Robert “Rob” Piper, who last we heard had chaired a political action committee that tried to recall Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo in 2020, filed paperwork this week to replace him on the dais in District 3 this November.
“There didn’t seem to be a great deal of choices,” Piper, who is also president of the Democrats of Coral Way, told Political Cortadito Thursday.
Maybe he means good choices.
Read related: Denise Galvez Turros announces she’ll run for Miami Commission in District 3
The retired U.S. Marine joins a crowded field led, most notably — or notarially — by former Commissioner Frank Carollo, the current commissioner’s brother. Other announced candidates include Oscar Elio Alejandro, a U.S. Navy vet and home renter; activist Yvonne Bayona, president of the Miami Historic East Shenandoah Homeowners Association; Brenda Betancourt, president of the Calle Ocho Inter-American Chamber of Commerce and a frequent speaker at commission meetings; Rolando Escalona, who is the manager of Sexy Fish Miami and a sleeper candidate; and Little Havana activist and booster Denise Galvez Turros, a PR marketing guru who served on the city’s Historic Preservation committee and ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 2017.
Candidates in the Miami D3: Oscar Elio Alejandro, Yvonne Bayona, Brenda Betancourt, Frank Carollo, Rolando Escalona and Denise Galvez Turros. Not shown: Robert Piper (pictured above and below).
But the qualification deadline is in September. Some of these people may drop out. Others may join.
Read related: Miami city attorneys conspired, created ‘cheat sheet’ to stop Joe Carollo recall
Piper was chair of Take Back Our City, the PAC that collected and filed more than 1,900 petition signatures to recall Carollo five years ago. The recall was legally challenged by the city on three fronts: that the submission of the petitions on Feb. 29, 2020 was improper because (1) the city does not recognize electronic filings, (2) it was not submitted by the chair and (3) a subsequent hand delivered submission of the petitions on March 2, 2020, was late because the first signature was obtained Jan. 31, 2020, so the window was missed for the completion.
According to the paperwork filed with the city clerk March 13, Piper lives at a home on 17th Terrace that he purchased in 2012 for $275,000. The assessed value today is $550,700 and the market value is $728,500.
But he does not claim a homestead exemption. He says that is because he has tenants in two in-law units that came with his property when he bought it. Records with the Miami-Dade clerk’s office shows he evicted one of those tenants last May.
Piper also has a Washington, D.C., area code on his cellphone. It is where he was stationed before he moved here in 2012.
The election for District 3 is in November. The next deadline to report campaign contributions and expenses is June 30. It will be the first report filed by Piper and Galvez.
There are so many important elections this year. Help Ladra stay on top of every new development with a contribution to Political Cortadito today. Thank you for supporting independent, grassroots journalism.
The post Leader of Recall Joe Carollo PAC joins Miami Commission race in District 3 appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Pero por supuesto.
Former Miami Commissioner Frank Carollo, brother to the current commissioner, has filed to run for the District 3 commission seat that he served two terms, from 2009 to 2017. This was expected and is not good news. He may not be as bad as his big brother, Commissioner Joe Carollo, but Frank Carollo is still not a good role model as a politician.
He took a mysterious free trip to Spain in 2011 and stayed at a swanky hotel (value: at least $1,635) and said it was paid for by AirEuropa, which had gotten a key to the city months earlier.
Frank Carollo also got out of a traffic ticket in 2012 by calling then Police Chief Manuel Orosa when he was stopped for crossing the double yellow line on a street in Coconut Grove. He got off with a warning. The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust determined that there was probable cause that he abused his power.
And, in 2015, he was questioned by WLRN about the connection between some of his campaign donors and the upzoning (read: gentrification) of Little Havana.
Maybe it’s in the Carollo DNA.
Read related: Frank Carollo pleads ‘no contest’ to ‘call the chief’ ethics charge
Also running for the District 3 seat so far are Oscar Elio Alejandro, Rolando Escalona and Brenda Betancourt, who is president at Calle Ocho Inter-American Chamber of Commerce and a frequent speaker at the commission meetings. She is, so far, the frontrunner by all accounts. And she’s not worried.
Al contrario.
“It was no surprise because he had announced like three months ago,” Betancourt told Political Cortadito. “I think it’s better for me now that he’s in the race, because there’s more reason for voters to choose me. Before, we couldn’t really talk about him. What for? But now, we can remind voters that we had eight years of Frank Carollo and what did he do? Nothing.

