Fans of the Latin Grammys will have another reason to tune in to the awards show on Nov. 14: local musician Mario Ortiz, Jr. is nominated for best salsa album.“I’m trying to not get too carried away by the excitement,” Ortiz said.It is the third nomination for Ortiz, 58, who lives inMiami Lakes with his wife Sailly Hernandez.“It’s a lot of fun,” said Ortiz about recognition for his album 55 Aniversario and his Mario Ortiz All Star Band.There...

Town officials were shocked when a hydraulic backhoe dug a ditch and a front-end loader filled the trench with gravel along Northwest 170th Street.The street leads to a closed bridge that the city of Hialeah and Miami-Dade County apparently want to open soon.“They’re doing the work without permits,” Mayor Manny Cid said Oct. 2 as he observed the road work at Northwest 89th Avenue. Cid said the construction partially trespassed on town...

Tired of being squashed by nationally ranked high school football teams, Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High and Barbara Goleman Senior High formed an independent league for 12 schools to give their programs a fair chance to compete.And what a difference the Greater Miami Athletic Conference’s (GMAC) independent league has made.The Goleman Gators are off to their best start in school history at 6-0, and the Trojans are 3-1, including 3-0 in...

Royal Palm Estates was developed in the late 1980s and there are 108 single-family homes in the community.The neighborhood is at the northwest corner of Northwest 154th Street and Northwest 82nd Avenue, and extends north to Northwest 157th Terrace.Its western border, at Northwest 83rd Place, abuts a waterway and land where cattle graze.The neighborhood is almost fully developed: a home is rising on the last remaining lot.The Park Centre Shops...

The dreaded Palmetto Expressway may have a new nickname: the not so bad Palmetto, perhaps?On Sept. 23, drivers using new express lanes on the Palmetto Expressway began paying tolls with their Sunpass transponders.Some Miami Lakes drivers like the express lanes; others, not so much.Whatever one’s feelings about the tolls, those who watch traffic on Northwest 154th Street said the town’s main east-west artery is less congested.And that’s not...