Ooooops.
Usually, the disclaimer problem with campaign mailers is that there is none. But in Palmetto Bay, voters recently got a mail piece from Mayor Karyn Cunningham — who is facing a challenge from former mayor Eugene Flinn — with two disclaimers from two different entities.
Three ex mayors want to get their seats back
Former and founding Palmetto Bay Mayor Eugene Flinn will run for the village’s top seat again, challenging current incumbent Mayor Karyn Cunningham in what amounts to a rematch.
Cunningham beat Flinn with 61% of the vote in 2018 when he was the incumbent. It was his second stint on the job, after he snatched it from former Mayor Shelley Stanczyk in 2014. Once again, he says, the current mayor just isn’t up to snuff and he wants to “get our village back on track.”
Ladra hopes everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend and got 
lots of love and nurturing comfort from our mamas… because it’s another doozy of a week in the 305 political world.
We’ve got soccer and activism 101 and a group of preservationists’ last stand and the mother of all fundraisers — this last one for Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez, who still doesn’t even have any real opposition yet in his bid to become the second in his family to be Miami mayor (more on that later). Oh, and the county still wants to give Vizcaya away to be run by a private, non-profit board. You know, because that went so well for the Frost Museum.
If we don’t list your event, sorry. It is probably your own fault. Get me the info on your government and club meetings, campaign fundraisers and political powwows and it will be included. Trust me. Nobody gets a no. The easy way is to send an email to edevalle@gmail.com.
And now, with no further ado, I bring you the Cortadito calendar for the current week.
8:30 a.m. — The Miami Beach Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club could rename itself the Miami Beach 
Candidate Speaker’s Bureau since every single one of its speakers has been a candidate for commission (Group 2) or the mayoral seat. Bless their little collective activists soul. Someone had to do it! This week’s guest speaker is Adrian Gonzalez, the owner of David’s Cafe, who is running for commission in Group 3. Former Mayor Matti Bower, who is still so far not running for anything, serves as moderator at the morning meetings, which are at Puerto Sagua Restaurant, 700 Collins Ave. Questions can be submitted in advance via Facebook.
9:30 a.m. — The privatization of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens continues as Miami-Dade Commissioners meet again Tuesday to discuss transitioning the powers and responsibilities of the historic and 
county-owned facility from the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Trust to the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Inc, which will allow them to grant contracts and manage the considerable budget of county tax dollars with less public oversight. The Carrie Meek Foundation’s lease agreement at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport will also be discussed. Commissioners could also approve an $8 million budget for the North Miami Community Redevelopment Agency and $1.6 million for the South Miami Community Redevelopment Agency. They will also consider increasing an agreement with Nova Consulting from a total of $8 million in value to a total of $25 million in value for management of our water and sewer pump system. Oh, and 
Commissioner Rebeca Sosa, who lost her beloved husband last week, wants to increase the number of local people a company must have in its employ to qualify for local preference in procurement. They will also spend a lot of money, again. This includes $22.5 million for the lease or purchase of vehicles, $118.7 million for contract employees for different departments ($30 mil just for Elections) and $3.6 million for enterprise construction project management software. Does that mean the county won’t need individual construction project managers at $200 an hour like Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s BFF Ralph Garcia Toledo? Or is this to make his job easier? If you want to speak on any item on the agenda, the meeting is in commission chambers on the second floor at County Hall, 111 NW First Street.
6 p.m. — Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez wanted to put the sale of the last 
parcel needed by David Beckham for his soccer stadium to the commission Tuesday. But Commissioner Audrey Edmonson wanted to have a town hall with the residents who live adjacent to the properties first. That will take place Wednesday evening at the YWCA, 351 NW 5th St., where residents of Overtown and Spring Gardens are invited to have a conversation with representatives from Miami Beckham United about the potential sale of the property and the future of the site. Its the same place where residents voiced their concern at the first soccer stadium town hall meeting in 2015. MBU already has six acres of property in Overtown acquired. The county parcel is the last piece needed.
6:30-9 p.m. — SAVE, formerly SAVE Dade, wants more people engaged in local and national politics. To that end, they are hosting a townhall Wednesday evening titled Effective Activism for Social Change. And they should know. SAVE has been instrumental in passing several municipal ordinances that give same-sex partners the same benefits of any spouse and was also instrumental in the county’s passage of protection for transgender individuals (fighting ugly bathroom police laws at the state simultaneously). The group has had some notable successes, even if they sometimes support the wrong candidates. This townhall is moderated/hosted by WPLG Local 10’s political reporter, Michael Putney. It is at SAVE headquarters, 1951 NW 7th Avenue, sixth floor.
