The Miami Commission is moving forward with a plan to kill off the Bayfront Park Management Trust — which is currently being investigated and audited after allegations that Commissioner Joe Carollo misused its funds — because, you know, actually fixing something is way too boring when you can just burn it all down and call it “reform.”
The item is up for second and final reading Thursday and the subject of a sunshine meeting Tuesday night at the Olympia Theater, which is safe from redevelopment by a charter school company but only for now (more on that later).
Commissioners already gave it first reading approval in a 3-2 vote last month that surprised exactly no one who’s been paying attention, because it is newly elected Commissioner Ralph Rosado‘s IOU or thank you gift to Carollo, who poured close to $1 million from his political action committee into making sure Rosado won the June special election in District 4 to replace the late Manolo Reyes.
Rosado said the Bayfront Park Trust is not being run “optimally,” and been plagued by decades of dysfunction and infighting. “It has generated more than its fair share of controversy and has run its course,” he said, calling the Trust a “political football.”
How original, Ralph. Did Joe give you that one? Because there is no way that this is not a favor to him.
Rosado’s District 4 is as far away from Bayfront Park as you could possibly get in Miami. What does he know about the Bayfront Trust history and operations if it’s not what Joe told him? Nada. He didn’t campaign on this. And it’s actually something that Joe already tried but failed to do in February, one month after he was accused of mismanaging the Trust.
Coincidence? Please. The abolition of the Trust is the political football — passed from Carollo to Ralph.
It couldn’t be more obvious that this is a political back-scratching.
Read related: Ralph Rosado’s payback to Joe Carollo: Abolish Miami’s Bayfront Park Trust
This wouldn’t be an issue if the Bayfront Park Trust had not been wrestled away from Crazy Joe and given to Commissioner Miguel Gabela after two former employees said they were forced to resign when they raised concerns about questionable transactions that indicated Carollo used its funds as a personal political piggy bank. The allegations, worth repeating, are that Carollo, who was chairman of the Trust for more than seven years used/misused the Trust’s funds, among other things:

to pay for his own political ventures
to support Carollo’s District 3 Political Office
to pay and overpay Carollo’s political allies
to overpay Carollo’s District 3 Social Media provider
to overpay for a 2007 Vet mobile that was never used and that had a suspicious and seemingly untraceable past
to pay for Carollo’s Holiday Party

Only now that these things have come to light and he is no longer chair has Carollo suddenly decided that the Trust, which was súper important before, is superfluous. Check.
An investigation and forensic audit into the financial discrepancies will reportedly continue, even if the trust is chucked. But Joe “Not My Fault” Carollo will still succeed in having muddied the waters: The Trust must have been the problem, not him, because the commission got rid of it.
Ladra, too, is tired of watching Carollo and Gabela slap-fight over the sandbox. Well, not really, though she understands how some people might be tired of it. But Rosado’s solution — to take the park’s business, budget, issues and management and put it under the city manager’s purview — does not sound better. Nothing says fiscal transparency like the Miami city manager’s office, am I right?
Rosado also floated the idea of having the park managed under a “conservancy” — which sounds fancy until you realize it’s like rebranding a mess as an “experience.” And conservancies are about land acquisition and preservation, not managing assets.
Also, Gabela is just getting started on making the changes at the Trust that would put in the required guardrails so nobody else can abuse it like Carollo did. He practically begged for more time to get the job done.
“I’ve been there four months. We have done a l0t of positive things,” Gabela said. “I just want to right the ship.”
Commissioner Damian Pardo — whose District 2 includes the downtown — agreed and said that the Trust was finally making strides and that residents were finally being heard. He said that there is a master plan in the works, which makes sense, and that the money generated by Bayfront Park activities — like the Ultra Music Festival — should not go into the city’s general fund.
Read related: Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo and the Bayfront Fountain of corruption
The debate turned into another shouting match between Carollo and Gabela, who at one point offered to resign to save the Trust because he said it was all a political power grab. And — though he has a point — because he loves to play martyr.
