One incumbent already decided not to run for re-election. An activist and would-be challenger withdrew from another race within days. A former commissioner who resigned to run for Congress wants her seat back and a former State Rep wants to run for another.
Oh, and then there’s the candidate who can’t keep it in his pants.
The Miami Beach elections are nine months away and talk about un parto. It’s already so interesting it might just beat Miami and Hialeah this year in terms of sheer entertainment.
Oh, it’s boring on paper. Mayor Dan Gelber is running basically unopposed. He has a challenger, but Ladra is not certain Konstantine Gus Manessis — who only has sustainable growth on his website as an issue and nothing about who he is — can whip up either the political machinery or grassroots support he would need to beat Sy Gelber‘s boy. Ladra thinks he’s vulnerable to the right challenger and hopes someone turns up between now and qualifying deadline in September, if only because debates and choices are good for the community.
The only real race, according to documents filed with the city clerk’s office, is in Group IV, where three candidates have declared: Michael David Barrineau, Steven Jay Meiner and Rafael Velasquez. If the last name sounds familiar, it could be because he ran for office before.
Or it could be because he was accused of exposing himself to a city commissioner.
Velasquez was a commission candidate and a friend and supporter of Kristen Rosen Gonzalez — the former commissioner that might jump back in the fire — when he reportedly unzipped his pants and exposed himself to her. It happened in her car after a campaign brainstorming dinner with wine. He then ran to the state attorney’s office to say she made the whole thing up but no woman would believe KRG would intentionally want to be known for that over anything else. Oh, and then there are the two other women who came forward to describe uncomfortable language and body rubbing.
Read related: Bravo! Kristen Rosen Gonzalez says Rafael Velasquez ‘Weinsteined’ her
It will be great to see Rosen Gonzalez get back into action. She was forced to resign her seat last year in the middle of the campaign for Congress after the state legislature changed the rules precisely to try to keep District 27 red. Not just because she is a true public servant and a voice for some of the city’s disenfranchised, but also because either way it’s going to be, um, interesting: She could file in her old group, against the guy who exposed himself to her — and wouldn’t that make for some awkward debates. Or she could file against Ricky Arriola, who needs someone to challenge him now that activist Monica Matteo-Salinas withdrew mysteriously just three days after filing to challenge the incumbent.
Did Arriola threaten her? Matteo-Salinas was tremendously vague in her Facebook post:
“Last week I made the decision to launch my campaign for the Miami Beach Commission Group 5 race. This decision was in pursuit of my dream of running for elected office and serving the community I love so deeply. My hope in entering the race was to build a campaign built on integrity and a burning desire to help make Miami Beach the absolute best it can be.
That said, in one short week it has become abundantly clear to me that the timing is not quite right for me. Therefore, I am ending my candidacy for Miami Beach Commissioner effective immediately. While this is one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make, I know in my heart it is the right one.
Thank you so much for your understanding and support!”
Matteo-Salinas told Ladra it was “nothing nefarious,” but still wouldn’t go into details. “There are things I can discuss and things I won’t,” she said. A complete about-face from the day she filed when she said “I have a big mouth – and an even bigger brain. And I’m not afraid to use them!”
Read related: In Miami Beach, Ricky Arriola has a challenge — Monica Matteo-Salinas
Arriola becomes the only incumbent other than the mayor, now that Commissioner John Elizabeth Aleman announced she would not run for re-election. (Are the rumors of an investigation into pay for play true?) But that seat is not likely to draw a lot of names. That’s because former State Rep. David Richardson — a little less ambitious after losing the Congressional primary to Donna Shalala — is basically a shoe in. Whoever Blake Young is, Ladra thinks he or she just hasn’t heard about Richardson’s announcement.
Ladra has also heard that Adrian Gonzalez, a restauranteur who has run for office before, is thinking about throwing his hat in. And certainly more of the several dozen people who applied for the KRG vacancy not knowing the fix was in for Malakoff — anyone of them could run.
