County Mayor Carlos
Alvarez wanted to increase
the budget for food
services for
jail inmates by $3 million. A few of the commissioners
whined, essentially saying that inmates are the last
group that should get such an increase when programs for
more worthy
people, such as reliable senior citizen voters, are
receiving cuts.
“It hurts me we’re
taking food away from seniors and kids and Head Start
and all that and giving it to inmates,” Commissioner Joe
Martinez said. “I don’t bleed that much for them.”
Commissioner Rebeca
Sosa basically wanted to bring back the classic bread
and water diet popular in medieval dungeons.
Commissioner Javier Souto joked (although it is hard to
tell whether the rambling Souto even understands what
he’s saying at any given moment) that the inmates eat
such premium foods as Sara Lee and Morton's.
“Have you seen those
people in jail — they're like this,” Martinez, ever the
quipper, quipped as he puffed his cheeks. “Obviously,
they’re eating.”
So it was left to
Natacha Seijas to be the commission’s voice of reason.
Seijas pointed out that not everyone in county lockup is
a stone-cold killer. “There are juveniles that will be
affected by this and mentally ill on the ninth floor
that will be affected by this,” she said.
Commissioner Jose
“Pepe” Diaz, who initially sided with Martinez, soon
realized he was stepping on the toes of the more
formidable Seijas and backed off. I don’t know if it
occurred to him that it would be bad form for a
politician who has been investigated for such gaffes as
accepting fishing trips to Mexico from developer Sergio
Pino to suddenly turn miserly toward the poor slobs
cooling their heels in jail.
Martinez, who once saw
no problem with getting a sweetheart deal on a lot from
a developer, at roughly the same time that he voted to
create special taxing districts for that developer, saw
no problem with getting a ton of free work done on the
5300-square-foot home by friends in the Latin Builders
Association. Martinez is clearly getting fat at
the public trough himself.
Anyway, I wondered
whether this shameless crew was right about the
extravagant meals enjoyed by our inmates. The
corrections department e-mailed me a menu schedule.
Astoundingly, in this age of outsourcing, the county
jail actually employs its own cooks. It may shock
Commissioners Souto, Sosa, Diaz and Martinez to know
that the menu is pretty similar to that found in a
typical school lunch program.
A Thursday offers a
breakfast of 3 ounces of sliced peaches, 4 ounces of
grits, one fried egg patty, one slice of bread and 8
ounces of milk. Lunch includes one piece of fruit, two
slices of turkey ham, one slice of cheese, three slices
of bread, one packet of mustard, an oatmeal pie and 8
ounces of fruit drink. Dinner is where it gets fancy —
two hot dogs, two slices of bread, a packet each of
mustard and ketchup, 6 ounces of baked beans, 3 ounces
of mixed vegetables, and the ever-popular fruit drink.
It’s basic institution
fare. It’ll keep you alive, but not happily. The reason
the county mayor and County Manager George Burgess asked
for $3 million more is that the inmate population has
increased, as have food costs and nutritional
requirements.
And by the way, Seijas
was right. The jail isn’t just a place to stick
dangerous men itching to shoot cops. In a given month,
the county jail population averages just under 7,000
individuals. As of Monday, the inmates included 110
juveniles, 551 women and 322 mentally ill people (37
female).
And that’s not even
considering all the people locked up for relatively
minor offenses, or those whose charges will be dropped
or cleared in court. The one thing many of them do have
in common is the lack of resources to hire expensive
attorneys. It’s wrong to treat everyone who gets
arrested as if they are, by definition, guilty.
And would Martinez
apply the same standard to his own daughter? A few years
ago, his teenage daughter and two friends allegedly
accosted a much older woman in a road rage incident,
then bragged about how Daddy would get them out of
trouble. What if the incident had turned more serious
and the little darling had been convicted of a felony?
Straight to her cell with no dinner? I don't think so.
The upshot of the
meeting was that the commission approved a $2.5 million
increase for inmate food services.
Free Lexus Club
I’ve said in the past
that the Miami-Dade Ethics Commission is a toothless
tiger because its fines are so small that they’re easily
brushed off by ethics offenders. But the agency does
provide some benefit when it gets the media to pay
attention. The recent investigation into Miami Police
Chief John Timoney’s months-long free test drive of a
luxury SUV is a good example. The Daily Business
Review had a story this week about Lexus of
Kendall’s policy of providing free cars to prominent
people in the community.
University of Miami
President Donna Shalala got to “test drive” a Lexus SUV
hybrid for several months, as did “an unidentified
college football coach” and two others. Does this answer
the question of what Lexus of Kendall got out of giving
the chief a free car? Do their sales go up if people see
local notables driving their cars around? If that’s the
case, then the car wasn’t so much a gift as a sales
commission.
Which brings me to
another “only in Miami” moment. Lawyer and lobbyist
Miguel Diaz de la Portilla accompanied Timoney to the
ethics commission offices for an interview recently and
apparently is representing him in this case.
It would seem an odd
choice. Since leaving the County Commission, Diaz de la
Portilla has been enjoying a brisk business undoing his
years of fighting for responsible growth in the
southwestern reaches of the county. He typically works
his magic in community council meetings and behind the
scenes at County Hall, and hasn’t been one to hold the
hands of errant public officials as they are slapped
with ethics charges.
But, then, a couple of
people mentioned to me that Diaz de la Portilla had done
some zoning work for Lexus of Kendall awhile back. Is
this just typical Miami political incest, or does Lexus
of Kendall have a generous program for prominent locals
to test drive their lawyers as well?
So it goes in the
swamp.
