Why does everyone have their panties up in a bunch over Miami-Dade Carlos Gimenez‘s trip to China with some of his favorite BFF lobbyists? I mean, the guy couldn’t go to France again this year for the umpteenth time. Been there, done that.
And he’s only got two more years to go before he is termed out in 2020. Might as well see the world with his wife and have taxpayers and lobbyists pay the tab.
But while the mayor’s travel habits are not necessarily surprising, this tour of Asia — 16 days for 49 people, including 19 (!!) county employees — is certainly and rightfully raising eyebrows.
To begin with, there is no way on Earth that, even if China had the best and cheapest rapid buses for us, we need 19 county people on that trip to make that determination. Sure, there were other opportunities. But we are talking about a list that includes Vice Mayor Ed Marquez, Commissioners Jose “Pepe” Diaz, Audrey Edmonson, Barbara Jordan and Jean Monestime as well as four department directors. Commissioner Diaz, who was a host as chairman of the International Trade Consortium, took two aides (bet they were both pretty) while the other commissioners had to do with just one. Los pobres.
The trip was paid with both public and private funds (not that the private funds make it any better). Expenses for Gimenez, the commissioners and some staff were paid entirely by the “Trade Mission Center of the Americas Business Development Mission,” according to his spokestaff. But it looks like there were $10,000 contributions to that fund from each the PortMiami, the county aviation department and the water and sewer department for a total of $30,000, at least, in taxpayer funds.
Read related story: Miami-Dade mayor, lobbyist pals head to Paris Air Show
Another $33,283 is being paid by the respective departments for expenses incurred by Aviation Director Lester Sola, PortMiami Director Juan Kuryla, Water and Sewer Director Kevin Lynskey and Transit Director Alice Bravo, whose estimated expenses are higher by at least $3,000 than the next guy’s. That’s all taxpayer money, too.
Now, before any of you crony apologists start talking about how China is a leading trade partner at PortMiami and the airport and represents a lot of potential growth for South Florida, let me remind you that none of that is contingent on 19 county employees being paid their taxpayer funded paychecks to spend two weeks touring five cities in Asia. In fact, nobody had to go to China, or Japan for that matter, to learn about how the the buses or airlines operate there — or, as Gimenez eventually learned, that the Chinese bus passenger system wouldn’t work here. This is 2018. There is video conferencing, virtual town halls and even facetime. Gimenez and company could virtually ride the rapid bus in China from the comfort of their County Hall offices.
But this wasn’t really about that. This was about providing vacation memories and some graft opportunities to the Gimenez friends and family plan, including close buds-for-life Ralph Garcia Toledo, Marcelo Llorente and Jesse Manzano, three lobbyists and Gimenez campaign operatives who just coincidentally win bids for multi million dollar contracts. Garcia Toledo — who was also on the Paris trip (as well as Llorente) — even has a no-show, mostly clerical job at the water and sewer department for $200 an hour. Ladra can’t help but wonder if another job for the friends and family club was discussed over dim sum in Shanghai.
Did you happen to see Gimenez’s reaction when Univision’s Erika Carillo asked him about the presence of those very BFF lobbyists on the trip? Talk about looking guilty! He went on a tirade, raising his voice and pointing fingers. You have to see it. Thank the journalism gods for Carillo, who is doing what many in Miami’s mainstream media refuse to do — which is simply ask the right questions, no matter how awkward and no matter if the mayor or one of his mouthpieces threatens you with the loss of access.
Read related story: Mayor’s pal Garcia-Toledo eats lobster with county staffers
This interview is fantastic. Someone in law enforcement has to watch it because Gimenez is sweating bullets.
Carillo also exposed that 30% of trip expenses was paid for by lobbyists and companies that do business with the county, like AECOM and Nova Consulting, to the tune of $31,800 of the $92,350 tab. Hey, somebody had to pay for the $21,000 in estimated hotel costs.
In addition to the three Gimenez amigos other lobbyists in the delegation included Jose “Chino” Fuentes, his partner Jose Bermudez, Alex Heckler and Al Maloof, who all have pretty tight relationships with the mayor (Heckler has held fundraisers for him and Maloof used to employ his daughter-in-law). Also in the group was Wynwood property snatcher and developer Moishe Mana, who gave $7,500 for the trip (most lobbyists ponied up $2K) and who has already proposed a new trade show for Chinese apparel and textiles, which may need permits or subsidies from the county.
“Doesn’t this cause a bad perception,” Carillo asked the mayor on camera before he went off on her.
Yes, Erika, there is definitely a stink in the air. It is left there by lobbyists who pay for access to the mayor and also arm candy, showing prospective Chinese clients and hopeful county contractors that they have the mayor’s ear should said Chinese clients need to hire a lobbyist. It is left there by the mayor himself who tells you that the company that paid for his trip wasn’t one of the ones that do business with the county (read: not yet anyway). And it is left there by the suspicion that there were secret negotiations taking place — especially now that we know the mayor has “confidential” discussions with potential bidders on important county projects like the new courthouse (more on that later).
And let’s not forget the stink left by a “trade mission” by Miami-Dade electeds to China, where human rights abuses are rampant and businesses cannot act independently without the explicit approval of the government, which is a little jarring and a lot hypocritical. This is the very same county that supports banning businesses that do trade in Cuba and Venezuela for the very same reasons.
According to Human Rights Watch: “More than three decades after pledging to “reform and open up,” there are few signs the Chinese Communist Party intends to change its authoritarian posture. Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, who will remain in power until 2022 and possibly beyond, the outlook for fundamental human rights, including freedoms of expression, assembly, association and religion, remains dire.” This protest demanding the freedom of political prisoners in Beijing, pictured left, happened about a week after the mayor and his pals left.
Why is China different? Is it because we don’t have a Chinese American on the commission? Is it because we don’t have a large Chinese American voting base?
Nobody who has been on this Asia trip has the moral authority ever again to vote against Odebrecht or anyone else because they have business partners in Cuba or in Venezuela. And yes, I am talking to you, Pepe Diaz.
Which brings us to yet another reason why at least the China leg of this trip was a waste of time. There are some commissioners — Chairman Esteban Bovo as well as Rebeca Sosa, Javier Souto and Joe Martinez — who would not support any business with any Communist Chinese train manufacturer that doesn’t respect human rights and probably employs 12-year-olds. Ladra suspects that whoever replaces Commissioner Bruno Barreiro — who resigned the other day so he could focus on the congressional race he is going to lose in November — will also vote against a Chinese project as would Commissioners Xavier Suarez and Daniella Levine-Cava for the same reasons. That means an anti-Chinese commission majority.
But, again, none of this really matters for the mayor and his pals who are just on a mission to fill their scrapbooks with as many global monument pics as possible. Next stop is probably Qatar. Gimenez met last week with His Highness Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar, and the mayor showed him his own kingdom from his perch on the 29th floor (photograph to the left).
“We discussed investment opportunities in Miami-Dade County and ways to expand the relationship between our respective communities,” Gimenez posted on Facebook.
It doesn’t matter that His Highness the sheikh tolerates and likely promotes the abuse and exploitation of migrant workers and that poets in Qatar are sentenced to 15 years in prison when their prose is critical of the ruling family.
What matters is that Gimenez doesn’t have that stamp in his passport.
 

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Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz will launch his re-election campaign in Doral Thursday with the mayors of five cities in his district who are supporting his bid.
Doral Mayor Juan Carlos “JC” Bermudez, Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez, Hialeah Gardens Mayor Yioset De La Cruz, Virginia Gardens Mayor Spencer Deno and Medley Mayor Roberto Martell will host the kick-off and fundraiser for Diaz, which starts at 5:30 p.m. at The Flats Apartments at CityPlace, 3555 NW 83rd Ave., on the 6th floor.
But wait. There are six cities in District 12.
Conspicuously missing from the list is Orlando Lopez, the mayor of Sweetwater, which is where Diaz cut his political teeth as a city commissioner and was then mayor in 1999 before his first run for county office in 2002. There’s some bad blood there. It’s why Diaz tried to get Lopez recalled earlier this year. No invite for him.
Read related story: Sweetwater race results are a loss for Miami-Dade’s Pepe Diaz
Sweetwater has always been a city divided by factions. Diaz, who is aligned with the anti Lopez faction, has said he only supported the recall, which was allegedly a citizen-led effort. But Lopez sued successfully to stop it — the recall was based on his multiple absences from meetings, which is not a requirement of the mayor’s job per city charter — and a consultant working for the political action committee, Providing Effective Government All Residents, admitted in testimony that the first person to contact him about it was the commissioner. It was reported in Diario Las Americas. But other sources have confirmed that Diaz was behind the petition drive.
Diaz also supported candidates against Lopez and the Lopez faction in May’s election, even though he learned that he doesn’t have as much influence as he’d like in his old stomping grounds, where even his brother-in-law, former Commission Chairman Jose Bergouignan, was kicked out of office.
So, there’s bad blood there. In fact, Ladra would be surprised if Lopez doesn’t find someone to run against Diaz, who is more vulnerable than ever because of his DUI arrest in Key West last year? Imagine that mugshot on campaign mail!
Read related story: Commissioner Jose ‘Pepe’ Diaz arrested on DUI in Key West
“Pepe is the one who sponsored the recall effort against me. If there is any candidate that runs against him, I would glaly support and help them,” Lopez told Ladra Wednesday. “I’m hoping somebody comes out of the woodwork.”
But who? The only viable name that people have brought up in recent years is Bermudez — and obviously he is not running for the county seat at least until Diaz terms out. Not if he’s  hosting Thursday. And nobody else has raised their hand. It’s too bad that Doral Councilwoman Ana Maria Rodriguez is running for state rep (more on that later) because she would be a titan against the incumbent.
Diaz has never really been challenged. He coasted into office in 2002 with 85% of the vote against M. Lina Pumariega, whoever that is. Then he was re-elected automatically when nobody filed to run against him in 2006. In 2010, Heather Pernas got 24% with $600 to his $325,550. She obviously did not campaign at all — and still got one out of every four votes.
And then the Pet’s Trust people put someone up against Diaz in 2014 because they felt betrayed. He said he would respect the vote of the people, who approved a massive spay and neuter program for strays by 65% of the vote, and then did nothing when Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez ignored the mandate. Marjorie Figueira got 27% of the vote without really any kind of absentee ballot operation or publicity and only $2,093 to his $363,595.
There’s a pattern here.
So we know already that just anybody will automatically get 25% of the vote as a protest against Diaz. Not a bad start. Imagine if the candidate has a little more money. Add to that the Pets Trust supporters and the DUI thing and the fact that the incumbent has been there 16 years and Sweetwater voters se estan cansando de el and you’ve got the best chance to make a change next year on the county commission right there in District 12.
Even with five city mayors behind him.