The qualifying deadline isn’t until all the way in September. So it could get even more interesting before then.

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There is a secret meeting in Miami Beach this afternoon at which the city manager’s contract will be discussed, as well as several other measures that include limiting residential input into government policy.
City Manager Jimmy Morales could come out of it with a raise and a five-year contract. Not right away, maybe. But once they know how the votes are going to go, a commission meeting is just a rubber stamp.
The Committee as a Whole meeting — coming three weeks after Morales asked for a five year extension and for the city commission to authorize the finance committee to negotiate a raise — is not a regular commission meeting. It is a more like a secret gathering. It is not in commission chambers. It is in the manager’s office conference room. It is not aired on television or streamed live online or even recorded. There is no public input.
If Commissioner Michael Góngora had not put it on Facebook, nobody would have known it was happening.
City commissioners got an emailed agenda from the mayor’s chief of staff Friday. “Below are the items to be discussed at Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole. Do you want to add anything,” Michelle Burger wrote, before adding the items:

City Manager Performance Evaluation
Ballot Questions / Resolutions
Best Practices for the Office of the Mayor & Commission
Eliminating the Commission Committee system and moving towards two (2) Commission meetings a month
Quarterly meetings for all boards and committees (except land use boards
Policies related to presentation and awards agenda

The last one seems pretty boring, but the rest certainly seem like they should be discussed at an open and public city commission meeting.
Particularly the manager’s evaluation, which was taken off the table by Mayor Dan Gelber last summer, when the commission evaluated the city attorney, Góngora said.
“I had inquired whether or not we were going to be evaluating the city manager and I was advised it would happen at a future date,” Góngora told Ladra, who said he was put off by fact that it came so much later on the heels of the request for a five year extension.
“Regardless of how you feel about the city manager’s performance, I’m unaware of us ever doing such a lengthy contract extension in the past,” Góngora said.
Gelber did not return a call for comment. Commissioners John Aleman, Micky Steinberg and Ricky Arriola did not return emails seeking comment Tuesday morning, although Arriola did have his aide call back and stress that the 2 p.m. meeting nobody knew about — with the seven commissioners, their staff, the city manager and his staff and the attorney and clerk and their staff in the manager’s conference room — is open to the public.
Commissioner Mark Samuelian said he was not concerned because nothing would be determined Tuesday without further discussion. “I’m under the impression there will be more than one discussion,” Samuelian said, adding that a salary increase would  go before the finance committee.
But when? Because also on the agenda for the secret meeting is a discussion about having all boards and committees meet quarterly instead of monthly or more regularly. This item would clearly get a lot of comment at a regular commission meeting.
“They are suggesting that the frequency of the meetings could be burdensome to city staff,” Samuelian said, adding that he wants to hear from staff about just how stressful it is and from his appointees to see what they think.
Góngora said he opposed the idea. “Those committees do a great job. Limiting them to once a quarter would stifle them and the hard work they do. It would severely impact citizen involvement,” he said.
There’s another questionable item about scrapping the committee structure within the commission and having all issues go before the full commission twice a month. These meetings are already 12 hours long sometimes, and this would likely make them longer. But it would also give the mayor more control.
No wonder he’s bringing these things up in secret.

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It looks like the fix was in after all.
Political observers in Miami Beach have been saying for weeks that Joy Malakoff had the inside track to be appointed interim commissioner, replacing former Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who was forced to resign mid-term to run for Congress. On Wednesday, Malakoff got it.
At first, it looked like there was going to be a standoff. Commissioners Michael Gongora, Mark Samuelian and Micky Steinberg chose former Commissioner Saul Gross from a final pool of 10 (from an original pool of 37). Mayor Dan Gelber and his two pocket commissioners, John Elizabeth Aleman and Ricky Arriola, voted, as predicted, for Malakoff.
Mayor Dan Gelber
Gelber went to take a second vote, but first he wanted to motivate his colleagues on the other side to switch, so he started talking about the expense of an election in April, which could be more than $600,000 with a runoff.
“So for those six meetings that person serves, it would cost $100,000 a meeting,” he said. Okay, now, “reconsider your choice.”
The message was clear.
After a second vote got the same result, Gelber suggested they could draw a name from a hat. But others did not want to relinquish their responsibility and after a short recess in which one can’t help but wonder if the Sunshine Law was violated, the came back and Steinberg — who was the weak link all along — was the first to cave. After that, they wanted to make it unanimous.
The truth is Malakoff should have been disqualified because of the sneaky way she tried, right after she left office for health reasons, to get a $50,000 city contract to promote passage of the G.O. Bond with voter outreach. What does she bring to the table anyway? Experience? Knowledge? That there’s no learning curve? If that’s the case, there were several other candidates that fit the bill without the baggage,  including Gross.
But then again, this wasn’t about replacing Rosen Gonzalez with the best possible interim commissioner until the November election, or even with someone who does not have this cloud of doubt over her head. This wasn’t about choosing someone to represent the will of the voters,  because then the commission would have just let Rosen Gonzalez serve out her term, as the voters intended. No. This was about representing a different will. This was about replacing her with someone that will vote the mayor’s way the next 10 months, plenty of months to do damage and spend a bunch of money.
Among the things that may come up is spending of the G.O. Bond that the Beach voters overwhelmingly approved last year even without Malakoff — or anybody else because the job did not exist — selling it. Now she gets her hands on those funds through the temporary commission gig.
A flyer, or “hit piece” on Malakoff that appeared at City Hall and tables at Puerto Sagua — where the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club meeting welcomed candidates for the vacancy Tuesday — urged commissioners to keep her away from those funds. “With Malakoff, corruption wins and the people lose,” it says.
There is no disclaimer as legally required on the piece, so nobody knows who paid for it. But a Miami Herald reporter posted a video of political consultant Randy Hilliard dropping some of them off at City Hall. Hilliard did not return a call or text message from Ladra. But most recently he worked on the 2015 campaign of David Wieder against then Mayor Philip Levine, and lost. Weider was one of the candidates who spoke Wednesday for the job.
But what is most important here is the fact that the way the commission split on this issue is the way it splits on most issues, and naming Malakoff interim is a way to get the Gelber faction a fourth vote on everything else. She will never vote against him. And he knows that.
That’s why Gelber is the biggest disappointment in this whole fiasco. The former prosecutor and state rep ran on a campaign of integrity and ethics. He had the opportunity to show that by taking the leadership step and changing his vote to Gross, who he said was his friend and entirely capable. An ethics stickler would try to avoid even the perception of wrongdoing.
But I guess that fourth vote is just too valuable.
We should watch every vote very closely for the next 10 months, since the mayor basically has carte blanche to do as he pleases now.

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The Miami Beach commission will appoint someone later this month to fill the seat of Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who was forced to resign when she ran for Congress by a Republican law aimed squarely at the Democrats in the race to replace U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
City commissioners should reject the GOP measure’s calculated retroactive effect and respect the voters’ wishes by appointing Rosen-Gonzalez for the remainder of her term.
And, naturally, they should reject the allegedly fixed appointment of former commissioner Joy Malakoff, who already tried to get back in the city’s employ with a $50,000-a-year job overseeing the general bond monies.
Is this a second swipe at putting her in control of those funds? Or is someone getting a guaranteed fourth vote on the commission?
Florida’s resign-to-run law only applied to state and local officials until last year, when the legislature approved a measure that would extend the limits to federal seats. This was, of course, after Ros-Lehtinen announced her retirement of a District that was expected to, and eventually did, go blue. So they made the law include candidates who were elected under the old law and many observers believe it was squarely aimed at Rosen Gonzalez, who was the only Dem who had announced by then.
That was unfair already. The Miami Beach city commission has the rare opportunity to right a wrong, and send a message to Tallahassee, by keeping Kristen where she belongs.