Refreshing her referee role, King tried to make it seem like this wasn’t a political hit job. “It’s not that Carollo did a bad job and it’s not that Gabela is doing a bad job,” King said — which is sort of like saying, “This isn’t a dumpster fire, it’s really just a very enthusiastic barbecue.”
King joined Carollo and Rosado to vote to abolish the Trust. She said it was a distraction causing too much fighting on the dais.
Tellingly, King, Carollo and Rosado were all absent Monday evening during the re-grand opening of the renovated Bayfront fountain , which was Carollo’s crowning jewel. Mayor Francis Suarez was there. So were Gabela and Pardo.

Read Full Story

In Coral Gables, it’s apparently looked down upon to ask questions.
The city commission last week censured Commissioner Melissa Castro for, get this, having the nerve to contact the Florida attorney general for an opinion on a controversial and politically-tainted decision in May to move the city elections from April of odd years to November of even years, to coincide with the midterm and general elections, without going to the public for a vote on the matter.
¡Que atrevida!
Castro asked Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier if moving the city’s general election from April to November, without a voter referendum, was, you know, legal. She believes it is a violation of the city charter and the county Home Rule, which states that these type of changes must be made by voter referendum. “Unethical and unconstitutional,” she said.
Uthmeier hasn’t written back. Probably too busy pushing that Alligator Alcatraz merch (more on that later). But he did provide an opinion to a Miami commissioner who asked practically the same question about that city’s move to change elections from odd years to even. He said they have to go to a public vote first.
Read related: Coral Gables commissioner Melissa Castro challenges election date change
The Gables commissioner believes that this opinion would also apply to the City Beautiful and presented an ordinance last week that would repeal the vote to change the election, effectively putting it back to April in odd years. The commission, with Commissioner Ariel Fernandez absent, did not second her motion and it died.
Then, they decided to censure her for asking.
Pero, por supuesto. Mayor Vince Lago and his new echo chamber Seguro Que Yes majority took advantage and took it a step further by voting to censure Castro for, well, asking a question. Nevermind that the AG is there precisely for that reason. Apparently, in Coral Gables, doing your homework without asking your classmates first is grounds for detention.
L’Ego — who was censured in 2023 by the old commissioners majority for disparaging and insulting the three members he opposed on radio and television appearances — called it “deeply troubling” that Castro didn’t first run her legal curiosity by him, Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, or Commissioner Richard Lara. After all, nothing screams transparency like backroom consensus-building before seeking a legal opinion. Am I right?
Never one to skip the spin cycle, Lago read his prepared comments, which regurgitated all the axes he has to grind against Castro. He also cited some random (and questionable) polling that allegedly shows 75% support for the date change. But when his little grupito tried to gather actual signatures to change the election date via petition, they failed miserably. According to a status report from the Miami-Dade Elections Department, the Lago group submitted 4,983 petitions on changing the election from April to November. Of those, 1,461 were valid and 3,522 were not valid.
Is that sloppiness or fraud? We still don’t know.
Read related: Coral Gables changes city elections to November, cuts terms by 5 months
Always ready with a lectern-worthy lecture, the mayor also said that Castro’s letter sent a subliminal “horrific message” to Tallahassee that the commission was not united. First, it’s not. That’s not such a terrible thing to have checks and balances. She doesn’t represent Lago and the commission. She represents her constituents that voted for her.
Second, and more importantly, this shows that Lago’s real concern isn’t about violating Home Rule — it’s about hurting feelings in the capital. You see, according to the mayor, the state was already giving the Gables side-eye after past commission antics (like self-approved raises and the musical chairs of city managers). He says the past two years of infighting on the commission has cost the city millions in appropriations, which has not been independently verified.
Anderson, meanwhile, whipped out her go-to proverbial pearls and clutched them with theatrical flair to censure Castro. As always, she spent way too much time chastising Castro for offending her senses. Castro, she said, omitted critical facts in her letter and was “trying to sabotage” the commission by asking for the opinion from Uthmeier without checking in with them and without calling a special meeting to get their input.
