The Third District Court of Appeal hasn’t dropped its ruling yet on whether the City of Miami can just cancel its elections like a bad brunch reservation, but the smart money is on Emilio Gonzalez — the former city manager who sued to undo the shady ordinance that postponed this year’s mayoral race (and two commission contests) until 2026.
Gonzalez wants to run for mayor now, not next year. After all, he’s been campaigning for months. Last week, Miami-Dade Judge Valerie Manno Schurr agreed, ruling the city commission’s change of the election by ordinance without a voter referendum was unconstitutional because it violates both the city and county charters, which trump state law. So, super duper unconstitutional.
Read related: Miami-Dade Judge: Miami Commission can’t cancel election without public vote
In other words: Commissioners cannot just cancel the election because they feel like it. Not even if they say it really fast in legalese. Or hold up props, which is what the city’s hired gun, outside attorney Dwayne Robinson, did in moment of legal theater that would make Shakespeare cringe. Robinson stood there holding two printed copies of the city charter — one from before the election-postponing ordinance passed and one from after — and told the court: “There is no change. There is no amendment. Nothing is repealed.”
Nothing’s changed? Except the whole part where the city commission gave themselves another year in office, moved the election to 2026, and completely ignored the charter’s very clear instruction that elections be held in odd-numbered years. But yeah, nothing’s changed.
Robinson barely made it a minute in before Judge Monica Gordo interrupted with a polite but pointed, “The charter is the city’s constitution, is it not?”
“Why would the commission hang its hat on a permissive state statute when they have a constitution confronting them with a ‘shall,’” Gordo asked, rhetorically because you could tell she already knows the answer is they cannot.
You could almost feel the eye rolls from the bench. And Gordo wasn’t the only one wondering why she was there. Because the city’s legal logic would get laughed out of a mock trial at Jose Marti Middle School.
Judge Kevin Emas seemed frustrated with the city’s argument that, hey, moving an election without voter approval was totally legit and not at all a coup in slow motion. Judge Fleur Lobree seemed bored. She scooped up her documents and notes to leave before the city’s rebuttal was even finished.
Several times Emas made the point that Gonzalez and his attorneys were making: You can’t have a charter and a code that contradict each other and expect this not to end in chaos.
Read related: First lawsuit filed to stop city of Miami from cancelling November election
Attorney Alan Lawson, a former Florida Supreme Court Justice representing González, called the city’s argument “a semantic sleight of hand.” Well, that could describe a lot of discussions at city commission meetings. Basically, Lawson said, if the charter says elections are in odd years, and you pass something that says otherwise, then you’re changing the charter — and you need a referendum. Voters get a say. It’s really not that hard.
“They say, ‘We didn’t amend the charter. The words are still there in the charter,’” Lawson said about the city’s argument. “They say that this is just an alternative means of rule-making in an area historically limited to the referendum process. They say it’s an alternate path.”
And if the commission can take an “alternate path,” why bother with a charter at all?
“Lincoln famously said that you can call a tail a leg but it doesn’t make it so,” Lawson said. What if they call a tail the head?
In other words: saying “we didn’t change the charter, we just ignored part of it” is the legal equivalent of “it’s not cheating if I close one eye.”
Even Miami-Dade County showed up to remind the city that they’re not above the rules. And when the county feels the need to weigh in on how broken your logic is, you know you’ve lost the room. Assistant County Attorney Michael Valdes told the judges that under the Miami-Dade Home Rule Charter — aka our local constitution — changes like this must go to the voters. You’d think that would be obvious to a city with more lawyers than potholes.
The city’s rebuttal? That the charter isn’t a “magic document that cannot be altered unless there’s a referendum.” Oh really? So is it a suggestion box? A pirate map? A mood ring? A souvenir from when there was democracy in Miami?
If it’s not binding, then what is? The whims of three commissioners?
But, you know, a Miami courtroom drama isn’t complete if there’s not a Carollo cameo. And here, there were two.
Frank Carollo watches intently while county attorney Michael Valdes argues the home rule charter trumps state law
Commissioner Joe Carollo wasn’t there Tuesday — but he wanted to be. As if he didn’t have enough legal battles of his own, Carollo — who always wants to be el protagonista — wanted to insert himself into someone else’s courtroom drama. Crazy Joe loves the sound of his own voice. Y como un colado in a quinceañera he wasn’t invited to, Carollo asked the court to let him speak at oral arguments in a case he’s not even a party to.
The Gonzalez legal team told the judges that this was disruptive and that Carollo simply wanted to grandstand. Ya think? The DCA judges — who may have seen Carollo drone on and on and on at commission meetings — told him nananina. They saved themselves.
But his brother was there. Former Commissioner Frank Carollo, who has filed to run again in District 3, sat behind Gonzalez in the audience and looked glum. He later made a comment to the press outside because he doesn’t want Gonzalez to be the only one getting a ton of earned media for suing the city.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, was also in the courtroom, in the front row. Suarez is hoping the city prevails so he can have an extra year in office to increase his net worth even more.
Read related: Miami Commissioners pass election date change — and steal an extra year
Observers expect the judges to issue a ruling soon. Ladra is surprised it’s taken them this long because their skepticism was pretty evident at the hearing.
This isn’t about “clarifying” the charter or “modernizing” elections. This is about commissioners handing themselves an extra year in office and hoping no one would notice.
Well, guess what? People noticed.
So did Judge Manno Schurr, and now three appellate judges seem poised to deliver the same message: You want to change an election date? Ask the damn voters.
A ruling is expected soon. Ladra just hopes the city doesn’t try to drag this into extra innings with another appeal. Haven’t we wasted enough taxpayer money already?
The post Third DCA seems skeptical of Miami city election change, cancellation appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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First step victory for mayoral candidate is appealed
The wannabe dictators at Miami City Hall just got a hard slap of reality from the bench. And Ladra is here for it.
In a fiery ruling, hot enough to singe the mayor’s eyebrows, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Valerie Manno Schurr on Monday declared what most Miamians already knew in their gut: The Miami City Commission’s shady decision to cancel next year’s election and hand themselves an extra year in office without first taking it to voters was unconstitutional.
Basically, they tried to cancel your vote. And got caught and slapped on the ballot.
And thanks to former City Manager Emilio González, who is running for mayor, the election is back on.
Well, maybe. Fingers crossed. “While we respectfully disagree with the trial court’s decision,” City Attorney George Wysong said in a statement, “we are confident in the strength of our case and remain optimistic about the outcome on appeal.” That appeal was filed before the ruling came down based on Wednesday’s hearing. Because the city already knows the case is a stinker.
The issue is pressing, since the ballot for this year has to be ready for printing by September, so the judge has set a date of Aug. 8 to resolve it. Knock on wood.
Read related: First lawsuit filed to stop city of Miami from cancelling November election
González sued the city days after the commission voted last month to move municipal elections from odd to even years, effectively postponing the 2025 election until 2026 and extending their own terms without so much as a “¿te importa?” to the voters.
The ordinance — sponsored by “reformer” Commissioner Damian Pardo — is purportedly about increasing turnout a lot and reducing costs a little. The idea was to empower voters, Pardo said. But the change also just happened to keep voters out of the loop and ignored an earlier vote to limit terms to a max eight years by giving the bonus year to even term-limited commissioners.
“This is not just a victory for me,” González said in a statement, polishing his halo, “it is a triumph for all voters in the City of Miami and across Miami-Dade County who believe in upholding our charter and the rule of law.”
His legal team — including former Florida Supreme Court Justice Alan Lawson (the big guns) — called the move what it was: a charter-busting, power-hungry hijack. They compared it to stunts pulled in places like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Cuba — countries where elections get postponed for “reform” and never really come back.
Sound familiar, Miami?
Lawson argued that the charter — Miami’s own governing rules — and the county’s Home Rule charter say you need a vote of the people to make election changes like this. And they trump any state law the city was relying on.
But city attorneys argued that, no, no, they were just tweaking the city code. Not the charter. As if voters can’t tell the difference.
The judge did not mince her words to say that the city was playing a magic trick with, um, words.
“The City’s contention that its Ordinance did not ‘amend’ its City Charter is nothing more than semantic sleight of hand. In one sense, of course, the City is correct, it did not effectuate a permissible amendment to its Charter because the Florida Constitution and Miami-Dade County Charter do not allow the City to amend or repeal its provisions by ordinance. That can only be accomplished with a vote of the electorate, as the Plaintiff correctly contends.”
Sounds like a Catch-22: “We didn’t change the charter because that would require a vote of the people. No, we don’t need a vote of the people because we’re not changing the charter.”
Read related: Miami Commissioners pass election date change — and steal an extra year
Even Assistant City Attorney Eric Eves had to admit, awkwardly, at a hearing last Wednesday that the city’s new ordinance puts the charter and code at odds. “Yes, it conflicts with our charter. But I haven’t heard anyone claim our charter supersedes the state.”
The city and Pardo kept using the example of North Miami — where they extended terms by 18 months in 2023, and later upheld by an appeals court — to say that, well, if that municipality can do it, why can’t we? Eves suggested that Manno Schurr read the opinion of Judge Reemberto Diaz in that case and copy/paste. “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel,” he said.
But the González team argued that the North Miami case did not set a binding precedent. “There’s no procedural value whatsoever in that opinion. The issue you’re being asked to decide was not raised in that case,” Lawson said, calling it irrelevant.
Assistant City Attorney Eric Eves, Judge Valerie Manno Schurr and plaintiff’s attorney, Alan Lawson
Pero, por si las moscas, the hearing was also attended by a North Miami resident who wanted to tell the “horror story” about the change of election in that city. “We ended up with someone serving 25 years in office,” said Eileen Bicaba, president of the NoMi Neighbors Association, who last year filed a lawsuit against three council members for violating the state’s Government in the Sunshine Law.
“This was nothing short of a coup in North Miami,” Bicaba said, passionately.
In her ruling, the judge mostly relied on one aspect: She said the city’s reliance on state law was misplaced. Perhaps a better word would be “selective.” Because the city actually omitted a tiny little wee part of the law it relied on, which reads, “The Florida Election Code… shall govern the conduct of a municipality’s election in the absence of an applicable special act, charter, or ordinance provision.” The judge’s bold letters, not Ladra’s.
The second part of the law only exists, Manno Schurr repeated, apparently for emphasis, “in the absence of an applicable charter provision.” Again, Ladra has to compliment her on the use of bold font when appropriate. In other words, you can only apply that law when the county or the city don’t have laws that conflict.
“Here, there are two charters that together apply and control: the Miami-Dade Charter and the City Charter,” Judge Manno Schurr wrote in her 14-page decision. So the state law “cannot be construed to authorize the City’s passage of the Ordinance.”
The Miami-Dade charter “unambiguously prohibits the City from cancelling an election, moving an election, or extending the terms in office for city officials without the consent of the electorate given at a properly held election,” the judge wrote. Keyword: Without.
“Furthermore, the Court will not presume that the Legislature intended [state law] to be construed as permitting municipalities to extend existing terms or change the term limits in the absence of express text granting such authority,” she writes in the ruling. Boom! She gets it.
“This omission stands in stark contrast to section… which expressly allows a municipality to effectuate ‘changes in terms of offices necessitated by . . . changes in election dates,’ provided the issue is not ‘preempted to a county,” Manno Schurr writes.
Which, as established, it is.
Read related: Miami commissioners should shorten their terms for election year change
All of this was unnecessary. Pardo could have taken this concept to the people, you know, like in a democracy. He could have campaigned for it. He already put lifetime term limits on the November ballot. It would have been easy to add the change in election year and let the voters decide. But it’s way easier to just bulldoze ahead because he “had the votes” on the commission, and, as he says, he had to seize the moment.
Who cares if people had already spent time and money campaigning for this year’s election? Ladra bets Pardo would have felt differently, however, if they had pulled this in 2023, when he was running for commissioner. Perhaps, as some critics say, extending his own term is the only way he’ll serve more than four years.
On Wednesday, Pardo posted a statement on social media that was the exact statement provided to Political Cortadito by the city’s spokeswoman on behalf of the city attorney. So it’s an echo chamber over there at City Hall. They got nothin’ to say.
Commissioner Joe Carollo, who has also threatened to run for mayor and voted against the election year change, had attorneys attend Wednesday’s hearing after they filed an amicus brief in support of Gonzalez, which is a nice change of pace. Not that González needed it or welcomed it.
Denise Galvez-Turros, an activist in Little Havana who filed to run for commission in District 3, also filed a lawsuit last week that challenges the validity of the ordinance and asks the court to find it void and unenforceable.
“This unlawful act is not merely a procedural defect. It is a calculated effort by a narrow majority of the Commission to entrench themselves in power, override the will of the electorate, and circumvent the very Charter provisions they are sworn to uphold,” wrote attorney Reid Levin on behalf of Galvez Turros.
“The people of Miami are entitled to choose their representatives at the ballot box; not have them imposed by ordinance.”
There is a little more than two weeks left before the Aug. 8 deadline to hear the city’s appeal of Manno Schurr’s ruling. Expect another round of lawyerly acrobatics from the city attorney’s office.
Maybe more excuses about turnout, costs, traffic, climate change, Mercury in retrograde — anything to avoid putting this to a real vote.
Emilio T Gonzalez v City of Miami — Judge says ordinance to change election year without public vote uncon… by Political Cortadito on Scribd

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Former Miami City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, who has been campaigning for the mayor’s race for months, has filed a challenge to the city commission’s cancellation of the November election — the first of what could be several lawsuits.
City commissioners voted 3-2 last week to change the election date from odd to even years, effectively cancelling this year’s election for mayor and commissioners in districts 3 and 5 and extending everybody’s terms by a year. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier had warned them a day earlier that they could not do that and that there would be consequences. But he has not filed any legal motion to stop the change.
Could he, like some other would-be candidates, be waiting the 10 day period before Mayor Francis Suarez‘s deadline to veto the measure? Because that’s not gonna happen. This is his idea, after all. Sure, the ordinance was sponsored by Commissioner Damian Pardo but that’s only because Baby X convinced him.
Read related: Miami commissioners should shorten their terms for election year change
Both Suarez and Pardo are named in the lawsuit, as are every other commissioner (even though Commissioners Joe Carollo and Miguel Gabela voted against it), City Clerk Todd Hannon and Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia.
“The City of Miami Commissioners unconstitutionally bypassed the democratic will of the people in a way that the Florida Constitution, the Miami-Dade Charter, and the City’s Charter expressly prohibit,” said Alan Lawson, former Florida Supreme Court Justice and lead counsel at Lawson, Huck, Gonzalez PLCC, which is representing Gonzalez. “This repugnant and deliberate act was done without a single electoral vote in defiance of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s clear warning that doing so was illegal. Miami voters are the only ones who can decide to change the election date thus extending the terms of elected officials, which is the immediate concern of our client,” Lawson said in a statement.
“We are stunned by the brazen actions of Miami’s elected officials,” Gonzalez said, though he should probably be the least surprised.
“Canceling a regularly scheduled election and extending their own terms in office is in direct defiance of Florida law. Doing so without the consent of voters is an outrageous abuse of power. Attorney General James Uthmeier has already warned that this violates the law, and Governor Ron DeSantis has strongly supported that position. Disenfranchising voters undermines our democracy and robs citizens of their voice at the ballot box,” he said.
“If they can steal an election, what else can they steal?”
In the complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief, the attorneys for Gonzalez write that the commissioners did “three legally impermissible things” when they passed the ordinance on final reading Thursday.
“First, they cancelled the election scheduled for November 4, 2025, less than five (little  more than four) months away — the stuff of failed regimes around the world,” the complaint states. “Second, they fundamentally changed when the General Municipal Elections — i.e., the  elections for the city of Miami Mayor and its City Commissioners — occur, from being held in odd numbered years, as the City of Miami’s Charter unambiguously mandates, to even years concurrent with midterm and general elections.
“This point bears repeating: Without a referendum — i.e., without a single vote cast by  the people of the City of Miami — the Commissioners have overridden the City of Miami’s Charter (its constitution) to change how and when the City of Miami’s elections take place,” the lawyers wrote. “But it gets worse.
Read related: Miami Commissioners pass election date change — and steal an extra year
“The third, and perhaps most concerning, thing the Commissioners did …  is decide that they and the already-term-limited mayor get to stay in office longer than the voters elected them to be in office.
“The Commissioners unconstitutionally bypassed the democratic will of the people in a way that the Florida Constitution, the Miami-Dade Charter, and the City’s Charter expressly prohibit. Once more, they did so without a single electoral vote,” the lawsuit states.
“Reminiscent of regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, or Cuba — the very places so  many of Miami’s people come from—those in power, while in power, forced upon those voters what  they think is best for elections going forward—and secured for themselves additional time in power,  without a vote of the electorate.
“That cannot stand.”
Meanwhile, Gonzalez has not stopped campaigning.
Emilio Tomas Gonzalez v. City of Miami, Et Al by Political Cortadito on Scribd

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Miami doesn’t have Roberto Rodriguez-Tejera anymore on weekday morning radio to let us know what’s really happening at the county, the different municipalities, the state and the country. But, hey, we have Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo every day at 10 a.m. on America Radio Miami 1260 AM to feed us lies.
As if he didn’t already drone on — on and on and on — during commission meetings.
Carollo, who is threatening to run for Miami mayor, gets an hour Monday through Friday to blast his enemies and support his friends — including recently elected Miami Commissioner Ralph “Rafael” Rosado, whose campaign Carollo coordinated — in a show he calls Miami Al Dia. The program sits in between the three-hour programs of Emmy Award winning journalists Sandra Peebles, before, and Carines Moncada, after.
They must be livid.
How is it okay for a politician to have an hourly morning radio show to use for electioneering and political retaliation? It’s basically an hour long ad and there’s no disclaimer. His communications director, Karen Caballero, who is paid $115,043 a year from city taxes, sits there in the radio studio with him, though it’s hard to figure out why, since this is not part of his city job or her city job. Caballero — the same staffer who tricked Ladra into coming to the district office to get served with a subpoena as a witness in a case brought by the mayor of a neighboring city — is the blonde on the bottom left corner in the photo below.
Neither of them responded to several calls and texts for comment.

Remember, this is the same guy who was found by a jury to have violated the First Amendment rights of two Little Havana businessmen by weaponizing the city’s code enforcement against them. He lost and was ordered to pay a $63.5 million. One could say he is now weaponizing the airwaves.
Carollo used the space and time to attack Jose Regalado — who ran against his puppet candidate, Rosado — and the whole Regalado family (including the candidate’s sister, Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado, and their father, former Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, now the county property appraiser). He made scurrilous and baseless allegations about every single one of them, calling them communists and associates of drug traffickers.
The commissioner has also used the airtime to blast other candidates who are or are threatening to run for Miami mayor, including Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, who has filed paperwork, and former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who is just bluffing. He called Portilla’s campaign stunt — handing out fruit to high priority elderly voters — Operation Mamey and called Higgins a Marxist Johnny Come Lately pandering to Hispanic voters (same ol’, same ol’).
Read related: Ralph Rosado and Joe Carollo beat Jose Regalado in Miami D4 special election
“They learned Spanish with JustiLanguage. And all of a sudden they want to be mayor,” he said, referring to what is actually an English instruction school in Westchester. He could have been including former City Commissioner Ken Russell, who has also filed paperwork and has shown pretty fluent and locally nuanced Español on recent interviews and social media posts.
Carollo also calls former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, who served in the U.S. Army for 26 years, including a stint as a military attache with the Defense Intelligence Agency and who has also filed paperwork, “Coronel Chiringa” (or Col. Smallshit in English), and former Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina, who keeps getting mentioned in polls, a liar.
Gonzalez said it’s not the first time Carollo nicknames him and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t listen to the show. I don’t think anybody does,” Gonzalez told Political Cortadito.
The station’s program director told Ladra that they are between Nielsen contracts and are not currently measuring their ratings with listeners. How convenient. However, one of the recordings last week has 68 views on YouTube — and that’s over five days.
Colina lives in Miami Lakes and, as such, is not running for mayor, despite being named in some polls. He also doesn’t listen to Carollo’s propaganda and doesn’t care. “It would be concerning to me if it was a more respectable person,” Colina told Ladra. “A vast majority of the people know who Carollo is and know that the majority of the things that come out of his mouth are inaccurate or biased or just self-serving.”
Current colleagues also mentioned. Carollo is all aglow about Rosado, going on and on Wednesday about his “illustrious” swearing in on Tuesday. But two of them are regularly skewered: Commissioners Damian Pardo and Miguel Gabela. Carollo has gone so far as to call Gabela’s wife “La Llorona” — or the crybaby — after the woman showed up to a commission meeting and emotionally testified about being harassed and watched by Carollo and his goons. He also played a song by the same name.
It seems a bit childish at times. Like a high schooler podcasting in his garage.
Read related: Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo to lose appeal on $63.5 million judgement
The commissioner DJ also sometimes fills the space with this-day-in-history anecdotes. One recent Thursday, it was the anniversary of Hank Aaron’s 715th home run and also the release of both the movie Dancing with Wolves and the album The Joshua Tree. He played a little U2 that day, but he daily airs what must be theme songs of old western TV shows, like Bonanza.
He once played the theme to The Godfather on the day Marlon Brando was born. But he just had to mention how former Police Chief Art Acevedo — another regular target of Carollo’s — called the commission a mafia. He marked the birthdays of actor Doris Day, and singer Miguel Bose (he played “Amante Bandido”) and wishes people a Happy Feast Day on occasion.
On the day that Richard Nixon died, Carollo talked about meeting him and getting a campaign check for one of his campaigns. “It’s part of the memory I lived that nobody can take away from me.”
But he always has time for the rants. And when there’s not an election that he’s trying to influence, Carollo is always “reporting” on the undercover activity of the hidden Sandinistas and Chavistas in our midst, alleging that anyone who crosses him is laundering money for the Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela. He also constantly rages against the leftist Democrats trying to gain control of the city and hails President Donald Trump, trying to position himself as the Trump candidate in the mayoral election (But so is Diaz de la Portilla, who can’t stop campaigning on the “injustice” of the public corruption charges against him in 2023).
Carollo says on his show that the attempt to move the elections to November of next year is a scheme by “extreme leftist Democrats who want to get control of the city of Miami… by creating Biden districts.” He says any proposal to increase the number of districts is also a Democrat plot. And the lifetime term limits are an attempt to stop him from exposing the real corruption in the city.
In other words, Miami Al Dia is a lot like Carollo himself: There’s a conspiracy everywhere.
Ladra hates to admit this, but it makes for good radio. It’s very entertaining when Carollo gets all hot and bothered and starts to raise his voice in what definitely sounds like practiced outrage. His prolonged silences are just as dramatic. It’s radio theater from the golden age of radio. But it’s bad for you. Like drugs. Ladra might need an intervention.
It’s not the most responsible broadcast.
Luis Gutierrez, the program director for America Noticias Radio Miami, said that Carollo is not paid for his time nor does he pay for the hour himself. Gutierrez says that the commercials he brings pay for the hour and that if Ladra can secure $1,400 per show, or $20K a month, she could have one, too (which is a great idea Mr. Mike Fernandez! Let’s dare them to do it!)
Other sources, and just plain common sense, indicate that this is a quid pro quo for the $150,000 that Carollo had the city paid America TeVe, which was affiliated with America Radio Miami, to cover the New Year’s Eve bash at Bayfront Park. The money came out of the Bayfront Park Management Trust, where there is already an investigation into the commissioner’s alleged misspending of public funds for his private or political gain (same thing).
Read related: Miami paid $150K for one long Joe Carollo commercial on New Year’s Eve
In addition, the commissioner’s wife, Marjorie Carollo, is reportedly the “agent” who buys the air time, meaning she gets a commission, which is usually 15%. That means that if Carollo’s political action committee spent $500,000 on radio ads on the show, which could be a conservative guess, the couple got $75,000 in commission 0ver the 43-day election cycle for the special election that ended June 3. Nice little gig, right?
Gutierrez said he did run it through legal and Carollo’s airtime doesn’t violate any federal rules, “as long as he’s off he air by September,” which is when and if Carollo qualifies for the mayor’s race. If the commission doesn’t move it to 2026 (more on that later).
In the meantime, “If an opposing candidate wants equal time, we’ll take the money. I don’t have a problem with that,” Gutierrez told Political Cortadito. “This is straight business for me. I’m not on the right. I’m not on the left. I’m bipartisan — as long as the money keeps coming in.”
Ladra asked him if she could have an hour of time some mornings if Political Cortadito got enough commercial sponsors to pay $20,000 a month. That’s apparently the value of the “freebie” time Carollo is getting on the air. Could it be considered an “in-kind” donation to his campaign?
Gutierrez said he would have to ask Carlos Vasallo, the owner of the station, who is really good pals with Carollo, if they would put me on the air.
“I run the station but I don’t set the rules. And I would have to filter that through him,” Gutierrez said.
There will be an update when he gets back to me. But Ladra is not holding her breath.
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The Miami mayoral race this November is getting interesting — and we don’t just mean the announcement this week that former Miami City Commissioner Emilio Gonzalez has formally filed to run, making good on rumors that he’s helped spread since early last year.
Who’s next? Former Miami Mayor and county commissioner Xavier Suarez, father of the actual incumbent Mayor Francis Suarez? Or Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado?
All three of them were on a SurveyMonkey poll texted to Miami voters last week asking them to provide first choice, second choice and third choice options. So were Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins and former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell, who had already filed WHEN. Also on the list: Current Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo and former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who was suspended after his 2023 arrest on public corruption charges related to the giveaway of a public park that were later dropped by the Broward State Attorney’s Office, neither of whom have yet filed any paperwork but both of whom have repeatedly and widely threatened to run.
But there were only four runoff scenarios presented in the version of the poll that Ladra saw: Carollo vs. Regalado or Higgins vs. Regalado or Carollo vs. Higgins or Carollo vs. Diaz de la Portilla. Carollo being in three out of four potential second rounds could be an ominous sign.
Or it could be his poll. Nobody has taken responsibility.
Read related: Long list of potential 2025 Miami mayoral candidates starts to take form
Diaz de la Portilla seems to be campaigning. His Instagram has photos of him talking with constituents — like knocking on doors? — and echoing the extreme political line of President Donald Trump and his minions, clearly positioning himself early on as the Trump candidate. Why not? He’s got that same “persecuted by the Democrat machine” thing going.
On Tuesday night, Diaz de la Portilla posted a photo of him and newly-reelected Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago at Lago’s victory party on Miracle Mile.
“Congratulations to my friend Vince Lago on his re-election as Mayor of the City of Coral Gables! Last night, the residents of the City Beautiful won by choosing to reelect a true public servant, who now has a mandate to continue to serve his constituents with a true vision for the future and leadership,” Diaz de la Portilla posted on his Instagram.
