When Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Commissioner Audrey Edmonson made themselves members of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority early last year — convincing colleagues to appoint them rather than citizens, as they had traditionally done — there was talk about making MDX toll funds available to build rail for the SMART plan.
That was the whole idea, wasn’t it? That’s what Gimenez campaigned on in 2016.
Instead, all he’s done is get his daughter-in-law work and promote the construction of 14 new miles of highway.
That’s not what we were expecting.
Read related: MDX spent $400K on PR, including $60K for mayor’s daughter-in-law
“Miami-Dade mayor takes a seat on MDX toll board and eyes money for rail projects,” read the Feb. 7, 2017 headline in the Miami Herald.
“County preparing to spend $3.6B on rapid transit,” reads another headline, Feb. 16, 2017, in The Next Miami. “Mayor Carlos Gimenez and another county commissioner recently appointed themselves to the MDX board with the intention of taking MDX funds for rail,” the story said.
The mayor himself, at his first MDX meeting, said they agency had to be about more than highways.
“What the commission did in putting myself in and the vice chair is a clear indication that we consider MDX to be part of the solution and that we need to work together because its about mobility, its about getting around” Gimenez told the board at his introduction meeting.
“MDX is about maybe expressways. Maybe it should be more than that,” he said. “How we get around in the very near future is going to be quite different than how we get around today.”
What happened to all the promises?
Read related: Kendall Parkway to nowhere is an intentional slippery slope for UDB
By July of last year, after he was made chairman of the board at MDX, Gimenez was already saying rail wasn’t going to happen. He called it old fashioned. “So 19th century,” he told the Miami Herald’s editorial board. And, instead, he proposes the modern, 21st century solution: More buses.
Now his role on MDX is to promote the Kendall Parkway, a highway to nowhere over endangered wetlands and across the Urban Boundary Development line that everybody in the world knows will just become gridlocked as soon as it opens and that most Miami-Dade residents — and all environmentalists — don’t want.
Gimenez has become the lead advocate for the proposed $1 billion extension of the 836 expressway. Last month, before the county commission voted to approve the highway to nowhere, he actually said that 5,000 postcards received from residents in favor of the Parkway — which is perfectly named because it will become a parking lot — proved support for the project.
What he didn’t say was that there were really 150,000 cards sent out by MDX before the first vote in June — at a cost of $125,000 (which seems inflated) — and that they did not have an option to mark if you were against the new 14 miles of highway. Ladra can’t help but wonder if Gimenez, who was made chairman of the MDX board this past summer, approved that.
Read related: No-brainer Miami-Dade Commission approves Kendall Parkway despite so much
He also forgot to mention that MDX spent at least $400,000 on PR for the Kendall Parkway vote, including $60,000 that went to the company the mayor’s daughter-in-law works for.
On Monday, the Herald’s Doug Hanks wrote that two environmental groups filed separate lawsuits to block the construction of the Kendall Parkway, saying that the public was misled about the details and that what the commission approved was different than what was advertised.
Today, Tuesday, Gimenez will hold court at MDX, 3790 NW 21st St., where the board meets at 4 p.m. On the agenda: an update on the Kendall Parkway and a $2.6 million contract for “Construction Engineering and Inspection (CE&I) Services” on a number of projects, including the addition of a continuous westbound lane and interchange improvements at 57th and 17th avenues, the addition of a continuous eastbound lane from west of the LeJeune exit to 27th Avenue with interchange improvements, and replacing some tolling location points.
Not on the agenda: Rail.
 

