For years, the rumors have persisted about the emotional and physical affair between Mayor Vince Lago and his now Chief of Staff of One Chelsea Granell, who used to be Chelsea Granell Lindsey before her divorce.
Ladra has ignored these rumors despite the fact that Granell has seemingly benefitted from the relationship with promotions and significant raises, while the mayor attacks his opponent for having voted to increase commission salaries fo the first time in decades. But now it has become campaign fodder as a public records request for a slew of public documents referring to communications between Lago, Granell and Lago’s wife, Olga Lago — including text messages, call logs or “any reports referencing confrontations between them” — is making its rounds with City Hall insiders.
The request is also for any “official or unofficial records, security logs, visitor logs, or documentation indicating Chelsea Granell’s presence at Mayor Lago’s home, any city records or internal communications discussing or acknowledging Chelsea Granell visiting Mayor Lago’s home for personal reasons, including interactions with his wife,” and “any surveillance footage, security reports, or other documentation related to Chelsea Granell’s presence at locations associated with Mayor Lago outside of normal work-related duties.”
Also requested are any emails or texts messages between Olga Lago and city staff regarding the alleged relationship, any Human Resources complaints or reports or documentation related to their alleged relationship, and any records of media inquiries or photographs, video recordings or phone records that reflect the relationship.
Read related: Kirk Menendez strikes back at Coral Gables Mayor ‘Lyin’ Vince Lago’
The requests sound like “Mike Fernandez” has first hand knowledge or knows someone with first hand knowledge of details.
This might sound like a well-timed, politically-motivated fishing expedition but it’s really a map of sorts to a real affair that may have caused the mayor to abuse his power and position. Ladra has spoken to several City Hall insiders, past and present, as well as two people close to the husband, David Lindsey, who used to work in the city’s public works department (his departure was for a better opportunity before he learned of the affair, sources say). They all say the affair was real and was what led to the divorce. It may have ended at one point and Granell tried to make amends with her estrange husband. That may have been around the same time of an alleged confrontation between her and the mayor’s wife and also her promotion to “chief of staff” — although there is no actual staff — which resulted in about a 10% raise.
Chelsea Granell and Vince Lago at the Alhambra Parc launch event earlier this year.
In fact, since she started working for Lago, Granell’s pay increases through promotion, merit, cost of living or special compensation for her work as a “legislative manager advisor” (even though the city pays a professional lobbyist), has gone up several pay grades, which is what the mayor keeps hammering his opponent, Commissioner Kirk Menendez, for, after the latter voted with the majority in 2023 to increase their salaries from a laughable $36,488, which hadn’t increased in decades, to a less laughable but still funny $65,000.
Granell’s salary was $91,165 last year.
She also was one of the real estate agents, with Lago, who hung their license at Rosa Commercial Real Estate, the brokerage firm owned by former Hialeah Councilman Oscar de la Rosa, stepson of Hialeah Mayor Esteban “Stevie” Bovo, and that got a $640,000 commission for the sale of a Ponce de Leon building to Location Ventures and developer Rishi Kapoor, who we have since learned was paying Miami Mayor Francis Suarez at least $170,000 for “consulting” while seeking approvals for a development in Miami.
Read related: Brokerage firm cleans house after corruption arrests, drops Vince Lago
The sources closest to Granell also say that, as a real estate agent, she sold the house on Aledo street to Lago’s fundraiser, Brian Goldmeier — the one where he nailed the orchid to the tree — and that she has done freelance work for the company owned by Jesse Manzano, who is running Lago’s campaign and is heavily invested in his political future.
Lago never calls Ladra back or responds to texts. Granell got immediately defensive and dramatic after the first courtesy phone call to provide her the opportunity to comment. She said she knew nothing about the public records request — which would make her one of the last at City Hall to hear about it — and threatened to sue Ladra for defamation. After the call was disconnected and Ladra tried again, she said she was driving to the new public service building to file a police report about my “harassment.”
Goldmeier did not return a call. A recording on a call made to Jesse Manzano said Ladra’s number was blocked, but that I could leave a message anyway, so I did.
Ladra hears the mayor is reeling from this public records request and has lashed out for the first time against fat chance opponent Michael Anthony Abbott, who, las malas lenguas say, is the one that made the request. Lago had been ignoring him before.

