Florida Governor Behaved Like 'Spoiled Kid' Says Hialeah Mayor

HIALEAH, FL — The mayor of Florida's sixth largest city and one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus told Patch Wednesday he believes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or a member of the governor's staff intentionally turned him away from a roundtable discussion with fellow mayors on the recent surge in new cases of the virus.

"He’s behaving like a spoiled kid," Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez said in an interview with Patch. "We should be working together united to find a solution to this very serious issue. We have never faced anything like this when it comes to health care and the economy of our cities."

Asked about the apparent snub from Tuesday's roundtable at the Miami-Dade Government Center, DeSantis said he had nothing to do with the invitations.

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"I'm happy to meet with him. Hialeah is a great town. I’ve got a lot of great friends there," DeSantis said at the time.

But that wasn't the case when Hernandez was greeted by a member of the governor's staff after he watched Mayor Dan Gelber of Miami Beach be waived into the Stephen P. Clark Government Center in Miami along with other mayors from Florida's hardest hit county from the virus.

"A young lady came and said 'Hi mayor. I’m from the governor’s' office. She called me Mayor Hernandez so she knew who I was. 'Mayor Hernandez I am from the governor’s office. This is only by invitation and you are not on the list," the mayor told Patch.

Hernandez, a fellow Republican, said he believes he was intentionally left off the invite list because he has been critical of the state's response to the coronavirus, particularly when it came to the unemployment snafu that left thousands of Hialeah residents unable to file their claims.

"It wasn’t a personal criticism," Hernandez explained. "It was criticizing the state ... when the computer system supposedly failed that we had people waiting for weeks and weeks for their unemployment benefit, people that didn’t have any money. We were out here giving food out."

Hernandez said his city was among the first to print paper copies of the unemployment forms and hand them out to residents, a move that was repeated by other cities around the state.

"I think the message that I would have tried to pass on is, 'listen, we can’t have all these mixed messages at the state level, at the county level, at the city levels," Hernandez said. "I would have talked about unity. His actions show that’s not what he’s all about."

Hernandez said he was also critical of the lack of a state testing sites in Hialeah early on during the pandemic.

"It took months and months and work from the county to finally get a place," Hernandez recalled, noting DeSantis criticized a Hialeah hospital for charging $150 to perform the tests but did nothing to help.

Last week Hernandez also criticized Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez' decision to shut down indoor dining rooms of restaurants.

"All the mayors were not in agreement with him because where was the evidence that is what’s causing the spike," Hernandez said. "He made a decision based on what he thought was best instead of having a real conversation with the rest of us, which he never did."

Hernandez said many people from Miami-Dade County simply drove to neighboring Broward County last weekend when they wanted to eat at a restaurant.

Hialeah has been particularly hard hit by the virus with a large number of multigenerational households and a population of 233,339 residents, some 96 percent of whom are Hispanic or Latino, according to census data.

"Our hospitals are pretty full like everywhere else. The impact on the economy has been incredible," Hernandez shared. "We’ve had a lot of death and a lot of people that have this virus."

That's why Hernandez said he felt it was important to go to the roundtable uninvited. "We are one of those places that are largely impacted by the coronavirus.," he said. "That’s why I thought it was important for me to be there, to talk and find out what’s going to happen, what the governor’s plan was — so we could work together on this."

Hernandez said he was one of the first Florida mayors to publicly support DeSantis during his 2018 gubernatorial race.

"He has never spoken to me since the day he was elected that he came to Hialeah looking for votes," Hernandez said. "He has never called me to find out what’s going on from Hialeah. What can we do with this coronavirus issue?"