4 January 4-10, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | TRUMP AVENUE Hialeah stays true to Trump amid a litany of criminal cases. BY THEO KARANTSALIS H ialeah Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo and six city council members were showered with applause last month when they unanimously approved naming Palm Avenue after former presi- dent Donald Trump. During the city council meeting, as seniors wearing red hats nodded, a nonagenarian paratrooper who served with Brigade 2506 – the CIA-sponsored group that attempted the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba – stood to be recognized. But the chairs stopped creaking and the clapping halted when Hialeah Historic Pres- ervation Board chair Ferny Coipel came to the podium. The dreadlock-wearing owner of a local recording studio praised Hialeah for its civic engagement before making a long- shot proposal. “Tonight, I would like to present a street- naming designation on West 20th Avenue from 48th to 50th to ‘Barack Obama,’” said Coipel. “Absolutely not!” responded Hialeah Councilman Carl Zogby, Hialeah’s former po- lice public information officer, as Coipel walked off from the podium with a spring in his step. “Absolutely not.” Bovo, whom Trump vocally endorsed in the 2021 mayoral race, was quick to chime in and praise Trumps’s hardline stance on Cuba. The mayor characterized the Obama-era at- tempt at normalizing U.S.-Cuba relations as a betrayal of exiles from the island — rhetoric that is echoed in speeches employed by Trump, Sen. Marco Rubio, and other Republican politi- cians as a tried and true strategy to court voters in South Florida cities with large Cuban-Amer- ican populations, such as Hialeah. “I wanna remind everybody that Barack Obama went and shook the hand of the devil when he went down Cuba,” Bovo said. (He noted that he was regretful that Coipel, whom he called “the ponytail guy,” had left and did not hear his monologue.) The first ex-president ever to be indicted, Trump is facing criminal cases stretching from New York to South Florida, stemming from allegations of confidential-document hoarding, falsifying business records, and election interference. In early December, a judge denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the federal case in which D.C. prosecutors claim he spearheaded a scheme to overthrow the democratic process by lining up fraudulent electors in advance of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. “Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy, the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass,” the judge wrote. Still, if Hialeah city meetings are any indi- cation, Trump is as beloved as ever in La Ciu- dad Que Progresa. The city is gearing up to pin his name around town as the prosecu- tions inch toward trial. Miami-Dade County now lists Hialeah City Hall at 501 President Donald J. Trump Ave. — and residents recently noticed that Trump Avenue was registering as the name of the thoroughfare on search engines. An in- voice obtained by New Times shows the City of Hialeah has ordered at least three Trump Avenue signs in the midst of his four pending criminal cases. Through Thick and Thin The designation of Trump Avenue was not Hialeah’s first experience in naming key ele- ments of the city after a politician accused of multiple felonies. Hialeah City Hall – where council mem- bers resoundingly voted in favor of Trump Avenue – once was named after Raul Marti- nez, who faced racketeering charges in the middle of his more than 20-year tenure as Hi- aleah mayor. Prosecutors accused Martinez of illegally profiting off deals with a local developer who was seeking to advance real estate projects in the city. Martinez allegedly received dis- counted lots in exchange for his help in getting city approval for zoning, re-platting, and vari- ance issues connected to the developments. Martinez, a Democrat, was convicted of extortion, racketeering, and conspiracy in 1991, but an appeals court ordered a new trial based on jury misconduct, noting that jurors “regularly brought newspapers reporting trial events” into the deliberation room, among other breaches. Two subsequent trials culminated in hung juries, and Martinez re- tained his spot at the helm of Hia- leah. He won re- election during the legal saga and twice after, eventually stepping down in 2005. In a 1993 New Times profile, Hia- leah councilman Alex Morales said Martinez had a “personal charisma and a large group of loyalists who are almost fanatical in their love for him.” Sen. Roberto Casas, a Hialeah Republican who served as Martinez’s campaign treasurer in 1989, told New Times that in spite of the in- dictment, the mayor was getting more sup- port than ever. “People just don’t think he was guilty,” Ca- sas said. “He did a good job as mayor. I have no doubt he’ll be re-elected.” Hialeah City Hall was called Raul L. Mar- tinez Government Center from 2005 until 2014 when the city council thought better of it and voted to remove his name from the building. He remained a popular political fig- ure, hosting a radio show, “La Hora del Re- greso,” on Radio Caracol. New Times reported a decade ago that to the east of Palm Avenue (now Trump Ave- nue), the city named a portion of SE 10th “Ba- nah Sweet Way” after Banah Sugar, a company founded and run by a man once convicted of cocaine trafficking. The com- pany, which he lined with executives who also had cocaine smuggling convictions, de- clared bankruptcy in 2013. “Political Machine” Hialeah’s political and demographic land- scape has shifted dramatically over the de- cades. Before Raul Martinez was elected mayor of Hialeah in 1981, English was the primary language, according to Florida International University politics professor Dario Moreno. “Before the Cubans, Hialeah was run by good-old Southern boys,” Moreno tells New Times. “It was a political machine run by Mi- lander.” Henry Milander, who served as Hialeah’s mayor for three decades, has a park and audi- torium named after him. Trump’s rally last month – where Mayor Bovo took the stage with a big green sign in hand to announce the Trump street naming – was at Ted Hendricks Stadium, located in Milander Park. Even as Trump faces multiple criminal indictments, he maintains a commanding lead in the polls over other Republican candidates. Photo by Alan Skuy/Getty Images | METRO | MIAMI-DADE COUNTY NOW LISTS HIALEAH CITY HALL AT 501 PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP AVE.
