A new and practically unknown Democrat has filed in the race for Florida House seat 116, to replace Jose Felix  “Pepi” Diaz, who resigned to run for Senate. But it’s not her first time running for office.

Gabriela Mayaudon served in the Venezuelan legislature before moving to South Florida about 10 years ago, said Elezear Melendez, the new political director for the Miami-Dade Democratic Party.

“She was a congresswoman in Venezuela and she has an amazing story of fighting dictatorship there. She was looking to get involved in politics,” Melendez told Ladra Monday after Mayaudon filed her papers. He is listed as her treasurer but says that is only temporary until she gets her campaign team together.

Read related story: Cuba engagement photos become issue in GOP 116 primary

“She is someone who comes highly recommended by the civil leadership in Doral,” he said, adding that the city is at the northern end of the district and that Mayaudon became a citizen last year. The address listed on her paperwork seems to be the north part of Doral, however, just outside the district. And records show she and her husband, Carlos Rodriguez, own a house in Sunrise, where they claim their Homestead exemption.

Together, the couple also own Rock Health, a San Francisco-based venture fund that seeds and financially supports start-up companies at the intersection of health and technology. Mayaudon lists her occupation on LinkedIn as vice president of Rock Health. State records with the Division of Corporation show that RockHealth Inc., in Medley, is owned by Rodriguez and Maria G. Mayaudon — who also own the 3-bedroom, 2-bath house in Broward County.

Published reports show that in 2012, Mayaudon helped welome Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who visited Miami when she came to provide the U.S. Department of Justice with documents that showed a link between the Venezuelan government and drug trafficking.

A woman who answered the phone listed on Mayaudon’s paperwork took Ladra’s name and number and abruptly hung up on me. She said the candidate was unavailable and would have a press conference in 10 days, but she flatly refused to give me her name several times. Ladra is pretty sure it was the candidate caught off guard.

Former Doral Councilwoman Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, who Ladra always thinks of when she needs more info on a Venezuelan activist, said she knows Mayaudon and that she would be a good representative.

Read related story: Few hopefuls line up to replace Jose Felix Diaz in 116

“She’s taking my leadership course,” Rodriguez-Aguilera said. “She’s an awesome, fabulous woman. She was a Venezuelan congresswoman and supported many Venezuelan groups here. She will do great things.”

Perennial candidate Ross Hancock, who has run in two other state house districts, had already qualified to run for the Democrats so that they wouldn’t be unrepresented, he said. He had not yet decided if he would withdraw or not. He said he had been told by Melendez that Mayaudon would qualify, but she had not as of Monday evening.

“She has until noon tomorrow. Naturally, I don’t want to drop out and leave no option for the Democratic Party,” Hancock said, adding that he may bow out if the party was going to support her.

Ladra hopes he doesn’t. Voters deserve to have a choice, even in a primary. Particularly with someone as new and untested as Mayaudon.

In fact, Ladra is surprised that there was no better candidate for this open seat race in either aisle and thinks that all the current candidates are so blah that anyone with a little bit of money can take it.

This race would benefit from a surprise Tuesday morning.

If or when Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez gets his grant to put a spy plane in the sky — a wide area surveillance program that will capture video indiscriminately over 32 square miles at a time — he may find a few no-fly zones over some of the 37 municipalities within the county boundaries.

“He’s going to have to do it in unincorporated Dade because he has no jurisdiction here,” said Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado. The county department has an interlocal agreement with Miami Police that allows them certain cooperation and limited authority within 500 feet of the city limits.

“But investigations have to be done by Miami Police,” Regalado said.

The mayor’s intent to spy on the entire county population indiscriminately was first disclosed by Miami New Times and details were later explained in a Miami Herald story. The Iraq war technology was first used in Baltimore after the police shooting and it became controversial because it was implemented in secret — kind of like Gimenez did here, again going ahead with the application for a $1.2 million federal grant for a pilot program before asking the commission for approval. Of course the police director is saying that they had to apply before the deadline, but it could have been brought up in the last meeting. They did it on purpose because it’s easier to say “oops” than to ask for persmission.

