Miami commission meeting becomes Miguel Gabela vs. Manolo Reyes bout

The city commission meeting Thursday turned into a shouting match between commissioners Miguel “Mike” Gabela and Manolo Reyes basically because of the contentious fight on the self-serving lifetime pensions for electeds that Gabela has championed twice before changing his mind, also twice.

Gabela said he stood by the principle of his idea, which was to make it fair across the board. When the pension was suspended in 2009 at the height of the city’s financial woes, it cut off future commissioners but current commissioners at the time were grandfathered in. “It should be either all or none,” Gabela said, even though those electeds were vested in an existing pension program and had defined benefits that could not be removed without risking legal action.

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