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Sweetwater voters elected four new commissioners on Tuesday, booting two incumbents — the mother of the former mayor and the brother-in-law of a county commissioner — out of office in the process. That’s a new majority on the 7-member board — although none of them is entirely new to the city and one of them is an old throwback.

But even though he wasn’t on the ballot, Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz lost Tuesday also. So did Mayor Orlando Lopez. All but one of the candidates he backed lost.

Commissioner Isolina Maroño, mother of former Mayor Manny Maroño — who was arrested in 2013 and convicted on federal bribery charges in an FBI bogus grant scheme — was ousted by former Commissioner Cecilia Holtz Alonso, who was in office from 1992 to 1999 and got 55 percent of the vote.

And Commission Chairman Jose Bergouignan, who is married to Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz‘s sister, lost to former Sweetwater Polict Lt. Marcos Villanueva, a onetime chief of staff to the previous mayor, Jose M. Diaz — whose son won another commission race — in a squeaky tight contest. Villanueva got 32 more votes than the 16-year incumbent and wins with only 46% of the vote. Sweetwater city charter gives the victory to the majority, without needing a 50% plus one threshhold. There are no runoffs.

Villanueva and Holtz Alonso, will join David Borrero — who works as the city’s grants administrator — and Yoniel Diaz, the former mayor’s son, for the swearing in ceremony Friday. Borrero and Yoniel Diaz ran in open seats, getting 65 and 54 percent of the vote, respectively.

Yes, that’s right, the son of the former mayor, ousted by the current mayor, is now a commissioner. Awkward.

“The residents of Sweetwater have decided that they want a change,” said Villanueva, who has been on again off again on the city’s police force since 1997 (with a spotty record) and first ran for office in 2007, when Maroño beat him for the mayor’s seat. “They want to be done with the old guard and the political infighting and they want to move on.”

Read related story: Sweetwater election ends today but war is just starting

But Sweetwater has always been a tiny little bastion of political infighting and intrigue and this election cycle, no exception, certainly didn’t portend happier times ahead.

First there was the concurrent recall effort against Mayor Lopez, which, let’s be honest, was masterminded by some council members most likely with the help of the county commissioner. The idea being that, as commission president, Bergouignan, Diaz’s brother in law, would become interim mayor, which would help him win subsequent elections as an incumbbent, and he would consequently hold the seat for Diaz when he is termed out at the county in 2022. Petition gatherers got almost twice as many signatures needed for the first round, showing apparent disregard for Lopez exists anyway. They needed 950 and got more than 1,800 in less than three weeks. Of those, 1,776 signatures were verified by the Miami-Dade Elections Department.

But that apparently wasn’t good enough for Lopez, who said that the political action committee behind the recall lied to voters, telling them that this was for lower taxes or to improve trolley services. He had copies made of every petition and ordered police officers in uniform to visit some homes to confirm the residents’ signatures. He got 47 or so affidavits from people who said that either they were lied to about the recall, or that they didn’t speak English and didn’t understand it or that a fired Sweetwater police officer who signed as a witness to the petitions was not there. But, I mean, the mayor’s personal police force was asking the questions. “Why’d you sign this petition?” Ladra might understand someone saying it was to free the whales. This seems like some strongman in a third world effort to intimidate voters and stop them from signing a second petition, as the charter required and which was already underway. Ladra has heard from a couple of sources that there is or will be some kind of follow up investigation from some independent law enforcement agency. I won’t hold my breath. In any case, the shakedown was apparently moot and stopped when the court threw the recall out. Lopez sued to stop it and a judge ruled that it was invalid because the reason used — that Lopez was absent from too many commission meetings — was not a justifiable reason per the city charter.

J.C. Planas, who represented the PAC, Providing Effective Government for All Residents — which was chaired by the live-in boyfriend of Commissioner Idania Llanio — said the mayor violated his duty. “I don’t think the court read the petition carefully. The petition said he also didn’t send staff.” It listed the last five meetings Lopez, a strong mayor, and his staff missed. “That’s the only way commissioners can talk about public policy, in a public setting,” Planas said, adding that private one-on-one chats with each commissioner bring “the possibility of him being a conduit to a Sunshine Law violation.”

Jose Bergouignan

Bergouignan, who would benefit the most from a recall as the commission president becomes interim mayor, then tried to get Villanueva, a Lopez ally, taken off the ballot. A week before the election Tuesday, Bergouignan had Planas — his attorney and, by the way, also County Commissioner Diaz’s attorney — file a lawsuit that claimed Villanueva intentionally omitted information on his required financial disclosure. A judge threw that complaint out.

On Monday, Villanueva had a press conference where he called Commissioner Pepe Diaz “el Chapo de  Sweetwater,” and named four “puppets” that included Bergouignan, Planas and the city’s former construction manager.

Read related story: Jose “Pepe” Diaz will bring up DUI arrest, then say nada

But he said he was not behind the young people who showed up to the Jorge Mas Canosa Youth Center on election day with t-shirts and signs identifying themselves as “FIU Students Against Drunk Driving” with mugshots of Diaz when he was arrested in 2015 in Key West for driving his motorcycle under the influence. Sweetwater is looking more and more each day like Hialeah.

Evidenced by the fact that campaign consultant and Absenee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador, who represents both Lopez and Villanueva, heckled the county commissioner — who was there stumping for votes all day — on a megaphone.

“Ding, dong, the witch is dead,” Tirador told Ladra on Wednesday.

Diaz did not return mutliple voice and text messages left on his cellphone Wednesday and Thursday. Probably busy licking his wounds and plotting his next step.