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Accusations vs two Hialeah mayoral candidates only benefit Jesus Tundidor
The race for Hialeah mayor — which was already shaping up to be a good old-fashioned street fight with chancletas flying — has turned into a full-blown telenovela. And the one smiling quietly in the corner right now is Council President Jesús Tundidor, who’s watching both of his rivals trip over their own scandals just weeks before Election Day.
First, there’s the sitting mayor, Esteban “Jackie” García-Roves, who apparently decided the building code didn’t apply to her. The Miami Herald broke that little gem earlier this month: unauthorized additions to her home, built without permits. Maybe she thought inspectors would just look the other way — it is Hialeah, after all. But it’s never a good look when the one in charge of enforcing the city’s rules gets caught breaking them herself.
Read related: René García ditches Hialeah mayoral race — after stirring the political pot
According to the Herald article, records from the Hialeah Building and Code Compliance Department show Garcia-Roves’s property is currently under an active code violation for “building without a permit.” An inspector noted the violations were for “addition, awning, re-roof, fence, and columns,” and provided photographs that documented the changes made to the Hialeah home, like roof extensions in the back and a cement wall where there was none.
The Herald also found Miami-Dade Property Appraiser records that show one of the roof extensions could be for an addition to the home, like a guest room or an efficiency.
Then, just when García-Roves thought the heat was off, Bryan Calvo managed to hand Tundidor another gift — courtesy of his own family’s tax mess.
According to another Herald story, Calvo, who loves to talk about integrity and transparency, lived for years in a home that was receiving a low-income senior property tax exemption that his parents weren’t actually entitled to. Yep. The “senior” exemption. For low-income households.
Except young Bryan wasn’t exactly low-income. He was a Harvard student, later a law school grad, and a Hialeah City Councilman earning $44,000 a year — all while living in a house that got a tax break meant for abuelitas living on Social Security.
The County Property Appraiser’s Office eventually caught it, thanks to an anonymous phone call from a concerned neighbor (and you know that’s Hialeahese for “someone from the other campaign”). The Calvos had to cough up $5,282.97 in back taxes and penalties.
Calvo says it was all a misunderstanding. That his parents applied, not him. That he didn’t even know about it. That nobody meant any harm. Sure, m’ijo. And the dog ate the homestead paperwork, too.
Read related: Three former Hialeah mayors ‘host’ quiet fundraiser for Jackie Garcia-Roves
He told the Herald that his parents just wanted to protect the family home “like many Hialeah families.” But here’s the difference — most Hialeah families don’t have a Harvard-educated son running for mayor while taking a senior exemption.
The house is pictured in 2022 on the left and more recently on the right. Notice all the changes.
This isn’t the first time Calvo’s image as a clean-cut reformer has taken a ding. Remember, he’s already had to resign from the City Council to run for office and was hit with residency questions during his run for Tax Collector. The guy’s got more explanations than campaign slogans at this point.
Meanwhile, Tundidor — who’s been keeping a low profile and focusing on talking about infrastructure and fiscal management (imagine that, issues!) — is looking more and more like the only adult in the room.
So now, with two opponents dragging their baggage behind them — people are starting to get tired of the excuses and García-Roves’ little construction scandal didn’t exactly inspire confidence either — Jesús Tundidor is walking into the final stretch of the race with what may be the most precious thing in Hialeah politics: a relatively clean record.
At least, so far. Because in Hialeah, as we all know, that can change faster than you can say permiso de construcción.
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Miami mayor’s chief of staff gets soft landing gig, big raise at Omni CRA
Old CRA director gets nearly $200K in exit package
It must be nice to have friends in high places. Or maybe just the right commissioner on your side.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s chief of staff, Carlos I. Suarez — no relation, but definitely part of the mayor’s extended orbit — is about to float gently from one cushy taxpayer-funded gig into another. The Omni Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) Board is expected Thursday to approve his appointment as executive director — complete with a $265,000 salary, $800 car allowance, $200 cell phone stipend, and a benefits package that would make a county administrator blush.
That’s a huge raise from the publicly recorded compensation of approximately $180,000 Suarez makes now.
Add the 5% annual raises and another 5% cost-of-living bump every year, and you do the math. He’ll be making nearly $300,000 by the end of next year — and that’s before the CRA’s famously generous executive 401(a) contribution of 15% of his salary.
For comparison, that’s more than Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava ($200,000). It’s more than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ($141,400). And more than a state Supreme Court Justice ($258,957).
And for what, exactly? The Omni CRA — which encourages redevelopment to alleviate slum and blight in parts of downtown and Edgewater — has a staff of fewer than 20 employees and a budget that’s largely on autopilot.
Read related: Fight over Omni CRA causes new rifts, alliances on Miami City Commission
But it does have a board made up of city commissioners, including Commissioner Damian Pardo, who happens to chair it. And Pardo also happens to have become Mayor Suarez’s most surprising ally this year — moving with him on controversial initiatives like the proposed lifetime term limits for commissioners and changing the city’s election year, which would have extended their terms by a year. And Francis Suarez is term limited. He’s out.
So is this appointment a thank you to the mayor from Pardo? Or is it a “With this, I owe you nothing” parting gift, now that Suarez is about to be out of office and out of staff? Ladra bets it’s a little of both.
Either way, the timing stinks. Suarez is out of City Hall in a few weeks. His guy lands a golden parachute, courtesy of the CRA. And it’s all dressed up in bureaucratic language — a resolution full of “whereases” about nothing really — when everyone in Miami knows this is a political redevelopment at its finest.
Isiaa Jones, the former director, will get an exit package totaling $191,244, which includes 20 weeks severance — which indicates she did not leave on her own — $33,000 in an “employee manual” payout and more than $48,000 in accrued sick and vacation time.
So, this is a very expensive employee shuffle. Calls to Commissioner Pardo and his chief of staff were not returned.
Carlos I. Suarez, a bilingual Miami-native and Cuban-American, holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Florida International University and an MBA from Nova Southeastern University. Suarez held management roles in the cruise industry — including at Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises — for more than 12 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He then worked as chief of staff at the U.S. Mission to the Organization of American States and as acting assistant administrator at the Latin America and Caribbean Bureau of USAID. After that, he became a lobbyist before joining the short-lived and always doomed Francis Suarez presidential bid and then his staff when the White House didn’t pan out.
While the board cites authority under Florida Statutes for the appointment, critics say the move is more about political alliances and patronage than redevelopment expertise. Shouldn’t there be a more professional, open, transparent process?
The Omni CRA — which was almost not extended last year — has been through enough political subterfuge already since former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla snagged it away from former Commissioner Ken Russell in 2021 and used it as a shakedown central for contributions to one of his baby brother’s ill-fated campaigns. Then Diaz de la Portilla was removed after investigators found his aide, Jenny Nillo, running errands and drinking beer out of a paper bag in a city car while she was supposed to be working on the public dime. Then he was put back in and fired the executive director, Jason Walker.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla is investigated on ghost city employee at Omni CRA
Then he was arrested for public corruption charges that included bribery and money laundering related to a scheme where he took at least $245,000 in political committee campaign contributions from the owners of a private school and gifted them a park so they could build a sports dome for their students. The charges were ultimately dropped, after the city rescinded the plan for the Centner Academy’s extension into a public park. But it revolved around the CRA being in the wrong hands.
Do we really want to do that again?
The CRA board — city commissioners wearing a different “hat” — will vote Thursday, but if you think this is anything but a done deal, you must be new here.
Stay tuned. Ladra will be watching to see whether any of the commissioners — besides maybe Miguel Gabela, who sometimes shows signs of a conscience — even blink at this obvious insider handoff.