“No member of this commission on the down side of a vote should reach out and try to overturn a decision of this commission without the advice and consent of this commission,” Anderson said, calling out Castro for a typo in her letter — she wrote “2027” instead of “2026” — and wielded that gaffe like a smoking gun. As if that indicated that Castro was trying to sneak in an extra year.
“Big typo,” Anderson snapped, trying to summon up all the gravitas of a courtroom drama.
But if typos are now grounds for political flogging, half of City Hall should be sentenced to a proofreading boot camp.
“In order to make it clear to you that this type of behavior is improper and should not be tolerated in the future, I move for your censure,” Anderson said.
Castro was unfazed.
“Though the mayor, and I want to make it extremely clear — I will not stand here while this commission tries to take away residents rights,” she said. “If I would have to reach out to the general attorney again, I would do it 1,000 times. I was trying to undo a wrong this commission made. If you want to go ahead and vote for the vice mayor to censure me for standing up for my people, for standing up for my residents, then go ahead.”
Read related: Coral Gables commissioner Melissa Castro challenges election date change
“I think there’s been, unfortunately,  so far too much attention put on you, Commissioner Castro,” Lara said, like a jealous mean girl friend.
Besides echoing Anderson and Lago, which is what Lara does best, the newly-elected commissioner — who keeps saying that this is what the voters elected him to do — also questioned Castro’s motives, suggesting that her request of a legal opinion was encouragement for the state to sue the city. Really? An attorney, Lara poo-poohed the legality of any legal opinion, hinting that it was merely a recommendation.
City Attorney Cristina Suarez had already written a “formal legal opinion” at Castro’s request, saying that the AG’s opinion was “non-binding and advisory only.”
Did Castro want to stop the election move? No. She simply wants to let voters decide. What a concept! And, at the same time, she said it would avoid a possible legal battle with the state, which has already stood on the side of voters.
“This is me throwing a lifeline to some of the commissioners here,” Castro said, after quoting Uthmeier’s letter to the city of Miami and reiterating that it would apply to any city in Miami-Dade County. She also cited a quote from former Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas about the city’s potential legal risk.
“It’s me trying to help you guys. I don’t want us to go against the state,” she said.
“Just put it on the ballot,” Castro added, who presented a cute little power point that showed how residents were left out of the decision-making. “Let’s make it fair and transparent. It’s not a big deal. If you are sure that people are going to vote for November, what is the issue with putting it on the ballot?”
Apparently a very big deal for Lago and company — big enough to not only shut Castro down, but also throw in an unnecessary public shaming for good measure.
Resident activist Maria Cruz, a former Lago ally who has smelled the coffee, said it was just like Lago to dismiss the public: “Daddy knows best,” she said. “We know what”s best We don’t care what the people want or do not want. We don’t even want to hear it.
Read related: Miami Commissioners pass election date change — and steal an extra year
On the other side, Claudia Miro, who lost her second election bid this past April, came in — as if on Lago’s cue these days — with her own reprimands, said she didn’t like to have Coral Gables compared to the city of Miami (where she used to work, btw) and said the City Beautiful’s election change was different because it would shorten terms, while Miami commissioners effectively extended their terms by a year. She said voters made it clear in April’s elections how they felt by supporting candidates who supported the move.

Miro also accused Castro of “the height of hypocrisy” because Castro didn’t call for voter input when she and Fernandez and former Commissioner Kirk Menendez increased their salaries in 2023. Which is a bit like arguing that someone who jaywalked once doesn’t have the moral ground to call the police when they see a hit and run.
The commission voted May 20 to move the elections from April in odd years to November in even years, which effectively shortens everyone’s terms by five months. The reasons are, on paper, to increase voter participation and save $200,000 a year in election costs. Opponents say it would give developers and special interests (read: big money) an advantage.
But it’s very interesting that the mayor and his majority don’t care about “voter participation” on this issue.
