Hialeah Mayor Jacqueline Garcia-Roves on Thursday denied responsibility for code violations reported by her own city\u2019s Building and Code Compliance Department, which fined her $250 on Wednesday for additions and other changes for which there were no permits.<\/p>\n
The controversy first surfaced a week before during a City Council meeting, when resident Yolanda Guerra confronted the mayor publicly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are a disgrace to the city,\u201d Guerra said. \u201cHow can you, as mayor, make additions to your house without asking for any permit? You have to pay the money you owe the city for those improvements made without permits.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time, Garcia-Roves immediately dismissed the allegations as \u201cfake news.\u201d Now, after her department issued the fine for multiple violations, the mayor says she remains unaware of the details because she has not yet been officially notified, even though the fine is a public record for any person who requests it.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Univision 23 after the Miami Herald broke the news on Wednesday, Garcia-Roves said, \u201cI still haven\u2019t received any violation or fine from the city. I can say that during election cycles, these kinds of awful things tend to show up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her office had told the Herald the previous day that the records would be released as soon as she was informed.<\/p>\n
Garca-Roves has accused her political opponent, former councilman Bryan Calvo, who is also running for mayor in the Nov. 4 election, of orchestrating the complaint that led to the city inspection and the claims raised during last week\u2019s council meeting. At the same time, she has attributed any structural changes or improvements to home to her late father, who died in 2019, the same year she became the property\u2019s official owner and won a seat on the City Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my father passed away I took responsibility for the property, and it was transferred under my name. I didn\u2019t take advantage of the senior exemption my mother had,\u201d Garcia-Roves said. \u201cI\u2019m a Hialeah resident like any other. I don\u2019t see myself as above anyone just because I\u2019m the mayor. If there\u2019s something wrong with the property, something that happened before I became the owner, I\u2019ll assume responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mayor has maintained that no expansions have been made to the home, even though records from the Hialeah Building and Code Compliance Department show her property is currently under an active violation for additions among other violations of building without a permit.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince I\u2019m old enough to remember, there haven\u2019t been any additions to the house,\u201d she said. \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t know if there were any permits issued for modifications, because when my dad was alive, he was the one taking care of everything.\u201d City files show no record of permit for the property, either under her father\u2019s name or her own.<\/p>\n
The mayor emphasized that any work done on the property occurred before she inherited it. \u201cAny improvement that was made was done by my father. He was the owner, and he handled everything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, Google Street View images from 2007 to 2022 reveal changes to the property over the years, particularly since 2020, when Garc\u00eda-Roves was already the legal owner. The images show that the porch gate, in place at least since 2007, was removed, along with modifications to fences and gates. Columns in the front yard were also removed\u2014alterations that correspond to some of the violations cited by the city. The department\u2019s inspection was conducted externally, and the actual interior size of the property remains unknown.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy house doesn\u2019t have any enclosed area besides the main structure. There isn\u2019t an addition,\u201d Garcia-Roves said, adding that she is waiting to see the city\u2019s official notice. Her comments, however, contradict both the Hialeah Building and Code Compliance Department\u2019s cited violations and Miami-Dade Property Appraiser records included in the city\u2019s file, which show two roof extensions. One appears to be an enclosed home addition with plumbing ventilation stacks, while the other is constructed from aluminum.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to wait to see what the violations are, to have them in my hands,\u201d she said. \u201cI have to let the department do its job. Just because I\u2019m the mayor doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019ll abuse any department. I\u2019m waiting for the notice of action.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also suggested that the case may have been politically motivated, despite the fact that, as mayor, she oversees the department that issued the inspections and violations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know I had any violation. If there is something that needs to be fixed, I\u2019m happy to know and take care of it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Garcia-Roves also proposed that the city consider creating a program to assist residents who inherit properties and later discover issues with old permits or code compliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a family member passes away, and you inherit a property, situations like this can happen,\u201d she said. \u201cObviously, I\u2019ll take responsibility for my case, but my doors are open to help any resident who needs assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to city documents, Garcia-Roves must bring the property into compliance by Jan. 26, 2026. If the issues are not resolved by that time, she could face daily fines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hialeah Mayor Jacqueline Garcia-Roves on Thursday denied responsibility for code violations reported by her own city\u2019s Building and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[18030,15376,15375,11853,225,227,226,15195,15377],"class_list":["post-23468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-city-inspection","tag-code-violations","tag-compliance-department","tag-department","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news","tag-jacqueline-garcia-roves","tag-running-for-mayor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}