Because for everyone else, it’s just another day in the Magic City — where the revolving door between City Hall and the CRA doesn’t just spin, it glides on silk bearings.
Help Ladra bring you deep coverage of the city of Miami, the type of coverage you can’t get anywhere else, with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. Thank you for your support of independent, watchdog journalism.
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Coral Gables Commissioner Melissa Castro calls out the kickback culture
Coral Gables Commissioner Melissa Castro has had enough of the quiet quid pro quo culture that seems to linger like cologne after a ribbon cutting. So she’s bringing a little disinfectant to the dais.
Castro plans to introduce an ordinance that would make it crystal clear that no elected official in the City Beautiful can cash in on development projects they helped approve. Not while they’re in office. Not two years later. Not ever, if Castro had her way.
The proposal, which the commission will take up on Tuesday, would ban the mayor and commissioners from doing any business — consulting, contracting, or otherwise — with developers, contractors, or vendors whose projects went before them. The restriction would last through their time in office and for two years after they leave.
Because apparently, some folks think the statute of limitations on ethics is shorter than a building permit line.
“This would stop an elected official from voting on something and then getting a contract on the back end,” Castro told Political Cortadito. “Even if someone votes ‘no’ to something, they can get others to vote ‘yes,’ or whip up the votes.”
“I don’t want to say corruption, but it’s corruption,” she told Florida Politics.
In other words: If it walks like a bribe and quacks like a bribe, it’s not a tip.
Under Castro’s proposed rules, developers would have to swear under oath — via an “anti-kickback affidavit” — that they haven’t and won’t offer any payment, favor, or job to elected officials tied to a project in order to get any type of permit. If they lie, they risk losing their permits, canceling their contracts, and being blacklisted from city business for five years. How can it be enforced once the permit is issued? Because there will be a number of inspections before the project is done, Castro said.
Read related: Vince Lago loves himself, business at Coral Gables State of the City address
“Anytime you hire a contractor, you would need to disclose it until you have a certificate of occupancy,” she told Ladra.
And if any of the city’s current or future politicos think this is just window dressing, they might want to note that false statements would also go to the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust. And maybe even the state attorney.
It’s all part of Castro’s bid to close what she describes as a glaring it’s-not-a-bribe-if-it’s-later loophole in the city’s ethics code. And it would include her own permit expediting business. That’s what grownups call leading by example.
But let’s be honest: This seems aimed at Mayor Vince Lago more than anybody. Lago is the one who said at the Graziano’s grand opening that the was proud of the work his company did on the build-out. Then there is all the business with developer Rishi Kapoor, who was paying his best buddy, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, $170,000 as a consultant while he sought development approvals there.
Lago also got part of a $640,000 commission in the 2023 sale of a Ponce De Leon Boulevard lot where the real estate developer planned to build a luxury high-rise, for which he likely needed zoning variances. The payment went to a brokerage firm owned by former Hialeah Councilman Oscar De La Rosa which listed only five real estate agents hanging their licenses there, including Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo, lobbyist Bill Riley (who was arrested with former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla on public corruption charges in 2023), Lago and his former chief of staff at Coral Gables City Hall, Chelsea Granell, who has been promoted to director of legislative affairs.
Then, afterwards, Lago and some partners — including Baby X cousin Esteban Suarez — also rented a retail space, a former karate studio across the street from the Ponce development site, to Kapoor for about $12,500 a month, according to sources cited by the Miami Herald. Kapoor rented the space shortly after Lago and his partners bought it in order to open a sales office for the luxury condo he wanted to build at 1505 Ponce de Leon and paid more than $152,000. But the space sat empty all the while.
Read related: What transparency? 22 reasons NOT to vote for Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago
But as the owner of a MED Expediters, Castro’s legislation could also easily apply to herself. After she was elected in 2023, Castro asked the Ethics Commission if her firm could continue working in Coral Gables. They said yes, but barely. It came with warnings. So, she stopped doing business in the city altogether. That was just easier. But that hasn’t stopped Lago from hitting her with false accusations and intimations that she has a conflict of interests.
In fact, his political action committee, Coral Gables First, launched a whole new website to discredit Castro last Wednesday, which questions why she ran for commission. It was a day after Castro explained the legislation she was bringing to the commission to a group of people at a town hall meting for the Gables Good Government. Even though he wasn’t invited, Lago showed up and sat in the front row, to intimidate her probably. He wasn’t able to, and actually got riled himself instead when Castro started talking about the anti-kickback ordinance. The next day, his PAC launched the attack site — a pathetic attempt to smear her and slow her roll at City Hall.
But it’s going to be hard for Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and Commissioner Richard Lara to oppose Castro, for once. Both ran on transparency and reform. Voting “no” on this would be like running on “clean government” and then asking developers to Venmo you later.
The timing of this move is delicious. Mayor Lago — who never misses a chance to spar with Castro and her frequent ally Ariel Fernandez — just asked Miami-Dade County to take action against the Commission on Ethics, complaining about their investigator in his “matter under initial review” (which is technospeak for investigation) into whether or not he lied when he signed an affidavit swearing nobody in his family had any financial interests in the annexation of Little Gables (when his brother was a lobbyist for the owner of the trailer park there).
So, while the mayor’s over there on a vendetta trying to discredit the watchdogs, Castro’s proposing to actually strengthen the leash.
The ordinance also comes as Miami-Dade’s political landscape is littered with recent examples of pay-for-play gone wrong — from the dropped bribery case against ex-Miami Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla, to the conviction of former County Commissioner Joe Martinez, who got caught pocketing payments from a supermarket owner.
But at least in Coral Gables, someone’s finally trying to close a loophole. Because even if the payoff comes after a vote, it doesn’t mean it’s not a bribe.
If you want more independent, watchdog reporting that takes the spin out of local government, help Ladra with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here.
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Emilio Gonzalez will ‘clean up’ Miami — but he was there when it got dirty
Part of a series of profiles about the Miami mayoral candidates
If you listen to Emilio T. González long enough, you might start to believe Miami’s former city manager really is the retired Army colonel who’s going to march into City Hall, root out the corruption — and straighten everyone’s ties while he’s at it.
But then you remember — he used to run the place.
Yes, the same man now promising to fix the dysfunction in Miami government was knee-deep in it from 2018 to 2020, when he served as City Manager under Mayor Francis Suarez. Back then, González managed a $1.7 billion budget, 4,400 employees, and one very fragile relationship with Commissioner Joe Carollo, who spent most of those two years accusing him of all sorts of things, including forging documents about his own home improvements.
González, who jumped into the 2025 race early and has come out grinning from every debate, was cleared of those charges. But it’s no surprise that in this year’s mayoral race, the ex-manager and the always-litigious Carollo are circling each other again, both trying to look like the hero riding in to save Miami from itself. But Carollo is increasingly seen as a clown. And Gonzalez is the man who did actually get the race back on the ballot through a lawsuit after the city commission cancelled it to move the elections to next year.
Read related: Ethics board clears former Miami city manager Emilio Gonzalez in deck case
Nobody else did that. Just Emilio Gonzalez. He deserves the hero status that some are giving him.
He doesn’t come, however, without the ifs, ands or buts — weakness that are also his strengths
First, the GOP support. Gonzalez has gotten endorsements from Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Rick Scott and, even as far away as Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas. These aren’t exactly a shock — they share Republican credentials. Gonzalez was the director of the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and then served as the director of the U.S. Citizens and Immigration Services department. And the city of Miami’s core elderly Cuban voters are solidly Republican, so it sells with them.
But these electeds do not typically weigh in on a city of Miami election and it does make one wonder how much control Gonzalez would give to the state and the federal government if he is elected mayor. He has already been attacked by the Miami-Dade Democrats in mailers and texts that refer to him as the MAGA mayor. Can we trust him? Will he help to deport our neighbors?
Are those matching suits?
Gonzalez said he will be a mayor for all of Miami. And, while he went to Tallahassee weeks ago to talk to Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia about the DOGE audit of Miami and sat in the front row of the invitation-only press event last week, has been courting the black vote hard, going to inner city churches on Sundays. “My allegiance is to the working families of Miami,” he told Political Cortadito.
And Ladra has spoken to some non-GOP voters who were so impressed with his knowledge and his plans that they will bubble in his name. They see him more like a Reagan Republican than a Trumpster, but his loyalty to the GOP is still a little unsettling.
His penchant to bring up his Army service is another weakness that is also a strength. While some voters respect it as a sign of leadership and patriotism, younger voters, Dems and independents might think that means he would welcome troops sent to Miami by the Trump administration.
Read related: Partisan divide is strong in Miami mayoral race, Gonzalez vs Higgins
The third strike is also seen as a plus in some ways, and that is his city of Miami experience. González has been part of the leadership circle before. Plus: He knows where all the bones are buried. Minus: He may have helped bury some of those.
He’s not some fresh-faced reformer stumbling in from the suburbs. This is a man who’s been a federal bureaucrat, a national security advisor, an airport boss, and the city’s top administrator.
He’s been inside the machine. Now he’s running on fixing it.
“I’m running to restore trust in City Hall,” González said at his kickoff event. “Our residents have lost respect for our leaders. They don’t believe anything they say.”
González’s campaign theme is fiscal accountability. He says he wants to audit the city’s $400 million Miami Forever Bond — $100 million earmarked for affordable housing and $300 million for resiliency — to find out, in his words, “where it went.”
“When I left the city, our budget was $1.5 billion. Today it’s $3 billion,” he says. “We have doubled in five years. We got $400 million from the bond, $140 million from the feds. Where is it?”
That’s a great question. The problem is, Emilio was sitting in the manager’s chair when that bond money started flowing. If there are accountability measures missing, it could be his fault. He could have built them in then.
Still, his message resonates with Miamians who are sick of watching the same people trade favors and feuds while the grass at the parks rises with rents. González says he’ll run a leaner government, cut property taxes, and prioritize police and firefighters — “the real public servants,” as he calls them. He has a bunch of endorsements from former and current law enforcement.
Read related: In Miami mayoral bid, Emilio Gonzalez goes for the law and order vote
He backs the governor’s plan to phase out ad valorem property taxes altogether, which sounds nice until you realize that money funds half the city’s general budget. His answer? “If families can tighten their belts by ten percent, so can the city.”
Sure, Colonel. But when was the last time a family’s “ten percent” came out of code enforcement and pothole repairs?
González’s backstory reads like a Miami patriot’s dream résumé: born in Havana, raised in Tampa, served 26 years in the Army, taught at West Point, worked in the Bush administration, worked as a lobbyist and ran Miami International Airport for four years before taking over City Hall.
He calls himself “battle-tested.” And it’s true — the man’s been through bureaucratic wars in Washington and political minefields in Miami.
But Ladra’s skeptical when lifelong insiders try to sell themselves as reformers. You can’t be both the firefighter and the guy who built the house out of matchsticks.
González’s resignation in early 2020 came amid mounting tension on the dais — and, let’s be real, a toxic culture that didn’t start or end with him. He said he left to care for his sick wife, which Ladra respects deeply. But the whispers that he was pushed out have never quite gone away.
Now, five years later, he’s back with a vengeance, promising to audit, cut, streamline, and sanitize the very government that once spat him out. He says he will end the abuse of power and weaponization of government by having “swift and serious consequences,” including termination, for employees who “intimidate, investigate, or retaliate against residents, whistleblowers, or small business owners. He also says he will create a “permanent oversight presence” at city hall by inviting the Florida State Attorney’s Office, the Floria Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight (FAFO), the City of Miami’s new Inspector General Office, and federal law enforcement. Notice no mention of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, the county’s IG or the county commission on ethics, which is another sign of his GOP stripes.
Read related: Poll has Eileen Higgins in Miami mayoral runoff with Emilio Gonzalez
Nobody doubts that Gonzalez, the only one of the front runners never elected before, is a serious contender. He consistently is one of the top three in polls, hanging with Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins and former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell. And is campaign financing is also on par with Higgins’, with a political action committee that has collected more than $900,000 since March, including at least $500,000 from his own asset-management firm.
That’s either confidence in his own campaign or the most expensive self-love gift in Miami politics this year.
Emilio González is polished, prepared, and pragmatic. He knows how the city runs — and how it breaks. He’s saying the right things about accountability and corruption. But this isn’t his first cafecito at City Hall. If Miami’s voters want a real outsider to clean house, they might not find him in the former city manager’s office.
Still, Ladra will give him this: when he says Miami deserves better, he’s not wrong. The question is whether the colonel’s brand of “reform” means new rules — or just new generals.
Because in Miami politics, the war never really ends.
Help Ladra bring you deep coverage of the city of Miami, the type of coverage you can’t get anywhere else, with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. Thank you for your support of independent, watchdog journalism.
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DOGE Days in Miami: Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia calls BS on city spending
But the math ain’t mathing on $94.5 million in bloated budget
Leave it to Tallahassee to come to Miami and tell us we’re spending too much cafecito money.
Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia — the same Republican pit bull who used to run the state GOP and branded himself with the slogan “Government Gone Wild” — brought his latest traveling roadshow to downtown Miami Thursday to declare that City Hall has gone wild with spending.
Standing in front of a crowd of mostly friendly faces — and at least one mayoral candidate trying not to nod too much — Ingoglia wagged his finger at Miami’s $1.2 billion tax-funded budget, saying it’s “millions too high” based on inflation and population growth. Specifically, $95 million too high. This was a very performative presentation of the first findings of the promised state DOGE audit. That’s the Division of Government Efficiency that models itself after the national one.
Only problem? When reporters asked Ingoglia for the actual math, he said those numbers weren’t available.
So, basically: ‘Trust me, I’m from Tallahassee.’
Read related: Miami, two more Miami-Dade cities may have state DOGE look into books
He did say that if Miami had “kept spending in line” with inflation since 2000, the city would be spending about $95 million less today. But he didn’t say what should be cut — parks? trash pickup? code enforcement? — or how he’d handle the thousands of commuters who use city services every day without paying city taxes.
So, it was really just an invitation-only campaign event for former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, who has gotten the endorsement of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Rick Scott and just about anybody on the state’s GOP train. Ladra fully expects Gonzalez — who was sitting in the front row like teacher’s pet, but didn’t speak (he’s too smart for that) — to use the event in campaign literature any day now.
Last month, Gonzalez posted a photo of himself in Tallahassee with Ingoglia, saying DOGE would do a full “deep-dive audit” once he becomes mayor. So, they’re not already doing it? What are they doing now? Just a quick perusal of the budget?
Ingoglia’s stop was really part of a statewide “cut the fat” tour he’s using to push his 2026 full term campaign — and possibly to help bossman DeSantis build support for a constitutional amendment to cap or even eliminate property taxes.
“We’re doing this in an effort for serious property tax reform,” Ingoglia said at the news conference, “including possibly the elimination of homestead property taxes altogether.”
He promised “detailed breakdowns” of wasteful spending “later,” but for now, it was more bark than bite.
When pressed on what “fat” he’d trim, Ingoglia punted, saying the city could afford raises for cops and paramedics if it stopped overspending elsewhere. Sounds great in a press release. Harder to do when you’re paying to keep the lights on and the streets clean for almost 500,000 residents and the thousands of people who work in the city but live elsewhere.
