A downtown activist and member of the Bayfront Park Trust Management advisory board has resigned because of a no-bid giveaway contract for $1 million worth of public art — dog and cat sculptures, like the Little Havana roosters in — for Maurice Ferre Park, which is also managed by the trust.

But it’s really about Commissioner Joe Carollo, who is chairman of the BPTM, and his handling of that group — and it’s money. This proposal originally was sent to Carollo and his wife’s personal email.

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Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo got his way Thursday when the commission voted to throw all the unused COVID19 relief money for grocery gift cards from the CARES federal funding into a new pot and divide it between four of them again.

Commissioner Jeffrey Watson and his $360,388 balance will stay in District 5 because, officially, it’s the neediest zone and because Watson was appointed in November and may have gotten a late start.

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City commissioners in Miami could officially give the redistricting consulting contract to Miguel de Grandy on Thursday.

That’s expected. The contract was taken from former State Sen. Bill Galvano, a pal of Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, last month and De Grandy was already spoken of as the chosen replacement.

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In these “unprecedented times,” we keep hearing from our electeds, as the COVID19 pandemic and economic crisis stretches into 2021, people need help paying the rent, staying in business and/or feeding their families.

So why are city of Miami commissioners sitting on somewhere between $700,000 and almost $1 million in COVID relief grocery and/or Visa gift cards?

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A group representing 35,000 Brickell area homeowners is suing to stop the Ultra Music Festival — which was kicked out of downtown Miami this year — from happening on Virginia Key at the end of this month.
The emergency complaint filed Wednesday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court claims the city schemed to bypass the public bidding process by calling the agreement a license rather than a lease, which would also require a public vote. But one can tell from the language of the lawsuit that is not the only problem the plaintiffs have with the three-day, electronic music party.
“This is an action challenging whether the city can lease certain environmentally sensitive public park land to a for-profit corporation without complying with the competitive bidding process,” the lawsuit states.
The city entered into the licensing agreement with Event Entertainment Group, the outfit that puts on Ultra, in November, after downtown residents complained about the Bayshore Park location. They said the noise and traffic brought by the three-day festival make their neighborhood unlivable for the weekend.
Read related: Ultra out for Formula 1 could be Joe Carollo nod to CJ Gimenez
Some observers believe the move, orchestrated by Commissioner Joe Carollo, was meant to make downtown residents more amenable to a future Formula One race event, which was being pushed by his then pal, CJ Gimenez, son of the county mayor.
But this new agreement cannot be terminated or revoked by the city as easily as a license could, in most cases, which makes it more of a lease, argues attorney David Winker , who also filed complaints against the city in regards to the Melreese Golf Course referendum (more on that later).
“Virginia Key is an utterly inappropriate venue for ULTRA,” Winker said in a statement. “The City of Miami circumvented its own laws and disenfranchised its own citizens to force this deal through… a deal that is a disaster for the environment and our residents.
“My lawsuit asks the judge to declare the License Agreement entered into between the City and ULTRA void and force the City to follow its own laws regarding competitive bidding and participation of its citizens in the process.
“We have to be able to expect more from our elected officials.”

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Hey! Alex Diaz de la Portilla! You just lost two elections, one for Senate and one for county commission, and the Little Havana house you were born in was foreclosed on last week by the bank, which is putting it up for sale because you owe them $638,000. What are you going to do next?
Why, run for city commission, of course!
Four days after Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch Mortgage foreclosed Thursday on his house at 1519 SW 19th Street, Diaz de la Portilla — a political consultant who helped Miami Commissioner Crazy Joe Carollo get elected in 2017 — filed paperwork on Monday to run for the seat that will be vacated by Willy Gort this November.
Read related: After loss in Senate, Miami-Dade races, Alex DLP may try Miami
The final judgement on foreclosure is against both him and his ex-wife Claudia Davant, who is also on the hook for the mortgage they apparently got when they were married. Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Beatrice Butchko gave them until May 13 to pay the debt or the house will be sold at auction to the highest bidder for cash toward that debt.
Which means Claudia could still be on the hook for the balance.
Ladra can’t help but wonder if ADLP’s poor and mistreated parents and his often neglected dogs Elvis and Priscilla are going to go live in Coral Gables with his big brother, former Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, whose campaign for re-election Alex lost in 2016. They’d be much less comfortable in Alex DLP’s new home (on paper), a 967-square-foot, 2-bedroom, 2-bath unit on the 18th floor of the Terrazas Riverpark Village Condo, 1861 NW S River Dr. Especially since his brother Renier Diaz de la Portilla, a former School Board member and state rep, is also registered to vote at the riverfront flat; although it’s hard to believe these two could live together.
ADLP’s voter’s registration changed on Sept. 15, which gives him the necessary year he needs before qualifying, which ends this Sept. 21. Ladra reported it in October, predicting that he would run for this very seat.
But he sure is a hypocrite. Because after Carollo’s victory, Diaz de la Portilla went on a crazy rant on the Nextdoor social site, calling Alfie Leon an “interloper” because he had only lived in Little Havana for a year before he almost beat Carollo for Miami City Commission. I guess it’s okay for him to be an interloper himself.
Read related: ADLP hit by attacks in all negative Senate 40 GOP primary campaign
This will be ADLP’s fourth attempt to return to public office, not his third, as most media outlets are reporting. They mention the run for commission last year, where he came in third, and the run for Senate in Westchester/East Kendall, where he lost the primary to State Rep. Jose Felix Diaz (who then lost to Democrat Annette Taddeo) despite the help from Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and family (that’s CJ Gimenez to his right during early voting in the pic). That race was brutal with negative attacks against him, including one that disclosed his relationship with CJ’s wife, Tania Cruz, and how they cozied up in a Boston hotel room, chain smoking in a non-smoking room late one night and getting belligerent with police after they were called to throw them out.
But the mainstream media forgot his first loss, the run for state rep 112 in his real neighborhood in 2012, which he lost against an up and coming politician named Jose Javier Rodriguez, who is now a state senator. That was gut wrenching and he has struggled to recover from it since.
The Dean, as Ladra likes to call him because he loves to teach — perhaps he should do that and stop running for office — joins four other candidates who have already opened campaign accounts for the District 1 race: Horacio S. Aguirre, chairman of the Miami River Commission; Michael Hepburn, a former University of Miami academic adviser who ran in the Democratic primary for Florida’s 27th Congressional District; Miguel Angel Gabela, a businessman who has twice lost to Gort in past elections but came close once; and attorney Yanny Hidalgo.
Gabela, who is the clear front runner of the bunch and will likely end up in a runoff if ADLP pulls off anything at all, thinks he has Carollo’s support. He told Ladra Thursday that the commissioner told him so as recently as two weeks ago. “I consider him to be a friend,” Gabela said, adding that ADLP “is lying to people con el lio de Carollo.”
Read related: Willy Gort challenger Mike Gabela runs on one issue: Crime
But remember, this is a man who is known for stabbing folks in the back. Carollo did it with Maurice Ferre, at a press conference where he was supposed to endorse him for mayor  and instead turned against him, and he did it again last year, telling former Commissioner Bruno Barreiro that he would support his wife in the county race and then helping ADLP.
Besides, there is still Paella Gate. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office has not finished their investigation of Carollo using public money and his taxpayer paid staff to hold Paella parties for ADLP at senior public housing locations during that special election. Carollo can’t turn on ADLP yet, while he could still provide state’s evidence.
Either way, Gabela — who has been campaigning since June and has already run in the same district twice — is confident that his neighbors will realize that Diaz de la Portilla is a narcissistic “career politician” carpetbagger.
“He’s running because he doesn’t have a job,” said Gabela, who has lived in the district for 30 years. “If there’s a dog catcher election, he’ll run for it because he doesn’t care about the people.”
True: Less than a year ago, ADLP was knocking on doors in Westchester and telling voters there that he would represent them in Tallahassee. He abandoned them for the voters of county commission District 5.
“Y a estas alturas he’s interested in this district? You really have to be an ignoramus to believe it,” Gabela said.
Yeah. But, unfortunately, a lot of ignoramuses apparently vote.

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