First step victory for mayoral candidate is appealed
The wannabe dictators at Miami City Hall just got a hard slap of reality from the bench. And Ladra is here for it.
In a fiery ruling, hot enough to singe the mayor’s eyebrows, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Valerie Manno Schurr on Monday declared what most Miamians already knew in their gut: The Miami City Commission’s shady decision to cancel next year’s election and hand themselves an extra year in office without first taking it to voters was unconstitutional.
Basically, they tried to cancel your vote. And got caught and slapped on the ballot.
And thanks to former City Manager Emilio González, who is running for mayor, the election is back on.
Well, maybe. Fingers crossed. “While we respectfully disagree with the trial court’s decision,” City Attorney George Wysong said in a statement, “we are confident in the strength of our case and remain optimistic about the outcome on appeal.” That appeal was filed before the ruling came down based on Wednesday’s hearing. Because the city already knows the case is a stinker.
The issue is pressing, since the ballot for this year has to be ready for printing by September, so the judge has set a date of Aug. 8 to resolve it. Knock on wood.
Read related: First lawsuit filed to stop city of Miami from cancelling November election
González sued the city days after the commission voted last month to move municipal elections from odd to even years, effectively postponing the 2025 election until 2026 and extending their own terms without so much as a “¿te importa?” to the voters.
The ordinance — sponsored by “reformer” Commissioner Damian Pardo — is purportedly about increasing turnout a lot and reducing costs a little. The idea was to empower voters, Pardo said. But the change also just happened to keep voters out of the loop and ignored an earlier vote to limit terms to a max eight years by giving the bonus year to even term-limited commissioners.
“This is not just a victory for me,” González said in a statement, polishing his halo, “it is a triumph for all voters in the City of Miami and across Miami-Dade County who believe in upholding our charter and the rule of law.”
His legal team — including former Florida Supreme Court Justice Alan Lawson (the big guns) — called the move what it was: a charter-busting, power-hungry hijack. They compared it to stunts pulled in places like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Cuba — countries where elections get postponed for “reform” and never really come back.
Sound familiar, Miami?
Lawson argued that the charter — Miami’s own governing rules — and the county’s Home Rule charter say you need a vote of the people to make election changes like this. And they trump any state law the city was relying on.
But city attorneys argued that, no, no, they were just tweaking the city code. Not the charter. As if voters can’t tell the difference.
The judge did not mince her words to say that the city was playing a magic trick with, um, words.
“The City’s contention that its Ordinance did not ‘amend’ its City Charter is nothing more than semantic sleight of hand. In one sense, of course, the City is correct, it did not effectuate a permissible amendment to its Charter because the Florida Constitution and Miami-Dade County Charter do not allow the City to amend or repeal its provisions by ordinance. That can only be accomplished with a vote of the electorate, as the Plaintiff correctly contends.”
Sounds like a Catch-22: “We didn’t change the charter because that would require a vote of the people. No, we don’t need a vote of the people because we’re not changing the charter.”
Read related: Miami Commissioners pass election date change — and steal an extra year
Even Assistant City Attorney Eric Eves had to admit, awkwardly, at a hearing last Wednesday that the city’s new ordinance puts the charter and code at odds. “Yes, it conflicts with our charter. But I haven’t heard anyone claim our charter supersedes the state.”
The city and Pardo kept using the example of North Miami — where they extended terms by 18 months in 2023, and later upheld by an appeals court — to say that, well, if that municipality can do it, why can’t we? Eves suggested that Manno Schurr read the opinion of Judge Reemberto Diaz in that case and copy/paste. “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel,” he said.
But the González team argued that the North Miami case did not set a binding precedent. “There’s no procedural value whatsoever in that opinion. The issue you’re being asked to decide was not raised in that case,” Lawson said, calling it irrelevant.
Assistant City Attorney Eric Eves, Judge Valerie Manno Schurr and plaintiff’s attorney, Alan Lawson
Pero, por si las moscas, the hearing was also attended by a North Miami resident who wanted to tell the “horror story” about the change of election in that city. “We ended up with someone serving 25 years in office,” said Eileen Bicaba, president of the NoMi Neighbors Association, who last year filed a lawsuit against three council members for violating the state’s Government in the Sunshine Law.
“This was nothing short of a coup in North Miami,” Bicaba said, passionately.
In her ruling, the judge mostly relied on one aspect: She said the city’s reliance on state law was misplaced. Perhaps a better word would be “selective.” Because the city actually omitted a tiny little wee part of the law it relied on, which reads, “The Florida Election Code… shall govern the conduct of a municipality’s election in the absence of an applicable special act, charter, or ordinance provision.” The judge’s bold letters, not Ladra’s.
The second part of the law only exists, Manno Schurr repeated, apparently for emphasis, “in the absence of an applicable charter provision.” Again, Ladra has to compliment her on the use of bold font when appropriate. In other words, you can only apply that law when the county or the city don’t have laws that conflict.
“Here, there are two charters that together apply and control: the Miami-Dade Charter and the City Charter,” Judge Manno Schurr wrote in her 14-page decision. So the state law “cannot be construed to authorize the City’s passage of the Ordinance.”
The Miami-Dade charter “unambiguously prohibits the City from cancelling an election, moving an election, or extending the terms in office for city officials without the consent of the electorate given at a properly held election,” the judge wrote. Keyword: Without.
“Furthermore, the Court will not presume that the Legislature intended [state law] to be construed as permitting municipalities to extend existing terms or change the term limits in the absence of express text granting such authority,” she writes in the ruling. Boom! She gets it.
“This omission stands in stark contrast to section… which expressly allows a municipality to effectuate ‘changes in terms of offices necessitated by . . . changes in election dates,’ provided the issue is not ‘preempted to a county,” Manno Schurr writes.
Which, as established, it is.
Read related: Miami commissioners should shorten their terms for election year change
All of this was unnecessary. Pardo could have taken this concept to the people, you know, like in a democracy. He could have campaigned for it. He already put lifetime term limits on the November ballot. It would have been easy to add the change in election year and let the voters decide. But it’s way easier to just bulldoze ahead because he “had the votes” on the commission, and, as he says, he had to seize the moment.
Who cares if people had already spent time and money campaigning for this year’s election? Ladra bets Pardo would have felt differently, however, if they had pulled this in 2023, when he was running for commissioner. Perhaps, as some critics say, extending his own term is the only way he’ll serve more than four years.
On Wednesday, Pardo posted a statement on social media that was the exact statement provided to Political Cortadito by the city’s spokeswoman on behalf of the city attorney. So it’s an echo chamber over there at City Hall. They got nothin’ to say.
Commissioner Joe Carollo, who has also threatened to run for mayor and voted against the election year change, had attorneys attend Wednesday’s hearing after they filed an amicus brief in support of Gonzalez, which is a nice change of pace. Not that González needed it or welcomed it.
Denise Galvez-Turros, an activist in Little Havana who filed to run for commission in District 3, also filed a lawsuit last week that challenges the validity of the ordinance and asks the court to find it void and unenforceable.
“This unlawful act is not merely a procedural defect. It is a calculated effort by a narrow majority of the Commission to entrench themselves in power, override the will of the electorate, and circumvent the very Charter provisions they are sworn to uphold,” wrote attorney Reid Levin on behalf of Galvez Turros.
“The people of Miami are entitled to choose their representatives at the ballot box; not have them imposed by ordinance.”
There is a little more than two weeks left before the Aug. 8 deadline to hear the city’s appeal of Manno Schurr’s ruling. Expect another round of lawyerly acrobatics from the city attorney’s office.
Maybe more excuses about turnout, costs, traffic, climate change, Mercury in retrograde — anything to avoid putting this to a real vote.
Emilio T Gonzalez v City of Miami — Judge says ordinance to change election year without public vote uncon… by Political Cortadito on Scribd

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Well, that didn’t take long.
It took Joe Carollo less than a month to go from proud political padrino to spiteful ex in the case of newly-elected Commissioner Ralph Rosado, who Carollo helped usher into office with more than half a million from his political action committee and hours upon hours of his unique political strategy.
“He is such a huge disappointment,” Carollo said, on his morning radio show.
This was predictable. Pinky is only the latest name scrawled onto Joe’s ever-growing Burn Book of Betrayals. But it may be a record in the quickness. Even the bromance with former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla lasted longer.
Just six weeks ago, Carollo was allegedly burning the midnight oil during the special election for District 4. He told The Miami Herald he stayed up until the wee hours writing and designing those negative campaign mailers. But
He also burned his own political capital. Literally. According to the most recent campaign finance report, he spent at least $547,000 from his Miami First PAC, mostly attacking Jose Francisco Regalado and his family, which includes former Miami mayor and current Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Tomas Regalado and Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado. He was spotted out in the sun at Douglas Park, directing the TV ad that Rosado filmed with his mother in law. Carollo’s wife Marjorie was there, too, with a clipboard in hand. Taking notes?
In other words, the Carollos poured their time, sweat and money into Rosado’s campaign. And while they were already sorta estranged, Carollo has made formidable enemies out of the Regalado clan. They’re not going to get over it any time soon.
“The worst political mistake of my life,” Carollo said last week on his radio show, about supporting Rosado.
Really, the worst? It wasn’t the weaponization of city departments to target political foes? Or losing a$63.5 million lawsuit for violating someone’s First Amendment rights because of who they supported in your election? Or using public tax dollars to raise your political profile? Or the misspending of monies while you were chair of the Bayfront Park Management Trust?
If political missteps were an Olympic sport, he’d be a gold medalist.
Read related: Joe Carollo wants to abolish Miami’s Bayfront Park Management Trust
Carollo also has a long list of former employees that have turned on him (and testified against him). This new and sudden breakup, which is a surprise to nobody, seems to stem from the swing vote that Rosado made to cancel this year’s mayoral and commission races in favor of moving the municipal election from odd to even years. Carollo has threatened to run for mayor and could benefit from the current clown car of candidates that will definitely drive a runoff.
Rosado was also the swing vote for the lifetime term limits, which would stop Carollo from returning to office, and pushed the dissolution of the Bayfront Park Management Trust to next year when Carollo wanted to do it immediately. Because, while the investigation and audit into the abuse of funds during his chairmanship would continue, the witnesses might scatter to the winds.
So, instead of Carollo getting a majority on the dais with Rosado’s election, he’s been losing all his important votes.
Carollo does not return calls or texts from Ladra. But he talked to The Miami Herald’s Tess Riski and took the credit for getting Rosado elected. “If Mr. Rosado had not had an angel like Joe or Marjorie Carollo, he never, never, never would have gotten elected,” he told the Herald.
Right. Because angels accuse candidates and their families of animal abuse and ties to drug trafficking.
Crazy Joe owned up to the negative campaign — and also said that Ralph “100%” knew what was up. So much for that positive, issue-focused campaign Rosado claims he ran. ¿Verdad, Ralph? He’s got gaslighting down to a science. Remember when he told Political Cortadito that Joe wasn’t even present during his campaign video shoot at Douglas Park? When told there was a video of Joe and Marjorie behind the camera, like Spielberg and Spielbergita, he stammered and said he’d get back to Ladra, which he never did. Then, to the Herald, he claimed Joe just happened to be “in the area.”
In the area? ¡Niño, por favor!
Read related: Miami’s District 4 candidate Ralph Rosado is backed, helped by Joe Carollo
Now Rosado is officially dead to Joe. “I didn’t expect him to come here to be a lap dog — another lap dog — for Mayor Suarez,” Carollo fumed in the Herald story.
Mayor Francis Suarez, meanwhile, says that Carollo’s breakup is the result of “the recent Commission votes that could impact his and his family’s ability to continue making a living out of the city taxpayer’s pockets.
“For the past two and a half years, our office has had a positive working relationship with Commissioner Carollo’s office,” Suarez was quoted as saying in the Herald, in what amounts to a declaration of war. “However, now Commissioner Carollo is throwing out baseless claims hoping something sticks.
“You have to ask: why now, and not a year ago or two years ago? These are the same political tactics we’ve seen for years, and they’re as transparent today as they have ever been.”
But that’s weird. Because everyone knows that Suarez — who dumped $1 million of his own PAC money into Rosado’s campaign — and Carollo worked together to get the urban consultant elected to replace the late Manolo Reyes. It was coordinated, even though Suarez denies it. Las malas lenguas say they are also both raising money for a new political committee that will fight the lifetime term limits on the ballot.
It’s not just for papi. Yes, former Miami Mayor and Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez is threatening to run for mayor. It’s also for the current mayor himself. Baby X is only 47. He might need a safety net in a decade or two.
Read related: Francis Suarez, Joe Carollo spend $1.6 million to elect Ralph Rosado in D4
As for why now? It’s very possible that Carollo is trying to change the conversation. He wants to distract people from the court appeal he and the city just lost to Bill Fuller and Martin Pinilla, who own Ball & Chain, and their $63.5 million jury award for violating their first amendment rights, as well as the investigation into the commissioner’s use of the Bayfront Trust funds as his own political piggy bank, kickbacks and all.
He could also be trying to throw Rosado under the bus for the absentee ballot fraud investigation that is allegedly happening or going to happen after several senior voters reported voting for Rosado because they were told they would lose housing, meals, day care or other services if they didn’t (more on that later).
Whatever the reason is, Thursday’s commission meeting promises to have at least one pelea: Carollo against Rosado or Gabela or Commissioner Damian Pardo — who Rosado was caught having lunch with at Pollo Tropical in what is now a sign of the coming breakup — or Mayor Suarez, if he decides to show up.
And if history tells us anything, it won’t be long before Carollo finds someone new, another gem in his flawless legacy of political backstabbing, to bankroll, micromanage, and eventually denounce.
The post Bromance break-up at Miami City Hall as Joe Carollo and Ralph Rosado split appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Only in Miami can you snatch someone’s phone out of their hands in front of the city commission, city manager, the sergeant-at-arms, and a room full of witnesses — and still get your two minutes at the podium for public comment.
Maybe it’s only because the phone-snatcher was Maria “Beba” Sardiña Mann, who is protected as president of the Crazy Joe Pollo Carollo Fan Club. Or maybe it’s because her victim was Miami activist and award-winning filmmaker Billy Corben, who’s been documenting dysfunction at City Hall longer than four of the five commissioners have been up on the dais.
Because you know if it was reversed, this would be a different story. And it would end with someone in jail.
It’s all captured on video (posted below, courtesy of Corben).
And it was ugly enough for Miami Police to open an investigation to determine if Sardiña Mann committed a “robbery by snatching” when she grabbed Corben’s cellphone. Corben filed a complaint the very same day it happened and Ladra was able to confirm it has been transferred from the Det. Jeremy Kluman in the violent crimes unit to someone in robbery.
Should be an open and shut case.
The Silver Bluff resident confessed to taking his camera, depriving him of his property, later in the meeting. “No, that was not assault,” she said, responding to Corben or someone calling her out for her physical overreaction. “I took his camera. I took his camera. That’s not assault.”
Just robbery, then?
Read related: Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo loses appeal on $63.5 million jury award
The little scuffle took place on May 30 at a sunshine meeting called by Commissioner Miguel Gabela about the weaponizing of government departments after Commissioner Joe Carollo tried to get the city to investigate alleged code violations on his property. Corben noticed Mann as she yapped at activist Thomas Kennedy in line for the podium and started recording it. Corben knows when something is about to go down. It’s an instinct.

But so did Mann. At first, she smiles and waves hello. But then she reaches out — with surprising speed and strength — to intentionally grab the phone he is using to document the corruption and slam it on the dais nearby. She may or may not have struck City Clerk Todd Hannon with it by accident.
Mann was afraid, and rightfully so, that she’d be the next star of a Because Miami web video.
“He has a tendency, just as he has done here with the chicken, to mock people,” she said of Corben, when she was allowed to speak after the scuffle. “I will get an attorney and sue him for harassment.”
This was after she was escorted out and let back in to make public comments. That’s strange because people have been ejected from City Hall for the whole day for much less. Ask Kennedy.
Between crocodile tears and excuses, Sardiña Mann insulted Corben and Kennedy, using Carollo’s own language to try to belittle them, and praised her commissioner, which she is indebted to for getting illegal street closures in her neighborhood and trying to get them again (they were removed after the county took the city to court).
“What he has done for us is unbelievable,” Sardiña Mann said. And she is right about one thing. It is, indeed, unbelievable that Carollo would violate the county law to make her neighborhood a gated one.
Read related: Street wars: Judge orders Silver Bluff barricades removed, streets opened
She also took aim at the other commissioners.
“I don’t see anyone here talking about the things that Mr. Carollo does. All I see is the same people speaking, same time, every time, at the commission before it becomes a circus. Beginning with our elected officials that act, appear like immature children. This is a professional post that you are elected to have, not to sit here and completely derail everything for little snaps at each other. Please, let’s all grow up.”
Yeah, because nothing screams “mature adult behavior” like a weepy defense of a wife-beating habitual violator of the first amendment who abuses political power and a scolding of the very people who just witnessed your possibly criminal tantrum.
Beba, the circus called. They want their clown back.
“Carollo has done more than anybody has done for my district, which is District 3, which has been totally neglected,” Mann said.
You know what else has been neglected? The law. Fairness. Because if that situation had been reversed, if Corben or Kennedy had snatched the phone out of Mann’s hand, they would have been arrested on the spot. Carollo would have insisted on them being cuffed in public and we would have had a perp walk and official statements on social media.
Instead, crickets. Nobody has come out to condemn Beba’s exaggerated outburst turned attempted robbery.
Corben did not want to answer too many questions because it is, or was, an “open and ongoing investigation.” Witnesses were still being interviewed. But he did say that however many times the two may disagree, “we can’t put our hands on each other.
“We have to draw a line somewhere,” he told Political Cortadito. “She crossed that line.”
A Miami New Times story published a comment from Corben: “I was there to engage our government as a citizen and cover the meeting as a documentarian and journalist. My phone is the tool I was using to exercise my First Amendment as a member of the press and keep our community informed. It was out of line and a possible crime for the suspect to violently deprive me of that tool.”
He was just doing his job, documenting shenanigans at City Hall, and particularly Carollo’s hypocrisy. And now he’s documenting potential robbery, courtesy of Carollo’s biggest fan.
Sardiña Mann did not return multiple calls for comment. But that police interview is going to be a fascinating read.
Ladra also can’t help but wonder if she will be at Thursday’s commission meeting. Keep a firm grip on your phones.

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Questions raised about intimidating senior voters
Newly-elected Miami Commissioner Ralph “Pinky” Rosado was elected with a lot of help from his friends, mostly two veteran politicians who poured around $1.6 million into his campaign for a special election last month that drew 5,346 people — or 11% of the District 4 registered voters.
According to the most recent campaign finance reports, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez spent almost $1.1 million from his political action committee, including $900,000 that went directly to Rosado’s PAC, Citizens for Ethics in Government, and another $170,000 that went to the mayor’s political consultant, Jesse Manzano.
Commissioner Joe Carollo spent $547,000 from his PAC, Miami First, just since May, including more than $311,000 in TV ads (and it’s a safe bet to say Carollo made a commission on those), $34,976 in radio spots (which he also makes commission on) and at least $34,131 in mailers.
While the last contribution to Suarez’s PAC was $1 million made by Citadel Founder Ken Griffin in 2023 — which was supposed to go to the mayor’s fat chance presidential bid — much of the money donated to Miami First in the second quarter comes from real estate and development interests in the city, like:

$100,000 from affordable housing developer Mabruk USA
$100,000 from the owners of a vacant lot valued at $6 million at 191 SW 12th Street. The address is associated with a larger development project called 1 Southside Park, which includes residential units, office space, a hotel, and retail.
$50,000 from Mastec, which is owned by Jorge Mas, who is developing Miami Freedom Park.
$50,000 from 5 South River LLC, owned by renowned restaurateur Roman Jones, who wants to create a dining destination along the Miami River and has a vacant lot across from Kiki’s on the River, his Mediterranean restaurant that caters to a jet-setting crowd on the outskirts of downtown Miami.
$25,000 from real estate investor and developer Arnaud Karsenti.
$25,000 from Aabad Melwani, the operator of the Rickenbacker Marina, who was allegedly shaken down for a contract extension by former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, according to a civil lawsuit brought by lobbyist and former State Rep. Manny Prieguez.

In total, Team Rosado outspent Regalado by more than 10-1, flooding the airwaves with attack spots and carpet-bombing the district with mailers that will haunt the abuelitas dreams for weeks.
When you add other moneys contributed to Rosado’s campaign and his PAC — including $100,000 of his own money — Rosado raised more than $2 million to beat Jose Francisco Regalado, the son of the former Miami mayor, current Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Tomás Regalado, and brother to Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado. Rosado got just over 55%, or 2,938 ballots cast in his favor.
That comes out to about $709 per vote.
And for a 532-vote margin!
That’s quite an investment. And certainly not a grassroots campaign. It’s more like artificial turf.
Read related: Ralph Rosado is a fraud, liar, puppet trying to become Miami commissioner
Rosado has kept telling everyone that he will be an independent voice on the commission. But it looks more like he’s a sock puppet with two hands all up in it. In fact, one of his first acts was to abolish the Bayfront Park Management Trust, which Carollo failed to do back in February but Rosado handled it for him last week. Rosado also voted for the change in election year, which effectively cancels the election for mayor and two commission seats, giving Suarez and Carollo an extra year in office. It’s easier for Suarez to raise money for a 2026 campaign for governor as a sitting mayor than a former mayor. And Carollo wants the city to keep paying his legal bills.
But that’s not even the worse part.
In May, Joe Carollo was spotted directing Ralph Rosado recording a TV ad. Rosado lied about it.
Las malas lenguas say that senior residents at the city’s public housing buildings, like Smathers Plaza, were told that their rent assistance, home-delivered meals or other city services would end if they voted for Regalado and not Rosado. They were told that both Suarez and Carollo were supporting Rosado — for different reasons, of course — and would be angry if he didn’t win.
Now Ladra’s going to say what candidates and their attorneys usually love to say: “These are baseless allegations.” But they could be legit. And they should be investigated, though Ladra could not independently confirm that it would be. And we know that Carollo, who represents District 3, had a Mother’s Day event at Smathers — which is in District 4. Sure, he says he might run for mayor. But he didn’t have events in other districts. Just where the special election was going to be within a month.
Read related: Is Miami’s Joe Carollo using District 3 public money to campaign in District 4?
To coin a phrase of the moment, this is what democracy looks like — in Miami, anyway: low turnout, no debates, lies, attack content written by political operatives and questions about intimidation of elderly voters. Just another campaign in the Magic City. That’s how we sendup with a commissioner elected by 2,938 people out of nearly 47,000.
That’s not a mandate. That’s a marketing scam. And this wasn’t an election. It was the sale and purchase of a commission seat.
So now, District 4 has a commissioner who says he’s working for the people — while being ushered into office by the same two guys who want to control every inch of power left in Miami government before their scandals catch up to them.
The only thing worse than the low turnout in Miami is the low bar.
The post Francis Suarez, Joe Carollo spend $1.6 million to elect Ralph Rosado in D4 appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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After what turned out to be yet another City Hall cage match between Miami commissioners Joe Carollo and Miguel Gabela, the commission voted to abolish the Bayfront Park Management Trust. Not right now. But by January of next year.
This was Commissioner Damian Pardo‘s brilliant idea. Both he and Gabela folded fast like a pair of vinyl strap lawn chairs. And they didn”t have to. It looked early on like they could have killed the whole concept of ending the Trust with a 2-2 vote because Commission Chairwoman Christine King had to leave after the lunch break. Carollo even said he didn’t want to take up the item because he knew it could be killed with a tie. Didn’t they get it? And when Commissioner Ralph Rosado said he wanted to hear the item, they had the opportunity to do just that.
And they blew it. Damn newbies!
Read related: Miami’s Ralph Rosado aims to kill the Bayfront Park Trust for Joe Carollo
In the end, the Trust was finished with a surprising 3-1 vote. Surprising because Carollo voted against it and Pardo and the new Bayfront Trust chair, Gabela — who had been fighting for the Trust’s survival somewhat aggressively — voted for the abolition. Next year, the management of both Bayfront Park and Maurice Ferre Park — and the millions that Bayfront takes in from vendors and events — will be in the control of the city manager’s office.
Or something. They have six months to figure it out. Maybe they can vote to reinstate the Trust, instead.
Rosado, elected last month to replace the late Manolo Reyes, was the one who sponsored this item. But alert readers might recognize it as a stunt Carollo pulled in February. That was one month after he and the city were sued by two whistleblowers who were forced to resign from the Trust after they found financial discrepancies that indicate fraud and abuse by Carollo, who was the chairman for the past seven years. There is no way the two things are not related.
Rosado said it was his own idea. He’s been watching the Bayfront Park Trust for years and it’s an embarrassment, he said. It’s a distraction and a black eye on the city of Miami.
But Carollo first proposed this in February, right after he was accused of using the Trust funds as his own personal political piggy bank. And his accusers have the receipts.
Also, Rosado he had just told the commissioners to give the Miami Downtown Development Authority a chance to address issues that were brought by residents who don’t want to be taxed anymore so that the agency can just give the money away to billionaire brands like the UFC and FC Barcelona, while paying bloated salaries for duplicated position.
So, the DDA, which was established in 1967, deserves another chance. But the Bayfront Trust, created 20 years later in 1987, does not? Check.
Carollo, who was removed as chair earlier this year after the allegations of his abuse of the funds surfaced, claims the park flourished under his management. Millions in revenue! Events galore! The fountain danced! And the grass practically trimmed itself!
Read related: Commissioner Miguel Gabela set to expose more Bayfront Park Trust issues
But Gabela has launched an investigation and financial audit into the Trust’s finances under Carollo’s leadership, which might be why he wants it abolished now, not later. It’s hard to interview witnesses if they are scattered to the winds.
It was hard to watch Gabela cave in to Carollo, especially after he was so vehemently against the abolition. Turning up the volume and getting personal with jabs — he flashed a picture of Joe in his wifebeater shirt and reminded folks about that arrest — it almost seemed at one point that he was going to throw a chair.
Carollo accused Gabela of trying to politicize the Trust and stage a personal vendetta. Gabela countered by pointing out the pile of lawsuits, the whispers of mismanagement, and the fact that an actual forensic audit is in motion something that would normally make most public officials go quiet, but not Carollo, whose middle name might as well be “Litigation.”
It’s all gotten so familiar, you could almost set your watch to the shouting.
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Newly-elected Miami Commissioner Ralph Rosado has been in office for less than a month. But, already, he somehow knows that the Bayfront Park Management Trust is superfluous and needs to be abolished.
Sound familiar? That’s because Commissioner Joe Carollo, who poured perhaps up to $1 million into Rosado’s campaign through his political action committee — and even directed his TV ad in a park — has been trying to do it since he was caught using the trust monies as his own political piggy bank.
This is the first of Rosado’s payback. There is no other reason.
Rosado lives in and represents District 4, which is furthest away from the downtown urban core of all the districts. The Bayfront Park Trust was never part of his campaign platform. It’s possible he didn’t even mention it once in his campaign.
But it sure would make Carollo happy.
Read related: Joe Carollo wants to abolish Miami’s Bayfront Park Management Trust
Earlier this year, Carollo was sued by two former employees who said they were forced to resign, or basically fired, after they uncovered massive amounts of discrepancies in the Bayfront Trust’s books. Carollo has been accused of abuse, fraud, and the corrupt mismanagement of the funds — which he used to pay for District 3 events and to give questionable contracts with friends and neighbors who may have given him kickbacks. He was chairman of the agency, which oversees Bayfront and Maurice Ferre parks, for seven years.
In February, he put an item on the agenda that would abolish the Trust and replace it with a new “Division of Bayfront Park and Maurice Ferre Park” within the Department of Parks and Recreation. It wasn’t because this was a good idea. For seven years, Carollo defended the Trust as an important agency operating what he called the city’s Central Park.
It didn’t happen. Instead, Carollo was removed as chair Commissioner Miguel Gabela was appointed chair.
In May, the new executive director, Raul Miro, announced that the Miami-Dade Inspector General’s office had launched an investigation.
“Based on the facts uncovered thus far, there is significant evidence that Joe Carollo, as chair of the Bayfront Trust, violated his fiduciary responsibility to the Trust, misused Trust assets and employees, entered into no-bid contracts without cause, misappropriated Trust funds to pay for his Commission Office expenses to further his own political ambitions, and fostered an environment of intimidation for employees,” reads a statement issued by the Trust in May.
Read related: Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo and the Bayfront Fountain of corruption
“The Trust will take swift action if wrongdoing is found, including referral to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,” it reads. “Concerns regarding potential misuse of Trust employees for non-Trust functions, including supplementing city staff and potential conflicts with union contracts and insurance, are also being considered for referral to the State Attorney’s Office.”
There’s no reason to think that if the Bayftont Trust goes away, the investigation goes away, too. But, still, this is Crazy Joe’s way of lashing out and trying to hurt those he feels are hurting him. Which includes Gabela, the new chair of the Bayfront Trust, who launched the investigation and has been bashing Carollo openly in commission meetings. Bless him.
Gabela did not return calls to his phone. He has an item on the agenda to approve the Bayfront Trust’s $30 million budget for next year.
Rosado did not return calls to his phone. Carollo never returns calls.
And while the investigation would likely continue, even if the Trust were abolished, it’s just Carollo being his petulant child self and breaking the toy when he can’t play with it.
The Miami city commission meeting begins at 9:30 at City Hall, 3500 Pan American Drive, and can also be watched live online at the city’s website and on YouTube.
The post Ralph Rosado’s payback to Joe Carollo: Abolish Miami’s Bayfront Park Trust appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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