This isn’t even a crime fighting tool. This is $1.2 million for an investigative tool to use after a crime has been committed. The cameras mounted on a small plane that orbits a designated area records 32 square miles at a time and the footage is reviewed later to see if the police can track the perpetrators back to where they came from after a murder or bank robbery. It’s invasive and violates people’s right to expected privacy, because in the process of video taping the bank robbery or the purse snatching, the wide survillance eye also captures your backyard barbecue. You can’t make out the faces, but you can count how many people were there, maybe who was dancing with who? And if the same public records rules apply, does that mean that wives can now ask for video tapes to see if their husbands were cheating or parents can ask to see where their kids go when they skip school? Who gets to decide?

And how do we know it won’t be used for code enforcement? To catch someone with an illegal gazebo and fine them for it? (Count on Commissioner Rebeca Sosa to ask.)

Ladra hopes that the commission balks but they’ve been rubber stamping everything of the mayor’s lately, even after they question it and hem and haw and say they shouldn’t, they approve whatever he brings them. Maybe the municipal mayors will come and speak out.

“I am a big believer in the right to privacy,” said Miami Lakes Mayor Manny Cid. His town was one of the first to adopt their own policy — even before the state legislature — that does not allow police to use drones without a warrant. He was a councilman when he voted in favor of the policy.

“That said, look at how much the private sector has invaded our privacy,” Cid told Ladra, adding that the GPS in our phones tracked our every move. “Google and Facebook have more information on our residents than we do.”

Cid said he wants to look at what Gimenez is proposing and give him a chance to explain. “But our mission is to make sure we are a private community, that people know that they can go into their backyard and it is their domain,” he said. “Our number one objective is obviously public safety, but we need to prote our residents’s privacy as well.”

South Miami Mayor Phillip Stoddard said he can only see using the wide area surveillance for a live chase. “If they can put a plane up when they are looking for a fugitive, then maybe. But without probable cause? I cannot imagine my residents tolerating that,” Stoddard told Ladra.

Ditto for Homestead: “I’m certainly not going to be in favor of having silent drones flying over Homestead spying on people,” Mayor Jeff Porter said. “You can’t cast that large a net. Don’t spy on all of us.”

The plane would likely fly in neighborhoods with high crime statistics. That means low-income inner city residents would be spied on more than affluent white folk. Miami Gardens will get it more than, say, Coral Gables. Now, sit back and watch as very little public outrage comes forth. Mayor Oliver Gilbert was out of the country and Ladra could not reach him to get his feelings on the spy in the sky.

Two other mayors who Ladra did connect with didn’t like the idea too much but didn’t want to get into a pissing match with the county mayor on Political Cortadito. Gimenez apparently reads it because el les hala las orejas when they talk to me.

Mayor Gimenez told the Miami Herald that we, the taxpaying property owners of Miami-Dade, can’t expect privacy even at our own homes. “You have no expectation of privacy when you walk outside. I have no expectation of privacy in my backyard,” said the mayor, who happens to live in Coral Gables where the plane will likely never fly.

So Ladra invites readers to prove him right: Go to the mayor’s house, 4061 S. LeJeune Road, and see if he’ll let you take pictures of the family in the backyard. Then post it with a new hashtag. Something like #privacyisfortheprivileged or maybe #yourbackyardismybackyard. Or even #Iamspyplane

Campaign video attacks candidate for Havana trip

Travel to Cuba is often a campaign issue in Miami-Dade races whether they are congressional or state or local. But that it would become fodder in a Republican 305 primary is something new.

And that the perceived front runner in the special House 116 race is using it to attack a relative nobody in video is somewhat interesting. Is the underdog doing better than anyone thought?

Daniel Anthony Perez is running for the GOP nomination in the special election for the seat vacated by former State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz, who is running for Senate to replace Frank Artiles, who resigned after he was caught making sexist and racist remarks to and about his colleagues.

Suarez also traveled to Cuba earlier this year with his fiancée for a photo shoot to memorialize their engagement, as disclosed by the Miami Herald earlier this week. While he says it was a family trip to see his fiancée’s elderly uncle to take him food and medicine, two photogaphers also took the trip and he and his fiancée posed in several different outfits and with props at several different locations for their engagement album. The photographers posted on their page, as the Herald reported, that the photoshoot took four days. 

