How tensions in Miami Lakes shape race for House seat

Prompted by massive Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality around the country, Miami Lakes Vice Mayor and state House candidate Nelson Rodriguez asked the town council last week for his local police division to explain how they run background checks of new hires.

A day later, Rodriguez joined the town council meeting and apologized for sending the memo in the first place, blaming his word choice on “COVID dementia.” Rodriguez recently tested positive for COVID-19. (When asked by the Miami Herald what he meant by “COVID dementia,” Rodriguez dismissed it as a joke.)

What triggered the quick retraction was the reaction to his request, which was denounced by residents for being “politically motivated.” His own colleagues at the town council piled on the criticism, accusing him of asking for unnecessary oversight of law enforcement to seize a political moment and trying to “bring problems that don’t exist in Miami Lakes into Miami Lakes.”

As massive peaceful protests have popped up across Miami-Dade in response to incidents of police brutality against Black people, the movement has become particularly polarizing in the mostly white Hispanic town of Miami Lakes, a powerful and influential part of state

House District 103, which runs vertically through parts of Miramar, Hialeah and Doral.

This was not the first time Rodriguez, who is facing Tom Fabricio in a Republican primary for the House seat, had weighed in publicly on the peaceful anti-police brutality protests, one of which caused outrage from some residents in conservative Miami Lakes, a town of about 30,000 people. His memo was preceded by a campaign email on June 11, which included a call for donations, where he condemned the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis but said most residents of 103, which includes parts of Miami Lakes, “would NOT agree to ‘Defund’ the police.”

“This will increase crime and destabilize neighborhoods. This would also cause a significant drop in property values. Our current State Representative supports the defunding of police departments. Is that the type of representation we want?” Rodriguez said in the email, slamming his Democratic opponent, incumbent state Rep. Cindy Polo.

While Polo insists her district, which is home to Republican House Speaker José Oliva, is shifting away from its conservative roots, Republicans like Rodriguez are pushing to take it back, casting Polo as “ineffective” and a “young lady backed by Bernie Sanders.”

Polo, who is Colombian American and grew up in Miami Lakes, won House District 103 in 2018 with slightly over 6% of the votes, landing an unexpected victory for Florida Democrats in a state district that has long been a Republican stronghold. Her road to victory leaned heavily on support from bluer parts in Broward County and nonCuban Hispanics living within the district.

“As a lifelong resident of the Miami Lakes area, we are not just one thing,” Polo said, referencing a June 14 rally that took place in Miami Lakes in support of President Donald Trump, and was billed as an “All Lives Matter” counter-protest.

“The loud minority tends to create a narrative sometimes that folks start taking as fact and as truth... But if you look at the numbers, that’s actually not accurate. Obviously, us flipping a seat in this area was proof of that,” Polo said.

Matthew Isbell, a Democratic campaign data consultant, said he believes Polo has a good chance to be re-elected, considering the inroads her campaign made in 2018 in the district, which he said represents the diversity of South Florida.

“It certainly does kind of represent the changing nature in Dade,” Isbell said. “There’s just starting to be a demographic change .... It’s like the twilight of the exile community. It’s not like the political twilight, like they have no political power, but they just aren’t the only bloc anymore.”

Isbell said some of the discussions on race and defunding the police are also more likely to benefit Polo as a candidate, than they are to benefit her Republican opponents.

But Polo did reject the notion that she was in support of abolishing police departments entirely.

“I’m not necessarily surprised that Rodriguez is trying to make a dollar off of this tragedy and at the same time misspeaking as to what my position is,” Polo said in an interview. “My position has not been about eliminating law enforcement. It is about improving and reassessing so that we can also enable them to protect and serve, and not be in this sort of policing state where all sides are fearful.”

Fabricio, a defense lawyer and Miami Lakes native, said that beyond the protests highlighting anti-Black racism, he believes the most important issues in the district, like the effects of mine blasting on residents, have been forgotten during Polo’s tenure.

“The issue with her record is effectiveness,” Fabricio said. “She has a right to campaign and be a legislator as she so chooses. But a legislator is graded by the voters and their effectiveness… and providing solutions.”

Earlier this month, Fabricio earned the endorsements of former Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera and former Vice Mayor of Miami Lakes, Frank Mingo, who lost to Polo in 2018. Rodriguez said it did not bother him that he didn’t receive his predecessor’s backing.

“Frank lost his race; he got crushed. They spent a million dollars, a million dollars, in that race against a young lady that came out of nowhere, that nobody knew, and got beat. So what does that tell you about that endorsement?” said Rodriguez, who had endorsed Mingo in 2018.

Fabricio is also leading the raise in cash on hand, with a little over $44,000 — $10,000 of that coming from a personal loan. Polo has more than $31,000. But Rodriguez, on his end, has blown through nearly all of the $30,000 he’s raised in the race so far, with just over $400 cash on hand, a delay in fundraising he attributes to the pandemic’s effect on joblessness, small-dollar donors’ who are unable to make political donations and his own COVID-19 diagnosis.

Fabricio said there is “no part of me that supports any type of abuse” in police departments, like the one Floyd was subjected to. However, he said he is not personally aware of police misconduct plaguing Miami Lakes. He said it is more of a matter of reassigning “bad apples” to have no contact with the public than defunding police departments.

He added that in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has not stopped knocking on doors and said many residents in 103 don’t have much of an opinion on his Republican opponent, Rodriguez. “I’ve been knocking on doors, many, many days. I’ve been walking just about every day ... I don’t believe that anybody will outwork me to win this seat,” he said.

Polo defended her record and said she has been “fighting the mining companies since day one, and I’ve refused to take a dime from them.”

“Republicans held my seat for decades until we flipped it, and yet they still weren’t able or willing to address the mine blasting issue that has caused damages to our homes,” she said. “I’ll continue to fight for the people and not the special interests when I return to Tallahassee.”

Meanwhile, Rodriguez said he believes 2020 is the right year for Republicans to flip the seat.

But he said protesters against police brutality, which he once said shouldn’t get the attention they’re looking for and then retracted himself, should reconsider the use of “Defund the Police” as a slogan in Miami Lakes. He said he was supportive of police officers, including the two Miami-Dade cops who violated department policy by posing with residents holding a Trump flag. In his view, police department budgets should be increased so they can enhance their own social services, like mental health units or pay professionals who can intervene in domestic violence situations.

“To hear that there’s a problem when it’s never been brought to our attention before,” he said of his town’s peaceful anti-racism protests, “I think it makes [you] a little bit emotional.”