Please forgive me if you were at the Coral Gables Chamber’s candidate forum on Thursday and you heard Ladra snoring in the back row. Thank you, Chamber president Mark Trowbridge for the invite, but it was not worth risking COVID to be there live. I should have watched it on Zoom.

Even Mayra Joli, the nodding lady from the Trump town hall, was kind of toned down. ¿Que le pasó?

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The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office is looking into three mystery mailers attacking former Coral Gables Commissioner Ralph Cabrera in Coral Gables and attributed to a political action committee that has said it isn’t involved.
Attorney and activist Jack Thompson sent the SAO an email with a link to an earlier Political Cortadito post about the first mailer, which said it was paid for and sent by Leadership for Florida’s Future. But a woman at the Jensen Beach PAC said it wasn’t them.
“Please review this news story and then open a criminal investigation,” wrote Thompson in a March 26 email with the subject “illegal campaign activity.”
Read related: PAC says it did not send hit piece on Ralph Cabrera — so who did?
Since then, two more mailers have come out with the same dark colors and bold letters warning voters about Cabrera’s ethics and ties to developers. Ladra sent the images to the SAO’s office on Friday and was told it would be forwarded to the right unit.
In the meantime, it’s hard to tell if it’s had any impact. Coral Gables voters don’t respond well to hit pieces and they’ve known Cabrera for decades. He was their commissioner for 12 years and has run for office almost since then. Those who support him are likely not swayed. And those who don’t might not fall for these mailers, which are awfully vague and short on attribution. In other words, they stink of smear.
The piece about the ethics quotes the actual complaint from former Mayor Jim Cason, an empty suit rubber stamper who Cabrera challenged twice, and not the findings from the close-out memo, which found he did nothing wrong. Shoot! You can say anything in a complaint. In fact, many campaigns now file complaints on purpose so they can quote them without having any basis.
A third piece landed last week insinuating that because Cabrera has taken developer money, he is in their pocket. Cabrera’s campaign has accepted some development money, notably $7,000 from Armando Codina, who is developing a 16-story luxury residential building on Salzedo, and Agave LLC, which is developing The Plaza, what used to be Old Spanish Village.
But what is Ralph supposed to do? Decline the money he needs to fight off the negative attacks that we knew were coming anyway?  He said these people came unsolicited to him. And it’s only a tiny fraction of Cabrera’s campaign funds that are tied to development.
He also has lots of residents, doctors, lawyers, plumbers. He has $1,000 from Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, $500 from former Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas and $300 from Gonzalo Sanabria, a Gables rabblerouser who was originally supporting another candidate.
Read related: Ralph Cabrera set to enter runoff with campaign cash advantage
Cabrera is not gonna be beholden to any of them anyway. Anybody who knows him knows he doesn’t owe favors. Even with his friends. Which is one of the things voters should like about him.
“Let’s stop Cabrera and his say one thing, do another agenda,” one piece says. But if there’s one thing that people know about Ralph is that he says what he means and means what he says, which is why some people don’t like him. There is no hidden agenda with Cabrera. His agenda is right there on his sleeve. He will talk ad nauseam about it and it usually has to do with improving city services or public safety. His sometimes self-depricating, brutal honesty is off putting because he won’t go along to get along. That’s another reason some people don’t like him.
In fact, the only thing these mailers prove is that someone is really worried about Cabrera. Perhaps he can win outright on Tuesday and avoid a runoff.
And even though they won’t have the answer before the election, the State Attorney should still find out is who is paying for these mystery mailers. If it’s not Leadership for Florida’s Future, it could be anybody.
It could be illegal foreign money, like in the Miami Beach case that derailed State Rep. Michael Grieco‘s mayoral race. If the Kathy Fernandez-Rundle investigates that and not this, then it looks like it was a personal grudge against a former prosecutor.
It could be the Eighth Street hotels that rent by the hour, including one in the Little Gables annexation area.
It could be the Russians.
Except the only ones who benefit from hurting Cabrera are the other candidates in the commission race. So, that means one of them is attacking Ralph with lies and innuendo using soft money from who knows where.
Read related: Ralph Cabrera’s commission race advantage: Others are unelectable
Only candidate Jorge L. Fors has ties to the PAC through his campaign manager, Steve Marin (right), who was paid at least $63,000 last year by Leadership for what he said was work on some state races. Political observers have also noted that the size of the mailers, the fonts used and the design seem similar to Marin’s. Campaign consultants often have signature looks to their materials.
But Marin told Ladra they were not his and that he would not hide behind a PAC to send mailers from his camp.
And his history with the Jensen Beach PAC could be the very reason that former interim city manager and current candidate Carmen Olazabal and her people may have chosen Leadership for Florida’s Future, to throw the scent off themselves. She has proven to be sneaky before.
Jackson “Rip” Holmes doesn’t have the money, political experience, guidance or, frankly, attention span to pull this off.
So it has to be either Olazabal or Fors, or someone in their circles, which is another reason to vote for Ralph Cabrera, who hasn’t used any of his campaign money — development or otherwise — to pay for a single negative hit piece.