That could certainly hurt him with high-performing Cuban-American elderly voters in a low-turnout July election. And that is why candidate Jose Mallea, who worked on Sen. Marco Rubio‘s campaign, is using the story that his people likely planted with the Miami Herald to attack Suarez in a Spanish web video that says we can’t trust him.

“Mirenlo! Es Daniel Perez! Dice que es Republicano,” says the voiceover that sounds like a wellknown former radio man at Univision radio.

“Look at him. It’s Daniel Perez. He says he is Republican, running for the legislature. But here we see him having a good time in Cuba taking his engagement photos. Because Daniel Perez is enjoying the ties created by Obama with the Castros permitting travel that feeds the dictatorship, while the ladies in white are beaten, while dissidents are oppressed, while the exile yearns. Daniel Perez. We cannot trust him.”

Ladra can already see the mailers that are coming next — right before the absentee ballots drop in about a month.

Now, let’s be clear here. Ladra is not against travel to Cuba, perse. I myself have been to the island numerous times, as a journalist and also to visit family. But the video is dishonest because we don’t need the ridiculously relaxed Obama policy as Cuban Americans. We were allowed to visit Cuba for family reunification before the closer more normalized relations began. Clearly, it is one thing to go and take family food and medicine they can’t get there and quite another to go with a couple of photographers and a wardrobe — why not a stylist? — for a four-day photo shoot using the backdrop of a crumbling city where native-born photographers and other artists do not have freedom of expression to create whatever they want. And then to post the pictures on a pubic website celebrating couples’ engagements — as if you were Jay Z and Beyonce? Shake my head. It’s not illegal or even so wrong — at least he’s Cuban — if maybe a little impulsive. It’s just kinda dumb for someone who wants to run for office locally as a Republican.

Still, travel to Cuba may not be the kiss of death it used to be. How many of the Cuban voters in Westchester know someone who has traveled to Cuba and taken medicine or other items to their family members? How many of them have family members or friends who have gone to Cuba to see relatives and taken selfies by La Catedral in Habana Vieja? Lots. Enough to perhaps make a difference in an election? We’ll see.

Perhaps it depends on how well Perez can cast Mallea as a carpetbagger who is riding his successor’s coattails. 

“Mr. Mallea has shown his true colors as a deceiving liar,” Perez told Ladra late Friday, hours after the video was posted. “I have never supported Obama’s travel policy.

“As the only Cuban American in this race, I take issue with Mr. Mallea’s exploitation of the suffering of the Cuban people for his political gain. What Mallea should be explaining to the voters of District 116 is his political opportunistic interest in a district that he has not lived or been registered to vote in,” Perez said, calling his oponent “a desperate man taking desperate measures.

“The residents of District 116 have been fortunate to have been represented by one of their own, someone who grew up in our district and understands what matters to us. I aim to continue that legacy, as I have lived in the heart of Westchester since I was 6 years old,” Perez said.

And why does the trip have anything to do with how he would advocate for us in Tallahassee? How does this matter in a race that is about jobs and education and heathcare and transportation funds and workforce housing and tolls?

Jose Mallea, left, and Daniel Perez, right.

The bigger question is why does Mallea, who has more money and the endorsements of Diaz, Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush, need to go on the attack against this first-time candidate with zero name recognition? Why is the perceived front runner in the race giving Perez the time of day with a slick video that uses dramatic clips of activists being beaten and photos of Obama and Raul Castro and a lot of red?

Could it be that Mallea has seen the signs? No, literally, the Perez yard signs that are already popping up here and there on residential blocks from 87th Avenue to the Turnpike?

Ladra has a theory that Mallea has polled — we are certain he has a soft money PAC account somewhere, what with all his connections and endorsments — and found that he is not doing as well as he thought. Or that Perez, a good-looking, well-spoken, 29-year-old with roots in the district, is doing better than he expected.