ADLP went to Lago’s 2021 party, too.
Carollo is competing for that Trump cheerleader role in the race on his weekday morning radio show (more on that later), where he’s also already attacking Higgins. Ladra can’t wait to hear what he has to say about Gonzalez. But he may have a problem if Commissioner Damian Pardo gets his way Thursday with a proposed referendum that would provide for lifetime term limits. If it passes, Carollo, who has already served two terms as mayor, would be ineligible to run.
Pardo has said that he is not targeting Crazy Joe with the proposed amendment. But it would only apply to Carollo, who was mayor WHEN WHEN, and Suarez, who was mayor from 1985 to 1993 and again from 1997 to 1998 — thought that last term was cut short by absentee ballot fraud so X might say he didn’t really serve two full terms.
Read related: Voters in Miami may get to strengthen term limits and ban political retreads
Russell was on NBC6’s Impact with Jackie Nespral last weekend and said he supported Pardo’s proposed referendum.
“We keep seeing the same people coming back and getting reelected. Half the people I served with there have mugshots. But they continue to get re-elected, and family members and its a lot of these names that we know,” Russell said. “I’m not attacking them personally. I want a system that attracts new blood for the future of Miami to have the potential it has.
“Once the system of government changes, it’s going to attract better talent to run for office.”
Russell, who said he had already raised more than $100,000, said he has really enjoyed his time off since leaving office in 2023 (he resigned to run for Congress) and did not intend to return to government. “I’m telling you, it sucks you back in,” he told Nespral. “There is so much going wrong with the city of Miami. As great as the city is, it’s governance is horrible.
“It’s embarrassing. We all see it on the news every day. The pay to play is alive and well. The corruption in terms of lawsuits. Tens of thousands of dollars have been spent defending the unethical behavior of commissioners,” said Russell, who is an avid TikToker.
He has said that as mayor, he would actually show up to commission meetings and serve as chair of the commission. He would also advance a change to expand the commission from five to at least seven members and work to reverse or mitigate the commission vote made in February at the behest of Mayor Francis Suarez to let the developers of the Miami Freedom Park real estate complex and soccer stadium off the hook for funding $10 million in public parks throughout the city.
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“Over 100 acres of new parks that were to be funded in the city are now being undone… If I’m in office, this is a very easy fix. These parks can be funded by the folks that need to pay for them. They can and they will,” said Russell, who filed bar complaints against Suarez and former City Attorney Victoria “Vicky” Mendez after the vote to give the developers back the $10 mil. They were dismissed immediately.
Gonzalez, a former director for U.S. Immigrations and Citizenship Services, was on WPLG’s This Week in South Florida in February, talking about national immigration issues. He served as city manager from 2018 to early 2020, when he resigned amid a political battle with the City Commission and accusations from Carollo that he had abused his position to avoid code enforcement violations on his home deck. An ethics investigation later found that Gonzalez committed no wrongdoing.
Carollo also tried to fire Gonzalez in 2019. And Russell was one of the no votes that thwarted it.
Commissioner Higgins posted a campaign launch video that starts with news footage of the corruption that’s been swirling around Miami City Hall for years.
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“We’ve had enough. Families are struggling. Businesses can’t thrive. When City Hall is filled with corruption, nothing gets done
for the people,” Higgins says in the 81-second video, where she speaks a little bit of Spanish, too.
“I’m running for mayor to get things done,” La Gringa says. “I’ve delivered for your as your county commissioner,” she said, citing her experience in affordable housing, helping small businesses and creating and protecting green spaces. “Miami, now I’m ready to go to work for you.”
She ends the video with a reminder of how she was first elected to the county commission in an upset against Zoraida Barreiro, wife of former Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, when La Gringa was relatively unknown. Alex Diaz de la Portilla was in that race, too, but didn’t make the runoff.
“In 2018, we beat the odds. With your support we’ll do it again,” Higgins says. “Miami, this is our time. Nuestro momento.”
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