Hurricane Hizzoner

Xavier Suarez is Miami's first "strong mayor." But is he stable enough to use his new powers wisely?

By John Cloud

(TIME, Jaunary 19) -- Another chaotic week ends, leaving Miamians to wonder how long before the white-suited men with butterfly nets come to take the mayor away."

Best-selling novelist Carl Hiaasen wrote those words, but you won't find them in yarns like Tourist Season or Strip Tease. Instead, Hiaasen was describing the real-life mayor of Miami in his newspaper column last month. "Mayor Loco," Hiaasen calls him.

Mayor Xavier Suarez isn't pleased with the title, and for weeks he has threatened to sue Hiaasen and his paper, the Miami Herald. Last week, to emphasize his pique, Suarez phoned the Herald's advertising manager and left another warning on voice mail: "I note that we are subsidizing you and your newspaper with ads related to official notices of the city," Suarez growled. Echoing a bit of cold war lingo, he then urged the manager to "tell your maximum leader of the free world for the publishing company [translation: Herald president Joe Natoli] to be a lot nicer to me, my people, my citizens and my city." The state attorney is investigating the call, on the theory that mayors shouldn't make threats that creep up on the First Amendment.

It all sounds like a plot twist in one of Hiaasen's novels, tales of besmirched pols and gritty heroes in South Florida -- "except this is the sort of behavior that if you put it in a novel, critics would say it's unbelievable," Hiaasen says. Second-time-around Mayor Suarez has been back in the job only since November, when he narrowly -- and perhaps unfairly -- beat the incumbent. (After the election, law enforcers arrested a Suarez campaign volunteer for offering to buy absentee ballots. The Herald and state officials have been examining other irregularities, which could lead to a rematch.) As mayor from 1985 to 1993, Suarez was known for his thin skin, but he was also considered a methodical leader who calmly led the city during a 1989 riot.

When he returned to the job last fall, however, he assumed much greater power. Miami voters had approved a "strong-mayor" charter in September, sold on the idea that it would be a tonic for the city's fiscal troubles and chronic corruption. Rather than being just another commissioner, the mayor has broad-ranging authority, including the veto.

For Suarez the added powers seem to have been too strong an ether. Soon after taking office, he tried to fire most senior members of the government, including a police chief credited with cutting crime. The state attorney found the move illegal, and the mayor was forced to agree to six months of oversight by a local court.

In a municipality racked by scandal -- a bribery sting netted three officials last year -- Suarez also decided to name an indicted ally, Humberto Hernandez, as chairman of the city commission. Hernandez goes on trial soon for money laundering and fraud. But after the state's Department of Law Enforcement announced an investigation into charges of vote fraud, the mayor also appointed Chairman Hernandez to lead a counterinvestigation into the department's investigation.

But these are merely the elements of a classic power grab. What threatens to push Suarez into the category of Chief Executive Weirdo is a series of loopy stunts. Around 10:30 one recent night, he arrived unannounced at the home of Edna Benson, 68, a retiree who had written him a critical letter. Dressed for bed and in curlers, Benson feared a burglar and grabbed a .38 revolver. She refused to open the door, and Suarez eventually left. At an important Tallahassee meeting in early December, he made an awkward, inexplicable comment to Governor Lawton Chiles about his "very famous" daughter (she isn't) and called a prominent state legislator "Senator Cabbage." Twice. From there, he made an impromptu visit to New York City, where he tried unsuccessfully to persuade bond-rating firms that Miami isn't in fiscal crisis. He also twice broke down in tears before reporters, later explaining that his son advised him to show his emotions.

Suarez told TIME the call to the Herald "was mostly in jest." And he acknowledges that his personality has changed, saying that "personal emoting" improved his family life and that he "hopes it's helpful in the public arena" also. He has apologized to Benson and appointed a respected fellow Harvard grad as city manager. "In the next few weeks you will see some great announcements about the city," he promises. And if this were one of Hiaasen's best sellers, how might it end? "You don't want to know," the writer says. "Not very many good things happen to the politicians in my novels." Will real life be more forgiving?

--With reporting by Greg Aunapu/Miami

Cover Date: January 19, 1998

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• Washington Diary: The Gravy Train Never Stops
• The G.O.P.'s Troublemaker
• Hurricane Hizzoner
• Let the Games Begin!
• New Day Coming?
• The Notebook: Primetime Reno
• Spotlight