Read related: Miami Downtowners seek state DOGE assistance on tax relief from DDA
City Manager Art Noriega didn’t mince words. “Absurd,” he called it — and “absolutely politically motivated.”
The city fired back with a statement saying the CFO’s analysis was “incomplete,” “shortsighted,” and “unrealistic” for a major urban center that provides regional services.
“As Miami-Dade County’s urban core, the City of Miami serves as the government seat for the majority of city, county, state, and federal agencies. The urban core also houses most of our major corporations and attracts a significant number of visitors each year,” the city said in a statement that sounds a lot like a list of excuses.
“As the primary provider of essential services to those buildings and complex infrastructure, the City maintains primary responsibility for public safety and infrastructure management and operations. The City’s financial and operational stability remains vital to ensuring continued service delivery and sustaining economic vitality for residents, visitors, and the community at large. A formula applied to a suburban or rural city would never reasonably apply to a city that inherently is as complex and unique as the City of Miami.”
Translation: Nice try, Blaise, but this isn’t Hernando County (which he used to represent in the state senate).
And for the record, Miami has been cutting tax rates while growing services, Mayor Francis Suarez pointed out — conveniently from behind a press statement, not a podium.
Read related: Anthony Rodriguez, Florida lawmakers discuss elimination of property taxes
“Recent comments from Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia suggesting Miami ‘overspent’ by $90 million misrepresent the facts. Miami has shown real fiscal discipline, making tough choices to protect taxpayers while maintaining essential services,” said Suarez, who is termed out and looking for more work. He also took a dig at the state, which “has never reduced its 6 percent sales tax, the single largest tax burden paid by Floridians.
“What they’ve offered instead are short-term tax holidays and temporary exemptions, essentially tax gimmicks, not permanent structural relief. Meanwhile, the state’s budget has grown from $92 billion in FY 2020–21 to $117 billion in FY 2025–26, a $25 billion increase, or nearly 25 percent growth in five years,” Suarez said. “Miami isn’t overspending, we’re leading by example. We’re delivering results within our means, lowering taxes responsibly, and setting the statewide standard for efficient, accountable government.”
Ingoglia insists Miami’s got “a lot of fat that needs to be trimmed.”
That line drew a quick amen from — who else? — Commissioner Joe Carollo, who is also running for mayor and never met a “government waste” headline he didn’t love, unless it is about his own lawsuits or his own spending at the Bayfront Park Management Trust, which is another audit we’re still waiting for.
Carollo told The Miami Herald the city “has a lot of fat” it can cut, though Ladra wonders if that includes the extra lawyers they’ve hired to defend all those Carollo lawsuits.
This whole dog and pony show wasn’t really about spreadsheets or efficiency — it was about political theater. Ingoglia’s DOGE tour is setting up his election next year as well as the DeSantis-backed tax amendment campaign. And Miami, with its billion-dollar budget and flashy skyline, makes for the perfect villain.
It also doesn’t hurt that the headlines could help the Gonzalez mayoral campaign.
Ladra is not saying that there should not be an audit of Miami’s books. But it shouldn’t be a political message. It’s worth watching what those DOGE audits actually find — if anything ever makes it past the slogans. Because sometimes, the loudest watchdogs are just barking for votes.
And until Ingoglia shows us his work, this DOGE looks a lot more like a Chihuahua than a Rottweiler.
Help Ladra bring you deep coverage of the city of Miami, the type of coverage you can’t get anywhere else, with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. Thank you for your support of independent, watchdog journalism.
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In Miami election, four referendums — and a funeral for common sense
While everyone’s gossiping about which of Miami’s 13 mayoral hopefuls will make it to the runoff — and whether Joe Carollo will start yelling before or after Election Day — voters might miss the fine print on the four ballot referendums that could quietly reshape City Hall.
Because the devil isn’t always in the candidates — it’s in the charter amendments.
After all the hand-wringing over the election year change — which was so important that the commission actually cancelled this year’s election to get ‘er done — that charger amendment will not be on the ballot. They couldn’t get it together in time, which kind of begs the question of how important it really was. Also, the lifetime term limits item was supposedly “intricately intertwined” with the election year change. Or was that just a sales pitch?
Read related: City of Miami election year change won’t make November ballot, after all
The referendums that did make it to the ballot are:
The ‘We should’ve done this 30 years ago’ charter review commission
The first ballot question is the most harmless-sounding: create a Charter Review Commission to review the city’s constitution every ten years. Apparently, Miami’s been winging it for decades.
Commissioner Ralph Rosado, the new kid on the dais, says he was “surprised” to learn there was no system for regular charter reviews. Welcome to Miami, Ralph. Around here, we don’t fix the roof until it’s raining inside.
Each commissioner, the mayor, and the city manager would appoint one member — which means yes, it will still be political, but at least it’ll be scheduled. The group would hold public hearings, take input, and recommend changes that might later end up on the ballot.
Ladra’s verdict: It could be politically charged. It will be more bureaucracy. But it’s a necessary evil.
PS: Don’t be surprised if the “public hearings” end up happening in front of the same ten political insiders who show up for everything. You know who you are.
The ‘Trust us, we’ll get a fair price’ land sale loophole
This one should make taxpayers clutch their wallets. The city wants to loosen the rules for selling city-owned land — a change pushed by City Manager Art Noriega, who says the current system makes it too hard to sell “excess” property.
Right now, the city needs three bids or voter approval to sell land worth over $500,000. This amendment would let the City Commission approve the sale with a 4–1 vote if they can’t get enough bidders. Voters would still have to approve the sale if it’s waterfront property.
Read related: The city of Miami wants to sell your public land with no public vote
Noriega says it’s just about two leftover residential lots in The Roads neighborhood that the city could not turn into pocket parks, but c’mon. This is Miami. “Excess property” today could be “exclusive luxury development” tomorrow.
Las malas lenguas say this could be about the sale and redevelopment of the Miami Police Department headquarters, which sits on a pricy piece of property in the downtown.
Ladra’s verdict: Hard no. The words “City of Miami” and “real estate deal” in the same sentence should always make you nervous. The city does not have the best track record with its stewardship of public land.
P.S.: Somewhere, a lobbyist just heard this and ordered another bottle of Dom.
The ‘No more gerrymandering (we promise this time)’ redistricting reform
After a federal judge tossed Miami’s last redistricting map for being racially gerrymandered — yes, that actually happened — the city agreed to create a citizens’ redistricting committee to draw future maps.
This referendum would ban maps drawn to favor or disfavor incumbents. Translation: no more slicing up Coconut Grove or Little Havana to protect commissioners’ turf.
It’s part of a lawsuit settlement that already cost taxpayers nearly $1.6 million in attorneys’ fees, thanks to the NAACP, GRACE, and other community groups who were tired of commissioners playing political Sudoku with neighborhoods.
Read related: Miami redistricting map is thrown out again, ACLU’s map is in for now
Ladra’s verdict: About time. But we’ll see how “independent” these “citizens” really are once commissioners start whispering their names into the mix.
P.S.: Expect at least one “concerned citizen” to be someone’s cousin. Probably a cousin with a PAC.
The ‘lifetime ban on professional politicians’ term limits
Here’s the one that’s got City Hall veterans clutching their pearls. Commissioner Damian Pardo’s referendum would create lifetime term limits — two terms for mayor, two for commissioner, period. No more sitting out a term and boomeranging back like a bad sequel.
That’s bad news for Miami’s political lifers who’ve been haunting City Hall since the 1980s. But of course, they managed to carve out a Carollo-sized loophole.
The first version of Pardo’s plan would’ve barred Joe Carollo from ever holding city office again, but the final version says that filling a vacancy — like when Joe became mayor in 1996 — doesn’t count. So, yes, Crazy Joe can still run.