Miami City Commission candidate Ralph Rosado sounds like an incumbent on the most recent mailer that arrived in some Miami voters’ homes Wednesday.

“Let’s talk about crime and it’s prevention,” it says on the front.

“I have worked to guarantee that our police department can count on the sufficient number of police officers to keep us protected and also prevent crimes before they are committed. That is why I spearheaded an initiative to hire 100 new officers,” it says on the back.

That may come as a surprise to the mayor and city commissioners.

“It’s a lie,” said Mayor Tomas Regalado.

“I know he is running and he wants to be elected but you can’t get into elected office through fraud. That’s an injustice to the voters,” Regalado said. “It’s also an insult to the administration and the commission who worked hard and had to make many hard decisions to get to this point,” the mayor told Ladra, adding that they are at more than 180 additional officers in the past two years.

Of course, Regalado is supporting another candidate in the District 4 race: Manolo Reyes, an economics teacher who used to work in the city’s and the Miami-Dade School Board’s budget offices. There are a couple of other candidates who have showed an intention to run for the seat vacated by Commissioner Francis Suarez‘s mayoral bid, but, so far anyway, this is really a contest between Rosado and Reyes, who is a perennial candidate — but at least he doesn’t jump from seat to seat (Rosado also ran for state rep) and exaggerate his laurels.

Last summer’s graduating Miami Police cadets

Because Rosado’s role in the police staffing increase was basically going to a budget hearing a couple of Septembers ago and urging the commission to hire more police officers. That’s it. He was the first of two speakers on that item. The second was pollster and radio show host (until last week) Fernand Amandi, whose home had been burglarized. It’s a  little disingenuous then to send a mailer where he basically takes credit — “spearheading” the initiative and all.

“I am not a commissioner and I have no power over the police department. But heck yeah, I was there for 11 hours and I met with people for days prior and I did the research,” Rosado told Ladra.

“Can I say only because I spoke did it happen? I can’t say that,” he admitted. “But if nobody brought it up, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”

Really? Well then, I say don’t run for office. Just go to every meeting and speak on the issues we need action on. Because, most likely, the new hires would have happened anyway. The shortage had reached a boiling point. And Amandi spoke, too. Maybe it was his words that moved Commissioner Marc Sarnoff to make the motion.

In his email, Rosado also said that he “implemented a program that uses crime data with the goal of trying to prevent crimes before they happen and concentrate police work in the most dangerous areas. We can make our neighborhoods safer and I, as your future City Commissioner, will work harder than anyone to guarantee that we do.”

And that’s at least a little more truthful. But not entirely.

What he did was bring the FIT Zone program used in East Palo Alto, California, to the attention of the city commission, complete with a Power Point presentation on July 14 last year. The program takes data from the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system put in place in 2014 and finds public spaces near hot spots — a time and area where there is consistently a flurry of firearm activity — to then program fitness activities, targetting at risk kids and the people in the surrounding homes. Miami’s pilot program is on Monday nights with a basketball league and other activities at Overtown’s Reeves Park and it’s a huge success, Commissioner Suarez said.

“He did come up with the idea and the results have been incredible,” Suarez said. “He did discover it. He did study it, flying to Palo Alto to see how it worked there. And he convinced me to execute it here.”

So, why didn’t Rosado send a mail piece just on that? Why not be honest and include more details about the lives the program could be changing, which would be more powerful? Oh, wait, I know. Because Reeves Park is not in District 4. So it’s better to be vague. I would imagine that voters in District 4 who get this mailer could logically think the program benefits “our neighborhoods.” It doesn’t. And it won’t anytime soon. According to Commissioner Suarez, the next two hotspots under consideration for an expansion of the program are in Liberty City.

Kudos to Baby X because he represents the whole city and is not provincial. And kudos to Ralph for going out of his way to bring us FIT Zone.

But it doesn’t make it okay to exaggerate or misrepresent his role on campaign materials, which is what Rosado did with the two crime-fighting claims in this mailer. One’s an outright lie and the other is a half-truth.

Coral Gables Commissioners sided with the city manager instead of the police chief on Tuesday when they supported a “separation agreement” that allows a police major who spied on a resident at a public meeting last year to retire from the department with her full pension in November rather than be fired outright.

