The Petulant Blogger and Other Tales

Only in Miami could you have a former DEA agent running for property appraiser and a mayor blogging about how great he is

By Rebecca Wakefield

I got a chuckle this week from observing the passive-aggressive relationship the Miami Herald enjoys with Miami Mayor Manny Diaz.

On Monday, the paper ran a short item about the mayor’s new blog. “Ever wonder what it’s like to be Miami’s mayor?” Mike Vasquez wrote. “One could, in theory, follow Mayor Manny Diaz everywhere he goes, for weeks on end, to find out.”

When I read that, I thought, “Wow, what a great idea. If only it would occur to someone over at the Miami Herald.” Then Vasquez burst my thought bubble. “But with today’s gas prices, who really wants to do that?”

I know times are tough over there, what with the staff buyouts and everyone who’s left scrambling to find an online niche to dive into before the next round of cuts. But, seriously guys, could you take up a collection for Vasquez’s gas mileage? I’d be willing to chip in.

In the meantime, he suggests that if we want to know about Diaz, we ought to check out the mayor’s blog. This is such bad advice as to be journalism malpractice. As one would expect from a politician, Diaz’s blog is both boring and self-serving.

Several online readers of the story said as much in their posted comments. A sampling:

“Yet another egomaniac who thinks their life is actually interesting to the rest of us.”

“Diaz is a photo-op junkie!”

And my favorite from a poster with the excellent handle of Gumsandals: “Most blogs allow comments. Not this guy’s. It’s just a PR tool to make him look good. No chance here to ask him a question or to pin him down on an issue. Lame is the word.”

Here’s an idea: Sponsor a reader contest to follow Diaz around for a few weeks and blog about it. Now that I would read.

Anyway, Diaz, clearly frustrated by the Herald’s refusal to sufficiently document his every photo-op moment, hit back in a bitchy way on his blog. In a post about his appearance at an event giving away 600 computers to needy kids, Diaz snapped, “Too bad the Miami Herald did not send a reporter, they were too busy writing about my blog.
Had they been there, they would have been able to speak to any one of 600 sixth-graders who now have a free computer at home, with free Net access, and are not only now able to surf the Web, but read my blog as well....”

¡Dios mío! Bitchy and self-serving. Diaz is well on his way to becoming the Perez Hilton of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. There’s just something about those Belen graduates….

g g g

In other news, a heated contest for Miami’s newest political office is about to get under way. Apparently, sometime last year, we voted to make the county’s property appraiser an elected position rather than appointed, as it has always been. (The election is on Aug. 26.)

I remember when this happened I thought, “Damn, I should totally run for that.” What a great job. Like the clerk of courts or the public defender, this promises to be an obscure yet cushy job with little or no oversight.

Clearly, this thought occurred to a few other people. Termed-out State Senator (and former County Commissioner) Gwen Margolis is running for it. Eli B. Cesar, a business executive and Bay of Pigs veteran, is also in the mix. But my favorite candidate so far is former DEA agent Jim Shedd.

If you’ve heard of him, it’s because he was, for years, the spokesman for the DEA in Miami. But Shedd, a half-Venezuelan, half-Bostonian hybrid, has deep roots in Miami. He started his career in the ’70s as a cop for the Florida International University campus police. He remembers back when Joe Carollo (also an FIU cop before becoming the angriest politician in town) used to claim he was Italian rather than Cuban.

After joining the DEA in 1983, Shedd spent a few years posing as a money launderer operating out of the Grand Bay in Coconut Grove, among other places. Later, he worked out of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota and handled VIP politicos, as well as the press. He’s got a variety of amusing stories about drug traffickers, politicians and Cold War spy author John Le Carré.

Shedd has always wanted to mix it up in the public arena. “I’m sick and tired of people who get elected and forget who they work for,” he recently told me over lunch at Versailles. “I don’t think some of them even know what a democracy is.”

Shedd’s platform thus far includes the promise that he wouldn’t raise property values by the 3 percent maximum routinely added every year. He also says he would donate his salary to Miami Dade College to establish a fund for returning veterans looking to go back to school. He can afford to do so because he enjoys two government pensions and has a security consulting business on the side.

His main method of advertising his existence has been Spanish-language radio, where he argues he would hire some people to really look at the property rolls and see whether properties have been correctly appraised.

“It’s like the Wizard of Oz back there,” he told me. “I would like to bring transparency to the office.”

Oh, yes, this guy is going to fit right in down at County Hall.

“The last person the politicians of Miami-Dade County would want is me,” he acknowledged. “Metro-Dade government needs to tighten its belt. They’ve given money away to everyone. [Like] the $300 million stadium. You’re telling people there’s no money and cutting back on services, and then building a stadium for a rich guy? For games nobody goes to? A lot of people are a paycheck away from losing their homes.”

No argument there. It will be interesting to see where the political machines of the County Commission end up putting their resources.

Comments? E-mail wakefield@miamisunpost.com