Meanwhile, Frank Carollo is trying to reclaim his old District 3 seat, meaning Miami voters could end up with both Carollos back in power. Somewhere, the city charter just groaned. This amendment would prevent that kind of thing from happening again. So, Keon Hardemon might have to make other plans.
Ladra’s verdict: Vote yes. If we ever want a future that doesn’t look like a rerun from 1999, it’s time to send the dinosaurs to retirement — permanently.
P.S. Someone tell Joe this means he might actually have to get a hobby. And no, suing the city doesn’t count.
Read related: Bait and switch on lifetime term limits proposal for Miami mafia politicos
The bottom line is this: These four referendums don’t have glossy mailers or attack ads, but they’ll quietly decide how much control Miamians actually have over their own government — or whether the same five people keep calling the shots.
So after you bubble in your picks in the mayoral and commission races Nov. 4, scroll down that ballot. Read the fine print. Because in Miami, the quiet questions are sometimes the ones that matter most.
And if you don’t, don’t complain to Ladra later when your tax dollars end up paving the driveway of someone’s “excess” property.
Help Ladra bring you deep coverage of the city of Miami, the type of coverage you can’t get anywhere else, with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. Thank you for your support of independent, watchdog journalism.
Denise Galvez Turros wants judge to kick Rolando Escalona off Miami ballot
It’s become a tradition in Miami to establish a new residency so you can run for office. And District 3 Commission candidate Rolando Escalona admitted to Ladra that he had moved to a small apartment in East Little Havana after his home, a duplex in West Little Havana, was drawn out of the district and into District 4 in the redistricting process.
So Denise Galvez Turros, who is also running in District 3, fulfilled another tradition: She filed a lawsuit earlier this month to try to get him kicked off the ballot over what she calls a “sham” residency — with less than two weeks left before the election is decided. Ladra wrote about the discrepancy. But instead of letting voters decide, Galvez Turros wants a judge to decide who lives where.
The trial is set for next Tuesday — just six days before the Nov. 4 election — and three days after early voting starts Saturday. Because, you know, nothing says “democracy” like trying to knock your opponent out of the race when people have already started casting ballots.
Read related: Where does Rolando really live? A new case of Miami’s political address dance?
Filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, the lawsuit filed Oct. 14 claims that Escalona doesn’t really live in the apartment he listed on his qualifying papers. The city charter requires candidates to live continuously in the district they are running in for a year. Galvez Turros says he and his wife actually live in District 4, based on a mortgage refinance agreement they signed in February that lists that address as their “primary residence.”
That, she says, is the “single most compelling piece of evidence” that Escalona is ineligible to run.
Escalona, for his part, says it’s all political theater from “longtime insiders who will do anything to hold onto power.”
“I live where I say I live,” Escalona said in a statement. “I work hard for my community, and I’m running to bring accountability and integrity back to City Hall. I am a resident of District 3 and am proud to call this community my home.”
His attorney, former state Rep. Juan-Carlos “JC” Planas, who lost a race last year for supervisor of elections, argues that Escalona meets every residency requirement under the law — and that the whole case is “baseless and part of a coordinated political strategy” by Miami’s “entrenched power structure” to eliminate a legitimate threat to the establishment.
“Any suggestion otherwise is a deliberate distortion of facts designated to mislead voters and manipulate the media narrative during a critical election,” Planas said.
That might not be far off. Because let’s be real: Galvez Turros has been going after Escalona for weeks in glossy, expensive mailers that practically scream desperation. And now she’s asking a judge to get Escalona out of the race altogether, because she doesn’t think she can beat him fair and square.
Political observers say that both Galvez And Escalona are competing for a slot on the runoff ballot against former Commissioner Frank Carollo, brother to Joe, who used to represent the district eight years ago. Because the other three candidates — Yvonne Ballona, Brenda Betancourt and Oscar Elio Alejandro — aren’t a threat to anyone. Ladra bets Galvez hasn’t even checked to see if any of them really live in the district. But she went out of her way to get Escalona’s business records, which show the 26th Avenue address, and his wife’s business records.
Read related: Denise Galvez Turros announces she’ll run for Miami Commission in District 3
Miami-Dade Civil Court Judge Beatrice Butchko Sanchez, in granting an emergency motion to expedite proceedings, zeroed in on another detail entirely: a homestead exemption on another property outside the district — claimed by Escalona’s wife, Astrid Gonzalez Nieto, and first reported right here on Political Cortadito.
The judge — who was assigned the case after Judge Abby Cynamon recused herself on Tuesday, said it was a presumption thqt the husband and wife would live together and noted they can only have one homestead exemption. “If you’re claiming a homestead exemption for one property,” she said, “that’s your homestead. Unless somebody’s willing to admit that that’s fraudulent.”
Planas pushed back, saying Escalona has no homestead exemption and that plenty of political couples live separately for residency purposes. “If the property appraiser wants to go after Mrs. Escalona for homestead fraud, that’s a completely separate issue,” he said.
Really? Did JC just throw the candidate’s wife under the bus?
Also, the judge didn’t care. The candidate is just as guilty by association. “I don’t understand how you could be running for an elected position and at the same time have your spouse not following the law when it comes to homestead exemption,” Butchko Sanchez said.
It’s almost like she works for the Galvez campaign. But the optics are messy. Especially in Miami, where residency rules have a long history of being — how shall we say — flexible.
“Mr. Escalona’s sham residency is fatal to his candidacy,” Galvez and her attorney, Reid Levin, say in the complaint. “Mr. Escalona cannot swear to his bank that his primary residence is outside the district while swearing to the city clerk that his continuous residence is within it. This documented pattern proves his intent was never to make the District 3 address his permanent, fixed home.”
But the argument falls hard on one thing: The home he used to live in was in District 3 until they carved it out during a ridiculous redistricting process that ended in court settlement and a judicial order. Escalona is only outside the district because of that. He’s just doing the same thing that Commissioner Miguel Gabela did so he could keep running in District 1, where he always lived, after his house was drawn out of the district intentionally (it was eventually drawn back in). He moved to establish residency. There is nothing illegal about that.
And, as much as she’d like to, Galvez — whose campaign has been smeared with her old arrests for DUI (2010) and credit cards theft (1994) — doesn’t have the first clue about anybody’s intentions. Escalona, whose wife and mother were living at the duplex when he first moved to Little Havana, has since signed a lease on a larger apartment in the same building, because they are expecting their first child. They could rent out the duplex. They could sell it. They could do a lot of things.
Read related: Alex Díaz de la Portilla: Telenovela villain or Miami’s comeback kid?
And even if Judge Butchko Sanchez sides with Galvez, it may not matter.
By now, ballots are printed, mailed, and already being returned. Early voting starts Saturday. Miami-Dade Elections lawyer Oren Rosenthal said it’s too late to remove anyone’s name. The most the court could do is order signs posted at polling places — telling voters that ballots cast for Escalona won’t count — and suppress results after the fact.
And who does this help the most? Why, Frank Carollo, of course. He’s going to head into a runoff against a wounded soldier, either way. He’s just sitting back and enjoying the show.
Because this lawsuit looks less like a good-faith challenge and more like a last-ditch Hail Mary from a candidate who knows she’s behind. Would Galvez Turros be taking this to court if Escalona wasn’t making inroads out there? She may be hoping to win in court what she seemingly can’t win at the ballot box. Because in Miami, if you can’t beat ’em… you sue ’em.
And, if she doesn’t get him kicked off the ballot, it could go either way. Voters might be twice bitten, all of a sudden shy to vote for someone who they aren’t sure lives in their district. Or, if they know Escalona, and they know he has always lived in D3 — and moved precisely so he could still represent them — they could see Galvez as an opportunist and decide not to reward her.