And, in the process, they swept something under the rug that could have implicated the city manager’s office in more widespread spying on activist residents, selected employees and maybe even commissioners.

Because Maj. Theresa Molina –caught taking cellphone pictures of a resident’s text messages during a city commission meeting in September — wasn’t taking those pictures for herself. Let there be no mistake about that. Yet the investigation and Tuesday’s discussion did not go in the direction that it should have — which is up and into the city manager’s office.

That is why Molina has been, basically, protected from any real punishent this whole time, rewarded with the maximum pension benefits and, literally, paid — to keep her mouth shut. To keep the inquiry from moving up.

Read related story: Coral Gables cover up on police ‘spy’ protects managers

Molina has been suspended with pay since, earning her six figure salary the whole time she is, supposedly, sitting at home catching up on the Food Network shows (more than $90,000 on suspension). The decision by the commission Tuesday to support the city manager’s recommendation means Molina gets to stay on through November to reach the minimum threshhold necessary to apply the rule of 70 that allows her to retire with $500 more a month.

So, basically, rather than discipline her for spying on Maria Cruz (photographed left), who, by the way, was texting commissioners Vince Lago and Frank Quesada so she could be recognized and speak about the police shortages, City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark has rewarded Molina. Make no mistake about that. Molina was rewarded for her work, being a good spy — which is precisely what she was doing on September 28 last year and what should have been, what should still be, investigated.

It wasn’t a mistake. Molina didn’t suspect a Sunshine Law violation. It was a public meeting. Maria Cruz is not an elected official. She’s an active old lady resident with a legitimiate gripe about police shortages. Which is precisely why Molina was spying on her. Part of the investigation that did not get discussed Tuesday was the testimony from Maj. Raul Pedroso and Molina herself, which seem to contradict everything Swanson-Rivenbark said on the dais.

Pedroso, for example, indicates that there had been prior conversations between Molina, himself and Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez, the director of public safety, about suspicious conversations and texting taking place in secret between some commissioners and some residents or employees of the police department. Apparently, from Pedroso’s testimony to the Internal Affairs investigator, these three sore losers have been talking about this “conspiracy” since Police Chief Ed Hudak was named interim chief instead of one of them.

“Maj. Molina, she was witness [to] what, what we have suspected,” Pedroso said in his sworn statement. “Which that these are the types of communications that are happening, that don’t appear to be the way that’s intended to in an open government.”

So, basically, they suspected that Maria Cruz was communicating with commissioners and Molina was getting proof for them.

Read related story: Gables Police major suspended for spying on resident

Ladra finds it curious that the mayor and certain commissioners had the time to bring up the sins of policemen past — which Swanson wisely listed on her report so she could change the narrative (it is a classic crisis management tactic and it worked somewhat) and justify her slap on Molina’s wrist — but they didn’t talk about the testimony that seems to indicate that what happened September 28 was not an isolated incident of rudeness but, rather, officially sanctioned government spying.

Molina didn’t take one photograph. She took six. Maybe as many as eight, because two were erased. Too blurry, she said in her sworn statement. She took the photographs from behind Maria Cruz’s shoulder, without her knowledge, in a sneaky and undercover fashion. She admits to going into investigative mode. She had to zoom in on them to see what was being said. She said she could read the messages were for Lago and she knew it was about the police shortages and about Maria Cruz wanting to speak but said she thought the resident was circumventing the rules. Maria Cruz was actually alerted by another witness in the commission chambers who thought the major was acting suspiciously. Molina, in her testimony, said she was just gathering evidence to report something she believed was a violation of the Sunshine Law.

But Molina didn’t then go and tell the police chief that a Sunshine Law had been violated. She didn’t take it to the city attorney who was right there. No, instead, Molina immediately showed the photos to Fernandez. Did he tell her to erase them because she had violated someone’s rights? No, he told her to show them to the city manager. And Swanson-Rivenbark says she told the major right away that what she had done was wrong.  “When she spoke to me as we went to the ribbon cutting for the NSA vehicles… I immediately said to her ‘It’s her right to text the commissioners.’”

