It must be election season in Hialeah because, suddenly, everybody wants to give away tax cuts like they’re pastelitos.
Interim Mayor Jacqueline “Jackie” Garcia-Roves — who is running to keep the job she was handed when former Mayor Esteban Bovo went to D.C. to lobby and be with his wifey — called a press conference at a Hialeah housing complex last month to promise abuelitos a 1% cut in the city’s property tax rate.
It amounts to about $25 a year back in taxpayers’ pockets, just in time for them to maybe remember her fondly at the ballot box in November.
But here’s the kicker: that “gift” to residents would blow a $1.3 million hole in the city’s budget. And if history is any guide, Hialeah doesn’t exactly recover gracefully from these kinds of political sugar highs. Remember Carlos Hernandez’s tax cut in 2013? That one cost $3.2 million, gutted pensions, shut down pools and libraries, forced furloughs, and sent first responders packing. The city is still patching the potholes from that financial disaster.
Read related: René García ditches Hialeah mayoral race — after stirring the political pot
Garcia-Roves insists this time is different. Sure. She’s also promising to absorb Miami-Dade’s water and sewer hikes (to the tune of $12.5 million), scrap the water franchise fee ($3.7 million in lost revenue), and cover rising trash collection costs. In all, her plan would strip $18.3 million from city revenues. She says there’s a $61 million surplus, but the numbers in her own budget only show $49.3 million. Math is apparently as flexible as politics in Hialeah.
The Interim Alcaldesa said at the press conference that she asked all the department directors to slash and burn and bring her a 5% reduction in their budgets. “To show me where they’re going to save, how they can save, and that’s how the money will be replenished.”
Uh-huh.
And just to make sure nobody gets left out of the political piñata, Councilman Jesús Tundidor — who is also running for mayor against Garcia-Roves — has scheduled his own press conference Tuesday to roll out his tax cut plan. Of course he has. Because in Hialeah, no one can resist playing “who can give away more for less?” during campaign season.
Read related: Bryan Calvo becomes first candidate to file for November Hialeah mayor’s race
Tundidor promises nothing less than “the largest property tax reduction in Hialeah’s history,” which sounds more like a campaign slogan than a budget plan. The release says it will deliver “immediate and meaningful relief to residents’ wallets” while still keeping the city’s finances solid. Ladra can’t wait to hear the details of how he squares that circle.
“One percent is enough to buy a cafecito,” Tundidor told Political Cortadito Monday. He said his plan is going to more than double that — and without raiding the reserves — because he has identified “millions and millions” of dollars parked in capital improvement projects that can wait.
“I found some projects that aren’t really that urgent,” Tundidor said. “Cuando las cosas están dura, you kind of put things on hold.”
Tundidor is bringing Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Tomás Regalado along for the show, er, press conference in the lobby at City Hall, 501 Palm Ave., at 1 p.m. Tuesday, like some kind of fiscal padrino to bless the move.
Read related: Hialeah mayor, councilman clash over tax collector election endorsement
Let’s not forget, however, that former councilman and mayoral candidate Bryan Calvo — who bailed last year to run (and lose) in the Republican primary for Miami-Dade tax collector — actually pitched a tax cut of his own at last year’s budget hearing. But Bovo shut him down hard, calling the idea “irresponsible” and nothing more than a politically expedient stunt.
Calvo had tried to sell it as giving residents “a little money back” to offset rising costs. Same as Garcia Roves wants to do this year. Of course, back then, he was running for tax collector.
But hey, election season means short memories and big promises, right?
Meanwhile, the city is still being sued by Miami-Dade over $18 million in unpaid water and sewer bills. But hey, let’s not let lawsuits or fiscal reality get in the way of an election-year gimmick.
As firefighter union president Eric Johnson reminded commissioners (again), it all sounds great in political soundbites, but we’ve been down this road before: cuts now, chaos later. “Is it worth closing parks for our children? Is it worth reducing public safety, where mere seconds could affect the outcome of lives?” he asked.
Good questions. But in Hialeah, politicians are too busy trying to outdo each other’s campaign giveaways to stop and answer.
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Looks like Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar is still allergic to her own constituents. Like other Republican lawmakers across the country who keep ducking the angry mobs that want to roast them over tariffs and immigration, Miami’s own absentee rep is no different.
Enter Richard Lamondin. Never heard of him? You’re not alone. He’s a Miami-born entrepreneur, an environmental guy with no political résumé, but plenty of chutzpah. And tomorrow night he’s stepping onto the stage Salazar won’t touch: an actual town hall.
That’s right. While La Elvira hides behind press releases and Fox News hits, this newbie is inviting people to St. James Baptist Church in Coconut Grove to talk about real issues — healthcare, housing, small business survival, immigration, all the stuff people have been wanting to scream at Salazar about but never get the chance because she won’t face them.
Lamondin’s pitch is simple: The difference in leadership has never been more clear. Salazar won’t show up. I will.
Read related: Cuban American congress members stay silent on TPS, immigrant detention
There could be another Democrat biting at the chance to face Salazar heading into an August primary with Lamondin. Robin Peguero, a former prosecutor who was a lawyer for the U.S. House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot who lives in Coral Gables and teaches at St. Thomas University’s College of Law. Former Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey, who lost a primary to Miami-Dade School Board Member Lucia Báez-Geller — who decided to try for Florida House District 106 against Rep. Fabián Basabe instead (more on that later) — withdrew from the race last month, three months after he announced, and endorsed Peguero.
“We need someone who understands the legal process inside and out, who comes from an immigrant family, who converses with ease in a district where people speak to you first in Spanish, then English,” Davey said. Peguero’s father is from the Dominican Republic and his mother is from Ecuador.
Now, are either of these political newbies ready for Congress? Who knows?
Salazar, a Cuban American, is one of three Republican congressional incumbents in Florida being targeted this cycle by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The other two are Cory Mills (District 7, Deltona) and Anna Paulina Luna (District 13, Seminole). But this is familiar territory for Salazar, who faced nationally-backed opponents each year since she beat Democratic U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala in 2020. Despite that, Salazar won re-election last year with more than 60% of the vote.
Lamondin’s green — and not just in the eco-business sense. But one thing’s certain: if he keeps showing up where Salazar won’t, voters are going to notice.
Read related: Internal poll has Richard Lamondin in striking distance vs Maria Elvira Salazar
And he already has lined up some key people to help him amplify his message, aside from uber political consultant Christian Ulvert, who is handling his campaign. Lamondin will be joined Tuesday by representatives from the ACLU of Florida, a group of pastors, and dozens of Miami residents who are tired of watching their congresswoman disappear when it’s getting hot in here.
The town hall is from 7 to 830 p.m. Tuesday at St. James Baptist Church, 3500 Charles Ave.
So maybe Lamondin isn’t just some political rookie tilting at windmills. Maybe he’s found Salazar’s weak spot: She can’t take the tough questions from the people she supposedly represents.
And if María Elvira Salazar won’t show up for her constituents, why should her constituents show up for her next November?

If you would like to see Ladra write more about next year’s midterms in Florida, consider making a contribution to Political Cortadito. And thank you for supporting independent, grassroots government watchdog journalism. 

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Well, it’s that time of year again when homeowners open their mailboxes and get that little love letter from their city: the tax bill. And in at least nine Miami-Dade cities, it’s going to sting more than usual. Some of these hikes are jaw-dropping.
But for property owners in Pinecrest, it’s not as bad as it could be. In July, the city council approved a ceiling tax rate of 3.86 — or $3.86 per $1,000 of taxable property — which was a 64% tax rate increase. Sixty-four. That’s not a typo.
People got really riled up, however, and after three budget workshops — where one imagines there was screaming and chairs thrown — the council lowered that rate to 2.503, which amounts to an increase of about 15 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value. The average home in Pinecrest is valued at $2.1 million and that homeowner would pay an additional $314 in taxes under the proposed 20125-26 budget.
This is the rate that will be discussed at the first pubic hearing Tuesday.
“Resident input played a key role in guiding the Council’s decision-making, leading to the newly proposed lower rate,” says an update on the city’s website. So, now it’s only a proposed 6.5% increase.
Does that mean that the village pulled a bait and switch, intentionally setting a high limit to make a smaller increase more palatable? As in, ‘Whew, we dodged a bullet?’ But not really.
While residents will see the higher 3.86 millage rate figure on their tax bills, “this was solely a statutory requirement and not the final rate under consideration,” the Pinecrest website states. Florida law requires municipalities to set a proposed millage rate each July. Municipalities can go lower, but cannot go higher than this figure. And they can go lower still through the final budget hearing Sept. 16.
Read related: Miami-Dade’s billion-dollar disconnect: Tax collector flush, county in the red
During the budget process, people expressed concern that the increase was to pay for a discount version of The Return of Parrot Jungle and what some have said are unneeded projects like the SUP.
No, not ‘Sup, like your teenager greets you. SUP stands for “shared use path,” and the one on Ludlam Road could cost taxpayers a cool $4 million for just one stretch. That’s the second phase of a bigger plan to lace 11.2 miles of SUPs across the leafy village, with curbs and road widening included, because Mayor Joe Corradino apparently thinks Pinecrest is the Netherlands.
Because it is a predominantly residential community with limited commercial businesses and no industrial properties or tourism revenue, Pinecrest relies heavily on property taxes to fund nearly all village services. Mirroring Miami-Dade, this year’s budget process in Pinecrest has been challenging, with budget pressures that include:

