Councilman Bryan Calvo has raised concerns over deficiencies and unanswered calls at the 911 center. A 2022 investigation concluded that the city’s dispatch unit was “woefully” understaffed and “grossly neglected” and needs immediate attention.
Officials told the councilman earlier this month that he would have to spend nearly $7,000 of his own money to receive documents he requested.
“Defendant Esteban Bovo, Jr., in his official capacity as mayor of Hialeah, implemented a policy prohibiting councilmembers, including Councilman Calvo, from making any requests of city department heads without first going through the mayor,” the lawsuit states. “Mayor Bovo then directed the Hialeah city attorney and city clerk to prohibit Councilman Calvo from inspecting records of internal communications between city employees documenting Hialeah’s 911 call center crisis.”
The suit states that while Hialeah’s city charter restricts individual councilmembers from speaking directly to city staffers without going through the mayor, it does contain an exception for “inquiries and investigations made in good faith.”
Calvo said that never before has a city council member or a person acting on behalf of the city been charged for official records.
“If these constraints by the mayor are left unchallenged, they set a very dangerous precedent,” Calvo said at a news conference Wednesday.
Calvo’s lawsuit accuses Bovo of abusing his power as mayor. The councilman is also calling for a formal investigation into Hialeah’s emergency response system.
Bovo has defended the city’s 911 system in the past, calling the “narrative” over the dispatch center “willfully misinformed” and maintains that the city runs its 911 system better than the county’s.
In response to Wednesday’s news conference, Bovo’s office released a statement saying the mayor wouldn’t comment on the matter and calling Calvo’s suit a “cheap political act.”
“The facts speak for themselves,” the statement read in part.
Read the lawsuit: