Confusion increases around the division in Doral’s council
By: Diana Bello Aristizábal
Those of us who have attended the City of Doral Council meetings of the last eight months have been able to witness a concerning and growing division among council members that reached its boiling point during Sept. 17 and Sept. 30 meetings. This reality has the community completely baffled, as has become evident in the public comments section.
At the Sept. 17 council meeting, council members gathered to discuss and approve the city’s budget for fiscal year 2024-2025 on second hearing following the first hearing that took place on Sept. 3. However, that day council members, City of Doral staff, and residents went to bed without an approved budget.
Instead, the meeting, that began at 6:46 pm and ended at 8:15 pm, turned into a game of accusations and claims between two parties. Since Vice Mayor Oscar Puig-Corve was not physically present at the meeting and the motion to allow his participation from a digital device failed, the council was left with two ‘yes’ votes and two ‘no’ votes in each of the motions that followed.
After an exchange of arguments between the parties, in what it looked like a ping-pong match, the two sides were unable to agree on key aspects for the community such as the COLA rate, the percentage of merit increase based on individual performance evaluation for general employees, the opening of job positions and the allocation of funds for some items, among others.
There were also several accusations that went a little off topic. The two sides accused each other of not having their priorities in order, of making decisions for political reasons and of irresponsibility.
As a result of the notorious disagreement, the session ended with agitated, frustrated and exhausted spirits from attendees who invested 1 hour and 30 minutes of their time in vain despite the urgency of approving the budget, as indicated by the city’s Chief Financial Officer, Fernando Casamayor, during the meeting. Given the two only possible dates to finally approve the budget, Sept. 28 and Sept. 30, the council voted on the latter.
The final straw
Despite the failure of Sept.17 meeting, the ones that followed on Sept. 30 weren’t that much more successful. Prior to the budget approval meeting, a special session was held to discuss the latest developments on the Waste-to-Energy Facility and to evaluate the role and salary of City Manager Rey Valdes.
However, the meeting underwent an abrupt change when Councilwoman Maureen Porras, proponent of the city manager’s salary review, announced that Rey Valdes had submitted a letter of resignation, so the item to be discussed would be withdrawn.
In his speech on the matter, Valdes strongly and without reserves explained to the public that the proposed reduction in his pay had nothing to do with his job performance, but rather was “in retaliation for refusing to be the puppet of certain council members who are present here tonight.”
In the resignation letter that was made public, he wrote that he decided to leave his position after feeling pressured by a council member to terminate the employment of some city staff members, among other reasons. “My integrity and self-respect will remain intact as I refused to be an instrument for such efforts,” he said.
During the meeting, he also inferred that something is happening in the city considering in a period of eight months, four city managers have been either terminated or forced to resign. From this newsroom, in which prevails interest in the common good and we don’t take any side in the disputes occurring within the council, we notice that something is happening in the city.
The tense political atmosphere was once again evident in the budget meeting that followed. Far from being brief and concise as the residents would have expected and deserved, the meeting included a three-hour recess, again due to disagreements. The first part of the session began at 7:42 pm and ended at 8:21, while the second part began at 11:34 and ended at 11:37 pm.
As a result, for the first time in the city’s history, a budget was approved almost at midnight, with a 4% COLA and up to a 6.5% merit increase based on individual performance evaluation for general employees, the most dissonant point of the entire budget.
Given the chaos among councilmembers and understanding that there will always be differences between human beings, we ask ourselves, are residents really being placed at the center of every decision? What can we residents expect from a council that clearly is not moving towards the same path? And how can the city continue to grow if there is no consensus on the vision of it or on its priorities?