Police equipment upgrades and competitive compensation to retain officers.
Inflation affecting insurance, materials, and operational costs.
Reduced state and federal funding.
Essential infrastructure maintenance.
Maintaining a $5 million emergency reserve for disaster response and federal funding delays.

The village has announced that it will still fund the following capital improvement projects:

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Looks like there’s a new kid sniffing around the mayor’s race. Well, not exactly a kid — he’s 51 — but definitely new to Miami’s political playground.
Fred Voccola, a tech bro with a billion-dollar company under his belt and its name on the arena where the Miami Heat play, is suddenly flirting with a run for city mayor. Why? Because he’s sooooo frustrated with corruption and “all this crap that goes on in City Hall.”
Ladra has to ask: Was it really the city’s failed stunt to delay the election, as he says, that finally pushed him over the edge? Or was it Mayor Francis Suarez whispering in his ear? You know? One tech bro to another.
Because this smells a little like a Baby X recruitment project. Suarez, who is termed out, needs someone to protect his “legacy” as the crypto-tech mayor and see his pet projects through. And while his dad has indicated an intention to run, former Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, who was also the first Cuban-born mayor of Miami, is just too old school.
Read related: Ken Russell qualifies for November Miami mayoral race; ADLP dips one toe
And he also knows that papi is an underdog among the known potential candidates, who include current Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell, former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla — who was suspended after his 2023 arrest on public corruption bribery and money laundering charges that were later dropped, but lost a re-election bid to Miguel Gabela — and former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, the one who sued the city to get the cancelled mayoral and commission races back on the ballot. Francis is all about Francis.
So, who better than another wealthy “outsider” who buys into the Miami-as-Dubai fantasy?
After all, they do seem to admire each other. Suarez even had Voccola on his Cafecito Talk podcast three years ago. You can still see it on the mayor’s X feed.
Voccola says he can’t be bought. “Ain’t nobody gonna bribe me,” he told The Miami Herald last month, bragging that there isn’t enough money in the world. That might be easy to say, however, when you’re the co-founder and CEO (he just stepped down in January) of a software company with more than $1.5 billion in revenue had have personally parked $200,000 (or so he says) in your very own political action committee, Leadership for Miami’s Future, which filed paperwork with the state division of election last month, but was first called Moving Miami Forward.
He even dared people to try. Cute. But Miami doesn’t do cute — it does complicated. It likes messy.
The would be candidate, who sounds like a Francis Suarez reboot, also told the Herald last month that he wasn’t committed yet to the race — but voters started to get text messages over the weekend that indicate a campaign is in the works.
“Kaseya Co-founder Fred Voccola wants you to know: That park in your neighborhood that hasn’t been completed — it’ll be another year. The stalled drainage project causing your streets to flood — you’ll have to wait until after the next King Tide,” a text that came over Sunday afternoon reads. “The nearly $1 billion in lost economic impact from the Miami Marine Stadium Corruption Scandal — gone.
“And they’re al part of… the city of Miami’s 15% corruption tax.”
Ladra doesn’t know what Kaseya exit he pulled that number out of. Or if someone who serves on the FIU Board of Trustees with former Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, a lobbyist who funnels campaign money from billboard companies and others into the PACs of electeds, can recognize corruption when its sitting right next to him.
“It’s the invisible 15% tax residents and businesses shoulder — it’s the price of inefficiency and rampant corruption across our city,” the text from Voccola read. And it sounds like the man is underselling — just 15%? — possibly for the first time ever in his life.
Read related: City of Miami election year change won’t make November ballot, after all
Voccola co-founded Kaseya and served as its CEO for about a decade. During that time, he moved the AI cybersecurity and IT management software company from Boston to Miami in 2018, and Kaseya expanded significantly, reaching over $1.5 billion in annual recurring revenue, growing to more than 5,000 employees, and executing 18 strategic acquisitions. In January, he stepped down as CEO and moved into the role of vice chairman. He remains responsible for long-term strategy and innovation, helping to steer the company toward a potential future public offering while the board seeks a new CEO.
Fred Voccola and Francis Suarez mutually admire each other in an episode of the mayor’s Cafecito Talk podcast in 2021.
Prior to Kaseya, Voccola had leadership roles at several software and internet technology firms. He was co-founder and president of Identify Software (later acquired by BMC Software), co-founder and CEO of Trust Technology Corp. (acquired by FGI Global) and president and general manager at Yodle (acquired by Web.com). He has also been affiliated with Nolio, Intira, and Prism Solutions.
He was the keynote speaker last April at the Miami Tech Summit at — where else? — the Kaseya Center, and delivered the Miami Dade College commencement speech to the class of 2025 three months ago (he promised to learn more Spanish if he gets invited back).
But among the tried and true super voters of Miami, Voccola has no name recognition. He has no campaign infrastructure. No track record in local government. What he does have is cash. Lots of it. Enough to write his own ticket onto the ballot with less than 10 weeks to go.
And let’s not forget the receipts: hundreds of thousands in donations to Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and the Republican National Committee. That’s not exactly outsider status, no matter how much he wants to say he’s “not really political.”
Let’s see if Voccola really goes through with it, however. It’s all fun and games until you have to have to disclose all your financial business for everyone to see. Qualifying started Friday, but doesn’t end until Sept. 20. The election is Nov. 4. But with the number of candidates signed up or threatening to run for office, there’s likely to be a runoff.
Voccola insists Miami could be the first “AI-first city in the world.” But how out of touch is that? Voters in Miami are more concerned about potholes, parks, and police overtime than about ChatGPT running city government. Will the people who can’t afford rent in this “Dubai of the Western Hemisphere” connect with a billionaire Republican tech mogul who just parachuted into Miami politics?
Maybe. Stranger things have happened here. But if Voccola really wants to “destroy” the first person who tries something shady, he might want to start with the guy who talked him into this race in the first place.

Help Ladra cover this year’s city of Miami general election by making a contribution to Political Cortadito. And thank you for supporting independent, grassroots government watchdog journalism. 

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Palmetto Bay may be the “Village of Parks,” but right now it looks more like the Village of Political Theater. All over a patch of 8.7 acres of woods that have been sitting untouched for a century.
On paper, the property known simply as “The Woods” technically belongs to Miami-Dade County. But since 2019, the Village of Parks has been leasing it for the grand sum of $10 a year, promising trails and park amenities that never sprouted. Instead, what’s grown is the political posturing.
Now, as Monday’s budget hearing looms, Vice Mayor Mark Merwitzer is out front waving the green space flag, warning residents that Mayor Karyn Cunningham and her administration want to give the land back to the county — “abandoning” it and leaving it wide open to developers.
Read related: Palmetto Bay residents urged village to save Coral Reef Park tree…so they did
“This was supposed to be a park,” Merwitzer said, calling the move a “betrayal” of everything the village supposedly stands for and having a “press conference” about it last week.
Cunningham, meanwhile, says the vice mayor is making mulch out of molehills. She points out the Village has already tucked $9,000 into this year’s budget for maintenance and will be bringing a resolution in October to officially designate the parcel as parkland — a move that would keep it from development.
“There is no proposal to develop this land,” the mayor said in a statement, accusing the VM of straight-up demagoguery. “Residents deserve honest conversations about the budget, not political theater.”
But Merwitzer calls the $9,000 a joke and says that the village is under a “contractual obligation” to the county to turn the 8.3 acres into a pocket park by the middle of next year. “If we do not do that, the county has every legal right to take away that land form us and turn around and sell it to a developer,” the vice mayor said on a social media post over the weekend, urging residents to go to the first budget hearing at 7 p.m. Monday at Village Hall, 9705 Hibiscus St.
Many residents have already gotten flyers about the hearing delivered door to door.
And if you think The Woods are in danger, wait until you see what happens to your patience.
Because let’s face it: this isn’t just about the woods. It’s about who gets to play the hero in Palmetto Bay’s soap opera. Merwitzer wants to be the defender of green space. Cunningham wants to be the responsible steward of taxpayer dollars.
And residents? They just want their so-called Village of Parks to act like it.

If you would like to see Ladra write more about Palmetto Bay government and issues, consider making a contribution to Political Cortadito. And thank you for supporting independent, grassroots government watchdog journalism. 

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