One incumbent already decided not to run for re-election. An activist and would-be challenger withdrew from another race within days. A former commissioner who resigned to run for Congress wants her seat back and a former State Rep wants to run for another.
Oh, and then there’s the candidate who can’t keep it in his pants.
The Miami Beach elections are nine months away and talk about un parto. It’s already so interesting it might just beat Miami and Hialeah this year in terms of sheer entertainment.
Oh, it’s boring on paper. Mayor Dan Gelber is running basically unopposed. He has a challenger, but Ladra is not certain Konstantine Gus Manessis — who only has sustainable growth on his website as an issue and nothing about who he is — can whip up either the political machinery or grassroots support he would need to beat Sy Gelber‘s boy. Ladra thinks he’s vulnerable to the right challenger and hopes someone turns up between now and qualifying deadline in September, if only because debates and choices are good for the community.
The only real race, according to documents filed with the city clerk’s office, is in Group IV, where three candidates have declared: Michael David Barrineau, Steven Jay Meiner and Rafael Velasquez. If the last name sounds familiar, it could be because he ran for office before.
Or it could be because he was accused of exposing himself to a city commissioner.
Velasquez was a commission candidate and a friend and supporter of Kristen Rosen Gonzalez — the former commissioner that might jump back in the fire — when he reportedly unzipped his pants and exposed himself to her. It happened in her car after a campaign brainstorming dinner with wine. He then ran to the state attorney’s office to say she made the whole thing up but no woman would believe KRG would intentionally want to be known for that over anything else. Oh, and then there are the two other women who came forward to describe uncomfortable language and body rubbing.
Read related: Bravo! Kristen Rosen Gonzalez says Rafael Velasquez ‘Weinsteined’ her
It will be great to see Rosen Gonzalez get back into action. She was forced to resign her seat last year in the middle of the campaign for Congress after the state legislature changed the rules precisely to try to keep District 27 red. Not just because she is a true public servant and a voice for some of the city’s disenfranchised, but also because either way it’s going to be, um, interesting: She could file in her old group, against the guy who exposed himself to her — and wouldn’t that make for some awkward debates. Or she could file against Ricky Arriola, who needs someone to challenge him now that activist Monica Matteo-Salinas withdrew mysteriously just three days after filing to challenge the incumbent.
Did Arriola threaten her? Matteo-Salinas was tremendously vague in her Facebook post:
“Last week I made the decision to launch my campaign for the Miami Beach Commission Group 5 race. This decision was in pursuit of my dream of running for elected office and serving the community I love so deeply. My hope in entering the race was to build a campaign built on integrity and a burning desire to help make Miami Beach the absolute best it can be.
That said, in one short week it has become abundantly clear to me that the timing is not quite right for me. Therefore, I am ending my candidacy for Miami Beach Commissioner effective immediately. While this is one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make, I know in my heart it is the right one.
Thank you so much for your understanding and support!”
Matteo-Salinas told Ladra it was “nothing nefarious,” but still wouldn’t go into details. “There are things I can discuss and things I won’t,” she said. A complete about-face from the day she filed when she said “I have a big mouth – and an even bigger brain. And I’m not afraid to use them!”
Read related: In Miami Beach, Ricky Arriola has a challenge — Monica Matteo-Salinas
Arriola becomes the only incumbent other than the mayor, now that Commissioner John Elizabeth Aleman announced she would not run for re-election. (Are the rumors of an investigation into pay for play true?) But that seat is not likely to draw a lot of names. That’s because former State Rep. David Richardson — a little less ambitious after losing the Congressional primary to Donna Shalala — is basically a shoe in. Whoever Blake Young is, Ladra thinks he or she just hasn’t heard about Richardson’s announcement.
Ladra has also heard that Adrian Gonzalez, a restauranteur who has run for office before, is thinking about throwing his hat in. And certainly more of the several dozen people who applied for the KRG vacancy not knowing the fix was in for Malakoff — anyone of them could run.
The qualifying deadline isn’t until all the way in September. So it could get even more interesting before then.

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It looks like the fix was in after all.
Political observers in Miami Beach have been saying for weeks that Joy Malakoff had the inside track to be appointed interim commissioner, replacing former Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who was forced to resign mid-term to run for Congress. On Wednesday, Malakoff got it.
