Only in Miami-Dade County!

Denis Morales, Chief of Staff to
Miami-Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez

Miami Herald reporters Jack Dolan and Matthew Haggman continue to keep watch on Miami-Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez and his Circle of Barely Competent Commissioners at County Hall.

In today's installment of HiJinx at County Hall, Haggman and Dolan report that:

"Three weeks into the budget year, confronted with a room full of politically influential county employees and the first vote that would actually take money out of the workers' pockets -- the commissioners froze.

"The delay comes at a price.

"As each week passes without the promised cuts, the county's deficit grows by another $4 million, according to Mayor Carlos Alvarez."

So, now might be a good time to go back and take a look at a somewhat obscure video shot in August - and that re-appeared inadvertently on the Herald's homepage today - by Herald Tallahassee bureau reporter Marc Caputo, who was in Miami for the county budget hearings.


In it, Caputo captures the mayor's right hand man, Denis Morales - a former Miami-Dade cop, but who now looks more like a Mafia Goodfella - joking about his big salary, which is larger than that of Governor Charlie Crist.


Ahh, life is good...if you're Denis Morales, that is.

Catch more of Caputo's Canon handi-cam ambush work here at the Herald's Political Currents page.