“Now, the ‘Why vote for me’ is very easy. We have to stop corruption. We have to keep the city safe and we have to safeguard the tax dollars of our people.
“I’m happy that he’s in the race,” said Betancourt, who has been involved in civic activity for 34 years.
In the mayoral race, it was not expected that former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell would jumping (more on that later). And that is good news. He may get to run against Joe Carollo and/or former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who was removed from office in 2023 after an arrest on public corruption charges that were later dropped. Other potential candidates include Commissioner Manolo Reyes and former city manager Emilio Gonzalez.
Read related: Long list of potential 2025 Miami mayoral candidates starts to take form
None of them have filed any paperwork, however, to indicate that they have opened a campaign bank account.  The other candidates who have, so far, are Ijamin Joseph Gray, Michael Hepburn, Maxwell “Max” Martinez and June Savage.
Russell announced last week and said that giveaway of $10 million to the Miami Freedom Park developers for the 58 acre park in their property was the deciding factor. He was the deciding vote in 2022 on the lease and only voted in favor because those $10 million had been promised as a “public benefit” to acquire and improve parks in other areas.
He is the first announced candidate who sounds like he could be good for Miami, even though he is also recycled.
Like award-winning filmmaker and activist Billy Corben has said repeatedly: “In Miami, we don’t recycle our trash, we re-elect it.”
The post Recycling in Miami: Frank Carollo and Ken Russell on the November ballot appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Less than five months ago, Miami Commissioner Frank Carollo got fellow board members of the Biscayne Park Management Trust — which oversees all activities at Bayfront and Museum parks — to approve a no-bid $2 million contract for a playground that would be paid for with funds from the Omni CRA.
Tuesday, he will ask the same board to forgive many more millions in future fees they would have collected from the same community redevelopment agency.
But could this be more than a typical bait and switch? Is this just one more step in the commissioner setting himself up for a cushy job?
First, Carollo pushed out the longtime director, Timothy Schmand — who had been managing events at both parks or writing grants for the trust for 25 years — after the two became involved in a debate about the Rolling Loud music festival, which Carollo tried to get cancelled. Schmand has said he was long considering a move, but everyone believes that Carollo pressured him. And the timing sure was convenient.
Then, he convinced the board, which voted 4-5, to buy a $2 million playground for Museum Park with no competitive process and bill the Omni CRA for the cost.
Around the same time or soon after, Carollo pushed for a significant pay increase for the executive director — a position that is still vacant — from $135,000 to $148,000, and a 25% increase in retirement benefits. for the position, presumably to attract a more and better applicants.
Read related story: Miami’s Frank Carollo climbs a familiar campaign money tree
And, most recently, he proposed an increase in ticket surcharge for all events at Bayfront Park and the commission passed it two weeks ago.  The more expensive the ticket, the higher the surcharge — and the more money collected by the parks management trust for the executive director, whoever she or he is, to spend.
Carollo, who loses chairmanship of the trust when he leaves office next month, has no place to land. He was supposed to run for mayor against Commissioner Francis Suarez, but that fizzled when his brother, Crazy Joe Carollo, filed to run for commission. Nobody was going to vote for two Carollos. Still, he waited until the last possible moment to let Suarez off the hook, until almost the qualifying deadline that he was not going to run. The next best thing is county commission, which some say Carollo, a public accountant, has had his eye on all along, but Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro doesn’t have to resign to run for Congress. And, in the meantime, executive director of the Biscayne Parks Management Trust is not a bad gig. Especially now that he’s made it so much better.
And if he doesn’t want the job, why won’t he say so? At the last trust meeting in August, board member Ralph Duharte asked point blank if Carollo was angling for the executive director’s position — and Carollo refused to answer. “I think that question is off-base and I’ll be honest with you, I won’t even dignify that question with an answer,” Carollo said. A Miami Herald story said that Duharte later noted that the exchange was curiously deleted from the minutes of the meeting.
And Carollo has been cagy and cryptic with his answers to others who have askedthe same question, never fully putting it to rest. A former trust board member said “there is no doubt that Mr. Carollo has been and is now maneuvering to give himself the job as executive director of the trust.”
It sure looks that way. And it wouldn’t be the first time he uses his palanca as commissioner. In 2012, after he was stopped by a Miami police officer in his vehicle, Carollo told him to “call the chief” and got out of the ticket. An ethics investigation ensued and he pleaded no contest, paying more than $2,000 in fines.
Read related story: Frank Carollo pleads no contest to ‘call the chief’ ethics charge
A sitting board member, however, cannot be hired by the trust for two years after he or she leaves the board. But that rule can be waived by a unanimous vote of the city commission. Enter the Omni CRA thing.
The speculation is that Carollo cut a deal with the head of the Omni CRA to “remove all current and future obligations with respect to the Omni CRA’s monetary contribution for capital improvements at Museum Park, as contained in the Inter-local Agreement” in exchange for supporting his bid for the trust director’s job. The endorsement is not the only thing that would give him an edge with the commission. Political observers expect Carollo to say the incease in the tickeet surcharge will make up for the lost CRA funds — which could be somewhere between $20 and $30 million — that the CRA can then use for affordable housing.
Key words: Affordable housing. Because that is how he’s trying to sell it to the commission. Everybody loves affordable housing and more money for it.
Maybe Frank makes for a great executive director. But he’s already awarded one no-bid contract with the playground. And he’s abused his position before. And the fact that he’s making this power play behind the scenes and being so cryptic about it is enough warning to give commissioners pause.
They should let Carollo run for Congress like everybody else.

