When Coral Gables City Manager Amos Rojas took the job last year amid the controversy after the firing of Peter Iglesias, he said he would only want to do it for a year.
Time’s up.
Rojas sent a note to his staff shortly after 10 a.m. Thursday explaining that he would resign, effective Feb. 28.
“Dear Coral Gables Team Members,
On February 27, 2024, I had the privilege of being appointed as your City Manager. At that time, I made a commitment to remain with the city for one year. As the one-year mark approaches it is with a mix of pride and a heavy heart that I announce my decision to step down effective February 28, 2025. My tenure, though brief, will forever remain one of the highlights of my career. I will be stepping back into retirement and am looking forward to spending more time with my family.
Over the past year, I have been privileged to work alongside a remarkable team of dedicated public servants whose expertise, and passion are the foundation of our city’s success. Of all that we have achieved, I am proudest of the team we have built—a group of individuals whose commitment to excellence embodies the innovative spirit of Coral Gables. I have gained a greater understanding and respect for the work of municipal officials.
This decision was not an easy one but after much thought and reflection, I am confident it is the right step for me and my family. While my time here is ending, my belief in the future of Coral Gables remains steadfast.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have served the City Beautiful and to have played a small part in its continued growth and success. Thanks to all our team members for your support, collaboration, and dedication.
With Gratitude,
Amos”
Sources say that Rojas has suggested Assistant City Manager Albert Parjus step in as his replacement. But Ladra fully expects Mayor Vince Lago to, again, recommend an expensive national search.
It hasn’t been an easy year for Rojas, who has had to battle with the mayor since Day 1. Lago, who was also against the firing of Iglesias, did not agree with his appointment and continued to disparage him as unqualified throughout the entire year.
Read related: Coral Gables skips search, hires new city manager Amos Rojas on the spot
To be sure, the appointment wasn’t ideal. The commission named Rojas, a former U.S. Marshal and special agent at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, on the spot at a regular commission meeting, leading some to speculate that the Sunshine Law was violated. But that isn’t necessarily true. Just a symptom of the commission dynamics.
Commissioner Ariel Fernandez nominated Rojas — who he said approached him about the job — and Commissioners Melissa Castro and Kirk Menendez, who were both sick of the mayor’s theatrical antics, might have just felt it was a good fit. It was also after a previous attempt to name Miami International Airport Director Ralph Cutié was sabotaged by Mayor Lago. The three commissioners who voted for Rojas felt his law enforcement background would help with the corruption and favoritism that they felt was enveloping the city.
Did he do that? Ladra doesn’t think so.

Lago never accepted Rojas, criticized him every chance he got, and there was even a near scuffle in a conference room that was investigated by police. No cause for criminal charges were found, but that’s only because both Rojas and Parjus said that they didn’t really think the mayor was going to hit the manager, after all. I mean, who would?
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago attacs colleagues, manager in citywide email
While L’Ego — who looked last year like he was using steroids — did throw off his jacket, throw it on the floor, roll up his sleeves and got into a fighting stance, investigators could not make a case that an actual threat had taken place.
But we never got a clear explanation of what the fight was about. Sources say it was about an Art in Public Places project that the mayor wanted to get approved without going through the right process.
The post Coral Gables City Manager Amos Rojas resigns, leaves next month after one year appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story

There are two new candidates for commission in the Coral Gales election this April.
It didn’t take long for someone to file to run in Group 3 after Kirk Menendez decided last week to run for mayor instead for someone to take his place. Attorney Tom Wells, who is Menendez’s appointment to the city’s charter review committee, filed Friday for the seat and will run against attorney Richard Lara, who is the mayor’s hand picked puppet.
Attorney Laureano Cancio (no relation to former Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Cancio) also filed Friday to run against Commissioner and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, who is also an attorney and a Lago puppet.
So this April’s election may be a referendum on Vince Lago.
Wells, a Gables resident for more than 30 years, has raised two daughters in the City Beautiful with his wife Diane and is an active member of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, serving as senior warden and on the vestry. He is a member of the Coral Gables Country Club, as well.
A North Gables resident, he fought to keep Burger Bob’s and then became active in the push to reopen Burger Bob’s and then the opening of it’s new reincarnation as the Birdie Bistro — which opened last month. He assists in restaurant operations on the weekends, like serving ice cream to people who recently attended the 76th Annual Junior Orange Bowl Parade. He also advocated for the renewal of the Fritz & Franz lease earlier this year.
Wells often speaks at commission meetings. He supported the ouster of former City Manager Peter Iglesias and opposed changing the election to November and the proposed 2% tax cut last year because it could affect services for a tiny savings to residents.
He said at a town hall organized by Commissioner Melissa Castro that the big winners would be the large developers. Houston-based owners of Gables Station would get a $29,408 savings while Wells’ own taxes would fall by only $94. “Why are we giving these foreign companies a tax cut that’s going to hurt our services?” He called it “a $2.65 million giveaway.”
Read related: Town hall on tiny tax cut in Coral Gables shows residents don’t want it
This pretty much aligns him with the positions of Castro, Menendez and Commissioner Ariel Fernandez, and against Mayor Vince Lago, who has been gas-lighting the commission in an egocentric battle since his two hand-picked candidates lost in the last commission race (read: referendum on Lago) two years ago. Lake Sour Grapes.
“It’s so toxic. It’s so personal,” Wells, 52, told Political Cortadito about the current state of affairs on the commission. “I think I can help restore civility in Coral Gables at City Hall.”

