Nearing the anniversary of his first year in office as Hialeah's youngest mayor, Bryan Calvo and his administration are touting the investment his office has put into increasing city maintenance and modernizing city services.
At a quarterly cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Hialeah department heads shared milestones their offices have accomplished in the past year and thanked Calvo for his initiatives and legislation prioritizing city infrastructure, parks and recreation, fire safety and new hiring for unfilled positions.
READ MORE: Hialeah elects youngest mayor in city history. His name is Bryan Calvo
Pools
One public-facing service requiring major investment is Hialeah's seven city-owned pools, of which none are currently operational.
Earlier this month, the city had to close McDonald Pool, Milander Pool and Babcock Pool — the only three public pools that were still open in Hialeah after the emergency closure of Bucky Dent Water Park by state H=health officials this summer.
The Florida Department of Health issued violations to the city pools after an investigation triggered by a medical emergency at Bucky Dent that Calvo said was "unrelated" to the pool facilities.
" There was no causal link between the maintenance items and what happened to the 80-year-old man. He had a medical emergency. It could have happened to him in the parking lot. It just so happened that it happened at our facility," Calvo told WLRN.
Calvo said maintenance was deferred for years on all of the city's pools, and the backlog of maintenance issues required that each facility be inspected and repaired before re-opening.
He said the city cannot commit to a specific timeline, but he expects that the four recently-closed pool facilities will re-open within 30 days. The city's attention will then turn to re-opening the three remaining pools that have been closed for years: Bright Pool, Reid Pool and Walker Pool.
Public safety
Hialeah Police Chief George Fuente celebrated the city council's recent approval of a new union contract for the city's 304 police officers covered by the Fraternal Order of Police union. Officers received a pay raise, and Fuente noted that the police department is purchasing 12 new Harley Davidson motorcycles for its motor unit. Hialeah Police will soon also create an "aggressive driving" unit to address issues of frequent speeding and traffic violations in the city.
" We continue listening to our residents and focusing our efforts on areas that we know are problems," he said.
While the police union has closed its contract negotiations, the firefighters' union is still in ongoing talks.
Negotiations with the fire department were canceled in July amid a retention crisis that's seen the city lose firefighters faster than it can replace them.
Calvo said Wednesday that it's been difficult to address the department's calls for more competitive pay because Hialeah does not have the same resources as the much larger Miami-Dade Fire Rescue department. Hialeah is one of only five cities in Miami-Dade County that operates its own fire department.
"It's difficult for the city to compete," Calvo said. " And so I understand that they're upset, and I understand that they want the city to invest in them. And we have shown that we're more than willing to invest in our public safety officers."
The city recently held its first negotiation session with the fire union, and its second meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 1.
Hialeah Fire Chief Humfredo Perez noted that the city was able to secure a new fire truck for rescue station 9 in west Hialeah and is in the process of hiring new firefighters.
Other initiatives
City officials rattled off a number of other ongoing initiatives and projects underway in Hialeah including the following:
- 190 of 247 non-operational fire hydrants were brought online. City will now inspect fire hydrants annually.
- The city has almost completed re-striping of major roadways and will soon move to local roads within neighborhoods.
- Starting in September, the city's building department will accept digital submissions of planning documents to modernize the permit process.
- Starting in October, Calvo promised that every curbed street will be cleaned by street sweepers on a biweekly basis.
- The city plans to create a dog park area at Bucky Dent Water Park.