Read related: Kristen Rosen Gonzalez wins in Miami Beach race
She may have lost the Congressional race — nobody expected her to win against Donna Shalala, who was sworn in Thursday, same day that Rosen Gonzalez’s resignation became effective — the former commissioner is a good public servant who has said some stupid things and once trusted the wrong guy. Those episodes have gotten way too much attention from all the good she has done in only three years, much of that against a block of political opponents who worked against her.
Still, she was able to bring paternal leave to city employees, outlaw plastic straws and bags and proposed and passed a city law to protect hotel housekeepers from sexual harassment.
She brought the an energy home improvement program to Beach homeowners and the Common Threads program to teach teens about obesity and eating healthy. She got Bell Isle their park, brought affordable solar to the Beach and helped a condo association get the parking lot they needed.
She also championed the next generation of leaders, forming the Miami Beach Youth Commission and the Miami Beach Youth Job Fair. She brought free test preparation for high schoolers and free drug education for teens and their parents.
In between those things she helped hold the line on over development in mid beach, successfully lowered the density and height of many projects and had uncomfortable trolleys retrofitted for senior citizens.
Several active residents and homeowner association members want to see her appointed to serve out her term.
You might think this is a no brainer. Rosen Gonzalez was elected to a four-year term by voters and should be first on the list of potential appointees. But there’s one problem: She votes her conscience. She belongs to nobody.
There are at least two commissioners — Ricky Arriola and John Elizabeth Aleman — who would feel better with their old ally back and some say the fix is in with Mayor Dan Gelber on their side so he can have a fourth vote.
Read related: Ex Miami Beach elected Joy Malakoff got, then dropped juicy $50K city job
Mayor Dan Gelber
Gelber, who wants everyone to see him as a super Democrat and ran on an ethics campaign, should do the right thing and reject the GOP agenda by leading the charge to appoint Rosen Gonzalez to her seat. It would really be a signal to his independence from the former regime that some think he is beholden to. It would be the ethical thing to do. Especially after his role in the bonds job fiasco where he voted to waive the two-year waiting period to hire Malakoff, even after she donated to his campaign.
If Gelber votes for Malakoff again on Jan. 29, Miami Beach voters should ask why.
Appointments already stink because they raise the possibility of cronyism. With Malakoff it’s practically guaranteed cronyism. After all, she is not going to vote against the commissioners who bring her on.
It’s only one more year. If the mayor or anyone else wants someone other than Rosen Gonzalez in that seat, wait for the election, like the voters intended.

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Someone is at it again in Miami Beach — and everyone thinks it’s Michael Grieco.
A campaign mailer arrived in mailboxes last week telling voters about the sweet deal $50,000 job that former Commissioner Joy Malakoff had gotten offered to her by Mayor Dan Gelber. Except that there was no disclaimer on the anonymous piece. And Malakoff isn’t up for election.
But she isn’t the only one targeted in the piece, which quotes Political Cortadito and also has photos of Gelber and Micky Steinberg, who Malakoff gave campaign contributions to. The mayor seems to be the main target, repeatedly calling him unethical. “Did you actually think it would be different with Gelber? Ask Mayor Gelber to explain this unethical payoff attempt,” it reads on the front.
The back of the mailer takes a stab at a general bond referendum the city wants to put on the November ballot.
“…and Mayor Gelber wants us to approve more of our money for a general obligation bond with no specific information on projects and his political friends like Malakoff lurking in the shadows?”
Reated: Ex Miami Beach elected Joy Malakoff got, then dropped juicy $50K job
It also thanks Commissioners Michael Gongora and Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who not only voted against the palanca position but asked the questions that caused the whole community to raise a collective eyebrow and Malakoff to, eventually, back off and decline the offer. The piece doesn’t have any reference to Commissioners Ricky Arriola and John Elizabeth Aleman, photographed right, who also voted in favor of the Malakoff botella.
“I had absolutely nothing to do with it,” Grieco told Ladra over the weekend from Colorado where he’d been skiing. “I’m not in the business of spending my money in the off season. Why Malakoff? Why leave Ricky out of it if I think Ricky is a piece of shit?”