Help Ladra bring you deep coverage of the Miami election, the type of coverage you can’t get anywhere else, with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. Thank you for your support of independent, watchdog journalism.
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Alex Díaz de la Portilla: Telenovela villain or Miami’s comeback kid?
Part of a series of profiles about the Miami mayoral candidates
Let’s go back to the metaphor of Miami as telenovela, where City Commissioner Joe Carollo is the loud, unruly uncle who gets to the wedding late and gets into a fight. Former City Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla — who is also running for mayor in the Nov. 4 election — is the show’s star villain.
ADLP somehow instigated the fight, como la mosquita muerta that he is, then took credit for stopping it and slept with the bride in a broom closet just a few steps from the open bar where he sealed a backroom real estate deal with another former elected who served time for mortgage fraud. All before, as the best man, he toasts the happy couple.
This fictionalized scenario could be part of the biography of the middle child of one of the 305’s most dynamic political dynasties. Before his fall from grace in 2023 — when he was suspended by the governor after his arrest on public corruption charges that included bribery and money laundering (later dropped) — Diaz de la Portilla had been a state rep, a senator and Florida Senate Majority Leader, a respected political consultant who helped craft the state’s medical marijuana legislation and is likely responsible for getting Congressman Carlos Gimenez elected to county mayor in the historic 2011 post-recall election.
His older brother Miguel Diaz de la Portilla was a state senator and, before that, a Miami-Dade Commissioner — the one who created the super majority requirement for building beyond the urban development boundary — and is now a lobbyist representing developers and businesses, focusing on land use, zoning, and permitting issues. His baby brother Renier Diaz de la Portilla was a state rep for one term and a Miami-Dade School Board member for two, and has lost several state, county commission and judicial races since.
The boys — who sort of look like they walked out of a 1980s mob movie in this picture — also have an invisible sister named Maria, who is not in politics and is never seen or heard.
Alex is by far the loudest and most bombastic in the family and has been representing parts of Miami for decades, building a career trading on experience, contacts and an instinct for the inside game.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla finally cons his way back into office in Miami
But he hit on hard times after losing a bid to return to the state house in 2012, followed by a loss in a 2017 state senate primary to former State Rep. Jose Felix Diaz (who then lost to Annette Taddeo) and another loss in the 2018 special election to replace Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, who resigned to run for office. He didn’t even make the runoff, coming in third behind Barreiro’s wife, Zoraida Barreiro, and Eileen Higgins, who went on to win the seat and is now in the mayoral race with ADLP and 11 other candidates. Because Miami.
In 2019, Diaz de la Portilla ran for city commission — in District 1, not District 3 which is where his actual house was. He wanted everyone to believe that he lived with his brother Renier, his brother’s partner and their child in a two bedroom apartment by the Miami River and not at the Little Havana house he grew up in. But some of the time he lived at the East Hotel in Brickell.
That’s part of what got him in trouble. When he was arrested in September 2023, it was tied to alleged schemes involving campaign money and pay-for-play accusations that included accommodations at the hotel and food and drink and a viewing party suite for one of Renier’s ill-fated campaigns for public office. Diaz de la Portilla was accused of taking more than $250,000 in cash contributions to his political action committee as well as in-kind payments for the hotel and entertainment from David and Leila Centner, the owners of The Centner Academy, who wanted to build a sports dome for their students at a public park across the street. Alex made it happen at the commission, by basically gifting them the park.
The Centners, by the way, have given Diaz de la Portilla’s PAC at least $100,000 for this election.
The criminal case, was sent to Broward County after our esteemed Miami-Dade State Attorney Kathy Fernandez-Rundle recused herself — she had a relationship with the lobbyist that was arrested with ADLP — and they dropped it last year, saying it did not hold up (read: they bungled it).
Read related: Miami’s Alex Diaz de la Portilla arrested on corruption, pay-for-play park deal
But it’s not off brand for Diaz de la Portilla, who has been accused in a series of scandals, aside from his residency question, leading up to his arrest that included:
The discovery of not one, but two ghost employees stealing taxpayer dollars, including Jenny Nillo, a longtime campaign operative and mortgage fraud convict who was drunk driving around doing errands for Diaz de la Portilla in a city car, drinking beer out of a paper bag-wrapped can. Among her duties: Delivering his dry cleaning and picking up his sauce.
The alleged shakedown of the Rickenbacker Marina operator in a scheme where he allegedly promised his vote in exchange for a piece of the pie. A judge dismissed the case last year.
An illegal, alcohol-serving, “pop-up” nightclub in Allaphattah that he was caught at, where he told the code enforcement officer to “walk away.” The officer, who cited the property owner for several violations, Suzann Nicholson, was later fired for failing to “protect” the commissioner.
The late night Beacon Boulevard accident in the city car, where Diaz de la Portilla was “passenger one,” but never named in the accident report, which was managed by the city attorney. We ultimately learned it was his driver/sergeant at arms’ fault, but we never learned who the female passenger was. The other car was allegedly totaled. There was no sobriety test.
Disappearing COVID gift cards. Hundreds of them.
Using the redistricting process to protect his incumbency, drawing an opponent out of the district, and to help out Joe Carollo carving his home into District 3, so he wouldn’t lose it in the $63.5 million judgement against him for violating the First Amendment of two Little Havana businessmen.
Hiring former City Commissioner Humberto Hernandez, who has been arrested on election fraud and mortgage fraud.
Taking political committee donations from former Commissioner Marc Sarnoff at the same time as he was voting on the LED billboards that Sarnoff was representing.
Meanwhile, he lost his childhood home to foreclosure and is in a nasty divorce with his second wife, who he has accused of stealing his mother’s jewelry.
Told you this was telenovela stuff. Someone, call Netflix.
Read related: Body cam video shows ADLP at illegal club; tells code inspector to ‘Walk away’
This campaign for mayor is more like a redemption tour after his charges were dropped. Diaz de la Portillo, who pleaded not guilty, had always called the charges politically motivated. In campaign ads, he compares himself to President Donald Trump and says the radical left tried to shut him down.
He’s doubling down on the anti-woke vote with a second commercial that promise no men in women’s bathrooms. Because that’s more important to him than affordable housing or traffic or sustainability
Still, the underlying theme is that he was vindicated. Which isn’t exactly right. He wasn’t acquitted. The state just couldn’t prove its case.
But while the dismissal cleared him legally, and opened the door for his latest run, it may not have cleared him politically, or in the public eye. Diaz de la Portilla, who lost his re-election bid for the commission in 2023 to Miguel Gabela, did not make the cut in the NBC/Miami Herald debate of candidates who polled at least 10%. Even former Miami-Dade Commissioner Mayor Sir Xavier Suarez was invited.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla rides the Trump train to ‘vindication’ in new video ad
What does Diaz de la Portilla bring to the table? A deep knowledge and understanding of political horse-trading, a fat Rolodex, and the ability to rattle opponents. What does he brings to the microscope: a record that opponents will happily re-air, and a track record that could lead voters to ask whether the “comeback” is redemption or a rerun. In a crowded field of 13, this kind of polarizing résumé could make it to the runoff.
Díaz de la Portilla is Miami politics in microcosm — polished, practiced, bilingual and never boring.
Why voters should squint before they smile: critics will point to the optics — the arrest, the suspension, the late-night mugshots and the messy headlines — and say that a mayor should be above even the appearance of misconduct. Supporters will point to his long track record and argue that the charges were dropped and the man was vindicated.
The post Alex Díaz de la Portilla: Telenovela villain or Miami’s comeback kid? appeared first on Political Cortadito.