 
To that end, he called Lara — who announced his candidacy during public comments at a commission meeting — on Saturday, the day after he filed. “I said, ‘Let’s try to keep it clean,’” Wells told Ladra. “It’s not going to make or break either of us. It’s not going to define our lives.”
Still, he’s been hazed before at military school so he’s not scared of what may come.
He already has a website and says he won’t be doing a lot of fundraising. He expects to loan himself about $20,000 and will do a grassroots campaign. “We’re not in this to curry favors,” Wells said. “We just want people to vote and put signs in their yards.”
Cancio is a Pedro Pan kid, coming from Cuba in the Peter Pan flights for unaccompanied minor children. He grew up in Coral Gables, went to school in New York then returned 35 years ago. He went back to run the New York Marathon with his daughter, Olivia, in 2017. He lost 45 pounds training for the 26.2-mile race and was featured in the New York Post. The 74-year-old has since run three miles almost every day.
This is one of the reasons traffic is going to be one of his main issues. He sees the near collisions on his daily run and even has been close to being run over, he said. The other issues he will focus on are controlling over development — he became involved when his neighbors and he opposed a large development across from the Plaza proposed two years ago — and education. With all the new condos being built and families moving in, Cancio thinks public school options are too limited and wants to explore having the city run its own school system.
Read related: Kirk Menendez runs for Coral Gables mayor against city bully Vince Lago
He realizes that he will be running against Anderson, who  “is tied to Lago and has supported Lago in everything he’s done,” but also Lago, who is going to do whatever he can to keep his only mostly-guaranteed vote on the dais (that is, if he can pull any energy from his own campaign against challenger Menendez).
“I’m 74-years-old. I feel fine. I have an obligation to, at some point in my life, give back to my community. And I don’t like what’s going on in Coral Gables,” he said. “I’m not going to lose my job. Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m in the enviable position of having the ability to do this.”
He’s no fan of Lago’s, who he calls a “pompous ass” who “doesn’t know what he’s doing.” He said the mayor met with him and his neighbors two years ago when they were fighting the development. “The mayor is the most obnoxious mayor I’ve ever run across,” Cancio told Political Cortadito. “He was going to call the chief of police and have some of the residents arrested!”
Anderson hasn’t done much fundraising yet, with only $4,100 in her campaign account, according to campaign finance records at the city clerk’s office. Lara, the Lago plant, has raised $61,600, but only 3,000 since June, which could show a lack of true community support.
Ladra fully expects there to be more candidates very soon.
There will be thorough, ongoing coverage of the April election. To support Political Cortadito’s efforts on this beat, please consider making a donation to grassroots, government watchdog reporting. Thank you.
The post Two more candidates file for Coral Gables commission race in April appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story