Abbott denies having made the public records request. “I haven’t made any public records requests about Lago,” Abbott, who is embroiled in a lawsuit against the city, told Political Cortadito. And it is very possible he is being scapegoated because he didn’t even know who Granell is. “Who?” he asked.
He also said the information on the text is from sealed records and would forward it to his attorney for a response.
The attack text is paid for by Miami-Dade Residents First, which, according to public records with the Florida Division of Elections, was created last September and has raised $230,000 — including $78K from Mayor Francis Suarez‘s Miami For Everyone PAC, and, through another PAC, at least $5,000 from attorney Ben Alvarez, who Lago was going to appoint to the code enforcement board and then backed off after complaints about his checkered past.
Most of that was spent through the last report through December, some of it to one of the campaign consultants working for Lago. We may not know how much was spent this first quarter of 2025 until the April 8 election is over.
The post Mayor Vince Lago’s personal affair with chief of staff becomes campaign fodder appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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The Miami Downtown Development Authority, an entity that was formed in 1967 to promote the urban core and bring development, has a budget of $13.5 million through a special tax levy on properties within its district boundaries in downtown, Brickell and Edgewater. About a quarter of that is on salaries, some of which seem excessive and redundant.
This has some people talking about dissolving the agency and one downtown activist calling for a November referendum if the city commission won’t do it.
One example of redundant salaries cited is a total of six people working in-house marketing and public relations functions for a total of more than $640,000 in salaries and benefits:

Head of marketing and communications — $157,091
Marketing advisor — $123,203
Marketing department “collaborator” — $53,539
Content contributor — $82,195
Public information officer — 91,957
Brand integrity expert — $134,662

And the DDA also has one of the state’s top public relations firms on retainer for another $175K a year.
Isn’t that a little redundant?
Read related: Miami DDA gives UFC $100K for event, despite protest from downtowners
That’s more than $800,000 on marketing and communications, a lot of investment in PR. And, yet, Ladra has never seen any promotion to bring suburbanites downtown, which seems like low-hanging fruit.
What’s a “brand integrity expert” anyway? Why is that needed for downtown redevelopment advocacy?
The redundancy seems to be a theme.
There is a head of urban planning pulling in $177,143 and an urban planning strategist making $107,261. But all urban planning and zoning decisions are made by the city commission through the planning and zoning board. And there are two “enhanced services coordinator” positions — one at $100,692 and another at $89,787 — as well as a head of enhanced services and government affairs making $116,711. There is also a business and grants expert ($104,425), an “office and finance expert” ($106,137), a business development advisor ($107132), a “strategic partnership specialist” ($121,567) and a chief of economic and development strategy ($205,326).
These seemingly redundant salaries are one of the arguments being made by Downtown Neighbors Association President James Torres, who did a public records request for the budget and salaries (posted above) after the agency gave $100,000 to the UFC for events at the Kaseya Center next month. The taxpayer giveaway is what set Torres off and led to his push to dissolve the agency he says is taking advantage of downtown property owners.
At the very least, Torres says, the residents should stop being taxed. The city commission could establish a business district, like in Wynwood, where only the commercial property owners would be taxed for the DDA services. “The residents are paying 58% of this tax,” Torres told Political Cortadito. “If it was truly for the benefit of residents, okay. But there are no discount cards. We have to hire a third party contract for our trash pick up.
“Residents want a divorce,” Torres said.
Read related: Op Ed by DNA President James Torres: Miami doesn’t need a DDA anymore
But DDA Director Christina Crespi says the marriage is strong and that the DDA has evolved over the years.
Fresh from a meeting to discuss efforts to mitigate the upcoming Ultra musical festival — coordination of traffic, communication to residents, working with the county to have the MetroMover open later — Crespi told Political Cortadito that the agency does a lot for the residents and businesses of the area. She cited the freebie circulator, the permit clinic, the downtown enhancement team of former homeless individuals staffing bathrooms at the park, the graffiti clean up (850 incidents of graffiti just this month, she added), the landscaping additions, pressure washing, the urban planning on Flagler Street, which included getting the law changed so bars could stay open longer, and a host of events.
They raise federal dollars, she said, adding that they secured $31 million for the Flagler Street project. And the agency is about to propose a design for a pedestrian bridge under I-95 to connect the the museum park to the north side, the former Miami Herald property. They’ve launched a 3D development pipeline interactive map on their website to keep people informed of construction projects in real time, Crespi said.
But “the real focus is economic development,” she added, justifying the large PR staff and outside contract. “We are marketing downtown globally,” Crespi told Ladra, adding that there are 65,000 followers on their Instagram account. “We provide day-to-day info to residents, create content to promote businesses, incentivize new businesses,” she said.
Of course, she gets paid $265,150 in salary and benefits to say that.

