The mayoral race in Miami Beach is going to be expensive as both candidates have already raised almost $800,000 between them. Ladra fully expects this to go over the million dollar mark before the November election.

Commissioner Michael Grieco — who loaned himself $25,000 in December — has raised the most with $459,367. To be fair, he started last summer. But, according to the latest campaign finance reports filed this week, Grieco also has spent less since June than former state Senator Dan Gelber, who has raised just over $308,991, has spent since February. Gelber has spent $64,223 already, in two months, while Grieco has spent $51,672 in nine.

Read related story: Ladra predicts Dan Gelber files for Miami Beach mayor

Sure, it’s early in the campaign, but consider this: Gelber raised $222,435 in his first month and $88,556 in his second month. That’s quite a drop-off. He spent $5,333 in February and $59,000 in March. That’s some inflation. If this trend continues — raising less and less and spending more and more — he could be out of money by August.

In comparison, Grieco’s fundraising has not dropped off as hard. He started his mayoral campaign with $107,000 in January, followed up with $70,000 in February and $48,747 last month. Spending has nearly doubled, but that means it went up from $9,246 in January to $16,431 last month.

The $219,000 Grieco raised last year as a commission candidate — and none of those donors have asked for their checks back — were also a consistent series of reports: $34,600 in June, $28,200 in July, $24,200 in August, $37,650 in September, $36,650 in October, $19,000 in November and $13,250 in December — but fundraising always falls off during the holidays. During the entire year of 2016, seven months of campaigning, Grieco spent almost $5,280, the bulk of which ($4,000) went to a fundriaisng consultant named Owen Carhart. Most of the rest went to processing fees.

Carhart got another $3,550 so far this year on the mayoral account but there are three other consultants: Stefanie Epstein, who is also a fundraising consultant, has been pad $6,000 and Jonathan Fernandez got $1,000. The big cahoona here is Ladra’s favorite scuzbucket, and the main thing I hold against Grieco, David “Guttermouth” Custin, who has billed $17,286 so far for consulting and other things, such as stationery, hand fans, holiday calendars and other “collateral materials” on which he skims at least 15% and probably more.

“I’m very proud of the pace of my fundraising,” Grieco told Ladra this week shortly after the most recent campaign finance reports were filed. He also said that he expected Gelber to come out strong.

“I’m not surprised he can rraise a lot of money. Dan is a career politician,” Grieco said.

“Most of my supporters are people who know me,” Gelber said. “I don’t think I’ve been spending that much.”

Well, let’s see. In addition to about $2,200 for yard signs and another $2,000 for placards, magnets, bumper stickers and a banner, he’s doled out more than $30,000 on staff, according to the last reports through March 31 and filed this week. And again, this is all in two months time.

Gelber paid $9,500 to Tampa-based pollster SEA Polling for “research.” But his consultant, Christian Ulvert, who got paid $9,925, wouldn’t tell Ladra anything about the results, just that it was “issue oriented.” Gelber has a team of political consultants, too. And they are pricier. Michael Worley, out of Fort Lauderdale, is doing his social media for $6,680 so far. Campaign Manager Adrian Chamberlin, who was a field director for the Florida Democratic Party in 2016, has made about $4,000. and Nicole Arango, who does event coordination and senior outreach, has gotten $1,500 through March.

The biggest single payout from Gelber’s campaign account was to his professional fundraiser, Brian Goldmeier, who is best known for raising millions for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and his allies on the commission, sometimes shaking down the very contractors and vendors who do or want to do business with the county. Goldie got $17,634, so far, because that fee is usually worked out as a percentage of what he brings in. He also got $840 as a reimbursement for an fundraising event, which was coincidentally the same cost of a February event at Perricone’s in Brickell.

Read related story: Mike Grieco first to run for open Miami Beach mayor’s seat

But while the former federal prosecutor’s spending habits are certainly interesting, that’s not the most troubling part of the campaign report. As usual, the devil is in the details and a quick count of the contributions by address show that roughly 70% of Gelber’s campaign cash comes from outside Miami Beach. That makes senses, I guess, if he is tapping into his statewide Democratic Party support base and Goldmeier is reaching out across the county.

