BY TYLER BRIDGES AND PHIL LONG

 Street demonstrations by people demanding that Elian Gonzalez remain in Miami
 have cost taxpayers more than $190,000, state and city of Miami officials said
 Monday.

 Those costs include about $75,000 in overtime pay to Miami police officers, about
 $60,000 in overtime pay to Florida Highway Patrol officers, and approximately
 $55,000 in lost revenue when tolls were lifted on Thursday, officials said.

 The Friday flight by Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas and Miami Mayor Joe
 Carollo to Washington, D.C., to meet with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno cost
 taxpayers about $2,000 for the round-trip flight and hotel rooms.

 The total cost countywide is likely to rise substantially.

 Miami-Dade Police officers and corrections officials also incurred overtime costs,
 but county officials were unable Monday to specify the amount, said Rhonda
 Barnett, a county spokeswoman. The Hialeah Police also paid extra overtime.

 The biggest costs came Thursday and Friday as demonstrators reacted angrily to
 a ruling by the federal Department of Immigration and Naturalization Service that
 6-year-old Elian belonged with his father in Cuba.

 The state lifted tolls from Miami-Dade and South Broward toll booths from 4 to 8
 p.m. Thursday, at a cost of about $55,000, said Sal Secondo, a spokesman for
 the Transportation Department's Office of Toll Operations.

 The biggest costs for the Miami Police Department came on Friday, when 600
 police officers -- out of a 1,100-member force -- were mobilized in anticipation of
 possible disturbances, following a series of demonstrations Thursday that blocked
 traffic, Police Chief William O'Brien said.

 Officers were deployed to the corner of Flagler Street and 57th Street -- a flash
 point Thursday night -- to the federal courthouse downtown, to Elian's home in
 Little Havana, and to wherever traffic tie-ups were reported, O'Brien said.

 But Friday's demonstrations proved smaller and less widespread after Cuban exile
 leaders decided to scale back the protests.

 Deputy Chief Bobby Cheatham estimated that the city spent an estimated $2,500
 extra for food and water for police officers on the street Friday.

 The $75,000 that the police department estimates it has spent will come from the
 $6.7 million that the police have budgeted for overtime costs this year.

 The demonstrations cost the Florida Highway Patrol about $60,000, mostly in
 extra salaries, said Lt. Ernest Duarte, spokesman for Miami's Troop E.

 The FHP assembled special rolling ``field forces'' of 25 and 29 officers each, as
 well as a 13-member tactical squad, Duarte said, all of whom engaged in
 ``saturation patrolling.''

 ``We applied the `zero tolerance' policy to anyone blocking or impeding the
 roadway,'' Duarte said. The only attempt to block traffic came at 4:15 p.m. Friday,
 when six trucks slowed down on the Palmetto Expressway, Duarte said.
 

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald