New appointee to Hialeah Council makes history as its oldest member

Image via Hialeah Housing Authority.

Sixty years after he emigrated from Cuba, Republican Juan Francisco Junco is a member of the Hialeah Council.

At 86, he’s the oldest person to ever take a seat on the panel, whose other members voted unanimously to add him to their ranks.

The prior record-holder was the late Henry Milander, who served two separate stints as Hialeah Mayor between 1943 and 1975, when he died in office at 75.

Junco replaces ex-Council member Bryan Calvo, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully this year for Miami-Dade County Tax Collector. Ironically, 23-year-old Calvo was the youngest person city voters ever elected to the Council.

It’s not the first time Junco has served Hialeah in a public capacity. He’s been a member of the city’s Housing Authority since 2018, including in his current role there — which he’ll have to give up — as Vice Chair.

He also ran unsuccessfully for the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee (REC) in 2016.

Republican Hialeah Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo, a former state lawmaker and Miami-Dade Commissioner, endorsed Junco over several others vying for a short-term stint in Seat 6 of the City Council.

Junco’s appointment Tuesday marked the second time this year that the Hialeah Council has had to fill a vacant seat. In July, the panel appointed Melinda De La Vega, a 38-year-old Republican, to replace ex-member Angelica Pacheco, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended in June after she was federally indicted on health care fraud charges.

Pacheco and two other Republicans facing indictments, former Miami City Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla and ex-U.S. Rep. David Rivera, won seats on the Miami-Dade REC in August. Shortly thereafter, several members of the Republican Party of Florida discussed changing its bylaws so that if the Governor removes a criminally charged member from public office, that member can’t then run for a party leadership post.

According to the Miami Herald, Junco came to Hialeah in 1964 and spent decades working in the private sector as a plant manager and production supervisor. He has worked sparingly since 2000.

State records show Junco registered to vote in July 1980.

Bovo told the Herald that Junco had expressed no interest in running to keep his appointed office next November, when both Junco’s and De La Vega’s seats will be up for grabs.