He has a point.
Grieco is an easy suspect because of the secret campaign cash scandal that saw him fall from the front runner position in the Miami Beach mayoral race to a defendant in an elections law case, accused of funneling money from a foreign citizen into a political action committee — that he said he had nothing to do with — through a third party. He resigned his commission seat and agreed to plead no contest — while simultaneously saying he knew nothing about it — and accepted a sentence of one year probation during which he can’t run for office. He also had to pay $6,000 restitution for the costs of the SAO and Miami Dade Ethics Commission investigations.
He was barred from running for office during his probation period, but that could be up in April (it often gets cut in half for first time offenders with “good behavior”). So might he run again? Hmmmm… there would be motivation if he wanted to ensure that Malakoff doesn’t get appointed, as widely rumored, to the seat that may be vacated by Rosen Gonzalez, who is running for Congress, because he has intentions to run again.
But (1) Malakoff’s chances at an appointment got blown when she went for that $50K post. Miami Beach doesn’t put up with that kind of shit. This ain’t Hialeah. And (2) Grieco, who has continued to be politically active on Facebook and posted a video of the Malakoff offer that got a lot of engagement, might be having too much fun as an outside agitator to go back into the fire.
“I’ve kind of enjoyed not being public property,” said Grieco, “I’ve enjoyed waking up in the morning without having 85 targets on my back.
“It’s been nice.”
You mean it was nice. Because he knows that everybody thinks he’s behind this. One of his former colleagues told him that 99% of the people on the street think it was him. Maybe just pure unadulterated revenge aided by his longtime political consultant David Custin? It really does look like Custin’s handiwork.
But the same people who think it could be Grieco wonder if it might be Rosen Gonzalez or Gongora — as if they were interchangeable. I am on Team Kristen all the way, even as a paid communications consultant, so I know for a fact it wasn’t her. She is an underdog with less money than every other candidate and all her funds are for communicating with CD 27 voters, okay? She also doesn’t need to pick any fights on the dais, where she is already alone most of the time.
Gongora said it wasn’t him either. “I got it in the mail,” he told Ladra on Sunday, adding that the thank yous were a “red herring” to make it look like they were involved.
“I certainly wouldn’t want my colleagues to think I spent time and money on this.”
Are there any other suspects?

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Last week, Dan Gelber became the mayor of Miami Beach. This week, he is using his new political platform to back former Miami Beach Commissioner Deede Weithorn‘s bid for state rep in District 113.
This is Gelber’s first endorsement since his victory Nov. 7, but with 82% of the vote, it probably won’t be his last. Ladra is certain that he’s already gotten calls from congressional candidates in District 27, which include Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez and State Rep. David Richardson, whose seat Weithorn is running for.
Gelber will also co-host a campaign kick-off event for Weithorn Wednesday at Meat Market on Lincoln Road.
Read related story: Miami Beach elections end as expected with Gelber, Gongora, Samuelian
“I have known Deede for years and she is uniquely qualified to represent our community in the State House,” said Gelber, who served in the legislature for a decade including as Democratic Leader of the House before he became a state senator.
“She has proven herself a wonderful steward of public dollars, which is something we need desperately in Tallahassee,” Gelber said. “And most importantly she is unafraid to stand up against the wrongheaded ideas that are often born in Tallahassee.”
The election is next November.
Read related story: Will La Gwen’s retreat cause more musical chairs?
Weithorn — who has been running for 113 since 2015 when Richardson was supposed to run for Gwen Margolis‘ senate seat but then didn’t because she didn’t retire — was equally effusive.
“Dan has a distinguished record of public service and I’m proud to call him my mayor,” she said. “It means a lot to me that he was willing to come out in support of my candidacy so soon after winning his own race.”
It certainly gives her kick-off some ooomph.
And Ladra is certain that Comeback Commissioner Michael Gongora will also endorse her — but he only won with 65% of the vote.

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