Kevin Gray
Reuters
3/15/2011
(Reuters) – Voters in Miami-Dade, one of the most populous U.S. counties, removed Mayor Carlos Alvarez from office in a special vote on Tuesday triggered by popular anger over a hike in property taxes.
With 707 of 829 precincts reporting, official results showed 88 percent of voters backed the effort to oust the once-popular mayor, who is his second four-year term.
It was the biggest such ouster, or recall, of an elected official before the end of his official term since California voters tossed out Democratic Governor Gray Davis in 2003…
…The Cuban-born Alvarez came under criticism last year when Miami-Dade, saddled with record high 12 percent unemployment and the same budget deficits faced by many local and state governments, introduced a property tax increase to help fund vital services including police and public schools.
The 14 percent tax hike was imposed despite double-digit declines in real estate values as south Florida was hammered by the U.S. housing and mortgage foreclosure crisis…
…Alvarez, 58, was also criticized for raising salaries for some county employees as well as backing a deal to use nearly $350 million in public funds to build a new stadium to house the Florida Marlins baseball team in Miami’s Little Havana district…
Read the complete article at Reuters.
H/T Moonbattery
Related: Babalu blog, Tea party principles alive and well, and American Thinker, Miami-Dade voters recall big-spending mayor by 9 to 1 margin:
…The Democrats and their media lackeys are claiming that Wisconsin is a big success for them, because it has mobilized labor and liberals in opposition to cost-cutting Governor Walker. They are whistling past the graveyard. The voters of Miami-Dade have revealed that taxpayers are sickand tired of digging deeper so politicians and their union cronies can continue enriching themselves as if the taxpayers’ money pot were bottomless.
Ace of Spades HQ, Voter revolt in South Florida tosses Miami mayor and Dade commissioner:
Previously unthinkable revolts seem to be in the air these days…
(corrupt, thuggish, nepotistic, hubristic, and plainly tone deaf) Miami mayor Alvarez goes down harder than the Titanic with 90% voting for his recall.Voters swept Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez out of office by a stunning margin Tuesday…dramatic collapse…largest recall of a local politician in U.S. history.Of course, none of this is to say that a new regime in the mayor’s office will be any different than the old regime…
…Bankrolled by county employee unions, developers and lobbyists,Seijas raised $213,575 through a political action committee, Abre Los Brazos — nearly 10 times as much as her political opponents could muster. But in the end, voter anger trumped the power of incumbency, sweeping both Seijas and Alvarez from office by the same drastic margins…