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Now we know why Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez suddenly started collecting money again for his political action committee: Miami Dade Residents First — which has raised almost $70,000 all of a sudden after two years of no activity — is sending mail and text messages to Miami voters urging a no vote on the strong mayor referendum.
One of those takes aim at Mayor Francis Suarez‘s new house, purchased in July for $1.4 million in one of his less brilliant moments. Really, he should have waited until after Nov. 6.
“A strong mayor that goes way too far,” says the piece, which even some hard-bitten political observers say goes too far with photos of the Suarez home. The mailer also says a future strong mayor could earn $300,000 for a part time job and “choose his successor, even if he is sent to jail.”
Read related: Carlos Gimenez is raising funds for his PAC again — but for who or what?
But the really bizarre thing here — unprecedented, in fact — is that Gimenez is doing this at all. Why raise money from his donors to fight a separate government’s initiative? Is he doing it to muddy Suarez for a mayoral challenge in 2021? Is he helping his new BFF, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, whose lawsuit challenging the ballot question was dismissed in a flurry of insults about the lack of legal merits?
In other words, what is it that compelled Gimenez to dust his PAC off after two years and raise $67,000 to oppose something he has for himself?
And what, maybe more importantly, has the mayor promised these contributors in exchange for their donation to his PAC? After all, he is not raising this money as a private citizen. This isn’t a gofundme account. It’s his political action committee. Do the donors know they are financing the opposition of the strong mayor referendum?
Read related: Hypocrite Carlos Gimenez knocks Miami strong mayor, petition pay
If so, they may have an interest at stake. If not, they may be expecting something back from Gimenez. So let’s follow the money:
The biggest contribution in recent weeks to Miami Dade Residents First is $15,000 from Urban-X Development, a Coral Gables firm that wants to build the $425-million River Landing Shops and Residences on 8.14 acres in the 1400 block of NW North River Drive, with anywhere between 475 and 530 apartments, 345,000 or so square feet of retail and restaurants, 2,200 parking spaces and a riverfront park and promenade.
Critics say that it is one of the best examples of gentrification in the city. Do they have any more asks? How about from the county?
The smallest contribution was $2,500 from Felix Lasarte, a lobbyist working for the American Dream Mall developers, who we know still have a lot to negotiate at the county.
Another $10,000 a piece came from Coral Gables attorney Rodolfo Nuñez and Chicago-based Trilogy Real Estate, which is one of the partners in the $220 million Concours Club, a members-only race course, clubhouse and restaurant with flight simulators and aviation services such as plane chartering, sales and management on 80 acres at Opa-Locka Airport, on land leased from the Miami-Dade Aviation Department.
Read related: Carlos Gimenez has new role as rainmaker — soliciting for 10 PACs
Another $5,000 a piece came from the Fisher Island developers who we first wrote about last month, the very first contribution since November 2016 — and from Dermar Management, owned by Dale and Mary Ann Robinson, and two other political action committees — Alliance for a Better Community, which has supported Commissioner Jean Monestime in the past, and We The People, which belongs to Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz.
So does that mean that Diaz and Monestime are also opposed to the strong mayor initiative in the city of Miami?
Another $4,000 came from Javier Viso, who is the IT director at Airport Concessions Group.
Another $3,000 a piece came from Airport Concessions Group’s Director Antonio Robles and Esquire Properties, a company owned by Christopher Descalzo, a partner in the group that runs the Versailles and La Carreta concessions at the airport.
Wait. Does anybody else see a pattern developing here? Is there an airport concession vote coming up soon?
These are only the campaign donations through October 19. And if Gimenez keeps at it at the same pace, he could raise more than $100,000 from airport concession interests to fight Suarez and his strong mayor move.
What is Gimenez giving them in return?

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Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has come up with a genius solution to the county’s massive traffic gridlock and mass transit problems: Cars that fly.
Ladra is not kidding. Gimenez wants to be George Jetson.
We don’t have money to expand rail, which is what was promised to the people with the half-penny tax increase in 2002. Not even for one extension south or north up to Broward. Not even for a light rail across the bay to Miami Beach.
But we apparently can find the money to entertain thoughts of a public private partnership with Lilium, a German engineering startup that raised $90 million to build air taxis just last year and whose five-seat jets could be crossing our skies in as little as two years, according to the mayor’s vision.
Read related: Rumors persist of a new recall effort to oust Carlos Gimenez
You know, like those Amazon drone planes only bigger and carrying people. Don’t worry. They have parachutes! These electric-powered jets are safe because they have parachutes that discharge if there is any “in-flight failure” or collision.
“So you can just float down,” Gimenez told Miami Today. And, apparently, they took him seriously.
Gimenez has met twice already with representatives from Lilium, the last meeting taking place with executives Tuesday afternoon.
“It’s definitely cutting edge, so I’m interested,” the mayor told Miami Today after the first meeting earlier this month, because you know how he loves shiny new stuff. “We have an interesting place to try out the new concept. We want to be the city of the future.”
Is that why you are buying so many buses?
Read related: Termed out Mayor Carlos Gimenez gives self undeserved 70% pay raise
Not that this isn’t something that Ladra is happy to welcome into our world, like jetpacks and hologram TV. It’s kinda awesome. It’s just not a transit solution.
The five-seat jet can go 186 miles in an hour. Except there doesn’t need to be five people for a trip that, for now, would start and end at one of the county’s four airports — MIA, Opa-Locka, Miami Executive (formerly known as Kendall-Tamiami) and Homestead. Eventually, there will be ports built elsewhere. The developer of Paramount WorldCenter Miami designed a skyport atop the 60-story building for future air taxis.
And certainly it won’t come cheap. Think Uber Super X.
How does this do anything to take care of the massive gridlock most of us face daily? Answer: It doesn’t. But Gimenez isn’t concerned with that. This air taxi idea seems like a quicker turnaround and he is all about immediate gratification.
And shiny things.
Read related: Add another son to Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s lobbying clan
And immediate graft? Ladra tried to find out who the lobbyist was for Lilium and couldn’t find anyone in the county lobbyist registrations going back to the beginning of the year. But maybe it’s early. Maybe that’s next as they meet with commissioners.
It’s too bad that Gimenez can’t get excited about finding ways to make a public private partnership for rail happen because that is what the people were promised and that is what the people want.
Nothing, not even flying cars, will be an acceptable alternative.