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It has to be the biggest host committee in formation list that Ladra has ever seen and far too many people to name them all here.

But among the most notable “young professionals” hosting a fundraiser Thursday night for Commissioner Francis Suarez‘s bid for Miami mayor are Congressman Carlos Curbelo, Coral Gables Commissioners Vince Lago, Mike Mena and Frank Quesada (careful with the Sunshine Law, boys), Miami Lakes Mayor Manny Cid, Hialeah Councilman Paul Hernandez, Miami Beach Commissioner Micky Steinberg, Aventura Commissioner Denise Landman, Coral Springs Vice Mayor Dan Daley, State Reps. Nick Duran and Jose Felix Diaz, former State Rep. Marcelo Llorente and even Jebby Bush. Yes, the son of our former guv who ran recently for POTUS. Him. Former State Rep. Erik Fresen was on an earlier version of the host committee, before he pleaded guilty earlier this month to “willfully failing to file a tax return” for one of the nine years he skipped. He has since been conspicuously removed from the list.

There’s also a large contingency of Miami-Dade Carlos Gimenez people, starting with the fundraising guru Brian Goldmeier and including his lobbyist son, C.J. Gimenez, and his wife, Tania Cruz, as well as one-time G-man J.C. Flores.

Throw in Democrat operatives like Christian Ulvert and Ben Pollara rubbing elbows with Republican lobbyists like Michael Cantens and onetime House candidate Daniel Diaz Leyva and former House staffers turned campaigners like Javi Correoso and it’s a huge and rather diverse (read: bipartisan) crowd at the event in Wynwood Walls, the hippest place in Miami for young professionals to be.

Read related story: Francis Suarez says definite maybe to Miami mayoral race

“These are the people cutting their teeth to make the city great today and they are the people who will be making the city great tomorrow,” Suarez told Ladra Wednesday. “These are people who often feel ignored, disenfranchised and dismissed.”

Um, did he see the list? I don’t think the sons of mayors and presidential candidates feel disenfranchised too much.

“It’s important to engage these young people,” Francis “The Future” Suarez added. He is 39 years old, which is three years older than his father was when Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez became the first Cuban mayor elected in Miami in 1985. “It’s a generational passing of the baton or turning of the page. The city needs an infusion of youth and enegy and technological know-how. Not every fundraiser has to be a big money event. It is great to incorporate new people.”

The suggested donation for this event is $100, a low ask considering the crowd. But Baby X can afford to low ball. He doesn’t really need the money.

Suarez has raised close to $2.6 million and still has more than $2 million on hand between his campaign account and his political action committee, Miami’s Future. This, despite the fact that he doesn’t really have an opponent. Not yet anyway. Sure, there are three other guys with no name and no money who have filed paperwork that shows they intend to run, but Suarez is not sweating them.

“It’s a minor miracle that I’ve gotten this far without any opposition,” Suarez said. “And it may sound like a cliche but I pray for the best and prepare for the worst. So I’m working very hard, assuming there’s going to be competition.”

The elephant in the room — or not in the room, as it were — is Commissioner Frank Carollo, who is termed out but still hasn’t jumped into the mayoral contest. At least not officially. Political observers think that it becomes less likely with every passing day. But he could surprise everybody. And he is raising money for something. Someone at the Related Companies sent out an email last moth to raise money for Carollo’s re-election campaign until, ooops, a second email made a correction saying it would be for whatever Carollo’s future entails.

