The future plans for the Miami Marine Stadium will be the topic of discussion this week at the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club meeting in Miami Beach.

Don Worth, co-founder of the Friends of the Miami Marine Stadium — which advocates for the Bayside watersports stadium’s restoration — will be the guest speaker and bring people up to date on the latest developments, including a proposal by Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado for some $45 million in bond referendum dollars to fund improvements that has gotten some lukewarm response.

Last May, City Commissioners took what many longtime advocates consider the first serious step in the promise to repair and reopen the landmark — closed since 1992 — when they chose a team that includes a noted preservationist architect, Richard Heisenbottle, and the original architect of the stadium, Hilario Candela, to design the renovation. Heisenbottle led the renovation of both Miami City Hall and the Olympia Theater at the Gusman Center downtown.

That was a win for the Friends group, which had pushed for Candela and the controversial boat show held at the stadium in February as well as a $120-million renovation that was shot down.

But where are we today? Are there still plans to add wet slips into an expanded stadium, which purists say would damage the integrity of the stadium’s original design? What about the “flex park” that is also being pushed by the Regalado administration? And would we have to give back the $1 million grant that is covering the renovation design if these non historic uses are incorporated?

Also, what alternative potential funding could there be? Because there doesn’t seem to be much appetite on the city commission for the mayor’s $45-million bond. Discussion on the issue was deferred last month because commissioners wanted more details. Commissioner Joe Carollo blocked it citing the mostly ignored five-day rule, but expressed concern over the lack of information or analysis of the expenses and revenues associated with Virginia Key facilities pre- and post- renovation.

So, where else could we go if the city had to go somewhere other than the public trough? Certainly selling the graffiti-covered metal seats — cool as they are — won’t cover the price tag. But what about naming rights? Or corporate sponsorships? American Express in 2013 paid $80,000 for a study of the abandoned structure’s pilings. Could they be interested in underwriting some of the renovation? Or else call Visa.

These could be some of the questions answered on Tuesday. The meeting starts at 8:30 a.m. at Manolo Restaurant, 685 Washington Ave.

They need each other at this dark time.

The Democrats of South Dade Club will have a special meeting next week to talk about what happened Tuesday and, from what it looks like on the email invite, hug it out.

“There will be a special format for the November meeting,” it says.

“We will start social time a little earlier and go a little longer. We need to talk.”

The club had cancelled a “wrap party” for Thursday after “the board felt there was no longer an apetite among the members to have a party.”

They just didn’t want it to turn into a pity party.

On Tuesday, they won’t be just mourning the presidential loss to Donald Trump but the defeat of Democrat South Dade Sen. Dwight Bullard, who was beaten by Republican State Rep. Frank Artiles on Tuesday.

The business part of the meeting will be shortened to 25 minutes and the speaker, lobbyist and former State Rep. Mike Abrams, will start a little later at 8:10 p.m. “So we can all take a breath and have time to decompress amongst ourselves,” the email says.

“Extra food and extra wine will be provided during social time,” it ends. Key words: Extra wine. It’s in red type.

The meeting begins at 6:45 p.m. “to talk this through,” at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami, 7701 S.W. 76th Ave. 

Bet you the turnout is bigger than usual.

True to form, Miami-Dade School Board Member Raquel Regalado is not going to shut up and go away just because she fell a bit short in her shot to become the first female mayor of Miami-Dade.

Conceding Tuesday night and thanking her supporters, Regalado vowed to continue to fight for Miami-Dade residents and against the special interests at County Hall. Looks like the reporters there missed the lead because she laid out specific goals that have not been reported in stories that, instead, speculate about her future aspirations.

Because just because she wasn’t elected this time, doesn’t mean she’s going to stop representing us.

Regalado, who has already fought for us against the ridiculous courthouse tax referendum and in court to get back $9 million Mayor Carlos Gimenez gave to one of his top donors, said she was going to set her sights on charter changes that would hinder the abuse of power going on at County Hall and reform campaign finance.

Specifically, a change to have our elections supervisor elected by the people rather than appointed by the mayor and a referendum for campaign finance reform. Gimenez — who may have abused his power to provide the elections department with a replacement check after hours — spent somewhere around $10 million between his campaign account, his PACs and his multiple non-profits that we can’t track. And much of that came from people and companies who do business or want to do business with the county.

Regalado told supporters Thursday that she was going to reach out to the Accountable Miami-Dade group that failed to get campaign finance reform measure on the ballot to talk about joining forces.

Read related story: Gimenez submits late night campaign check (10:20 p.m.)

These are serious issues that are about to be tackled by a serious woman with a serious track record of getting things done. Yet reporters want to keep speculating about whether or not she will run for mayor of Miami next year to replace her termed-out father. This was a whisper campaign started by the Gimenez camp early on last year as soon as Regalado announced her intention to run for Miami-Dade mayor. She has said repeatedly that she is not needed as mayor of Miami but is needed at the county. Everybody has daddy issues but her.

Sure, it’s possible she could run for the seat being vacated by Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez, who is running for mayor (again). That would provide her with a $103,000-a-year salary and perhaps keep her busy in public service for the next three years. But no way does she finish the term. Because if she can run for mayor of Miami-Dade again in 2020 as the front runner in an open seat why on Earth wouldn’t she? 

On Wednesday, Regalado — who will be back on Cuban AM radio next week and Spanish-language weekend TV later this month — sent an email blast repeating her intent to continue fighting for the community and to pursue both ballot questions in near future.

“I will continue to fight for them, for you, for us. I will continue to promote our community’s priorities. I will continue to watch what happens at County Hall and voice my concern and bring forces together to fight the special interests that have taken hold,” Regalado wrote.

“In the coming weeks and months, you will hear from me again as I mount efforts to put measures on the ballot that will change our county government. We should elect our supervisor of elections, as they do in the other 67 counties in Florida. And we must pass campaign finance reform to ensure that the decisions at county hall are made in the best interests of residents and not of special interests.”

Ladra is still with her. Because those are both good ideas. Because we need to stick together and keep an eye on Carlos Gimenez.

And because this leadership in fighting for justice and this zest for transparency and pureness of process is what makes Raquel the best candidate for mayor in 2020.

Robert Asencio probably shouldn’t put a deposit on a Tallahassee apartment just yet.

And Ladra bets David “King Nine Lives” Rivera is lighting a candle to Cachita right now.

Because the election might have been on Tuesday, but we still don’t know who won the seat in Florida House district 118.

Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Christina White was preparing Thursday to start a recount of the votes cast in the race, where Asencio, a retired Miami-Dade Schools Police lieutenant, had the longtime legislator and former congressman beaten by 68 votes when all was said and done on Election Day.

That’s a difference of less than .25 percent, which requires an automatic recount.

But there were still 2,973 provisional ballot votes that had not been counted. And after the first batch of about 750 was counted Thursday night, Rivera gained 21 votes and closed the gap to 47. 

Read related story: Blue goes red, red goes blue in four flipped 305 seats

Provisional ballots are given to people who did not provide an identification or who weren’t listed on the rolls or were listed as having voted already but insisted they had not so that elections officials could decide later if they were, indeed, eligible voters and valid votes. Officials go through them one by one to determine. Most aren’t. Of the hundreds counted Thursday, only 30 were added to the final total.

If the rest of them to be counted Friday perform the same way as the first batch on Thursday, Rivera could gain another 60 or so votes and pull ahead.

But either way, the race will still be close enough to demand an automatic recount. That means that, starting Monday, all 65,000 or so votes will be fed back through the high-speed counter, which will spit out the under votes and over votes. An inside source told Ladra that there were somewhere around 5,800 over and under votes in the district. These are ballots in which the presidential race counted or the mayoral or senatorial races counted but this House race vote was not counted for one reason or another. Those will be reviewed individually in person by a canvassing board for “voter intent,” White said.

“Sometimes, a person will circle an entire name instead of filling in the bubble,” White told Ladra. “If someone circled Robert Asencio, then that vote will go to him. If someone bubbled in Asencio and then Xed it out and filled in the bubble for David Rivera, then the voter intended to vote for Rivera.”

Recounts are becoming more and more common, she said, adding that she’s overseen more than 15 since joining the elections department . That includes an Aug. 30 judicial race where all 268,000 votes had to be recounted. The result was upheld.

Read related story: David Rivera is baaaack — to his roots in state House race

White said she expects us to know who our new state rep is in 118 by the middle or end of next week. They will count absentee and Election Day ballots first while they retrieve the ballots that were used for early voting. That will take at least a couple of days, she added.

It looks like Asencio could have the upper hand. Hillary Clinton won the district by 56 percent, compared to 51 percent when Obama won it in 2012. Which means Rivera did extremely well in a district that only supported Donald Trump with 41%. But Ol’ Nine Lives underperformed in absentee ballots. He needed a bigger margin of Republican mail-in ballots over Democrats — say 3,000 — before Election Day and he didn’t get there.

But even if he newcomer pulls it off — and with less than $100,000 to boot — he may not last long. Republicans are going to make winning that seat back the No. 1 priority for the state. They are unlikely to let Asencio pass a single bill or bring a single buck back home.

“If he survives the recount, he may not even get a key to the bathroom,” said Rivera, who is, conversely, one of House Speaker Richard Corcoran’s BFFs.

Hmmmm. Maybe it would be better for the district — and Asencio’s bladder — if the recount goes Rivera’s way.

It’s understandable. People want to vent.

To say that not everybody is happy or even okay with the presidential election Tuesday would be so much more than the understatement of the year. Everybody is so not okay.

Thousands of people from Portland to New York City marched to protest the election results, chanting “Fuck Donald Trump” and “Love trumps hate” in the same ironic breath. Even in London, there was a protest at the U.S. embassy. There was a candlelight vigil at the White House Wednesday. The hashtag #notmypresident is trending. People are unfriending longtime pals on Facebook, shutting down highways and burning flags and trash in the streets of Oakland and Chicago.

Burning flags and trash in the streets! Like if this was Venezuela or something!

It wasn’t so long ago that President-elect Donald Trump was criticized, by some of these very same people, for intimating that he might not accept the election results. And now Hillary Clinton supporters are the ones calling for … what is that they want, exactly? For the election not to count?

Do we still live in a democracy? I may not agree with the presidential choice of “the people have spoken,” but I will die to defend him. Seriously, people. Don’t make me die for this idiot clown.

It is not easy to sit here and defend The Donald. Ladra does not like him. I did not vote for him. Of course, I didn’t vote for her either. Until the two major parties in this country provide me with better options, I’ll vote Libertarian or not at all. But I knew full well it was a protest vote and that Gary Johnson was not going to win. And I was ready to accept whoever did.

And I’m not about to unfriend my mom because she voted for Trump or unleash a obscenity-laced verbal attack on my sister via twitter because she voted for Hillary.

Read related story: Donald Trump win is scarier than an unlikely civil war

Because we still live in a democracy, right? We are supposed to defend their right to vote for whoever they damn well please. Write in Fidel Castro if you want to. Write in David Dukes. You’d be stupid, but whatever. It’s your vote. It’s your right. And that is one of the main reasons my parents came to this country — so they and we could openly support whoever we want, so that we could celebrate elections without the riots and street fires and state brutality that permeates the process in so many other countries.

We also have a right to protest peacefully, as some Hillary supporters are planning to do at 6 p.m. tomorrow at Bayfront Park. But I have to wonder what that accomplishes? What exactly are the demonstrators’ demands?

The word impeach has been used, although I am not sure you can impeach someone who isn’t even president yet and I don’t know what “high crimes” would be cited. At the very least, the call for impeachment is premature. Protesters should wait until after Trump is tried for conning those poor university students. They don’t have to wait long. The trial is scheduled for later this month.

Some have suggested we throw out the electoral votes and go by the popular vote, which Hillary won by 233,400 votes — which, frankly, is really not something to be so proud of. Shouldn’t it have been considerably more? And that’s not the way it works, by the way. We have a democratic process that calls for electoral votes. Otherwise the people in California, New York, Texas and Florida would always pick the POTUS. Why would people vote in any other state?

“We saw a campaign that was filled with racism and misogyny and whole host of other terrible tactics that ultimately were successful for winning the electoral college.” said Ethan Miller of Jobs with Justice, an organization that defends workers rights to unionize and one of the groups that organized the D.C. vigil.

“But we’re not going to let a Donald Trump presidency stop the progress in this country.”

What exactly are we afraid that he might do?

Palmetto High students in Pinecrest walked out of class Thursday just after noon — in the middle of fifth period — to chant “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.” And while I have to applaud these teenagers’ engagement, do they know what they are chanting? Or is this just an excuse to get out of algebra? As far as I can remember, Trump denounced the KKK leader’s endorsement. Did Hillary denounce Fidel Castro’s blessing?

It doesn’t help that many of the protesters seem to have agendas of their own. Whether its Black Lives Matter or Occupy Democrats, equal marriage activists or just plain and proud communists, it’s hard to believe many are really protesting the election results as much as they are protesting the impact on their particular issue.

Man up, people! Get over it! That’s the price of living in a free democracy. 

Read related story: ‘Latino-loving’ GOP silent on Trump insults

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do believe that Trump has acted like a racist, misogynist, homophopic, xenophobic pig, a pervert and a conman and a tyrant-in-the-making with zero public service experience or even respect for public service, little knowledge of world affairs and a fifth grader’s vocabulary. I do believe there should be some concern that someone with Trump’s temperament and judgement just became the leader of the free world, which comes with a red nuclear “go” button and control of the Supreme Court bench.

I also believe the racists who supported Donald Trump — and while my mom has her own reasons and is not racist there are definitely racists among his core base — have been emboldened and could feel empowered. Gays, Muslims, blacks, Mexicans or people who just look gay, Muslim, black or Mexican have legitimate reason to fear not Trump, himself, but what he may have unleashed. Just as we’ve seen protests of the election results, we’ve seen people in pick-up trucks shouting and waving confederate flags at impromptu honk-and-wave Trump rallies, yelling at people who don’t look exactly like them to go home — not knowing that home is Hillsborough County, USA.

Illegal immigrants have legitimate reason to worry that enforcement and deportation may be stepped up in a Trump administration. But, unfortunately, their lot always changes with the political winds. What they need is to get out of that storm permanently. What the people protesting Trump for Dreamers and immigrants need to be protesting is the fact that this country needs bipartisan immigration reform that is humane while it also makes us more secure. Now. Regardless of who is president. Trump is a symptom. The disease is our broken immigration system.

In fact, all these protests against the election results are misdirected. These energies should be invested, instead, toward the issues and values we hold dear, not the person chosen as our national leader by voters in a fair election.

Let’s organize to protect our rights and ourselves from the new hope found by those who hate.

Let’s work harder to elect people who do espouse our values and who treat women and minorities right and who don’t mock the physically challenged among us. Or, better yet, let’s run for office. 

Let’s demonstrate to save the EPA or the Department of Education, both of which might disappear in a Trump presidency. Let’s protest any action he makes to limit our rights — if and when he makes them. Let’s demonstrate for or against the repeal of Obamacare, for or against a wall, for or against domestic partnership benefits in every state.

But to protest the election results is ridiculous. Because it is our own damn fault. The truth is neither candidate was perfect. And Democrats are as much to blame for the election results as Republicans. We share the responsibility for President Trump.

If you don’t want to hear it from Ladra, then listen to Hillary herself:  “I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans,” she said in her concession speech Wednesday.

“I still believe in America and I always will. If you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future.”

North Miami Beach voters approved term limits and made several important changes to their charter Tuesday that will simplify and streamline the way the city operates. 

They approved the updating of language and removal of obsolete code and changed the council’s ability — or, rather, the commission’s ability, because voters changed the name of the governing body, too — to hire and fire the city manager and allow them to hire a law firm rather than a city attorney (is somebody’s job in jeopardy?). 

The only proposed change of 10 they didn’t approve was a reduction in quorum from five to the majority four.

Political blogger Stepanie Kienzle, of VotersOpinion.com, knows way more about North Miami Beach politics than Ladra and called these changes no-brainers. But we really applaud the move to change the election day in the city from May to November. Not only does it save the city money in setting up a special election, but it also increases voter participation quite a bit.

Only entrenched incumbents with questionable motives would oppose this because it is in their best interest to keep turnout low. It’s easier to control a smaller number of people.

But North Miami Beach electeds had uh, maybe an ulterior reason to support this particular measure. They got a consolation prize with this change — 18 additional months tacked on to their terms. Because, for the same participation reason, the city chose to change the year of the election from odd numbered years to even numbered years that coincide with presidential and gubernatorial elections.

It’s like a free bonus mini-term.

Mayor George Vallejo must be jumping for joy at City Hall. His term would have ended in May, 2019. But now his term is extended until the next presidential election! It’s like he was elected yesterday, too! Ditto for Commissioners Marlene Martell, Frantz Pierre and Phyllis Smith.  

The other three commissioners, then, might be doing backflips. Up for re-election this coming May — that’s six months from now — Anthony DeFillipo, Barbara Kramer and Beth Spiegel are now in office at least through November of 2018. Yes, 2018!

Well, you know what? Voters determined it was a small price to pay. They approved the change by 53%. Well, that was only 6,456 people, you might say. Because it was only slightly more than half the 12,192 who voted Tuesday.

But that’s still a whole lot more than the 1,591 people who voted in the municipal election last year. Which is the whole point, isn’t it?

Now, if we can only get voters in other cities to do the same. It is concerning how many municipalities have these off year, off month suppression special elections. 

South Miami and Golden Beach have them in February. Hialeah Gardens does it in March. Coral Gables, Miami Shores, Miami Springs and Bay Harbor Islands have elections in April. North Miami Beach abandoned May but there are still elections in North Miami and Sweetwater that month. Virginia Gardens waits until September, when 157 people voted last year. And Homestead has its primary in October. Happy Halloween!

It’s like we belong to an election of the month club.

Most of these cities have terribly low turnout for their important local races, the results of which can impact our immediate quality of life more than state or national races. In Coral Gables, for example, there were 30,663 registered voters last year. But only 7,804 voted in the election. That comes to 25% of the electorate.

Ladra challenges electeds in these cities to make the change that North Miami Beach made. I specifically call on Coral Gables Commissioner Vince Lago, South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard and Miami Springs Mayor Zavier Garcia. Go on. I dare you guys. All you have to do is put it to the voters in your city.

And maybe you’ll get a little extra bonus time on your term for your efforts.