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It’s good to be the king.
We’re used to the mayor coming in late some mornings or taking off early to play nine holes of golf at The Biltmore Hotel. But on Friday, while the rest of us were trying to finish our work week, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez ducked out early to stump for Ron DeSantis in Hialeah.
Guess all that talk about switching parties and supporting Hillary Clinton two years ago was pandering for his own Democrat votes.
Gimenez was one of several mayors at a “mayors endorsement” event Friday for the Republican gubernatorial candidate and his running mate, that State Rep. Jeanette Nunez tweeted about that morning: “Join Miami Mayors, @RonDeSantisFL and I at Chico’s Restaurant at 3:00pm. We look forward to sharing exciting news!”
But the only other mayor with him at Chico’s was Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez.
Oh, there were plenty of other electeds: County commissioners Jose “Pepe” Diaz and Esteban “Stevie” Bovo, a one-time Hialeah city councilman, along with current council members Lourdes Lozano, Katherine Cue and Pablo “Pablitiquito” Hernandez as well as Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, State Rep. Manny Diaz Jr., who is running for senate, and former Miami Lakes councilman Frank Mingo, who is running for state rep. Diaz and Mingo are the two with the similar facial landscape.
The event started at 3 p.m. On a Friday. In Hialeah. On 12th Avenue in Hialeah. Knowing Miami-Dade’s traffic and the trouble one can have finding a space in Chico’s parking lot, Gimenez must have left County Hall by 2 p.m. at the latest.
Mayoral mouthpiece Myriam Marquez said it wasn’t on his daily calendar because it was not an official county event.
“Our communications office does not handle political campaign events or scheduling,” Marquez replied when asked why the event was not on the mayor’s official calendar. “He handles personal outings — that do not have public duties involving the county — independently.”
Too bad he has to do it on our dime and can’t do it on his own time independently.

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Last June, when Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez went on vacation, he designated his authority to Deputy Mayor Jack Osterholt.
When he went to Asia for two weeks from March 13 through the 28th this year and when he went to Israel for a week in November 2017, Gimenez also delegated all his “delegable authority” to Osterholt.
When he attended the Socrata Summit in Washington D.C. and to meet with Dell in Austin in October of 2015, he put then Deputy Mayor Alina Hudak in charge.
When Gimenez went to China in September 2015, he delegated to Deputy Mayor Ed Marquez. Poor Deputy Mayor Russell Benford only gets a Saturday here and there, like a dog gets a bone.
Even when he is gone for a day or an afternoon, Gimenez will delegate his duties and authority to someone of  his choosing to act as a temporary boss in his absence. Our globe-trotting county mayor names his own replacement — someone who was not elected — whether he is off with his wife or traveling with lobbying buddies, playing golf around the world or taking the afternoon off for a secret off-the-books meeting.
In fact, Gimenez has designated someone to be the de facto acting mayor more than two dozen times since 2015, which is as far back as one can search correspondence on the mayor’s website, using keywords “out of office.” There are likely more than we even thought. Ladra sent a public records request asking for them Monday, but we were still waiting for the complete list Friday.
So it makes him at best selfish and at worst a hypocrite when he claims that part of the issue he has with the strong mayor referendum in Miami is that the strong mayor would be able to name a successor who would temporarily step in should the mayor resign or be removed from office.
Yet, that is precisely one of the issues he has, Gimenez told Humberto Cortina Friday on Radio Mambi, where he got a free hour — maybe it was free because you know how Spanish-language radio is — to trash the referendum.
He wants to be the only strong mayor in town.
Read related: Mayor Carlos Gimenez clan involved in Joe Carollo lawsuit vs strong mayor
Gimenez says all this with a straight face, like he’s not grooming Commission Chairman Esteban Bovo to be his hand-picked heir so that he still has a hand in operations (read: procurement) and his friends and family plan can stay pretty much intact.
And the mayor, who was ushered in post recall, wants to make sure he is not recalled himself too easily, which is why he also told listeners to vote for the county referendum that prohibits paying petition gatherers per signature. Good enough to recall former mayor Carlos Alvarez, to make room for Gimenez, but not good enough for him now.
There is not one single amendment or referendum question that the mayor campaigns for or against because it is the right or wrong thing to do. It’s all about self interest. Or self preservation.
Gimenez also spoke against state amendment 3, putting gambling in the hands of voters — because then his lobbying sons don’t have as many opportunities — and state amendment 10, which would give us an elected sheriff and supervisor of elections, because he doesn’t want his hand picked successor to lose that power that he’s been able to abuse so freely.
Read related: Elected Miami-Dade Sheriff, SOE could curb mayor’s abuse of power
But he only spent a total of five minutes on the other questions, focusing the hour-long interview on the strong mayor measure.
“This gives too much power to one person. Not Francis Suarez because we don’t know who comes behind Francis Suarez,” Gimenez said on Radio Mambi regarding the current mayor, who happens to be the son of his nemesis on the county commission. Francis Suarez being strong mayor would only help his father, Commissioner Xavier Suarez, if he were to run for top dog in the county, and Gimenez doesn’t want that.
Self interest.
Ladra may also believe that the Miami strong mayor measure should be rejected by voters because it gives too much power to one person. Gimenez is living proof.
But let’s not stop there. The strong mayor structure at the county should be eliminated — and that question should be on the next countywide ballot.

