Posted May 4, 2000 Trouble in Elian City By Rob Gurwitt What you have to remember, as Miamians show what they think of city government these days by tossing bananas on the sidewalk in front of City Hall, is that in Miami’s recent mayoral history Joe Carollo is considered the stable one. The leader who was supposed to erase the city’s image as a “banana republic.” Surely you recall his predecessor, Xavier Suarez. He’s the guy who beat Carollo back in 1997, then began drawing national attention for, among other things, showing up on the doorstep of a constituent to discuss a letter she’d written criticizing him. At 10:30 at night. He also blasted through three city managers in 40 days and ordered the mass firing of 70 city officials, a step he had to rescind after the state’s attorney concluded he’d overstepped his authority. Then, of course, there came the determination by a judge that, in defeating Carollo at the polls, Suarez had benefited from some unusual voting behavior by dead people. That is why Carollo happened to be sitting in the mayor’s office when Elian Gonzalez arrived in town. Carollo, too, has had his moments. Not long after he won back the mayoralty in March, 1998, he got into a spitting match with the city commission, firing the city manager — a holdover from Suarez — three times before the commission finally got tired of reinstating the poor man. That helps explain why, last year, the commission tried to shorten Carollo’s term, which led to a furious confrontation between Carollo and a couple of his opponents on the commission. “The exchange,” one witness later reported, “escalated out of control. It was a scary moment. They were potentially going to kill each other.” On the other hand, Carollo has also gotten widespread credit for helping pull Miami out of a fiscal morass, working with his city manager to put together a financial recovery plan in 1998 that hiked property taxes and fees but also allowed the city to avoid bankruptcy and a state takeover. Miami’s bonds continue to be rated below investment grade, but this past February, Moody’s Investors Service gave the city’s general obligation bonds a positive outlook because of the administration’s success in putting finances on a more even keel. Carollo’s partner in this recovery, of course, was City Manager Donald Warshaw — the same man Carollo called “a divisive, destructive extortionist” and “a mini-dictator” at a press conference he held to explain why firing Warshaw had nothing to do with the city manager’s refusal to fire Police Chief William O’Brien in the wake of the federal raid on Lazaro Gonzalez’s home. And so, in just an instant, Carollo has plunged Miami back into the uncertainty about its future that dogged it when he took over the mayoralty two years ago. It has to be noted that none of this might have happened had Miami not abandoned its council-manager structure a few years ago, switching to an “executive mayor” charter under which the mayor has the power to hire and fire the city manager. On the other hand, the city did so after it had seen a former city manager jailed in a corruption scandal; in other former mayor-council cities, boosting the power of the mayor has worked just fine. And at least this way, Miami doesn’t have to wait for a district attorney to bring it a change in leadership; with a mayoral election just around the corner, citizens really will have the chance to hold the city’s leadership accountable in a meaningful way. Of course, this is Miami, so it should come as no surprise that, at the moment, Carollo’s most likely challenger next year appears to be Xavier Suarez. Rob Gurwitt is a staff correspondent for Governing magazine. Agree? Disagree? Want to expand on a point? E-mail us at mailbox@governing.com, and we'll post your comments here. Please include your name, location, government or business title or job description, and a daytime phone number (for verification purposes). Recently in View: Management and the Holy Grail: the danger of overselling performance (posted May 1, 2000) That New Vermont Law: big trucks and civic involvement (posted April 25, 2000) The Un-Seattle: the protestors who couldn’t shut down D.C. (posted April 19, 2000) Second Banana Blues: the problem with lieutenant governors (posted April 17, 2000) The States v. the Dot-Coms: why the e-tailers may be open to legal attack (posted April 12, 2000) Complete index of previous columns Copyright © 2000, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc.