Top cop, mayor: a slippery standoff

As the city manager studies the difficulties of removing the chief of police, the city's commissioners are on the fence about his future.

City of Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito and Mayor Tomas Regalado durring a press conference in April of 2010 (Miami Herald File Photo). The difficulties in removing a police chief in Miami were never more apparent than in early 1998, when Mayor Xavier Suarez wanted Police Chief Donald Warshaw gone. The city's charter gave only the city manager the power to fire the chief. A few months and three city managers later, Warshaw became Miami's new . . . city manager. And Suarez was gone, replaced by Joe Carollo. Fast forward a dozen years: Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado and Police Chief Miguel Exposito are at odds, with Regalado saying he now sees little alternative to replacing the chief he once endorsed. Though Exposito is fighting to keep his job, the decision to replace the chief remains essentially in the hands of the city manager. It's a decision that could be overturned by a majority vote of the city's five commissioners, but only if the chief asks for a hearing. More significantly, to fire the police chief the manager needs to show cause -- a very loose standard, according to legal experts. ``It can't just be that you don't like him. But you can say, `I lost confidence in him,' '' said former County Attorney Murray Greenberg, who served as the Miami-Dade School Board's special counsel when it forced out Superintendent Rudy Crew. ``Cause just has to be based on some concrete fact.'' Though City Manager Tony Crapp Jr. has said he wants to review Exposito's work before making a decision, the manager's frustration is clearly on the rise as new details emerge daily of the fight between the mayor and the chief. Last week, Crapp said the evolving soap opera was taking a toll on the police department. ``I'm concerned with their working relationship,'' Crapp said. ``But I'm not going to make a decision based on politics.'' One commissioner is saying he will ask for the chief's resignation next week, but it is not yet clear which way his four colleagues on the commission are leaning. And though Exposito has not responded publicly about any attempt to dismiss him, the 36-year police veteran who used to run the department's internal affairs unit made his intention clear two weeks ago when he penned a letter to federal law enforcement insinuating that Regalado was in bed with organized crime by accepting campaign contributions from gaming-machine vendors. Asked whether he thinks the chief he once endorsed should be replaced, Regalado said: ``I don't see any way out of it.'' It used to be much easier to replace the city's chief of police. Until a charter change in the 1990s, the mayor was just one of five voting commission members and had no veto power -- making the city manager that much stronger. That was never more evident than at 2:42 a.m. on Jan. 27, 1984, when City Manager Howard Gary made what was to become the most famous -- or infamous -- phone call in city history, to Police Chief Ken Harms. Harms had irked Gary by asking the governor to investigate what Harms believed were shenanigans on Gary's part. But Gary had spies in Harms' office, and soon learned of the call. ``He called me and relieved me of my duties as chief of police in the city of Miami,'' Harms said. The tussle between Regalado and Exposito began shortly after the chief's appointment a little over a year ago. Last spring, with Regalado's pushing, the city created a controversial gaming-machine ordinance that reversed its long-standing judgment that all such machines were illegal. Though Exposito fought the ordinance, the commission approved the mayor's initiative. Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/09/2008194/top-cop-mayor-a-slippery-standoff.html#ixzz1AeTAg1oW