In its first month, the brand new PAC that checks were solicited for, United for Good Goverment, raised $107,000, according to the campaign finance report.

Read related story: Beleaguered Francis Suarez drops out of Miami mayoral race

“Frank has to decide what he wants to do,” said Suarez, who abandoned his attempt to run for mayor in 2013 against Mayor Tomas Regalado. after several setbacks by campaign staffers, including two arrests for filling out absentee ballot forms online, a situation that was completely unintentional and that really should have been handled differently by the State Attorney’s Office because nobody was defrauded. “I get along with Frank. We have taken strides not to fall into the same Carollo Suarez dynamic and it’s been positive.”

The other possibility that has been pretty much squashed now is former Miami-Dade School Board Member and county mayoral candidate Raquel Regalado, who is the current Miami mayor’s daughter. While Ladra has been saying for months that she had no interest in running for the city seat, her recent foray into a congressional bid to replace the retiring Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has shut people up — for now anyway.

“If she didn’t have that opportunity, there would be rumors about there still being a possibility,” Suarez acknowledged.

That may free up more “young professionals” who might have been hard-pressed to pick between the two to join host committees.

If former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla runs for city of Miami mayor, he could make it into a runoff with Commissioner Francis Suarez.

And if he jumps into the commission race instead, the Dean will hit the ground as the front runner.

These are the findings of a tiny, very unscientific poll done online by a political operative using Survey Monkey. Is it science? No. Is it interesting? Absolutely.

Pedro Diaz, who is running the commission campaign in District 3 for Alex Dominguez, sent the three question survey to insiders and influencers who are not necessarily voters in the city of Miami — lobbyists, fundraisers, gatekeepers, decision makers and the like. 

Baby X will be happy to learn that he came out on top in the mayoral question — “If elections for City of Miami Mayor were held today, whom are you more likely to vote for?” — with 31% of the 368 responses. But Dean DLP was not too far behind with 27 percent.  The survey had former Miami-Dade School Board Member Raquel Regalado, who is rumored to be jumping into the race, in third place with 23% and Miami Commissioner Frank Carollo, who is termed out and expected to run also, in fourth with 19%.

Read related story: Will she or won’t she? Raquel Regalado rumors are rampant

Diaz de la Portilla has not filed any paperwork and only came into the picture last month after residents in Little Havana got a postcard in the mail from him wishing them a happy holidays. It doesn’t have a political disclaimer. “Whatever is beautiful, whatever is meaningful, whatever brings you happiness… May it be yours this holiday season and throughout the coming year,” it says, and it is signed by Alex Diaz de la Portilla “and family.”

But many seem to think ADLP — who became active on twitter in 2015 and last year to campaign for his brother and for Sen. Marco Rubio to get the GOP nomination (see photo with Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio, left) — would run for Carollo’s commission seat rather than mayor. After all, Baby X and his dad, Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, went out on a limb to endorse and support Miguel DLP against newly-elected Jose Javier Rodriguez in November’s race. Alex typically rewards that kind of loyalty and support for either of his brothers.

And the Carollo seat in his core base of Little Havana is an easier win — unless Tommy Regalado, the mayor’s son, runs as he has indicated to some that he might. But that depends on whether Raquelita runs for mayor. Ladra doubts both siblings would run at the same time.

Carollo’s open seat has already attracted a clusterbunch of candidates. Five have opened accounts and started to campaign, including Diaz’s client Dominguez — who ran for state rep and property appraiser already — and Zoraida Barreiro, wife of Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro.

Another Diaz poll has Dean DLP leading that race, with 39% and Dominguez, who has been campaigning for months, trailing with 34%. But that poll — this time by telephone and with a sample of 589 actual District 3 voters — only pitted them against two also-rans, Alfonso Leon and Miguel Soliman (17% and 10%, respectively), because Barreiro and Daniel Suarez, a longtime civilian police watchdog, had not yet filed any paperwork when it was done in early December.

The Dean told Ladra in a text message Monday that all the rumors are just that. “I am not running for anything and the ‘mailer’ is a Christmas card,” he texted.

“Now I have to be a grinch like you guys?” Us guys is the media.  “Bah humbug!”

But c’mon! A Christmas card is something you send friends and family, not voters you don’t know! Sometimes there’s a funny family picture on it. Usually, there’s a hand signed note. That wasn’t a Christmas card. That was ADLP staying relevant with his core constituency — like he does with the birthday cards he sends to seniors in public housing. They don’t have to say anything political to be politically motivated and beneficial.