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The Florida Bar has opened an investigation into the homestead exemption fraud by Coral Gables candidate Jorge Fors, an attorney and former president of the Coral Gables Bar Association.
After receiving a complaint from activist resident Jack Thompson, Bar Counsel Richard Coombs responded that they would look into the illegal homestead exemptions Fors claimed for years on a Little Havana condo he did not live in.
“Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention,” Coombs wrote Thompson on April 3. “The Florida Bar has opened up a case as the complainant and will investigate this matter.”
Thompson’s complaint is closed, Coombs said, because The Florida Bar filed its very own complaint. That seems interesting.
Read related: Coral Gables candidate Jorge Fors had illegal homestead exemption
Fors owns a 2-bedroom, 2-bath condo at 1039 SW 5th Street in Miami and said he lived there for a few months before he left to college in Gainesville. He never lived there again and, in fact, voted in the city of Coral Gables — his voter’s registration was at his parents’ house — in 2013, 2015 and 2017. Those same years, however, he still had the homestead exemption on 5th Street.
His illegal homestead exemptions were first discovered by Ladra and exposed earlier this year.
But in January, after he filed to run for office and after Ladra started sniffing around — las malas lenguas say he was tipped off — Fors paid the county a total of $13,178.37 all at once for back taxes he got out of on the condo as well as interest and penalties for the years 2010 through 2017. Why not 2018?
But all of a sudden, it seems, he had an urgent need to pay that? Or is it because he is running for office and he knew it would come up that he tried to cheat taxpayers out of his fair share?
In fact, Fors decided not to tell me about the one-time lump sum payment he made back to the taxpayers he cheated when he and Ladra spoke on the phone about it a month later. Rather than say he had taken care of it, he stuck to the defense that he was allowed to have the homestead exemption even if he didn’t live there because he didn’t have one someplace else.
If he believed that, why did he pay the penalty? And if he paid the penalty, why didn’t he just say so? Was it because that would be admitting to being a scoundrel who tried to get away with stealing thousands of dollars from taxpayers?
Would he still be doing it if he hadn’t run for office?
Questions that hopefully the Bar investigation will ask Fors. But we won’t know the outcome before Tuesday’s election.

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Maybe nobody had heard of him in Coral Gables before Jorge Fors, Jr., decided to run for city commission. But they may have heard of him at the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
The city commission candidate has gotten 31 traffic tickets in 18 years.
A 2008 photo from Jorge Fors’ Facebook page shows the open container charge in 2005 was not an isolated incident.
He was also arrested three times in his indiscriminate youth, although he may have been allowed to sign his “promise to appear.” One was for underage drinking in 2003 in Gainesville, another was for open container in 2005 — probably at a UF game — and a third for unauthorized possession of a driver’s license in 2003, which sounds like he probably had a fake ID found on him when Florida Highway Patrol stopped him for speeding in St. Lucie County on the same date. He got pre-trial diversion for the first two charges but nolle pros on the third.
Read related: Ralph Cabrera outraises opponents in 4-way commission race
Fors is running for the open seat vacated by a retiring Commissioner Frank Quesada against three other, better known candidates: Former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera, onetime city manager Carmen Olazabal, and downtown property owner Jackson “Rip” Holmes. It’s certainly not going to help Fors for more Gables voters to know that he has amassed 31 traffic tickets since 2000. And while, sure, many of them were in his more indiscriminate youth — eight are in 2002 when he was 19 — he had his license suspended in 2015. We know because he got a ticket for knowingly driving with his license suspended.
The most recent ticket is for running a red light in 2016.
Read related: Coral Gables candidate Jorge Fors had illegal Homestead exemption
Of course, Fors says that wasn’t him. That was his father, who has the same name. And, we supposed, Papi was driving his car, too? In any case, these came up under his name and date of birth, not his dad’s.
In fact, Fors (pictured on a motorcycle here from a vacation photo posted on Facebook) has an excuse for everything. This is the same guy who told Ladra that he had a right to claim Homestead exemption on a condo in Little Havana for at least eight years while he lived with his parents in Coral Gables. He said this after he already paid $14,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties for having claimed that exemption fraudulently. So he knew he had no right and still tried to excuse himself.
There are also three tickets for running red lights, three more for blowing through stop signs, three for speeding — one looks like speeding in a school zone — and at least one careless driving ticket. He had no excuses for those.
And for someone who drives like he does, he takes too many chances: Fors was also cited three times for not wearing his seat belt.
Read related: Coral Gables candidate Jorge Fors stirs annexation fears for votes
Fors would not return several calls and texts to his cellphone inquiring about the arrests. He ignored more than one text specifically asking about the arrests. This is his emailed defense, in its entirety, for his traffic history:

“As a young driver, I was cited for avoidable things like failing to have proof of insurance or registration, as well as some citations resulting from inexperience but, as a 35-year old father, I can promise you that I am a safe and responsible driver.
But have you analyzed the details of these citations?  I’ve only ever been found ‘guilty’ of three citations my entire life.
With regard to ‘speeding,’ I’ve only been stopped for  ‘speeding’ three (3) times in my entire life and I was only found guilty of actually speeding in the case of one ticket.  One being dismissed, and the other being withheld.  Keep in mind, the most recent one was almost 12 years ago, and before that 15 years ago.  I don’t think it’s fair to say that I have an issue with speeding.
With respect to red lights, it’s a similar situation.  There is only one (1) red light camera ticket in 2014 for which I was found guilty. I never received any notice in the mail about this one so I don’t know much about it.  I learned of it long after they entered the fine and the time to pay it expired — I tried to complain but eventually gave up and just paid it.  The 2013 and 2016 tickets were also red light cameras.  The 2016 one was not me, it was my father (same name). The one in 2013 was dismissed (I believe I showed that I was simply making a right turn on red), and one in 2010, over 8 years ago, was not a red light camera, and it was withheld.

Anyplace else, voters might shrug their shoulders. But this is Coral Gables, where some residential streets recently got 25MPH zone signs to slow traffic down. Two years ago, former Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick — who voted against the reduced speed limit because she said police just needed to enforce the 30MPH limit — lost the mayoral race by just 187 votes after Raul Valdes-Fauli painted her as a racecar-driving speed demon in attack mailers that may have worked.
Gables voters are not going to like this about Fors. No wonder the police union couldn’t give him their support (they endorsed Cabrera).
Following is a list of traffic citations for Jorge Fors, Jr., and dates issued as well as criminal arrests:

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There were completely polar opposite reactions to the performance of two commission candidates after the first Coral Gables candidate forum last week.
Former commissioner Ralph Cabrera, who spoke with authority and experience, got the endorsement of the Coral Gables Police union. Former interim city manager Carmen Olazabal lost a key supporter.
“I walked out and have withdrawn support or endorsement of candidate Carmen Olazabal as she surprisingly completely ignored extensive pre-debate prepping and public speaking training I and others undertook to enhance her showing and opportunity to impress the public,” wrote Gonzalo Sanabria on his Facebook page Friday, the morning after the Coral Gables Chamber forum.
“Please be aware I’ve retracted my endorsement and thanks to all of you in hopes you vote for the best candidate of your choice come next April.”
Read related: Commission candidate Carmen Olazabal can’t rewrite ugly past
While Ladra is glad Sanabria, a failed candidate himself, has seen the light, we can’t help but wonder what in the world made him think he was capable of prepping anyone?
And, also, if Olazabal needed “enhancement” then why support her in the first place? Would the enhancement continue into office?
It was a 180-degree difference when it came to the Fraternal Order of Police endorsement that Cabrera got Tuesday, which showed true confidence in a candidate.
“We appreciate your past service to the city of Coral Gables along with your current vision to keep the citizens safe and to address our ever-increasing traffic flow problems,” wrote President Javier Bruzos.
“The respect and caring with which you treat our residents, employees and the law enforcement community is an example for us all to follow,” Bruzos wrote. “The members of the Fraternal Order of Police are excited to have someone with your experience and understanding of what makes Coral Gables one of the best cities in the United States as our commissioner.”
Read related: Coral Gables candidate Jorge Fors had illegal Homestead exemption
There’s another candidate in the race, but Jorge Fors has been sliding back into the oblivion from which he came after it was disclosed on this very blog that he cheated the county through Homestead exemption fraud for at least eight years. He did pay a penalty in January for seven of those years, because he was running for office probably.
The next candidate forum in Coral Gables is on Thursday at the Coco Plum Woman’s Club, 1375 Sunset Drive. Doors open at 6 p.m.