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A mailer landed in Miami mailboxes this week from Joe Carollo‘s electioneering communications organization, Miami First, telling voters that Mayor Xavier Suarez is being dishonest about the strong mayor referendum and asking them to say no and punch 383.
Ladra wasn’t surprised that it broke election law. ECOs, similar to a political action committees but with different rules, can refer to a candidate or issue only “without expressly advocating the election or defeat.” Seems that “say no to” and adding the punch number advocates defeat.
Read related: Mayor Carlos Gimenez clan involved in Joe Carollo lawsuit vs strong mayor
But it’s no surprise, first, because it’s Joe Carollo, who cares very little about those technicalities and, second, because his alleged mailer consultant is Tania Cruz, the daughter-in-law of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who is relatively new at this.
Yet, for someone who makes stupid mistakes, the girl is already banking, getting more than half of the $188,130 spent by Miami First, with $101,585 for consulting and mailers. Add that to the $60K the wife of lobbyist mayoral son CJ Gimenez got from the campaign account, first reported on Political Cortadito last month, and it’s a total of $161,000 so far from Carollo to Cruz. Which, yeah, sure, she may have to split with former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who seems to have taught her a thing or two, but it’s still a good amount.
Read related: Joe Carollo files late campaign report with $60K to mayor’s daughter in law 
And she ain’t the only one in her family on Carollo’s payroll. Barby Rodriguez Gimenez, the other daughter-in-law married to the bad boy son, got paid $14,269 for “consulting” also. If you add it all up, the Gimenez clan has been paid at least $175,000 by Carollo since last year.
It breaks down like this:

$10,000 for Barby Rodriguez on Jan. 10 for consulting
$37,384.05 to Tania Cruz on Nov. 18 for consulting
$15,758.52 to Tania Cruz on Nov. 11 for consulting
$17,641.80 to Tania Cruz on Oct. 25 for mailers
$17,641.80 to Tania Cruz on Oct. 21 for mailers
$13,159.30 to Tania Cruz on Oct. 7, 2017 for mailers
$4,269 to Barby Rodriguez on Sept. 27, 2017 for consulting

Cruz also got bank from the Ultra Music Festival organizers, who hired her as a lobbyist so they could get a meeting with Carollo, who ended up stabbing them in the back, maybe so he could do CJ a favor.
Read related: Ultra out for Formula 1 could be Joe Carollo nod to CJ Gimenez
But don’t worry. This hasn’t been a one way street. The cash flowed the other way when Gimenez paid Carollo $6,000 a month for years through his PAC. We never knew what that was for. Maybe he was sewing the seeds for this.
And you know there’s more coming. These figures are just through the last campaign report, which counts through Oct. 12. Miami First hasn’t shown any activity from May, when it collected $48,000 from development interests on two separate days. The last expenditure was to La Rue Management for $3,000 worth of more consulting.
We have to wait until the 19th to see next one with this mailer’s expenses on it.
And to see how much more the mayor’s daughter-in-law gets paid.

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