Castro also pointed out the city spent $244,000 defending its plastic ban and another $185,000 fighting residents over the plans for a Wawa across from an elementary school, which were eventually abandoned. And now, the city wants to risk another six-figure legal battle to save $200,000 by moving an election?
That’s not fiscal responsibility — that’s the civic version of clipping coupons while leasing, um, er, a Maserati.
In the end, Castro’s “lifeline” to her fellow commissioners was met with cement shoes. And the Commission keeps sailing full speed ahead into a potential legal storm, hoping the Tallahassee gods won’t strike the with a bolt of thunder.
So much for Home Rule. In Coral Gables, it’s “Lago’s rules.” And if you dare to question them, without permission, bring an umbrella, a flak jacket — and spellcheck.
The post Coral Gables Commissioner Melissa Castro censured — for asking a question appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story

Commission meeting agenda targets three critics
Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago had a very good day Tuesday, when he got to retaliate against all three of his “enemies” in a span of eight hours. Let’s call it the L’Ego trifecta.
The city’s commission latest meeting Tuesday turned into another stop on the revenge tour Lago started after he won the April election and both his candidates won their commission seats, giving him a majority on the dais.
L’Ego and his Seguro Que Yes cohorts — the echo chamber that is Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and newly-elected Commissioner Richard Lara — were able to (1) censure Commissioner Melissa Castro, for having the gumption to seek a state attorney opinion on the election year change; (2) start the process of killing the non-profit War Memorial Youth Center Association, of which former Commissioner Kirk Menendez, who Lago beat with 55% of the vote, is the president; and (3) decided to ask for an independent investigation into anonymous accusations that Commissioner Ariel Fernandez used phishing and tracking in some polling during the election, both of which could be illegal.
Then he must have gone home to eat some kittens. Alive.
Read related: Post-election Vince Lago revenge tour in Coral Gables = political retaliation
Fernandez was absent because of a medical emergency, which gave Lago a free and clear field to attack him. Nobody was there to fight back. Only Castro, who took the day in stride and is obviously growing a thicker skin, voted against the investigation.
The investigation is supposed to center on the alleged use of a poll to capture and track voters, which was reported in an anonymous blog that everybody knows takes orders from Lago. Maybe the mayor even pays them like he used to pay Gables Insider. Fernandez has been accused of fraudulently misrepresenting himself and possibly obtaining personal information from respondents, as well as public records violations after he denied having anything to do with the organization that was polling.
There will be more to report on each of these things, which all deserve a closer look. There is also a budget meeting today in which commissioners are expected to pass a flat tax rate, which means an increase in taxes due to increased property values (more on that later). But looking at the whole of Tuesday’s meeting, it is clear that Lago is not over the election yet. Even though he won!
Maybe therapy would help?
Between the revenge items, the mansplaining by Lara, the gaslighting by Lago, and the free pass in monotone given to both by Anderson, it is getting increasingly harder to watch the Gables commission meetings. But Ladra does it for you, dear reader.
The people who elected Lago said they wanted the political theatrics to end. Instead, we just got a new leading star writing his own script and directing the special effects. Lago himself said at his swearing in that he was turning another page.
Is the book Hamlet?
Ladra will watch the meeting again to get all the salacious details of the Vince Lago revenge tour and anything else important that may have happened at the meeting. But this deserves hazard pay. Throw Ladra a bone for watching the meetings so you don’t have to with a contribution to Political Cortadito today.
The post Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago scores trifecta on post-election revenge tour appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story

Miami Assistant City Manager Larry Spring, the city’s chief financial officer, has submitted his resignation and will be leaving the city’s employ — for the second time — in about two weeks.
“As you know, over the last three years, I have genuinely enjoyed the opportunity to be back with my City of Miami family serving the residents,” Spring wrote in his June 19 resignation letter to City Manager Art Noriega. “Under your leadership we were able to achieve a great deal of progress and help position the City for prolonged success and financial stability.
“Thank you for the opportunity to come back. You will never know what it meant to me both personally and professionally.”