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The Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce will host the first candidate forum Thursday evening on the University of Miami campus.
Four city commission candidates hoping to replace retiring Commissioner Frank Quesada will go first. They are: Ralph Cabrera, Jorge. L. Fors, Jackson “Rip” Holmes and Carmen Olazabal. They get a little more than an hour starting at 6 p.m.
The two mayoral candidates will present voters with a rematch from two years ago, when Raul Valdes-Fauli barely beat Jeannett Slesnick by fewer than 190 votes to squeak into the mayor’s seat. Those two will face-off about 7:15 p.m. The evening is set to end at 8 p.m.
But face-off may be the wrong term. Candidates have been told to be civil and not direct any questions or answers at each other, only speaking through the moderator with the audience. Each candidate will be given 90 seconds for an opening statement before answering questions prepared by UM political science professor Jennifer Connolly and her students over the past two weeks.
Read related: Rematch! Jeannett Slesnick will jump into Gables mayor’s race
“We will then transition into questions submitted on-line and by the audience,” Connolly said in an email to candidates, adding that 4×6 note cards will be made available to the audience. “Only I know what questions will be asked. No one, including the Chamber, knows of my choices.
“Insulting or slanderous remarks, heckling, or verbal outbursts during the program will not be tolerated – this includes booing and hissing, snapping or the like,” Connolly added. “Anyone exhibiting this type of behavior will be asked to leave by staff or UM security.”
Candidates were even sent a “Pledge of Positivity” swearing to uphold the most ambitious set of rules:
“I pledge to conduct my campaign in an honest and fair manner and to remain focused on the substantive issues important to the citizens and business leaders/owners of Coral Gables;
I pledge to run a positive political campaign and will not permit or condone any negative or defamatory attacks on my opponents’ personal character or reputation, in any advertisements or during any media appearance or campaign interview, or in any broadcast, print, digital, or internet formats;
I pledge to direct all my paid and unpaid volunteer campaign managers, consultants, ad developers, pollsters, workers and supporters to run and to participate in a positive political campaign;
I pledge to not attack or condemn my opponent’s personal character;
I pledge to not distort my opponent’s record or positions, take their voting records or positions out of context, or use or permit the use of any campaign material or advertisement that is misleading, misrepresents, distorts or otherwise falsifies the facts regarding my opponent or their record;
If third parties who support my candidacy for office, freely and independently choose to do negative campaigning, I pledge to publicly call on such individual or group whose activities violate this Positive Campaign Pledge to immediately cease and desist from such activities and to publicly repudiate their negative campaigning.
Ladra would like to see if Valdes-Fauli — who waged a nasty ethnic campaign two years ago and took Slesnick’s development votes out of context — signed that pledge.
Read related: Coral Gables mayoral race takes a nasty, ethnic turn
And is Chamber President Mark Trowbridge really the best person to keep time on the candidates? Given his past endorsements and, ahem, support of some candidates over others, it might be in the Chamber’s — and transparency’s — best interest to find someone else.
One might think that all this politeness and civility is going to make the forum boooooring. But there’s always the Rip factor.
Holmes is a colorful fella that doesn’t get much respect in election coverage because he never seems viable. But he can add entertainment value.
An active downtown property owner with an obsession about bringing a department store to Miracle Mile, he has some good ideas — like bringing those misting sprays in Disney World to downtown Coral Gables — and some crazy ones, like the theory that space aliens are somehow responsible for some of the worst terrorist attacks on America.
He could make things, um, interesting. Ladra hopes Dr. Connolly has a sense of humor.
The forum is from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Fieldhouse at UM, 1245 Dauer Drive, next to the Watsco Center. The Gables Chamber of Commerce is joined by five partner organizations in presenting the forum: The League of Women Voters of Miami-Dade, the Coral Gables Democratic Club, Gables Good Government Committee, Miami Young Republicans and the Cuban American Bar Association.
Most of the people at this forum in the past have been friends and supporters of the candidates. In other words, people who are already decided. But it still provides a platform for the candidates to present their pitch.
There will be a second Q&A for candidates at the Congregational Church on March 14 hosted by the Coco Plum Woma’s Club and the Coral Gables Forum. As before, that one will be moderated by CBS4 News anchor Elliott Rodriguez.
The election is April 9 but absentee ballots are out this week.

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