Union releases web video critical of administration
The Coral Gables Police Department is supposed to be a force 204 strong. But there are currently 37 vacancies as dozens of officers scatter to other departments for better wages and working conditions — creating a 20% shortage. In just the patrol division, the number shortage is 40%, union leaders say.
And more officers are leaving soon.
At least 28 officers have left in the last year and 15 more have applied to other departments, including one who leaves next week to Coral Springs Police, said Chris Challenger, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, which posted a video on YouTube Monday that criticizes both the police chief and Mayor Vince Lago for lying to residents about the situation and letting the department flounder.
“The heart of any city beats within is police department,” the video begins. “Currently, The City Beautiful’s pulse is fading. The once robust and proud Coral Gables Police Department is now a shadow of its former self, grappling with low morale, inadequate pay and benefits and an exodus of its finest officers.”
The video posted Monday shows video footage of Lago and Chief Ed Hudak at a town hall meeting in 2022 and a 2023 commission meeting where both insisted that everything was just fine, even as then-candidate campaigned on the shortage. “Mayor Lago and Chief Hudak downplayed the claims, saying that only three officers had left and not the mass exodus that was reported.
“The Coral Gables Police Department is in a state of crisis,” the narrator says. “The early warnings were ignored, the problems downplayed and now we are facing the consequences.”
Neither Lago nor Hudak responded to calls and text messages from Political Cortadito.
Commissioner Ariel Fernandez, who Lago called a liar when he talked about the shortage during last year’s campaign, was also mentioned in the video. Sort of a nod because he was right.
“I have been raising my concerns with the number of police vacancies since my campaign” Fernandez said. “Vince Lago used a commission meeting last year to ‘prove’ I was making something out of nothing. A year later he has once again been proven wrong, and my concerns have been validated.
“As a commissioner, I addressed these concerns with the former city manager numerous times, asking that he look into the morale issue and that the contract negotiations be prioritized. They were not,” Fernandez told Ladra. “With a new city manager leading the city now, who has extensive experience in law enforcement, I am confident we will be able to address the morale issues within the department and complete a fair contract for our officers soon.”
The police union has been at odds with the city administration and leadership for months. Their contract expired in October. Negotiations began in August. The city’s offer in December was 19.8% raise over three years. Chief Ed Hudak — who called voters last year to help the mayor’s handpicked candidates — calls it the largest increase he’s ever seen. And he may very well be right. The problem is the police have gone so many years with zero or tiny two percent raises that they need 15% this year just to catch up to other departments, Challenger told Political Cortadito.
Read related: Gables Police Chief Ed Hudak calls, pressures voters in commission race
“We’ve been so low on the totem pole that that just brings us to almost even.” Officers are leaving, he said, because in 10 years somewhere else they can be making the same salary that it takes 20 years to make in the Gables. Challenger has been in the City Beautiful 20 years.
“The young people, they say, ‘Why am I going to stay here?’”
Miami-Dade Police and the Broward Sheriff’s Office have taken the most officers. One went to Palm Beach. One went to Miami Beach. Two went to city of Miami.
One officer didn’t even wait to get sworn in as a Gables officer. He went straight from the academy to Miami Springs and even had to pay the city back the $12,000 for the academy costs, Challenger said.
Add to the exodus the nine experienced officers who have retired, either early or not. Dispatchers have also left because the pay is better elsewhere.
And Lago and Hudak lie to residents and commissioners about the situation, Challenger said.
The five new police officers Lago promised last year are part of the 15 unfunded positions in the department. There are no new police officers. If Lago says that five more officers will be added next year, there will be 20 unfunded positions.
“Those 15 positions were supposed to be our new Downtown unit,” Challenger told Political Cortadito. The city is using specialized units — motor patrol, bike patrol, traffic investigators — to fill in and create a presence downtown. So they can say they have a Downtown unit.
“When someone says they don’t see any motor units at Gables High, it’s true. It’s because they’re downtown, for appearances,” Challenger said, referring to question that arose at the last meeting about the traffic enforcement and student safety at the school.
Read related: Coral Gables commission pay raise is red herring for Lying Vince Lago
The police overtime is through the roof, he added. The mayor might say the city makes it up in the saved salaries and benefits for the 37 officers who have fled, but that only means that some young officers are doubling up shifts, and then coming in the next day again, which could be dangerous, Challenger added.
Morale has never been lower. According to a morale survey done by the FOP last summer, 77% of the 143 rank and file officers who participated in the poll said they were extremely or moderately dissatisfied with pay and benefits. Only 17% said they felt the assignment/transfer/promotion process was fair and 72% said the communication between leadership and the officers was poor.
Only 14% of the 143 officers who voted — and 60% of those have been with the city 10 years or less, showing a drain of experience — said the department had an ethical culture that treated them fairly.
That’s one of the reasons why Commissioner Melissa Castro created the city’s morale committee at the last commission meeting, in March. “Almost every day of the week, an officer stops me to tell me what’s going on,” she told Ladra this week.
There is nothing on the agenda for next week’s meeting about the police shortage.
The morale committee has already met once and there are boxes being placed in all departments for comments, anonymous or not, to go to the committee. Castro also said that the IT department is working on have a web submission page where someone’s IP address is not tracked so employees can submit ideas or complaints anonymously.
Castro also wants to revisit the city’s extra payments to the pension fund, above what’s required because the mayor has been trying to fully fund it for years. It’s his “legacy.” That and the proposed mobility hub.
But is it really necessary to have it at 100%? Is everybody going to retire at the same time? At the end of fiscal 2023, the average funded ratio for public pension funds in the U.S. was reportedly 78.1%, up from 74.9% in fiscal 2022.
“If you can’t pay your light bill, are you going to make an extra payment on your mortgage,” Castro asks. “We’re 20% down on police. We need to make sure our house is in order.”
Castro doesn’t know if she has the votes of the other two amigos. Certainly Lago wouldn’t support her and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson just follows his lead blindly. But the other two are possibles.
“I can’t be the only one thinking this way,” Castro said. “It’s embarrassing.”
Challenger said the argument about the unfunded liability is bogus and that the pension, which was once woefully underfunded, is now healthy and strong.
“We don’t need to be 100% funded. You are basically taking it away from the current employees.”
Maybe the city should take away some from Chief Hudak, who did get a 9.2% raise (equal to $19,360.00) just in 2022. He’s gotten raises on other years, too.
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