BRT is finally here — six years, $300M, and one big ‘rail-like’ shrug later
With “Crossing gates” and crossed fingers
After years of promises, delays, and more ribbon-cutting photo ops than actual buses, the so-called Bus Rapid Transit system — now rebranded as the MetroExpress — is finally set to open later this month.
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who inherited the project from former mayor Carlos Gimenez, now a Congressman, took reporters and the Herald Editorial Board on a “demonstration ride” last week — part victory lap, part PR cleanup — of the county’s first all-electric rapid bus service along the stretch between Southwest 152nd Street and 168th Street. Riders were treated to air conditioning, Wi-Fi, cell charging stations, and a little political spin.
The county wants everyone to believe this is “rail-like.” But let’s be honest, people: It’s still a bus. A very nice, all-electric bus — the longest BRT line in the nation, according to the county — but not the Metrorail train leg to South Dade that voters were sold more than 20 years ago when they agreed to the half-penny transit tax.
Remember that? That was supposed to build real rail from Dadeland to Florida City. Instead, residents are getting a dressed-up bus line — and they’ve been waiting since 2018 for even that.
The 20-mile MetroExpress will run in dedicated lanes along U.S. 1, with 14 stations and all the modern trimmings. The county says the ride from Homestead to Dadeland South will take under an hour during rush hour — instead of the current 1 hour and 40 minutes. That’s good news for the 200,000 people who live within a mile of the corridor.
But here’s the kicker: Those rail-style crossing gates, the same that are used for trains, will block cars so the buses can glide through without delay. They will be coming down at major intersections every few minutes during rush hour, from 6 to 9 a.m. heading north and from 4 to 6 p.m. heading south. Because nothing says “rapid” like more flashing lights and horns on your morning commute. The rest of us? We wait. Even off-peak, the buses get a little green-light favoritism.
Is that a built-in ridership incentive? South Dade drivers may soon be sitting behind flashing red gates watching the buses fly by. Maybe that’s why county officials say the super buses will convince people to ditch their cars.
Read related: Miami-Dade Commission to discuss $245 million South Dade Transit station
If not it’s going to be a huge waste of public money. The BRT cost about $300 million, one-third of that from federal money. Rail, the county says, would have cost more than $1 billion and wouldn’t qualify for federal transit grants because of low ridership projections. And last year, the commission approved the construction of the $245 million South Dade Transit Operations Center, a new, state-of-the-art facility designed to support the BRT. The “first-of-its-kind facility” will maintain, recharge and dispatch a fleet of 100 new electric buses. The SDTOC will also serve as a vital emergency command center and is scheduled for completion in Summer 2026.
None of that has stopped South Dade residents from feeling shortchanged. For decades, the stretch between Dadeland and Florida City has been the forgotten rail corridor — always promised, never delivered.
Instead, Miami-Dade’s transit expansion dreams keep shrinking with every administration. From the SMART Plan to “rail-like buses,” every big fix seems to end with a cheaper substitute.
And will people ride it?
That’s the $300 million question. Even with sleek stations and no extra fare to transfer to Metrorail, the county hasn’t said how much actual time the average driver would save by switching. And once they get to Dadeland South, BRT riders still have to get off the bus and onto the train — another point of friction that could turn would-be commuters right back to their cars.
As established earlier, there are already about 200,000 people living within a mile of the BRT line. And more are coming. The county’s new transit oriented development incentives will bring new mixed-use and residential projects along U.S. 1.
Read related: Miami-Dade makes affordable housing strides with transit oriented projects
In April, La Alcaldesa and Commissioner Kionne McGhee celebrated the grand opening of the first phase of Quail Roost Station, a 200-unit development that brings affordable housing for seniors to Cutler Bay.
Mayor Levine Cava calls it a “transformative project.” Maybe. Or maybe it’s just the latest example of how Miami-Dade keeps paving over its own transit promises — one glossy ribbon-cutting at a time.
Here’s the final stop: If this thing really works — if people truly start riding it instead of just tweeting about it — great. Miami-Dade desperately needs a win in public transit. But if not, the MetroExpress may become another expensive reminder that South Dade asked for a train and got a bus with better PR.
Either way, mark your calendars for Oct. 27. The gates are coming down. Literally.
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Commissioner Joe Carollo: Miami’s favorite chaos agent runs for mayor
Part of a series of profiles about the Miami mayoral candidates
If Miami politics were a telenovela, City Commissioner Joe Carollo would be the uncle who shows up late at the wedding, throws a chair, sparks three lawsuits — and then somehow gets two standing ovations.
Now, Carollo is formally in the mayoral scrum — late, brash, defiant, unapologetic and exactly the kind of spectacle Miami loves with its morning cafecito. He’s like the I-95 pile-up you have to crane your neck to see.
Carollo’s political résumé is equal parts longevity and controversy. He has been stirring the political pot in Miami since disco was still a thing — the first time.
He was only 24 when he first got elected to the City Commission in 1979 — and he’s been making enemies ever since. By 1982, even the police chief was accusing him of arm-twisting cops for favors and threatening to cut their budget if they didn’t play ball. In 1983, Carollo was supposed to endorse Mayor Maurice Ferré — his old ally — but instead ambushed him on stage and called him anti-Cuban. The betrayal was so spectacular it’s still talked about decades later.
Read related: Joe Carollo, ADLP are in, make Miami mayoral ballot a lucky 13 dog pile
From there, it’s been a wild ride of feuds, firings, and full-blown soap opera or evangelical rally with Joe as the preacher.
Carollo lost his commission seat, won it back eight years later, and in 1996 stumbled into the mayor’s office in a special election after the death of Stephen P. Clark. Within months, Miami was drowning in debt and scandal, commissioners were getting arrested, and Joe was fighting everyone in sight.
He’s been fired, reinstated, sued, and re-sued more times than most people change cell phones. In the 1997 mayoral race, he lost to Xavier Suarez — then sued over absentee ballot fraud and actually got the election thrown out. The court called it a “scheme to defraud.” Joe took back the mayor’s seat like a man reclaiming his throne.
But his second turn as mayor was just as messy — firing city managers three times in one week, battling over the Miami Circle (he did not want to preserve it) and suing his own voters after they voted to switch to a strong-mayor system. You can’t make this stuff up.
And who could forget the Elián González circus, when Carollo turned into a full-time talk-show guest, calling the child’s father an abuser and saying federal agents were Castro’s spies. When the dust settled, City Hall was literally pelted with bananas — as in, a “banana republic.”
Fast forward: Carollo got fired as Doral’s city manager in 2014 for bullying and “nonsense,” sued the city, then got reinstated just so he could quit. Naturally. Three years later, he resurfaced again — back on the Miami Commission, sitting in his brother Frank Carollo’s old seat, like nothing had ever happened.
Since then, he’s taken on everyone from the Little Havana arts community to homeless advocates to his own police chiefs. He’s been accused of abusing power, of weaponizing code enforcement, and of turning City Hall into his personal revenge machine. But somehow, Joe Carollo keeps surviving — lawsuit after lawsuit, scandal after scandal, election after election. Like a true Miami political cockroach, he never dies. He just finds another office to run for.
He’s a veteran of City Hall comebacks and headline-grabbing melees, a commissioner who delights in theatrical displays — whether whipping out satellite imagery to shame a colleague on the dais or a video clip of a dancing Elvis-clad police chief with a noticeable bulge — and castigating critics with long, monotonous diatribes full of lies and vitriol. That’s when he’s not yelling at someone.