Again, Gelber disagreed with my findings. “A lot of folks may be using an address where they work but they live in Miami Beach. Most of my supporters are people who know me. Maybe they don’t live here now but they did and they still work here. They have an interest in Miami Beach.”

Aha! There’s the word: interest. Yes, I am sure there is a lot of out-of-town interests in Miami Beach contributing to your campaign.

Ulvert, the candidate’s political consultant, called Ladra quickly after Gelber aplogogized for having to hang up to go to a private fundraiser at someone’s home. Ulvert wanted to explain that 40 or 50 of those out of town checks had come from lawyers and other professionals who live on the Beach but used their professional address. That would still leave Gelber with more than 60% of his financial support from outside Miami Beach.

Meanwhile, the exact opposite is true for Grieco, who reports almost 70% of his contributions as coming from Miami Beach, the city he wants to represent. One can assume they, too, have an interest.

Looking at his contributions and his staff, one has to wonder if Gelber, who ran for Florida Attorney General in 2010 but lost to Pam Bondi, is running a regional Democratic Party campaign (again) for a non partisan municipal seat.

The next mayor of Miami Shores is the lucky one among six council candidates who gets the most votes Tuesday.

That’s how they do it there in The Village Beautiful. Six wannabes vie for three “at large” seats. The two candidates with the highest number of votes will serve for four years and the one who gets the third  highest number will serve a two-year term. Then, among their first orders of business, they will vote among themselves and the two existing council members, elected in 2015 to a four-year term, to choose a mayor, who serves mostly a ceremonial seat for two years.

Historically, the council has chosen the candidate who gets the highest number of votes. That person serves the frist two years as mayor and the last two years as a council member.

None of the candidates have ever been elected before. The only “incumbent” among the six candidates is Councilman MacAdam Glinn, who was appointed to replace a councilman who resigned about 18 months ago. Councilwoman Herta Holly is termed out and Councilwoman Ivonne Ledesma, is not seeking re-election.

“It’s been four years and I’ve done my civic duty,” Ledesma told Ladra Wednesday. “I never had any intention of maing a career out of it.”

As the only Hispanic on the council, Ledesma (photographed to the left) is endorsing the only Hispanic and only woman of the six candidates, Liangy Fernandez-Calli, a mother of four who serves on various community groups and committees.

“We’re an 80-year-old city and we’ve only had a handful of Hispanics on the council and no African-Americans,” she said, and although we were talking on the phone, you could hear her virtually shaking her head.

Eddie Lewis is the only black candidate running, but he’s not really a candidate. Not viably. Lewis has run about a dozen times — even for county offices. He is a perennial candidate desperate to get elected and voters don’ generally like that. Just ask Annette Taddeo.

Here are thumbnail profiles of the six candidates:

• Sean Brady ran in 2015, coming in fifth with 906 votes. He is a 42-year-old father and information technology consultant with his own small business who has lived in Miami Shores for seven years and is on the board of directors of the Miami Shores Chamber of Commerce.
• Bill Davis comes from a long line of elected officials. It seems that one of his relatives has always been on the council. Someone named Hunt Davis ran two years ago but didn’t come close. Bill Davis has talked on the campaign trail about placing cameras on the west side of the village, for public safety reasons.
• Liangy Fernandez-Calli, the female on the ballot. She is recently joined the Chamber of Commerce and has been the president of the parent association at Miami Shores Presbyterian Church School for two years, where she organized the arts festival now in its third year.
• MacAdam Glinn, 41, is a construction industry lawyer and senior VP and director of aviation at Skanska USA Building. He came in fourth in 2015, short just 14 votes from third place, but as appointed to the seat vacated shortly after the election when Councilman Jesse Walters resigned amid a dispute with the country club and allegations that he was trying to strong-arm them into changing the lease agreement with the village.
• Eddie Lewis, the token black candidate on the Shores ballot, is a pernnial candidae desperate to serve in office. He’s even run for county mayor in the clusterbunch of the 2011 recall election and for property appraiser before that. Ladra is surprised he hasn’t run for the School Board. He is the only one of the six candidates whose photo is not on the village website. Ladra suspects he will be as absent on election day (again).
• Jonathan Meltz, the president of the Miami Shores Chamber of Commerce (its a small town, okay?) for the last two years. An attorney who has lived in the village for 15 years, he coaches girls basketball, volleyball and flag football at St. Rose Lima where his daughters attend and his wife is Home and School Board President.

There’s nothing really controversial setting anyone terribly apart this election cycle. It’s not like two years ago, when the council’s rejection of a marriage equality measure caused a stir in this cozy, tidy and LGBTQ friendly enclave east of I-95 from about 90th to 111th streets just south of North Miami. There was so much backlash, in fact, that the equal marriage measure was passed shortly after the election — brought back to the dais by one of the councilmembers who voted against it originally.

There’s more buzz this year about the referendum on a $20 million bond to build a community center. If approved, the Village will have 30 years to pay off the new bonds and the new debt service on property taxes would be approximately a little more than $285 annually or $23.75 per month for a home with an assessed value of $229,000.

The election is from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday and The Village Beautiful is such a small town that there is one voting location, the C. Lawton McCall Community Center at 9617 Park Drive.

SAVE Dade will have volunteers going door to door to drum up votes for the three candidates they are supporting, which are Brady, Fernandez-Calli and Glinn. For more information on volunteering, click here.

Former Miami Lakes Mayor Michael “Muscles” Pizzi is out of the limelight and out of politics, losing the mayoral election last November to Manny Cid. But he’s not out of the legal debt stemming from that elected office.

Pizzi has been sued by Carlton Fields Jorden Burt, one of the lawfirms that represented him during his battle with the town of Miami Lakes to get his seat back. They say he owes them $56,795. Pizzi says he doesn’t owe them squat.

“Carlton Fields was paid every penny they earned,” Pizzi told Ladra Wednesday. “I’m not going to pay them a penny more. And for them to do this two years later is absurd.”

Let’s bring the newcomers up to speed, shall we?

Read related story: Chatty Michael Pizzi claims innocence, blames Michael Kesti

After Pizzi beat federal charges of bribery stemming from a bogus grant scheme set up by undercover FBI agents, he sued to be reinstated as mayor, even though the town had elected someone else during his trial after he was suspended by the governor. A court forced the governor to unsuspend him and then forced the town to take him back. Then the court found that the town was liable for his legal fees in that fight to regain his office.

Those fees originally were somewhere around $600,000, but the town refused to pay more than what they paid for their own legal fees during the case, which was approximately $460,000. A settlement with Pizzi and the attorneys in question meant that they would each have to lower their fees by a certain percent. Apparently, Carlton Fields was not happy and never signed on to a discount figure. It’s unclear if they got any of the pie. 

And, no, Pizzi didn’t pocket the money himself. It’s the first thing Ladra thought, too. But the town paid the lawfirms directly after reaching the settlement. And it was apparently Pizzi’s decision to leave Carlton Fields out of it. So they sued him.

Read related story: Michael Pizzi and his legal dream team — at what cost to who?

The lawsuit, filed in February, includes an agreement Pizzi signed in August 2014 agreeing to the schedule of fees for video taping, secretarial work, messanger services and a slew of other incidentals, plus the $870 an hour for Peter Webster, the attorney who represented Pizzi for the petition to the state to have him reinstated. The motion says that Pizzi saw the invoices every month and never objected, further approving the fees.

Pizzi played possum with Ladra.

“It’s ridiculous. A big law firm trying to get money they’re not entitled to,” Pizzi said. “I’m offended by their conduct.”

The former mayor, who is still fighting County Hall on the megamall on behalf of a group of residents, says that the firm should sue the town. After all, he is not responsible for those fees. The attorneys won him that battle.

Pizzi said that Carlton Field was paid a portion of their “exorbitant” fees. “If they feel they are entitled to any more money, they should have filed a claim against the town.”

The documents filed with the lawsuit show the total balance as $56,795, so it’s unclear if they were paid anything.

Read related story: Michael Pizzi sues Miami Lakes for $3.2 million in legal fees

Meanwhile, the town is still fighting Pizzi’s attempts to have taxpayers pay the $2.5 million legal fees for his federal bribery trial, for which he had more attoreys than O.J. Simpson (read: too many). The town says nana nina.

“We don’t believe any of the conduct was in the course and scope of being mayor of Miami Lakes,” said Town Attorney Raul Gastesi. He is talking about when Pizzi backdated bogus documents and took a $3,000 campaign contribution in an office closet. At the very least, he added, half of the charges in the indictment stem from actions Pizzi took as town attorney in Medley.

A court agreed with the town and ordered Pizzi to be deposed so he could answer questions about the fees, which the town believes are also excessive. Pizzi has refused to be questioned and appealed that decision.

Of course he did! He is facing $2.5 million in lawsuits!

The four-way Coral Gables commission race becomes a two-way race as longtime activist and everybody’s favorite tia abuela Marlin Ebbert heads into a runoff with land use attorney with hipster facial hair Mike Mena.

And Mena heads into it stronger, having garnered 44.5% of the vote Tuesday to Ebbert’s 33%. Retired Gables Police Sgt. Randy Hoff did not fare as well as Ladra thought he would with 18%. Maybe Ebbert’s name recognition — she ran against Vince Lago two years ago, getting 31 to his 53% — and a Miami Herald endorsement helped. Perhaps the baggage of Hoff having been a police union boss who advocated for employees on the retirement board was too much for residents to bear.

As Ladra predicted (and it was the only thing I got right), Serafin Sousa was a distant fourth with under 5 %.

Read related story: Hoff, Mena stand out in 4-way commission race

Mena, who Ladra was told was recruited into the race by Commissioner Frank Quesada, had far more money to campaign and has been doing so aggressively (he is the opposite of Chip Withers) with a dozen or so mailers and teams of young people knocking on doors every day. He had raised more than $136,500 as of March 28, compared to Ebbert’s $21,600.

He will likely raise more far more money than her over the next two weeks as well. Expect the campaigning to start Wednesday as absentee ballots will likely be mailed out again in the next few days and the runoff is in less than two weeks, April 25.

Does it really matter who wins now? The pro development foces (read: Quesada and Commissioner Vince Lago) have the third vote they need to continue to drive their agenda now that former Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli won his seat back, beating Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick in the ugliest of the three races. The answer isnt simple. Ladra says no. And yes.

No because Ebbert will likely end up in the same 4-1 position that Slesnick found herself in many times. Yes because she is friendly with Commissioner Pat Keon (both women are members of the Gables Garden Club) and maybe can talk some sense into her on the dais. And Lago has voted against development a couple of times so it just might make a difference once or twice a year.

Plus the message to newbies like Mena should be that they need to serve on a board or committee at the city level before running for full fledged commissioner.

But Ebbert would have to get practically all of Randy Hoff’s share to beat Mena.

If only the 2,687 who voted for her Tuesday and the 3,643 who voted for Mena show up or cast ballots for the April 25 runoff, well then, better luck to Ebbert on her third, next try.

Former Coral Gables Commissioner Wayne “Chip” Withers lost his bid to come back to office by unseating an incumbent Tuesday.

But did he really try? That’s questionable (read: not so much).

Commissioner Pat Keon, who had five times as much more money as he did, won handily, 57 to 43 percent in one of the two commission seats on the ballot. The other will head into a runoff April 25 between longtime grandma activist Marlin Ebbert and land use attorney Mike Mena.

Keon’s campaign was almost laughable. While she had raised at least $222,000 as of March 28 to spend on print, radio and even TV ads, she also basically took credit for the Gables tree canopy in an email blast and for a resolution that forces the city to program inclusive recreational activities for special needs kids. Really? Naturally both are good things, and I applaud the inclusion legislation. But was it necessary? And, even if we live in a world and county where it is, isn’t that, like the protection of trees, a no-brainer? Isn’t it far more difficult to make the right decision when developers are pressuring you to approve an oversized project despite the overwhelming objection of a huge majority of adjacent residents?

Read related story: ‘Chip’ Withers vs Pat Keon because of the Paseo project

In fact, Keon’s Achilles heel was just that: She doesn’t listen to the people. She’s oblivious to their fears about the lack of police presence or their disgust with some metal flower sculptures that 1,600 people signed a petition to have relocated from the Segovia Biltmore circle. She is arrogant and has this “I know better than you” tone in everything.

But Withers never used that against her. He thought he could run a shoestring grassroots campaign that banked on his name recognition instead of any real fundraising to get the anti-development, arrogant incumbent message out.

This is also proof that you can’t get elected by just los cuatro gatos impressed by Modesto “Mitch” Maidique and your immediate neighbors, no matter how many of them you have. It was pretty obvious, and several sources confirmed to Ladra, that Withers had been recruited by the Riviera Homeowners Association to run against Keon because of her vote to approve the Paseo project on U.S. 1.

They never put their money where their mouth is and were, basically, outmessaged. That’s the only reason she got more than 1,200 votes ahead. It should have at least been closer.

Former Coral Gables Mayor Raul Valdes Fauli will have that word “former” removed from his identification after he is sworn in as the new mayor again.

Valdes-Fauli beat Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick in the mayoral race Tuesday, 51 to 49, after Mayor Jim Cason said he would not run for a fourth term. As expected, it was a tight race and a slim victory — by a scant 187 votes. And it’s almost all absentee ballots.

Only 15 people more voted for him than for her on election day. The other 172 additional votes he got were via AB.

A total of 8,415 people voted in the mayoral election Tuesday (there was a drop off of about 200 an 300 in the two commission races), which is on the high end of a typical turnout.

Read related story: Coral Gables candidates will spend more than $1 million

“I always said I was going to need 4,000 votes. I just needed a little more,” Slesnick told Ladra late Tuesday night after several people had left her campaign party.

She said her business partner will be happy to have her back at work full time, but that she will stay involved in Gables issues. “I never stopped being involved,” she said, and she wasn’t talking about Valdes-Fauli but she may as well have been since he disappeared for 13 years until endorsing Cason two years ago and then getting rewarded with a charter review committee seat.

“We had a great turnout today and we ran a really good campaign. They were all volunteers except for one person. Everybody else was volunteer from start to finish,” she said. “I ran a very clean campaign and I’m very proud and I don’t know anything I could have done differently.”

With all due respect and my apologies for not writing enough about the race or earlier, maybe she could have gone a little negative? Valdes-Fauli sure did. And it seemed to work for him.

The former mayor waged war in this campaign, which was more of a grudge match for Valdes-Fauli, who lost his seat in 2001 in a bitter defeat to former Mayor Don Slesnick, the commissioner’s husband. Jeannett was cast as not much more than a shill for her husband, whose administration was mired in scandal and financial chaos, which was sort of the case but certainly not Don Slesnick’s fault.

Read related story: Mucho mailers mean to mislead in Coral Gables election

“I’m sorry he had to take the brundt of the campaign madness,” the good wife said. 

But Valdes-Fauli got his licks in on her, too. Using innocuous votes against her, saying she voted for the Paseo project when, in fact, it had already been approved and she was voting for subsequent measures, some of which downsized the project. She did her job. Another cast her as “Speedy Slesnick” because she voted against a feel-good measure to lower speed limits to 25 MPH on some streets whe her point is that what the city needs is police officers to enforce the already pretty good 30 MPH limit. 

The worst attack, however, was the whisper campaign about Slesnick being anti-Hispanic or anti-Cuban, which is a ridiculous and, frankly, insulting card to pull. It becomes especially injuring when it is pulled by a Castro apologist who recently visited the island, had some eye-opening experience and now advocates for closer relations with the Cuban regime. Que descaro!

We’ll know more in coming days about the demographics of the vote, but I bet that a lot of Hispanics were targetted and came out.

Read related story: Coral Gables mayoral race takes a nasty, ethnic turn

This victory is not just a victory for Valdes-Fauli — and for Sergio Pino, one of the developers that funded his campaign (with at least $10,000). This is a victory also for Commissioners Frank Quesada and Vince Lago, who endorsed the former mayor and will now have a third vote to push their agenda through.

And if people were concerned about over development before, they can just kiss the old Gables good bye, because it’s not about to get any better for the next two years. It doesn’t really matter anymore that Commissioner Pat Keon got re-elected or if Marlin Ebbert pulls out an upset and beats Mike Mena in a runoff (more on that later).

A majority is three votes. They have preserved that with Tuesday’s vote.