7 p.m. — The Palmetto Bay Council Committee as a Whole will meet Wednesday to discuss a number of issues 
important to the village community — from an analysis of traffic in the urban downtown district to regulations for special events to evaluation forms for the manager and assistant manager to the noise coming from Thelatta Estate to speed limits around village parks to the upcoming budget process. Mayor Eugene Flinn wants to talk about the FPL property and parking lot regulations. And as if that wasn’t enough, they are also going to discuss the procurement process, light rail “issues,” the launch of the village website and new mobility fees for developers. This looks like a catch all meeting to Ladra. So many important things going on in Palmetto Bay, we may just have to start paying attention. The meeting should last a few hours, at Village Hall, 9705 E. Hibiscus St.
2 p.m. — The Transportation Planning Organization (the old MPO) will meet to discuss four proposed amendments to the Long Range Transportation Plan that affect the 112 Expressway, the Gratigny Expressway and the new two-lane road along NW 7th Street under State Roade 826 and the widening of 97th Avenue. Commissioner Dennis Moss wants the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority to put accent lighting on the State Roade 874 ramp connector bridge to SW 128th Street. Commissioner Javier Souto wants to ask the Florida Turnpike to “refrain from proceeding” with the widening project at Coral Way, which would affect the brdige spanning from Southwest 115th to 118th avenues until there is a public meeting with area residents and a traffic study. The meeting is in Miami-Dade Commission Chambers at County Hall, 111 NW First St.
6-8 p.m. — That big todo in oh-so-hipster Wynwood for Miami City Commissioner Francis Suarez is going to be the 
social gathering of the month for young politicos. Perhaps the season. It’s got the largest host committee in formation I have ever seen, and Ladra has seen a lot of host committees in formation. Even if you were not invited, we are quite certain that you can get in. Just bring a check. The festivities begin at Goldman Global Arts Gallery, 260 NW 26th St., inside Wynwood Walls. Enter through the gallery entrance between Second and Third avenues.
7-9 p.m. — Billed as the “last chance meeting,” the activists who make up the Miami Pine Rocklands Coalition will meet to discuss final efforts to save a swath of protected land that is the only known home to an endangered and indiginous beetle. This last piece of pine rockland — less than 2% of which exists today — is slated to become a Walmart parking lot. Believe it. Or help stop it. The tree huggers meet at 7 p.m. at the Tropical Audobon Society, 5530 Sunset Drive.
6:30-8:30 p.m. — Brad Bonessi and J. R. Bult will host a fundraiser for
Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who is runnning for the congressional seat vacated by a retiring Ileana Ros Lehtinen, at the St. Tropez Condominium Friday evening, 7330 Ocean Drive. This is that same block in North Beach that was going to have some huge enormouse highrise until Rosen Gonzalez and other preservationists opposed the developer-financed voter referendum to increase zoning density and height. Ladra expects the campaign to strike it rich.
6:30 -8 a.m. — Rise early if you want to run in the Village of El Portal’s 9th annual Armed Forces Day 5K Walk/Run Saturday. Same day registration is from 6:30 to 7:15 a.m. and the program starts at 8. The race/walk starts in front of Village Hall, 500 NE 87th St., and winds through the small municipality.
In yet another sign of the growing desperation Miami-Dade 
Mayor Carlos Gimenez and those around him have to keep that county gravy train going, the incumbent had a private event last week for only invited insiders to announce a group of insignificant endorsements from the low-hanging fruit.
It’s notable not because it was hastily planned and timed right after Camp Gimenez found out that Raquel Regalado was getting from clergy members, the Pets’ Trust and practically every single union — despite a 4% raise many got due to rising property values.
It’s notable because in almost each one of his endorsements there is, um, let’s say specific motivation at play. Or strings attached.
We will call them transactional endorsements — because you get something in return. Ladra may have not figured everybody out, but the public should know about the very possible quid pro quo for some of these nods. They are transactions.
In the case of Palmetto Bay Mayor Eugene Flinn and any Village council members, the endorsement comes just two days after their little government got a $7.5 million grant from the county to redevelop their “downtown.” Yeah, they actually call it that. This is one of the richest municipalities in our county, and they get 10 percent(!) of a half-penny sales tax slush fund of $75 million to encourage economic development countywide. You think there’s no fix in?
For Florida City Mayor For Life Otis Wallace, it’s all about family. His sister, Sandy Walker, has been paid $16,950 so far by one of Gimenez’s PACs for “outreach” and “consulting” (read: to gather black voter absentee ballots). Wallace cannot bite the hand that feeds his sister. Even if she is a former county lobbyist arrested in 2007 for fraud who pleaded guilty to bilking the Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust by submitting false tax returns under a $200,000 loan agreement with the nonprofit anti-poverty agency. It’s his sister. Wallace is just being a good brother. By the way, Commissioner Barbara Jordan is their other sister. That’s why she endorsed Gimenez, too.
Miami-Dade Commissioner Dennis Moss is being a good husband. 
He is standing with Gimenez to support his wife, Margaret Hawkins Moss, who has a six-figure county job in Water and Sewer (where we already know the mayor likes to hook up his pals). Hawkins started as a single girl working on the first term commissioner’s staff in 1993. Three years fast forward and she was a senior procurement contract officer, monitoring compliance on million dollar aviation department contracts that her fiancee was awarding on the commission. Until 2014, when the new airport director took charge. Las malas lenguas say they either didn’t get along or she simply didn’t cut it, so she was moved to WASA as a — with a generous $8,000 raise to $108,000-a-year. In other words, Moss is just being a good husband. He can’t bite the hand that feeds his wife. And probably him, too. Not unless he wants to sleep on the sofa.
And speaking of where people sleep… Everybody knows that Miami-Dade School Board Member Larry Feldman lives in fear that someone will run against him because it is also common knowledge that he doesn’t live in the district. Feldman uses some rinky dink Pinecrest apartment behind the Mitsubishi dealership and Dairy Queen on U.S. 1. The Monterrey Gardens apartment on Southwest 68th Court is on his voter’s registration. But come on! Nobody believes that. Not when 
he and his wife, Avis, have a nice four-bedroom house with a pool in the 13900 block of 107th Terrace. Not when he claims his Homestead exemption there. So he’s either committing tax fraud or election fraud. And it is possible that Gimenez — whose sister-in-law is running for School Board and whose son tried to bully or buy others off the ballot — hinted that he would run someone against Feldman. I mean there is really no other reason for Feldman to go out of his way to betray a fellow school board member. Why wouldn’t he just stay out of it?
Cutler Bay Mayor Peggy Bell is basically a newby whose endorsement has questionable value anyway. But she owes her political career to her 
campaign manager, Jose Luis Castillo, who also ran campaigns for former county commissioner Lynda Bell and helped with Gimenez’s 2011 and 2012 campaigns. Castillo is also a lobbyist for the owners of a nine-acre property located on the corner of Southwest 184th Street and Old Cutler Road who, at the time, had an application to change the zoning from residential to mixed use. That means they could build a three-story strip mall on the historic and scenic two-lane road next to an ecological restoration coastal area. It’s quite possible that the application needs some kind of county approval. Or that they want some kind of county incentive money. He also lobbies the county for a number of other development clients.
See? Each of these people have his or her own reasons to stand with Gimenez — but you can bet it ain’t his leadership or his track record.
Because most of them have had beef with the mayor at one point or another. The most curious of the endorsements was State Rep. Kionne McGhee, who has recently led a bevy of these same South Dade leaders in taking the mayor to task for broken promises on the metro rail extension south.
“Unless you’re talking about light rail, don’t bother coming to South Dade talking about bigger buses,” McGhee said in March. “There’s not a single pastor, a single mayor, a single city council member who is asking for bus. They’re all asking for rail… people were promised a rail.”
What did it take for him to change his mind?
Ladra suspects it’s the $31 million study that Gimenez now proposes to do on light rail options along five main corridors, as if a study is going to tell us anything new. But I can’t help but wonder if McGhee knows this is a five year study and that only $7.5 million is being allocated for this year. Hey, at least you can look for this photo to pop up in mailers or palm cards for black voters.
It’s too bad. Because this was an opportunity for McGhee to stand with the rest of this community that feels betrayed by Gimenez. I mean, how much does this Democrat really agree with the Republican mayor’s policies and decidions? Probably not much.
Instead, he and the others join Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez, an admitted loan shark and proven liar, in supporting the mayor. Because those are the kind of people who stand with Gimenez: Liars and loansharks.
And sell-outs.