The resignation is effective July 18. His salary and benefits were more than $260,000 a year when he was hired in 2022 to oversee seven departments: Finance, grants administration, housing and community development, management and budget, procurement, risk management, and real e90state and asset management.
Spring thanked his colleagues, Mayor Francis Suarez and all the commissioners, ending with something that might hint to what he’s doing next: “Don’t worry, I am not leaving Miami, you will see me again!” 
In what capacity, however? Las malas lenguas say that Spring has left to take a job with a private entity that does have some connection to the city. Say, like, the Watson Island developers or Miami Freedom Park. Or maybe the Miami Riverbridge project, a mixed use complex approved by voters in 2022 that aims to transform the riverfront with three residential towers.
Or is it all the financial audits and investigations that have him running for the hills? Or is it that he can’t stand at the podium one more time and try to talk sensually while Commissioner Joe Carollo rants on in a delusional haze?
Read related: Miami, two more Miami-Dade cities may have state DOGE look into books
In April, Spring moderated a panel titled “Public-Private Partnerships” at the city of Miaim’s Economic Innovation and Development Department’s Opportunity Zone Summit at the Frost Museum of Science. The panel featured Debra Sinkle Kolsky, President and Owner of Redevco, a South Florida-based real estate firm; Chris Hodgkins, Chairman of Miami Tunnel, the entity behind the city’s transformative port infrastructure project; and lobbyist Neisen Kasdin, Co-Managing Partner of Akerman LLP’s Miami office, a leading law firm specializing in urban development. They discussed how PPPs can drive “impactful projects,” that can benefit community experiences in retail, infrastructure, and urban redevelopment.
“Opportunity zones and public private partnerships are critical to meeting the needs of the City of Miami,” Spring said.
Spring — who worked in the city from 2007 to 2011 — was rehired by Noriega in April of 2020 as a $25,000-a-month financial consultant to assist with Miami’s economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. He was named the chief financial officer in 2022, a position he left 11 years earlier — amid the investigation that eventually found one of his employees had hidden the city’s dire financial situation and basically lied to bond investors.
Spring was never charged, and he said he helped the SEC by testifying during the investigation. But it was around the same time that he let his Richmond Heights home be foreclosed.
Read related: Miami Commission moves forward with Allapattah CRA — sans Joe Carollo
He also worked as North Miami’s city manager for about four years from 2016 to 2020, when he was fired. He left the city with a severance package that included 32 weeks’ pay and a $45,000 SUV. Spring also worked some time as an executive director of “productivity and decision support” at Jackson Health Systems. He has served as vice president/controller of Total Bank and executive director of the North Miami Community Redevelopment Agency.
Larry Spring, right front, with the Miami Parking Authority executive board three years ago.
Since 2011, Spring has also continued to be managing director of, and the only principal listed for, Achievement Consulting Group, a consulting firm that specializes in real estate development, government relations, and financial consulting services. Some of the most notable include the development of Perez Art Museum, Frost Museum of Science, Miami Marlins Baseball Stadium, the Miami Port Tunnel, Midtown Miami Development in Miami, and the Sole-Mia Development in North Miami. Spring also led the bond financing process that funded nearly $1 billion in public infrastructure.
The corporation has remained active as he’s held the No. 2 position in the city administration.
Spring says he holds a bachelor’s degree in management from Tulane University and is a licensed CPA — but in the state of Georgia, not in Florida. According to the city’s website, he has served on several civic and nonprofit boards including the Miami Foundation, Miami Parking Authority, and the Universal Truth Community Development Corporation.
Efforts to reach him and manager Noriega Monday were not successful. But it wouldn’t be the first time a city employee finds a golden umbrella at work. Former City Attorney Victoria Mendez, who was fired last year, cultivated relationships with outside counsels, especially the one that hired her so she can continue working for Carollo and on other city cases.
Who wants to bet Noriega is next?
Keep Ladra on the trail. Help the continuation independent grassroots government watchdog journalism with a donation today to Political Cortadito. Thank you for your support!