And yet, Molina says in her own testimony that she didn’t realize she had done anything wrong until City Attorney Craig Leen told her once the commission meeting resumed after the NSA photo opp that residents could text commissioners any time they wanted. Wait, didn’t Cathy tell her just five minutes earlier or not? Probably not.

And Molina didn’t know it was wrong to photograph the communication of someone who is not under investigation? Are you kidding me? It’s unlikely the city would accept that as a legitimate excuse from a 23 veteran who once was considered for police chief — if it weren’t also convenient. Because this allows the city manager and her right hand man to move past this ugly little chapter without anyone having to know how involved they were in the spying.

Read related story: City uses legal muscle to gag Coral Gables activist

And also so they can keep it up. In recent days, Ladra has heard of other possible incidents in which Fernandez and his cronies have been reportedly reading other people’s emails and eavesdropping on conversations. He allegedly asked staff in Information Technology if they can find out who got blind copied on a critical email sent by Maria Cruz, who said Tuesday that she felt like she was in Castro’s Cuba again.

“Fidel Castro took over Cuba when I was 12 years old. Twelve. And I saw many injustices. Ms. Molina’s actions toward me took me back 60 years,” Cruz told commissioners when she begged them to terminate the major.

“Please, please send a clear message to anyone that in Coral Gables, no police offcer is above the law.”

The problem in this situation, however, is that those above the police officer are complicit.

Normally, the Miaim-Dade Republican’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner is headlined by a GOP politician. Recent years have seen heavyweights like Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez Cantera, presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio and vice presidential then-nominee Mike Pence last year.

This year, the group will have a poitician’s handler as the keynote speaker. Well, not a handler. The handler: Kellyanne Conway, former campaign manager turned White House whisperer to President Donald Trump. Conway, whose official title is counselor to the president, will be regailing local Republicans with her alternative facts at the June 27 dinner, which is the group’s main annual fundraiser.

And of course her presence is expected to sell tickets. But the “save the date” notices have a disclaimer so that we don’t confuse Conway with a dancing monkey: “Ms. Conway is a special guest for this event.  Her participation in the event is not a solicitation of funds.”

The dinner is still at the DoubleTree by Hilton Miami Airport and Convention Center, but it’s in a bigger room, said Miami-Dade GOP Chairman Nelson Diaz. The old room maxed out at 450 or 470 people and tickets to the dinners with Rubio and Pence sold out quick. This new room can accomodate more than 2,000 if needed.

Diaz loves Conway, who he says is a model for her courage, but he feels they are not in danger of selling out. Still, you never know. Conway is interesting enough that people might go who aren’t necessarily Republican. Ladra is tempted. Or will she have the same Trump effect that Pence and Congressman Trey Gowdy had last year? The local GOP tried to get The Donald himself, but Gowdy was the original surrogate tapped by the then presidential candidate to be the keynote speaker last year. Pence was a surprise bonus. But some anti-Trump Republicans — notably Congress members Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Carlos Curbelo — stayed away because of the toxic campaign. Might they stay away from the toxic campaigner?

Ladra says nana nina. Why? The difference between last year and this year is two words: White House.

Which leads us to wonder… how does our county GOP always get the big ticket?

“We always get great speakers, but it’s a lot of work,” Diaz told Ladra, adding that they had been in talks with Conway and her peeps since February or early March. That’s a very fast turnaround for the White House, where it can take up to six months to get a response for such a request.

“We have friends in the White House,” Diaz told Ladra. “We have friends everywhere. That’s part of the secret sauce.”

Speaking of secrets, this won’t be the first time that the Secret Service is also a guest, which can make logistics more difficult. “You can’t do this. You can’t do that,” Diaz said. And, no, he can’t go into details.

No word yet on whether Conway, who we imagine has just a tad less security than Pence, will stay for dinner or dine privately in another room like Pence did with his wife and his small army of bodyguards.

Tickets to the 69th annual Lincoln Day Dinner will be on sale in the nexts day or so online at www.miamidadegop.org.