Mayor’s Stealth Raise Gets a Rise Out of Residents in Miami

At the Spanish-language radio station where Tomas P. Regalado is a newscaster, the calls from listeners were coming in fast -- and furious -- on Friday.

“People are pretty upset,” Regalado said, referring to an action taken Thursday night at the other place he works: the Miami City Commission.

Just before the close of business, with the visitors gallery virtually deserted and the sole remaining reporter closing up his laptop, the commission approved a 54.6% salary increase for Mayor Manny A. Diaz; the raise means a bump from $97,000 a year to $150,000.

“Manny’s done the most remarkable job of any mayor that we can go back and think of,” said Commissioner Johnny L. Winton, a Democrat and Diaz ally who proposed the pay hike.

The 51-year-old mayor, a registered independent, easily won reelection last month. The proposal for granting him a raise hadn’t been on the commission’s agenda; it was introduced as a “pocket item” -- city hall jargon for a last-minute matter put before the commission without the public having been notified.

The five-member commission unanimously adopted the increase. But Regalado said Friday that his vote had been a reluctant one.

“The most troubling issue is that this was ... done when the lights were about to turn off,” he said, adding that he would have preferred the commission to have approved a smaller raise that could have been revisited in a year. Regalado voted yes, he said, only because “I have been a critic of the mayor, and I didn’t want to look petty by denying him a raise.”

Diaz did not return a call for comment Friday.

However, Diaz told the Miami Herald that he had had no part in the salary discussions. He said he learned of the late addition to the commission’s business while watching the proceedings from his office.

“I was shocked ... just sort of speechless,” the mayor said.

Last month, the Cuban-born Diaz easily won a second four-year term in an election that had been delayed because of Hurricane Wilma. His political fortunes have benefited from Miami’s falling unemployment and crime rates and an upturn in economic activity. The best-known of his four challengers was a local radio personality who once made a crank call to Cuban President Fidel Castro.

The resolution passed by the commission says that one goal of the raise was to bring Diaz’s salary into line with mayors in similar-sized Florida cities. For example, the mayor of Orlando makes $144,351, the Herald reported; the mayor of Jacksonville is paid $153,561.

For many Miamians, such comparisons were beside the point, Regalado said. “People have just come through a hurricane,” he said. “They’ve just gotten the announcement of rate increases for insurance.”

The mayor’s raise took effect Friday. “It’s a good Christmas gift,” Regalado said.