Nine candidates qualify to run for Miami-Dade mayor

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Tue, Jul. 13, 2004





Nine candidates qualify to run for Miami-Dade mayor

By OSCAR CORRAL

[e-mail]


Nine candidates qualified to run for Miami-Dade mayor in the Aug. 31 election by the deadline at noon Tuesday.

The candidates: former county police director Carlos Alvarez; Deliverance Charles Blue; business executive Jose Cancela; former county commissioner Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a lawyer; former Miami mayor and county commissioner Maurice Ferré; restaurant owner Jay Love; County Commissioner Jimmy Morales; former traffic reporter Dave Slater; and Alejandro White.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/9145104.htm?ERIGHTS=2076173773169301200miami:&KRD_RM=3mkmlmmlnkjppmjjjjjjjjjsko|
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For anyone who would like to find out what happened to a supporter of one of the politicians listed above, Jay Love, this story might amaze and befuddle you, adding to your understanding of Miami politics!

Art Buonamia spent $1144 on new tires after his were slashed in a church parking lot.

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.....In the weeks that followed, the 47-year-old Buonamia, a retired businessman, became interested in politics for the first time in his life. The Elian affair had sparked something in him. “When Penelas got up there and told the federal government he was not going to support the authorities to get that child out of there and reunite him with his father, many of us became incensed over this,” Buonamia says. “We were hoping to have a candidate who could unite the community.” He joined an organization called Citizens 4 America, one of several groups formed in response to the perceived anti-American sentiment running through factions of the Cuban-American community. He even began volunteering on behalf of Jay Love's campaign for county mayor.

After continued prodding by Father Hopkins and other church members, Buonamia and his wife agreed in late August to come back to Saint Philomena. On Sunday, September 3, the couple, having spent the early morning campaigning for Love, drove to church in their recreational vehicle, which had several large “Jay Love for Mayor” signs affixed to it. Buonamia says he warned Father Hopkins that he would be driving the RV, and the priest said it would be fine. Buonamia parked in the rear of the church parking lot. “I was trying to obscure it as much as possible,” he says. “We knew it wasn't Love territory, but it never dawned on me that people would get physical over this.”

Soon after arriving, Marisa Buonamia was accosted inside the church by Eladio Armesto-Garcia, a former Republican state representative, who served in Tallahassee from 1992 until 1994. He told her to move the RV immediately. She refused. “I told him: “This is a democracy,'” recalls Marisa, who hails from Panama. Next Armesto-Garcia confronted Buonamia.

“He was very agitated,” Buonamia remembers. “He starts screaming at me in Spanish that Jay Love is a homosexual and that I'm supporting homosexuals and that I have to get my RV out of there. I told him it is not important to me what he thinks. I'm here to go to Mass, and I asked him to leave me alone. He then screamed at me in church that he was going to beat the shit out of me when Mass was over.”
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http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2000-09-21/defede.html/1/index.html