet the require 60% vote threshold in Miami-Dade but passed statewide with 63%. In addition to the sheriff, it also required all counties in Florida to elect a county clerk, elections supervisor, property appraiser and tax collector. Miami-Dade already elects its clerk and property appraiser.
Martinez believes most voters unceremoniously dumped into a bin and carted away.
One elderly woman down the street who loved the geese and witnessed this is completely traumatized.
We believe that the Community Association decided to do this, did not inform residents and just moved ahead, behaving like the Gestapo taking innocent life — and at Christmas, no less.
This is an outrage, and the Community Association should be hung out to dry by all of South Florida.
– Beth Taylor, Miramar
CARVALHO TO L.A.
As I just recovered from LeBron James abandoning us.
I just leaned Superintendent Alberto Carvalho joining him!
What next?
Is Fabiola Santiago also leaving us?
My psychiatrist had to place me under suicide watch again!
– Guillermo Anifo,
Coral Gables
HIRING DIAZ
The Dec. 7 editorial regarding the University of Miami football coach firing and hiring compares the decision-making of former Athletic Director Blake James to the recent hiring and firing of Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo. It concludes by saying that Manny Diaz “never was” a proven entity.
Wrong on both counts. I don’t see where James violated any rules or laws and anything to suggest his actions were improper. He hired an assistant coach; happens all the time.
The city of Miami police chief, on the other hand, is a public position involving taxpayer dollars and the public trust; a different set of facts.
The editorial conflates two completely different events in a way that strains credulity.
– Jerry B. Proctor,
South Miami
UNDER ATTACK
assumed the sheriff would simply take over the Miami-Dade Police Department, which a county staff analysis found would have the least impact on services.
MAYOR’S PROPOSAL
The department is currently overseen by Director Alfredo Ramirez, who reports to the county’s chief public safety officer, who subsequently reports to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. She told the Herald last month that she wants to maintain some of her authority. Friday, she told the Editorial Board that she will be presenting her own proposal, after also consulting with constituents and stakeholders, next year.
It’s impossible to completely remove politics from the police department — and Levine Cava prides herself in being a handson
The greatest threat to our survival is no longer our foreign adversaries but a Republican Party
MONICA R. RICHARDSON
that has sold its soul to the big lie by Donald Trump.
When the director of election security called it the most secure election in history, he was immediately fired. Truth is not permitted in Trump world.
Fully a majority of Republicans believe the lie that President Joe Biden stole the election — taking the word of a man who racked up 33,000 lies during four years in office before getting kicked off of Twitter for inciting an insurrection.Republicans running for office don’t swear allegiance to the constitution, but Donald Trump.
But loyalty to Trump is more important than anything as trivial as the will of the people.
When we have allegiance to a person only, we have a dictatorship. Our future?
– Leonard Rubinstein,
Aventura
FEAR CHINA
This nation is failing to understand that China wants to dominate the world. Its extraordinary investment in its navy, Air
NANCY ANCRUM
mayor — but the current structure ensures there are two levels of separation between the rank-and-file and a politician. It also ensures someone with lawenforcement qualifications has the job, not just somebody who’s a skilled at running a campaign.
Other counties in Florida elect their sheriffs with few problems, but the potential for politicizing police work is there. Imagine we end up with someone like Arizona’s Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America” who was convicted in federal court of criminal contempt in a case involving racial profiling and later pardoned by Donald Trump.
The stakes are high for MiamiDade commission and every single one of their constituents. The creation of a sheriff’s office will be their legacy. They better start working on it ASAP.
‘‘ “YES, HILLARY CLINTON IS NOW GIVING A MASTER CLASS ON RESILIENCY THAT’S AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE —EXCEPT IN WISCONSIN, FOR SOME REASON.”
Force, and military will soon dwarf the U.S. Navy and military might.
I am sure that China already has the blueprints of all our battleships, submarines and carriers. We have allowed firstgeneration Han Chinese to attend the U.S. Navy Academy.
China knows the U.S. Navy is the forward arm that would try to counter any attack on the United States.
Chinese navy graduates from Annapolis have already been arrested by the FBI for transferring the U.S. Navy’s battle plans to China. As well as providing China with the fleet location and seaports to visit. So, that is why I believe they now have all the blueprints.
So, if we wait 10 or 20 years more, the Han Chinese will be captains on American battleships, nuclear submarines, and aircraft carriers in the years to come.
Guess who will be the target?
– David Jacquez,
Fremont, CA
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