His long shadow includes courtroom defeats, residency challenges, a recall effort, political favors, a tacky no-bid cat and dog sculpture park that cost almost $1 million — a pet project managed by his wife, Marjorie, which caused a Bayfront Trust Management Trust board member to resign — using a slush fund for his political ambitions and accusations that local governance under him too often looks like personal and political retribution. That record is now front-and-center in a mayoral campaign that feels vintage Carollo: chaotic, combative, and irresistibly entertaining.
Even his 2001 domestic violence arrest for throwing a teacup at his then wife has been turned into a local joke — complete with merch: You can buy a “wife-beater” tank top with his mugshot on it, or a mug, or a sticker and other stuff from the BecauseMiami website. Ladra is getting a sticker for $9.99.
Read related: Protest ‘chicken’ arrested at Miami park opening for dogs, cats and Joe Carollo
And let’s remember when he got that protester in a chicken costume arrested at the opening of that cat and dog boondoggle in another show of Pollo Carollo’s abuse of power. All the chicken guy was doing was passing out wife-beater shirts with Joe’s face on them.
The legal cloud: $63.5 million verdict and more
You can’t write a Carollo profile without the litigation chapter.
In 2023, a Broward County jury ordered Carollo to pay $63.5 million to a pair of Little Havana businessmen who accused him of weaponizing city offices to harass them after they backed his rival. The verdict landed like a political grenade: it’s big, ugly, and impossible to ignore — both politically and financially. But Carollo has tried, by using the redistricting process to carve his house back into District 3 so that it can’t be seized by the courts.
There have been more lawsuits that followed, but Carollo’s lawyers — who have reportedly cost the city at least $10 million so far — have argued the claims were unfounded or politically motivated. Appeals and litigation linger. But the headline number — sixty-three and a half million — is imprinted on anyone watching Miami politics. It could be the title of his biography.
That case feeds directly into the broader narrative critics use against him: that Carollo treats code enforcement, permitting, and other municipal levers as tools to punish enemies. He treated the Bayfront Park Management Trust like his own personal piggy bank until the commission wrestled it away from him. There was supposed to be an investigation into disappearing funds and payments made to friends and for his district commission office out of the Bayfront Park Trust monies. Ladra will check on it.
But, for years, city staff and citizens alike have complained about financial discrepancies and what they call “selective enforcement,” — and civic watchdogs have raised alarms about the pattern.
For voters who prize clean governance, the verdict is a heavy anchor to his bid for the mayor’s office.
There’s a running theme: accusations that Carollo weaponizes city government. From heated commission meetings, shouting matches and public displays to claims that city resources were misused against perceived opponents or for personal pals, the story line repeats — and national outlets picked up the thread when Miami’s municipal affairs became a cautionary tale. Critics point to episodes where code, police, and city apparatus were alleged to have been turned into a political cudgel. Carollo answers that he’s enforcing rules and representing the concerns of residents. His defenders cast him as a crusader against sloppiness and corruption. The truth, as always in Miami, is available in both versions — and voters decide which one matters more.
Read related: Commissioner Miguel Gabela set to expose more Bayfront Park Trust issues
Most recently, Carollo stepped into a fresh controversy when surveillance and neighbor photos showed a city staffer wearing a “Commissioner Joe Carollo District 3 Staff” shirt removing campaign signs for mayoral rival Emilio González, the former city manager who has become Crazy Joes biggest target. The incident — quickly labeled “Sign-gate” on social media — was seized on by rival campaigns as emblematic of Carollo’s alleged habit of blending official duty and political advantage. González and others call it another example of his abuse of office. Carollo’s camp insists the take-downs are routine code enforcement against illegally posted signs, and showed reporters other signs — “efficiency for rent,” tree removal offers, etc — that have been plucked throughout the district throughout the years.
He could be right. If it was political, wouldn’t they be replacing them with Carollo signs?
Recall attempts, theatrics, and the Carollo brand
Carollo’s knack for drama and abuse of office has drawn political pushback and a 2020 recall drive that was signed by more than 1,900 voters in District 3, but ultimately failed to make the ballot on procedural grounds. He has continued thriving as a polarizing figure — to some, a fearless watchdog; to others, a petty autocrat who enjoys the fight more than the fix. The recall episode cemented a brand: Joe is both unavoidable and unstoppable, the politician you love to hate or hate to love.
That brand has kept him politically alive through wins, losses, and lawsuits. It’s also a selling point with a certain slice of voters who like tough talk and performative accountability — even if it comes with a messy tab. And donors know that, which is why Carollo’s fundraising shows he’s a contender. He reported getting almost $713,000 in the last quarter, ending Sept. 30, between his campaign account and his political action committee, Miami First.
The big donations include $100,000 from an investment firm in Middleberg, Florida, just southwest of Jacksonville; $25,000 from auto mogul and former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman; $25,000 from competing auto mogul Mario Murgado, who took pains to hide it, making it in the name of his Maserati dealership in New Jersey, for whatever reason, instead of Brickell Motors; $15,000 from Bayside Marketplace; $10,000 from real estate investor and developer Craig Robbins, in four separate checks and $10,000 from uber-connected lobbyist Melissa Tapanes.
There are not enough dollars in the world to wash away the stains of civil judgments and public relations disasters that follow Carollo around, so he’s spending that money trashing other candidates instead, with multiple hit piece mailers hitting mailboxes, mostly attacking Gonzalez.
A career built on theatrics — and a stubborn refusal to go quietly
Policy-wise, Carollo often frames himself as the plain-talking realist: clean up the streets, enforce the rules, and stop what he frames as special-interest carve-outs. He grabs the populist mic and wags a finger at perceived sloppiness in city services or the county’s outsized draws on city taxes. There are people in Silver Bluff who love him because he closed their streets illegally — and the county had to sue to get them reopened again.
But his critics argue that his solutions tend to be performative — theater masquerading as governance — and that his political instincts prioritize scoring points over building durable policy. The paradox: he often raises the issues voters care about, but his methods make even those who agree with him uneasy.
That’s because the other shit he says sucks the oxygen out of the room: the claims that so many communists and Cuban spies are living among us, the accusations that Chavistas and drug dealers are funding his opponents campaigns, the references to city officials and Mayor Francis Suarez looking the other way when the city hired a “sexual predator.” It’s red meat for his viejito base and was a staple of his morning radio show, Miami Al Dia, on AmericaRadio, which seems to have been suspended while he campaigns but which he used until just the other week to attack most of his opponents in the race.
Carollo also spent nearly $1 million to elect Commission District 4 candidate Ralph Rosado, which he later said was “the biggest political mistake of my life.”
That is a hard title to get.
Read related: Bromance break-up at Miami City Hall as Joe Carollo and Ralph Rosado split
Joe Carollo is Miami’s political live wire: dramatic, combustible, and intense. He draws headlines and fills seats at forums; he terrifies or enrages opponents and thrills a base that likes its politicians raw and entertaining. But patterns matter: lawsuits, recalls, and now sign-removal theatrics contribute to a dossier that won’t look great in a general election spotlight.
Speaking of dossiers, if you are reading this story, he might have one on you. Just ask attorney David Winker, who was brave enough to represent the recall group and got a code enforcement knock on his door.
If you like your city leadership unvarnished and confrontational, Joe is your debutante and wrecking ball rolled into one. If you want a mayor who manages risk, avoids costly civil verdicts, and doesn’t make municipal business personal, you’ll have to look at someone else.
Either way, Carollo’s back in the ring. And for Miami, that means more drama, maybe a courtroom filing or two, and — for better or worse — very little dullness. The question is whether voters want a mayor who delights in the fight, or someone who can win policy victories without generating $63.5 million worth of grievances along the way.
And, hey, he can always go back to morning radio.
The post Commissioner Joe Carollo: Miami’s favorite chaos agent runs for mayor appeared first on Political Cortadito.