Now it’s getting interesting.
Coral Gables Commissioner Kirk Menendez filed paperwork Wednesday to run for mayor against incumbent Vince Lago, the egomaniac that he’s been battling for the last 20 months on the dais, setting the City Beautiful voters up for a gut-wrenching, nasty election. Menendez knows that Lago, who has raised and spent at least $1.4 million through his political action committee, is going to get ugly. Or uglier, as it were.
But he’s had it.
“I gave him every chance to mend fences and bring our community together,” Menendez told Political Cortadito about his decision to challenge the Lago. “But as time went by, I lost hope that he could redeem himself.”
Menendez, who won his first commission race in 2021 in a field of five, was going to run for re-election against a Lago recruited and backed candidate named Richard Lara, a big shot attorney for a radio giant who is likely to run against someone else now for the open seat. Las malas lenguas say Felix Pardo is considering. Coach Kirk, as Menendez is familiarly known, shifted his attention to the mayoral seat Wednesday. He promised to “bring civility, stability, and selfless leadership in a continued commitment to prioritizing the voices of residents.
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago gets shut down, censured by 3 he disparaged
“As we celebrate our centennial, the future of Coral Gables is as bright as it has ever been. I remain steadfast in my commitment to the values and ideals that define our Coral Gables community,” Menendez said in a statement. “This is an exciting time for our residents, as our City Beautiful embarks on its journey into the next 100 years. I ask for your support, so that together, we can preserve and protect the way of life that makes Coral Gables so special.”

Menendez is also known as Mr. Coral Gables because of his longtime community activism, including a stint as chairman of the city’s parks and recreation advisory board, and deep roots in the City Beautiful. He volunteers at St. Theresa School, Church of the Little Flower, Knights of Columbus and the Gift Meal Project. He grew up at the Youth Center before it was the “War Memorial Youth Center” and later became a beloved soccer coach. He is currently president of the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center Association.
These credentials will serve him well against Lago, who may be better funded but is quickly losing support among voters because of his political attacks and constant complaining on the dais. The mayor has taken sour grapes to a whole new level. That might be why his fundraising has slowed down dramatically, raising less than $10,000 for both his PAC and his campaign account (which has $169K total) since June. According to the most recent campaign finance reports, Lago’s PAC, Coral Gables First, has about $110,00 left from its $1.5 million total raised.
It may not really matter. As evidenced by the last election, where Commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez beat the mayor’s handpicked candidates — which were better financed — Gables voters are not easily bought. Menendez himself beat the better funded candidate backed by Lago in 2021. These local elections are driven more by the issues dividing the community — development, traffic, annexation. This year, we’ll add the hostility at City Hall, where the mayor — who almost got into fisticuffs with the city manager in a conference room earlier this year — has made multiple public records requests through real or imaginary proxies in vendetta battles with the three commissioner who don’t carry his water.
Read related: Vince Lago tries to sneak election date change into strategic plan via committee
Lago has already used his PAC money to go after Castro, Fernandez and Menendez. His camp sends regular text messages to Gables voters questioning his colleagues’ motives and calling them incompetent. Sour, sour grapes.
He’s also spent some of his political capital on a failed petition effort to put three referendum questions on the Gables ballot, one of which would move the election from April to November. He realized, after the last election, that hardcore Gables super voters are harder to fool than the general election voters who show up for presidential or state races and pay no attention to micro local politics.
Lago has been poison on and off the dais. On the dais, he is the master of gas lighting, accusing the three commissioners who have butt heads with him of creating political drama when it is he who turns everything into a fight. Off the dais, he’s gone on radio and television programs to disparaged his colleagues and their family members. Last October, Menendez moved to censure the mayor during a commission meeting. He got the censure approved 3-2, with only Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson — the mayor’s only ally who has recently shown signs of wavering — voting against the censure.
In April, let’s see if Menendez can get voters to censure Lago.
It’s going to be interesting.
The post Kirk Menendez runs for Coral Gables mayor against city bully Vince Lago appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story

It’s not often we see residents beg their elected leaders not to cut taxes. But in Coral Gables this year, it’s a resounding cry. Nobody wants the city to increase taxes, but one after the other, residents who spoke at a town hall on Tuesday said they would rather keep the taxes the same than lose services.

Mayor Vince Lago — who did not attend the town hall — has proposed a 2% millage or tax rate cut that would cut about $2.6 million from the city budget. Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson — who did attend the town hall and sorta tried to sabotage it, but failed miserably — is supporting him.

Read Full Story

The Coral Gables commission on Tuesday will consider putting a question on the ballot to establish an Inspector General in the city. The resolution on the meeting agenda is sponsored by Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and co-sponsored by Mayor Vince Lago.

But wasn’t this already decided? Yes.

Read Full Story

(This is a translation of this story published days ago.)

El Departamento de Elecciones de Miami-Dade ha rechazado cerca de 13.000 peticiones (o una abrumadora mayoría de ellas) recopiladas por el grupo Accountable Coral Gables para incluir tres preguntas en la boleta electoral en Coral Gables este noviembre.

Read Full Story