“I am not running for anything at the moment,” he repeated. Key words: At the moment.

Maybe the Dean is getting ready for 2018 and thinks he can take the state House seat back from newly-elected Rep. Nick Duran. Or maybe he plans revenge against J-Rod, who beat his brother Miguel in November after beating Alex himself in the House 112 race in 2012.

But Ladra has to believe (read: hope) he is running for something someday.

And we can dream of an election cycle with a Suarez, a Carollo, a Regalado, a Barreiro and a Diaz de la Portilla on the same municipal ballot, can’t we?

One of the biggest 2017 political questions in the 305 is will she or won’t she?

We’re speaking, of course, about former Miami-Dade School Board Member Raquel Regalado, who lost a bid to unseat Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez in November. She has been dogged for more than a year by rumors that the county campaign was nothing more than a precursor to a run for the city’s mayoral seat, where her father sits now.

But that makes such little sense. Why would she risk getting $8 million worth of attack ads to do a preview campaign in a city where Raquelita’s name recognition can hardly be improved?

Don’t ask Ladra. While we were on Team Raquel last year, something happened and she doesn’t return my calls anymore. Hardly returns my texts. Maybe she blames me for her loss but she is the one who cut me out of her inner circle in September. After several attempts to reach her, last month I finally sent a final text message saying that Ladra would have to say she did not respond to multiple attempts to reach her. Electeds hate that. Former electeds who want to be elected again hate that, too.

Her texted answer: “I’m considering my options and will announce my decision in January.”

Me: “Hmmmm…No details on what options those might be. LOL.”

Raquel Regalado: “Nope.”

Read related story: Raquel Regalado’s message: ‘I can be a better mayor’

It’s January. So, folks, we will soon find out together if she is going to run for city of Miami mayor, as many are whispering. After much reconsideration, Ladra would bet she will. After all, wouldn’t she just say she wasn’t if she wasn’t? Why would she just let it keep being a mystery? Unless it’s just to make Commissioner Francis Suarez, who has already opened his mayoral campaign account, sweat it out. And that is not completely unfathomable.

But if she does finally throw her hat into the ring for that race, Ladra doesn’t think that this was the plan all along. Not everybody did, but Raquel Regalado truly thought she could beat Gimenez and be a better county mayor. She spent hundreds of hours poring over the county budget information and studying transit information and learing about solid waste management operations — stuff that is not going to necessarily serve her as mayor of Miami.

But maybe, since she lost, it’s become a consolation prize. Because nobody can imagine Raquelita would actually just sit and wait and do nothing more than a weekday afternoon radio show — even if she gets to go to Tallahassee every now and then — for four years before running again countywide. That girl is antsy! And patience is not one of her virtues.

Ladra always thought she would do some policy-driven or issue-oriented thing — like the courtroom referendum tax she campaigned against all by herself (which helped to put her on the county map). Maybe she’ll take on courthouse reconstruction reform. Or some kind of referendum on the county’s transit dollars, since she knows they are being misspent. She did talk on the night of her defeat about working to pass campaign finance reform and having a supervisor of elections that is elected rather than appointed by the mayor. It is not beyond Raquelita’s reach to create a PAC on either one of those items and start to deliver for us even if she is not an elected. She’s very, um, driven that way.

Read related story: Raquel Regalado set to fight anew for charter change, reform

There’s always a state seat. Regalado’s ideas and policy issues are more suited for a legislator at the state or federal level — even if she doesn’t realize it yet. The newly elected Rep. Nick Duran, who won an open seat, is not unbeatable in two years and the Regalados endorsed another candidate in that race. So that’s not impossible. 

Others have speculated that she would run for city commission in District 4 once Suarez resigns to run. But it is doubtful that she would go up against longtime family friend Manolo Reyes, who has already filed paperwork for that seat and who is being endorsed by her father, Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado. And that would kinda be a step down, no? Not at all in her character. She’s too big for a commission seat.

But a mayoral run, justified by the excuse that no other candidate is really ready or qualified (and, yes, Baby X should take it personally), might just be the right size. And it fits in her character. I heard there was even a poll where she was cast as one of the potential candidates (more on that later). And a credible source tells Ladra that a couple of lobbyists have told him they have to “give to everybody” for this mayoral race: Suarez, Commissioner Frank Carollo — who is termed out and expected to make a run for the office — and Raquelita.

So maybe they know something we don’t. As usual.

Or maybe the money she is raising is for a PAC?

Stay tuned. There are only 26 and a half days left in January.