The post Miami CFO Larry Spring resigns from city job — for a private sector gig? appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story

Former Miami City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, who has been campaigning for the mayor’s race for months, has filed a challenge to the city commission’s cancellation of the November election — the first of what could be several lawsuits.
City commissioners voted 3-2 last week to change the election date from odd to even years, effectively cancelling this year’s election for mayor and commissioners in districts 3 and 5 and extending everybody’s terms by a year. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier had warned them a day earlier that they could not do that and that there would be consequences. But he has not filed any legal motion to stop the change.
Could he, like some other would-be candidates, be waiting the 10 day period before Mayor Francis Suarez‘s deadline to veto the measure? Because that’s not gonna happen. This is his idea, after all. Sure, the ordinance was sponsored by Commissioner Damian Pardo but that’s only because Baby X convinced him.
Read related: Miami commissioners should shorten their terms for election year change
Both Suarez and Pardo are named in the lawsuit, as are every other commissioner (even though Commissioners Joe Carollo and Miguel Gabela voted against it), City Clerk Todd Hannon and Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia.
“The City of Miami Commissioners unconstitutionally bypassed the democratic will of the people in a way that the Florida Constitution, the Miami-Dade Charter, and the City’s Charter expressly prohibit,” said Alan Lawson, former Florida Supreme Court Justice and lead counsel at Lawson, Huck, Gonzalez PLCC, which is representing Gonzalez. “This repugnant and deliberate act was done without a single electoral vote in defiance of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s clear warning that doing so was illegal. Miami voters are the only ones who can decide to change the election date thus extending the terms of elected officials, which is the immediate concern of our client,” Lawson said in a statement.
“We are stunned by the brazen actions of Miami’s elected officials,” Gonzalez said, though he should probably be the least surprised.
“Canceling a regularly scheduled election and extending their own terms in office is in direct defiance of Florida law. Doing so without the consent of voters is an outrageous abuse of power. Attorney General James Uthmeier has already warned that this violates the law, and Governor Ron DeSantis has strongly supported that position. Disenfranchising voters undermines our democracy and robs citizens of their voice at the ballot box,” he said.
“If they can steal an election, what else can they steal?”
In the complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief, the attorneys for Gonzalez write that the commissioners did “three legally impermissible things” when they passed the ordinance on final reading Thursday.
“First, they cancelled the election scheduled for November 4, 2025, less than five (little  more than four) months away — the stuff of failed regimes around the world,” the complaint states. “Second, they fundamentally changed when the General Municipal Elections — i.e., the  elections for the city of Miami Mayor and its City Commissioners — occur, from being held in odd numbered years, as the City of Miami’s Charter unambiguously mandates, to even years concurrent with midterm and general elections.
“This point bears repeating: Without a referendum — i.e., without a single vote cast by  the people of the City of Miami — the Commissioners have overridden the City of Miami’s Charter (its constitution) to change how and when the City of Miami’s elections take place,” the lawyers wrote. “But it gets worse.
Read related: Miami Commissioners pass election date change — and steal an extra year
“The third, and perhaps most concerning, thing the Commissioners did …  is decide that they and the already-term-limited mayor get to stay in office longer than the voters elected them to be in office.
“The Commissioners unconstitutionally bypassed the democratic will of the people in a way that the Florida Constitution, the Miami-Dade Charter, and the City’s Charter expressly prohibit. Once more, they did so without a single electoral vote,” the lawsuit states.
“Reminiscent of regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, or Cuba — the very places so  many of Miami’s people come from—those in power, while in power, forced upon those voters what  they think is best for elections going forward—and secured for themselves additional time in power,  without a vote of the electorate.
“That cannot stand.”
Meanwhile, Gonzalez has not stopped campaigning.
Emilio Tomas Gonzalez v. City of Miami, Et Al by Political Cortadito on Scribd

The post First lawsuit filed to stop city of Miami from cancelling November election appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story