Coral Gables Vice Mayor Mike Mena is under fire for his vote last week to sell a city-owned parcel used as a surface parking lot near the Village of Merrick Park to his bosses in a no-bid secret deal that nobody knew was coming.
After all that hand-wringing and sweating over the Coral Gables commission election, much fewer voters will actually have made the decision when it comes Tuesday.
Already there are more than 2,500 fewer voters between vote-by-mail ballots and early voting than there was for the first round April 13.
Voters can take them to the early voting drop box
Coral Gables voters will start getting vote-by-mail or absentee ballots for the runoff election beginning on Tuesday, one week before Election Day.
The four candidates in the two Coral Gables city commission runoff races will be grilled Wednesday at the only debate before the April 27 election. It’s going to be as if they were in virtual court.
“Former U.S. Attorney Leon Kellner will use his prosecutorial skills to extract truthful answers,” reads an ominous email from the Coral Gables Neighbors Association. “This will be the first and only debate this election and we saved this tough-question format for the runoffs.”
With all the talk about racism in the recent Coral Gables election — a needed conversation on the heels of that terrible letter the new mayor signed opposing curriculum inclusive of marginalized communities at his daughters’ private school — nothing’s been said about other divisions that exist.
If many Gables residents aren’t outright racist — and that’s a big if, considering the city is the lone holdout on naming U.S. 1 Harriet Tubman Way — they sure are snobby. It’s not so much about black vs. white. It’s more about old Gables vs. new Gables. Cuban vs. Dominican. Private vs. public school.
They may have a new mayor already, but Coral Gables voters aren’t done picking the two commissioners who will serve alongside Vince Lago. Both commission races will have runoffs, as expected, on April 27.
The Group 2 race looks more lopsided and Jose Valdes-Fauli, brother of the current mayor, Raul Valdes-Fauli has a lot of work to do. Rhonda Anderson heads into the runoff with the momentum — and a 16-point lead over Valdes-Fauli, mostly fueled by her staunch anti-development stance.
