In a desperate attempt to get votes in North Gables, commission candidate Jorge Fors is stirring up annexation fears.
Fors — who is running for the seat vacated by Commissioner Frank Quesada — walked North Gables streets last week, passing out petitions to stop the annexation of Little Gables, an unincorporated Miami-Dade enclave just south of 8th Street.
Only problem is, the process is pretty far along already, having been approved by the existing commission. Police Chief Ed Hudak told them that it would be better from a public safety standpoint. Gables Police and Fire Rescue already have to go into Little Gables all the time. It would be better f they can patrol it proactively and get the tax dollars for the services provided.
Read related: One thumbs up, one thumbs down after Coral Gables candidate forum
The annexation application — one of two, the other being the High Pines area just south of Sunset — is at the county level now, having passed the planning and zoning committee in December. Basically, it’s headed to a vote the full county commission and then a vote of the people in Little Gables.
But those kind of details don’t matter in a campaign. What matters is emotion. Some people in North Gables are unhappy about bringing Little Gables into the fold. Some are angry that they never got a chance to vote to let them in.
And Fors is taking advantage of that. He is the least known candidate in a four-way race against former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera, onetime interim city manager Carmen Olazabal and downtown property owner Jackson “Rip” Holmes. He needed something to set him apart — other than the Homestead exemption fraud. Annexation was low hanging fruit. Early in the campaign, Fors sent a mailer out about annexation. Then he hit the streets with the petitions. Last Thursday, annexation was even turned into a campaign issue at the Coco Plum Woman’s Club candidate forum.
But can he really do anything if elected? He would only be one of five votes. And should he even try?
Read related: Coral Gables candidate Jorge Fors had illegal Homestead exemption
“When there are very limited issues to talk about — crime is not an issue, the state of our city is not an issue — certain candidates feel the need to drum up issues that don’t exist,” said Commissioner Vince Lago. “The police chief stood up and said that annexation is in the best interest of the city to patrol the area because it provides a more natural border and closes our geo fence.”
Little Gables has a penchant for drugs and prostitution, mostly from the trailer park and the Wishes Motel on 8th Street that rents by the hour.
Lago and City Manager Peter Iglesias — who got rid of two trailer parks in his previous life at the city of Miami — believe that they can incentivize property owners to redevelop and bring their properties up to Gables code. Lago says he even wants to see a city park for North Gables residents.
There have been at least five public community meetings about annexation since 2016, including one hosted by Miami-Dade Commissioner Rebeca Sosa. How much you wanna bet that Jorgie Come Lately didn’t go to one? He did not return several calls and texts to his cell phone.
Perhaps what Fors has shown is just how uneducated he is about the issues.

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A change in annexation rules also on the agenda

UPDATED with correction and to add that meeting was cancelled because of a lack of quorum.

 Miami-Dade Commissioner Javier “El Senador” Souto has one last chance to push some of his favorite projects today, at his last meeting as chairman of the Miami-Dade County Unincorporated Municipal Services Area Committee.

The veteran legislator and 23-year commissioner, known as the Father of Horse Country and Mayor of Westchester, has a couple of items on the agenda that look like they’ve been plucked straight from Souto’s wish list. 

County Parks director Jack Kardys, then Sweetwater Mayor Jose Diaz, Miami-Dade Commissioner Rebeca Sosa, Miami Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz and Commissioner Javier Souto at the opening of the equestrian center in 2013

One of the items is a resolution directing Mayor Carlos Gimenez to find funding sources for a $3 million community center to be built next to the county’s Ronald Reagan Equestrian Center at Souto’s beloved Tropical Park, which was the site of a kick-off rally last year for Republican Sen. Marco Rubio‘s failed nomination bid. And he’s serious. Because the resolution also asks the mayor to provide a summary of all Building Better Communities GOB funds distributed by district and by municipality. If passed, the resolution also establishes a board policy that no recaptured or surplus funds be spent until such a report is provided.

Apparently Souto thinks there are available funds there. The equestrian center was built with $10 million of the Better Communities GOB funds.

The other Souto item is a resolution directing the mayor to have someone survey and identify sites relating to another beloved entity, Brigade 2506, the CIA-sponsored counter-revolutionary paramilitary group of Cuban exiles who were in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Souto, a former state rep and senator who was in the infiltration, wants recommendations for “appropriate recognition” of these sites, including possible historic designation.

And he wants to educate everyone in the meantime, with a three page resolution that has 19 whereases basically giving a play-by-play history of the Bay of Pigs events. That’s passion.

Bovo, whose father is also a Brigade member, will love that one. Ladra actually thinks it’s a good idea, but why stop there? Why not have other historical sites for other commnities also identified for recognition? Also, maybe this is something that can be done by an organization or even a professor at Florida International University and her or his class. Maybe some local businesses can underwrite any costs of plaques or whatever at these locations. These can have tiny logos of Badia or Goya somewhere in a corner. Or is that too tacky?

Because, frankly, if we leave it to Gimenez’s office or any local government, it might not happen. I mean, where is the Bay of Pigs Museum that was supposed to open in Hialeah Gardens in, like, 2015?

Souto recused himself when the commission voted on the museum in 2008, dedicating $1 million of state grants to moving the library archives and historical artifacts from its longtime home in Little Havana. But the last thing we heard was in 2014 when a Brigade member withdrew an application to make the museum and library on Southwest Ninth Street a historic monument. It was withdrawn because of division among the membership over the impending move to Hialeah Gardens. Google Earth, however, shows that 13851 NW 107 Avenue is still an empty lot. And when Trump visited the museum and the brigadistas last year on his presidential campaign, he stopped at the Little Havana location, not Hialeah Gardens.

What gives? Maybe the Brigade members rethought the idea of leaving and want to stay in their historically relevant, humble home in the heart of Little Havana, which is still the cultural center of Cuban Miami if not the population center, and just happens to be a block or two away from the Bay of Pigs Invasion Monument on Southwest 13th Avenue. And maybe that $1 million in state grant funds can be used someplace else. This committee meeting might be a good time to ask about that.

The only other interesting item on the agenda is an ordinance that Commissioner Barbara Jordan already got passed on first reading by the commission. It would amend the county rules for annexation, requiring municipalities to provide a comparison of county and municipal land use regulations before any annexation.

According to the agenda, municipalities were notified about today’s public hearing in early December. Ladra expects there to be some oppposition to this change, maybe from Hialeah, which has been reportedly discussing efforts to annex the land where the megamall is going to be built. Miami Shores and Doral may also have pending annexation applications. And longtime efforts by residents in Little Gables and High Pines to become part of Coral Gables moved forward only last September.

In addition to Souto and Jordan, the other new members of the UMSA committee are Vice Chair Daniella Levine Cava and Commissioners Esteban Bovo, Sally Heyman and Joe Martinez. It starts at 9:30 a.m. in commissin chambers at County Hall, 111 NW First St. Or you can watch it here.