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If you live in Coral Gables and you have gotten a code violation notice in the last three years, you might want to ask where it came from before you cast your vote in the April 8 election.
That’s because Mayor Vince Lago, who acts more and more like Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo every day, apparently spends some of his time driving around the City Beautiful and reporting code violations. A public records request for Lago’s text messages produced hundreds of texts to the city’s code enforcement department with addresses and code violations he spotted here and there in just a three month period. Many of the texts came with photos.
A homeowner on the 1400 block of Medina Avenue, for example, apparently placed some black garbage bags where they shouldn’t have been. Lago informed code enforcement that this was a “repeat offender” and asked for the history of citations issued at the address. “This homeowner is not aware of the rules,” the mayor wrote in a text.
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago has a fancy new watch from guess who
So, he’s all about educating the public?
Lago also asked for the citation histories of other “repeat offenders” in the 1500 block of Venetia, the 4800 block of Riviera Drive, the 400 block of Aragon (at the home of a “constant law breaker”),  the 3500 block of Ponce De Leon Boulevard and at the corner of Bird and Mariola Court. What does he do with those citation histories?
The mayor won’t say. He refuses to answer Ladra’s calls and texts.
Among other code violations that were reported by the mayor were a canopy in the 700 block of Anderson Avenue, a “rear temporary car port” in the 600 block of Majorca, a “pallet in the pit” in the 600 block of Blue Road, “paint cans out the entire weekend” in the 500 block of University Drive, another car cover on the 400 block of Velarde and a black garbage bag in front of a house on the 5100 block of San Amaro Drive.

That’s his neighbor.
There are more than 300 texts within a three month period in 2023 and there are complaints lodged against businesses, too.
So what, some may ask. There could be more code enforcement so why shouldn’t the mayor fill in once in a while?
Read related: Ethics board dismissed two Vince Lago complaints against Coral Gables activist
Well, because it could easily be an abuse of power. In Miami, Joe Carollo weaponized the code enforcement department against Ball and Chain Lounge, which had hosted a fundraiser for his 2017 opponent. Carollo tried to put them out of business, but it backfired and the owners of the Little Havana bar sued him in federal court, winning a $63.5 million jury award.
After all, didn’t Lago’s campaign fundraiser, Brian Goldmeier, file an ethics complaint against activist Maria Cruz, a code enforcement board member, because she took action on his code violation (nailing orchids to a tree)? He thought she was retaliating against him. How can we know the mayor is not retaliating against the people he reports to code enforcement?
We can’t. Lago shouldn’t be doing that. And Ladra bets it will stop if he is voted out of office next month.
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Remember when Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago ditched a city commission budget hearing early last year so he could dedicate a FP Journe clock on Miracle Mile? Remember what he said about not having his own timepiece from the watch company?
“I don’t own one of their watches. I wish I did,” Lago said at the Aug. 24 meeting at City Hall. “Maybe one day I will.”
Well, it looks like that day has come.
Read related: Reward time? Vince Lago promotes clock maker that helped Francis Suarez
Lago is sporting what looks like a fancy, new FB Journe Élégante 48MM Titalyt on his wrist in a photo on page 33 of the latest edition of Coral Gables Magazine.
The watch is listed for sale, new, at $75,000, but you can get a used one for around $60K, according to the internet.
“They only make 800 a year,” Lago said in August.

Was it a gift that he needs to disclose? Was it thrown in with the fancy clock installed on Ponce de Leon and Miracle Mile? Like a BOGO deal? Or did the mayor buy it with his share of the $640,000 commission his brokerage firm got in the sale of that Ponce de Leon Boulevard building to developer Rishi Kapoor, who was later investigated by both the Security Exchange Commission and the FBI.
Lago made a big deal last year of installing the clock, which is, coincidentally (right) made by the same company that hosted a “cigars and cocktails” fundraiser in 2023 for his BFF, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. He first said that the clock was donated. Then he said that he himself purchased it to donate it to the city. “I paid for a part of it,” he said.
John Bell Construction did the install — he said he paid for the $32,000 installation himself — and he thanked them and several others, including the podcast A Day in Miami, where he is often a guest, in social media posts.
Read related: Coral Gables mayor ducks out of budget hearing for clock unveiling
Lago originally scheduled the installation for Sept. 11 — saying it was “not a national holiday” — and that was later changed to Sept. 12, when he sneaked out of a city commission meeting for the ceremony, where he also shamelessly plugged his handpicked candidate for commission.

But he lied about the value of the clock. The mayor said it was worth almost $100,000, but an email to the Anna Pernas in the city’s public works department from Susan Weisenfeld at Electric Time Company — an American clock manufacturer that seemingly built the clock here, in Massachusetts, for FP Journe — would cost $23,000 to replace it. That’s a whopping $77,000 difference. FP Journe letter lago clock
Another email from an accountant at Electric Time — which also made the clock on Main Street in Disney World — to Pierre Halimi of FP Journe seems to indicate that FP Journe paid them to build the clock. So is it an FP Journe clock or an Electric Time clock with a FP Journe logo sticker slapped on?
As usual, Lago did not return calls and texts to his phone. Maybe he’ll address it in one of his self-aggrandizing Instagram videos. Hopefully, he’ll be wearing the watch and will show us a close-up.

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The Florida Bar last week dismissed two complaints filed by former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell — who later announced that he would run for mayor (more on that later) — against former City Attorney Victoria Mendez and Mayor Francis Suarez, who is an attorney, after the latter gave the Miami Freedom Park developers back the $20 million they had promised to provide for “other green space” and parks throughout the city.
But they still make for interesting reading, hinting at a potential Sunshine Law violation and the possibility that nobody ever intended to make good on that promise.
Russell makes the first disclosure of a 2022 meeting at the mayor’s house where the developers were present and where he was urged to go along with a plan that the public benefit be “under the control” of then District 1 commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who was later arrested on bribery and money laundering public corruption charges, which were later dropped.
The mayor, Russell says, threw him out of the house when he would not agree with that. “Get the f— out of my house,” he quotes Suarez as saying.
Read related: Miami Freedom Park gets its full $20 million back for 58-acre public park
Russell has been a loud voice against the switcheroo that passed last month 4-1 on the commission (only Damian Pardo voted no). He has suggested that Suarez be recalled for this, even though the mayor has less than nine months left in office.
He is running for mayor, in part, because he has seen much his work on the city commission undone. This $10 million give away to the developer seems to have been the last straw. Without that promised public benefit, Russell — who was the 2022 swing vote for the Miami Freedom Park lease — has repeatedly said he would have never voted to approve it. He urged commissioners at the Feb. 13 meeting not to approve the Suarez giveaway.

Then, when the commission ignored him and everyone else who spoke against it, he filed the bar complaints.
The incident at Suarez’s $2 million home on Battersea Road takes center stage not just because of the mayor’s foul language, which insiders know he is prone to in private, but because of the sheer blatancy of the Sunshine Law violation. This is the textbook definition of backroom, behind-the-scenes arm twisting. Suarez doesn’t vote so he can talk to all the commissioners about whatever. But here, he was a conduit to a Sunshine violation by communicating that Commissioner Diaz de la Portilla was on board (a yes vote) to try to convince Russell to vote a certain way (to vote yes, too).
Let’s be clear. If what was communicated was open knowledge, something ADLP had said in public or in the media, then there is no violation. But if the conduit is conveying new information in order to cause the crystallization of a vote, behind the scenes, at a secret meeting  in his house with the deal insiders, then that is a violation of the Sunshine Law. He’s creating a predetermined outcome. Handshaking and arm twisting are supposed to be done in public.
“Prior to the vote, Mayor Suarez explicitly expressed his opposition to my amendment,” Russell writes in his complaint. “He invited me to his home, where unbeknownst to me, developers Jorge and Jose Mas were present, and made it clear that his intent was to ensure that all $20 million remained under the control of Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla (in whose district the stadium project would take place) rather than being allocated for the new parks throughout the city. When I refused to change my position, Mayor Suarez abruptly ended the meeting yelling, ‘Get the fuck out of my house.’”
“For years, I never took a meeting with the Mas brothers outside of the office. I wouldn’t even have coffee with them,” Russell told Political Cortadito. “I think it was inappropriate [of the mayor] to even invite me and not tell me they were going to be there.”
He told Ladra he felt the meeting three years ago was irrelevant. It wouldn’t change his vote. “It’s only relevant now because of the new legislation to undo the tenets I fought for,” Russel said.
Read related: Miami Freedom Park developers want their $20 million parks donation back
The other thing that jumped out at Ladra was that it seemed as if there was never an intention to go through with the $20 million part of the deal ($5 million for the Baywalk has, apparently, not been considered for return). Russell’s complaint also says that the the omission of the amendment that he insisted on was deliberate.
“As City Attorney at the time, Ms. Méndez was responsible for ensuring that the final legislation submitted for the Mayor’s signature correctly reflected the Commission’s action,” Russell wrote in the complaint. “However, when Mayor Francis Suarez signed the resolution on May 5, 2022, the key amendment—explicitly included in the Commission’s minutes—was omitted from the final document.”
Thus, “The legislation did not reflect the Commission’s actual vote.”
Ladra is certain that was intentional and not a mistake.
Suarez himself admitted at the meeting last month that the ballot language on the 2018 referendum was intentionally misleading so the city could have legal wiggle room to switch things up later. Was the legislation also written to allow wiggle room. Was that among the things discussed at the mayor’s house meeting with the Mas brothers after Russell left?
In dismissing the bar complaints earlier this month, an attorney for the Florida Bar wrote in letters addressed to Russell that the actions by Suarez and Mendez “do not constitute violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct” and that the issues raised “are political questions beyond The Florida Bar’s jurisdiction and therefore not reviewable by the bar.”
The letter added, however, that it doesn’t have to end here.
“Appropriate remedies, if any, can be sought through the political process and/or the courts.”
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A total of 6,144 absentee or vote-by-mail ballots were sent to Coral Gables voters last week for the April 8 election. They landed in mailboxes at the same time as several mailers for different candidates — and false attack ads from Mayor Vince Lago, who is fighting his first real challenge, against Commissioner Kirk Menendez.
His political action committee, Coral Gables First, put out a series of “facts” that are very misleading and the same old arguments he’s been making for months, because he can’t run on his own track record.
“Fact 1: Commissioner Menendez gave himself a 101% raise.” Um, well, technically that’s true. But the salary was $36,488 a year, which many might agree is not enough. It had not been increased in decades. Now it’s $65,000 a year, which many think might still not be enough. Lago doesn’t use the actual numbers because they make sense. It’s much more scandalous to say it’s a 101% raise.
Read related: Kirk Menendez strikes back at Coral Gables Mayor ‘Lyin’ Vince Lago’
Another “fact” is that Menendez voted against a millage rate reduction. Of course it would not serve Lago to say that Menendez actually voted against potential service cuts. The millage rate reduction that Lago proposed was tiny and would only result in the saving of less than $100 a year for most homeowners. But the owners of the large projects would get tens of thousands in relief, which was Lago’s intent. Example: The owners of Gables Station would get a $29,400 tax break.
That’s not on the mailer. 

Menendez had a hit of his own. In a mailer where he said the choice was night and day — he’s day and Vince Lago is the night — he reminded voters of the scandals that Lago has been involved in.
“Lago’s brokerage received a $640,000 commission from a deal with developer Rishi Kapoor, under FBI investigation, raising serious ethical questions,” the mailer states. “Lago’s ties to real estate transactions involving Kapoor, a developer with questionable dealings, raise concerns about his use of public office for private gain.”
The mailer also mentions the recall effort against Lago “amid allegations of mismanagement, conflicts of interest and questionable influence,” and also says that the mayor’s efforts to annex Little Gables were rejected by 63% of Gables voters.
He could do better. He could remind voters that Lago misrepresented himself when he swore he had no conflict of interest with Little Gables by leaving his brother out of an affidavit he signed — very dramatically and publicly — saying nobody in his immediate family had any interests there. When, in fact, Carlos Lago once represented the largest property owner in Little Gables, which owns the trailer park that could become a new, enormous construction project. Which is why he left out the word siblings in his affidavit.
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago may have conflict of interest in Little Gables
He could remind voters how Mayor L’Ego almost got into fisticuffs with the former city manager. He could remind voters how he put a restauranteur on Giralda out of business.
But there’s time.

In the commission races, candidates are keeping it more clean, so far.
Rhonda Anderson just touted “a proven record of service and accomplishments,” citing the addition of 15 police officers and two dog parks and tree canopy and “pedestrian safety enhancements” and the under-grounding of power lines in North and South Gables. But she didn’t do any of that on her own. She is one vote on the commission.
“As more than a 35-year resident and having raised my family in Coral Gables, my commitment and priority has always been to improve the quality of life and to ensure that Coral Gables remains The City Beautiful,” her message states.
Ladra hasn’t seen any negative campaigning from Anderson, but it’s hard to hit Felix Pardo and Laureano Cancio, who have not been in office and have no real negative baggage.
Read related: Two more candidates say they will run for Coral Gables commission in April
Cancio has no money in his campaign account for mailers. Pardo has put out at least one of his own. And it’s not a hit piece, but it does raise concerns about overdevelopment and points the finger at Anderson for much of what has been approved. One one side, the registered architect lists his own achievements and service record, which includes stints on several community and city boards, including the planning and zoning board, which he served on twice and was chairman of.
The other side is a letter to voters.

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