The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 33

Weather 3B Deaths 4B Florida 5B LOCAL SECTION THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 3 1998 wwwheraldcom She Herald CARL HIAASEN Voters took aim at handful of incumbents Suarez aiming to force early election gle theme emerged from their defeats Each ended up in the losing column for particular reasons ranging from alleged ethical lapses to poor campaigning to formidable foes analysts said Voters went after them but with scalpel-like precision that left the majority of incumbents unbloodied thought incumbents did fine and they always do in a low turnout political consultant Phil Hamersmith said course there were some big upsets But this an anti-incumbent election if you look at the overall The vast majority of incumbents slid by opponents with little effort some with no opposition at all In Miami-Dade all three By TOM FIEDLER J08EPH TANFANI and 8TEVE BOUSQUET Herald Staff Writers The primary Election Day beheadings of several prominent South Florida politicians came as a surprise but they signal an outbreak of anti-incumbent fever experts said Wednesday The list of dumped politicians included several notables In Miami-Dade: state Sen Bill Turner D-Miami Shores a 24-year political veteran state Reps Luis Morse and Jorge Rodriguez-Chomat and School Board member Remer Diaz de la Portilla And in Broward: state Sen Matthew Meadows and Commissioner Sylvia Poitier But their prominence overshadowed their numbers the experts said and no sin term expires 2001 Paid workers and volunteers have been gathering signatures on a petition and were especially evident Tuesday at polling sites Admitting no real count has been taken Suarez he has 9000 of the 12600 signatures that if verified would force the City Commission to draft the charter amendment campaign would feature an PLEASE SEE ELECTION SB PLEASESEE SUAREZ 2B Nursing homes told to clean up or close Site linked to deaths is among 18 warned By PEGGY ROGERS I Herald Staff Writer A North Miami nursing home where two patients died because of poor care is among 1 8 statewide that will come under a new type of order today: Clean up or close down Four of the homes are in Broward County and two are Miami-Dade County Three are owned by the same Maryland-based chain Integrated Health Services The Herald was unable late Wednesday to obtain the names of the homes outside Broward and Dade Flonda regulators hoping to increase the potency of their policing will go after homes that have flunked inspections and wobbled in and out of compliance for at least two years according to authorities with Agency for Health Care Administration The name of the unprecedented program: Up or Get will be subject to unannounced inspections over the next 30 days and have 90 days to correct any of their deficiencies and to come into said Manlynn Evert external affairs director for Agency for Health Care Administration Homes whose owners know they meet the deadlines will be expected to sell their facilities within that time or to close More homes are expected to go on the list as studies of long-term offenders continue It looks at PLEASESEE HOMES SB boating trip But US officials have heard nothing further regarding their fate A State Department official who asked not to be identified said the US Interests Section in Havana had not received any request from the four men for assistance Because the Cuban government treats even Cuban exiles who are arrested on the island as Cuban citizens American officials often have access to them the official said just have no information on the State Department official said know whether any charges have been By ALFONSO CHARDY Herald Staff Writer Former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez who helped a political novice win a seat in the state Legislature Tuesday by aiming his campaign against city officials and the way the city is being run through yet Suarez wants to run against nemesis and current Mayor Joe Carollo again and he wants a charter change that would force an election long before Car- Wednesday he was unaware of detention Also shrouded in mystery is the Cuban border apparent detention of four other South Flonda men in two separate incidents a week apart last month Friends and relatives of the two pairs of men had reported them to the Coast Guard as overdue from fishing tnps to the Cay Sal banks in the Bahamas The Coast Guard launched search-and-rescue missions only to suspend them after learning from the Cuban border guards that all four men reportedly Hialeah residents were in their custody CARL JUSTE Herald Staff Jr was back at work at the River Lobster and Stone Crab By ELAINE Herald Manuel everyone who to take from insider the shocked before Lots PARENTS MOURN KEEP A VIGIL Hurt in a car crash that killed her brother Queeny Titsworth 2 lies sedated at Jackson Hospital as mom Carolina comforts her Wednesday Left father Ronald reads a letter to his dead son Brian 6 Carlos Deschapell 32 of Miami is charged with manslaughter while driving undfcr the influence OWN WORDS BITE BITING POLITICIAN Dubious history was made last spring when an influential member of Congress openly referred to the President of the United States as a The name-caller was Rep Dan Burton the Indiana Republican who chairs the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Burton who portrays himself as morally upright offered his coarse description of Bill Clinton in a newspaper interview In this country anyone is free to call the commander-in-chief a scumbag (or other unsavory receptacle) without fear of reprisal But politicians who hurl such insults run a serious risk as the overly pious Mr Burton is finding out This week been dashing around Washington warning people that not perfect either He says a snoopy journalist from i Vanity Fair is doing an article that delves unflattenngly into his personal life Burton even volunteered the fact that his long marriage has undergone periods which is almost exactly what so-called scumbag Bill Clinton said in 1992 1 after Genmfer Flowers surfaced The Vanity Fair article be published for a while which makes pre-emptive attack all the more awkward Defending self against racy 1 allegations that yet been printed is a sure way to ignite not squelch public curiosity Burton himself raised the ject of his marital problems then refused to get specific he declared Which is almost the same line used the other night by our so-called scumbag president when confessing to White House intimacies with Monica Lewinsky debatable whether America deserves to know or even gives a hoot which elected officeholders cheat on their wives It does become important though if it reveals one of most rabid critics as a hypocrite and a phony happening to Burton is the nightmare of every partisan hatchet man in danger of getting sliced and diced with his own self-righteous Veg-o-matic Notice how the smart ones have been relatively reserved in their comments on the Lewinsky affair Neither House Speaker Newt Gingrich nor Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has been foolish enough to do the fire-and-brim-stone act or to call Clinton names not because more dignified or respectful than Burton just smarter They know out there: Lots of other potential Monicas and Gen-nifers been cozy with prominent and prominently married politicians All it takes is one woman to tune in the nightly news and see her ex-lover sanctimoniously bashing lack of integrity All it takes is one of them to get ticked off pick up a phone and call a reporter Notice also how many of the critics are careful to say the issue in the Lewinsky case is the lying not the sex Most Americans agree according to polls The sex issue makes lots of folks edgy but nowhere is the discomfort more acute than Capitol Hill former stalking ground of Bob Packwood Gary Hart and others unlikely that Dan name will be added to priapic pantheon But his defensive statements this week offered without context or detail suggest that the upcoming Vanity Fair story be a profile of perfect rectitude And whose would? But Burton asked for this trouble by fervidly using his congressional pulpit to assault morality When you do that better be morally bulletproof yourself Plenty of Americans might agree with crude knock of the president but they need to hear it from a congressman with tawdry secrets of his own the pot calling the kettle scum South Florida man held in Cuba after By ANDRE8 VIQLUCCI Herald Staff Writer For the third time in less than a month Cuban border guards have taken into custody a South Florida man on suspicion of smuggling of illegal immigrants the US Coast Guard said Wednesday Cuban authorities notified the Coast Guard they had detained a man identified as Manuel Fonseca 42 An anonymous caller had reported him missing at sea Sunday a day after Fonseca reportedly left Miami aboard a 27-foot pleasure boat on a 24-hour trip to Key West the Coast Guard said The Coast Guard suspended its search for Fonseca on Tuesday when Cuban authorities responding to US inquiries said they had apprehended Fonseca inside their territorial waters US authorities know little else about the case including who Fonseca is or where he lives Neither the person who reported him missing nor Cuban officials provided any identifying information other than name age and the fact that from South Florida a Coast Guard spokesman said Nor did the Cuban border guards say why they suspect Fonseca of smuggling immigrants whether he was carrying any passengers or where precisely he was intercepted A State Department official said THE DAY AFTER: Manuel Prieguez family business Wednesday Miami with his father Manuel Prieguez Sr 28 Victory stuns Prieguez too DE VALLE Staff Writer Prieguez Jr is just as surprised as else was prepared to says the 27-year-old rose from self-described the District 113 state representative seat Luis Morse a 1 4-year veteran and political thought in the end everyone would go with name they he said Wednesday still that he got 60 percent of the votes the day of other people had doubts as well Relatives warned he would be disappointed A friend Ex-coach finds winning way By KAREN BRANCH Herald Staff Writer Gaston Cantens knows what like to lose The former head basketball coach at Barry University was fired in 1986 after his first season when the team finished with just five wins Now Cantens knows the smell of victory This time in politics In his first campaign Cantens 36 on Tuesday ousted a four-year incumbent state Rep Jorge Rodriguez-Chomat feels very good a wonderful he said Wednesday not sure that I knew I was going to win I know we did everything we could to PLEASESEE PRIEGUEZ 38 PLEASESEE CANTENS.