News Commentary Miami Officials Using Most of Their Time To Fight Corruption

By Alejandro Arce, Special to the SunPost

It is appalling to be daily informed of the outstanding corruption happening in our city and committed by elected or appointed authorities or their subordinates.

Difficult to begin appraising the “Who is right and who is wrong,” in a place where we read almost in every news that some authority of a different kind or position is named as using their time fighting the so-called corruption of their subordinates and, in many cases, themselves.

Considering the salaries, publicly published, for positions such as the person hired to solve or investigate the irregularities of the Jackson Memorial Hospital, the President of the Miami Medical School, and the Manager of the City, one starts to wonder:

“WHY WOULD ANYBODY LIKE TO RUN FOR THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT OF THE COUNTRY, WHEN THE SALARIES IN MIAMI ARE IN MANY CASES EVEN GREATER THAN THE ONE FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE U. S. OF A. OR THE PRESIDENT’S SECRETARIES, OR THE ONES WITH A HIGH POSITION OF NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES?

Are the jobs of running a University, or managing a city, or correcting the irregularities of a hospital of a city the size of Miami so rigorous and time consuming that it deserve such high salaries . . . I beg your pardon,  I FORGOT THE PERKS AND THE RETIREMENT PLANS.

Why then, besides firing so many regular employees, by the way hired by them (the city officials) or their subordinates, why don’t THEY REDUCE THEIR VERY SUCCULENT SALARIES, instead of creating more unemployment? Don’t they realize that people in this area are losing their homes and their dignity because of the poor and unfair administration.  What about the purchasing of city needs from their cronies? What a shame and what an insult for the rightful voters and dutiful taxpayers!

Not long ago, it was informed that a police captain retired with a pension of over 200 K/year, it counted something regarding overtime pay or other obscure things. I wish, as a retired Federal Employee, that I or one of my colleagues, most of them having high degrees of education or approved training at the doctoral level, will be able to retire with, let’s say two thirds of the pension of many Miami employees.

Then, when attending one of the regular citizens meetings, and listening to the florid speeches of the politicians, or aspiring ones, or the authorities, or employees, one has no other recourse than to believe that they “USE MOST OF THEIR TIME INVESTIGATING THE WANTON CORRUPTION COMMITTED EVERY DAY IN OUR CITY.”

But all of them never fail to announce that MIAMI IS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE AND THAT THEY ARE SO PROUD OF IT THAT IS ADMIRABLE.  Not to mention the police irregularities and the most visual form of nepotism, ethnicity and gangsterism know as THE CONTRACTING BUSINESS  handled by our city authorities.

Mr. Fernandez will accept the petition from one of his friends, relatives, or associates to do a job (mainly making holes in the street) repairing the work that Mr. Garcia (HIS RELATIVE IN MANY CASES) made not long ago; in this way assuring that their relatives, either family or other close friends, will obtain contracts and double the cost and the time, making such a job a permanent source of income, following continuity by families.

NOTE: THE USE OF SPANISH NAMES IS FICTITIOUS, AND I FEEL FREE OF BEING LABELED A BEING POLITICALLY INCORRECT PERSON SINCE I BEAR A SPANISH NAME ALSO.

But then, again and again I say “The political and other officials know how to talk and talk and answer questions (when they don’t have to compromise themselves) otherwise they will derail the question and either answer what is propitious for their purposes and after that mentioning that they are not at fault but that they are capable and willing to investigate the corruption.

Give me a break . . .  Is it time for the Federals to take over, or what?

 

Category: CITY, Commentary