At first, it looked like there was going to be a standoff. Commissioners Michael Gongora, Mark Samuelian and Micky Steinberg chose former Commissioner Saul Gross from a final pool of 10 (from an original pool of 37). Mayor Dan Gelber and his two pocket commissioners, John Elizabeth Aleman and Ricky Arriola, voted, as predicted, for Malakoff.
Mayor Dan Gelber
Gelber went to take a second vote, but first he wanted to motivate his colleagues on the other side to switch, so he started talking about the expense of an election in April, which could be more than $600,000 with a runoff.
“So for those six meetings that person serves, it would cost $100,000 a meeting,” he said. Okay, now, “reconsider your choice.”
The message was clear.
After a second vote got the same result, Gelber suggested they could draw a name from a hat. But others did not want to relinquish their responsibility and after a short recess in which one can’t help but wonder if the Sunshine Law was violated, the came back and Steinberg — who was the weak link all along — was the first to cave. After that, they wanted to make it unanimous.
The truth is Malakoff should have been disqualified because of the sneaky way she tried, right after she left office for health reasons, to get a $50,000 city contract to promote passage of the G.O. Bond with voter outreach. What does she bring to the table anyway? Experience? Knowledge? That there’s no learning curve? If that’s the case, there were several other candidates that fit the bill without the baggage,  including Gross.
But then again, this wasn’t about replacing Rosen Gonzalez with the best possible interim commissioner until the November election, or even with someone who does not have this cloud of doubt over her head. This wasn’t about choosing someone to represent the will of the voters,  because then the commission would have just let Rosen Gonzalez serve out her term, as the voters intended. No. This was about representing a different will. This was about replacing her with someone that will vote the mayor’s way the next 10 months, plenty of months to do damage and spend a bunch of money.
Among the things that may come up is spending of the G.O. Bond that the Beach voters overwhelmingly approved last year even without Malakoff — or anybody else because the job did not exist — selling it. Now she gets her hands on those funds through the temporary commission gig.
A flyer, or “hit piece” on Malakoff that appeared at City Hall and tables at Puerto Sagua — where the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club meeting welcomed candidates for the vacancy Tuesday — urged commissioners to keep her away from those funds. “With Malakoff, corruption wins and the people lose,” it says.
There is no disclaimer as legally required on the piece, so nobody knows who paid for it. But a Miami Herald reporter posted a video of political consultant Randy Hilliard dropping some of them off at City Hall. Hilliard did not return a call or text message from Ladra. But most recently he worked on the 2015 campaign of David Wieder against then Mayor Philip Levine, and lost. Weider was one of the candidates who spoke Wednesday for the job.
But what is most important here is the fact that the way the commission split on this issue is the way it splits on most issues, and naming Malakoff interim is a way to get the Gelber faction a fourth vote on everything else. She will never vote against him. And he knows that.
That’s why Gelber is the biggest disappointment in this whole fiasco. The former prosecutor and state rep ran on a campaign of integrity and ethics. He had the opportunity to show that by taking the leadership step and changing his vote to Gross, who he said was his friend and entirely capable. An ethics stickler would try to avoid even the perception of wrongdoing.
But I guess that fourth vote is just too valuable.
We should watch every vote very closely for the next 10 months, since the mayor basically has carte blanche to do as he pleases now.

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The Miami Beach commission will appoint someone later this month to fill the seat of Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who was forced to resign when she ran for Congress by a Republican law aimed squarely at the Democrats in the race to replace U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
City commissioners should reject the GOP measure’s calculated retroactive effect and respect the voters’ wishes by appointing Rosen-Gonzalez for the remainder of her term.
And, naturally, they should reject the allegedly fixed appointment of former commissioner Joy Malakoff, who already tried to get back in the city’s employ with a $50,000-a-year job overseeing the general bond monies.
Is this a second swipe at putting her in control of those funds? Or is someone getting a guaranteed fourth vote on the commission?
Florida’s resign-to-run law only applied to state and local officials until last year, when the legislature approved a measure that would extend the limits to federal seats. This was, of course, after Ros-Lehtinen announced her retirement of a District that was expected to, and eventually did, go blue. So they made the law include candidates who were elected under the old law and many observers believe it was squarely aimed at Rosen Gonzalez, who was the only Dem who had announced by then.
That was unfair already. The Miami Beach city commission has the rare opportunity to right a wrong, and send a message to Tallahassee, by keeping Kristen where she belongs.
Read related: Kristen Rosen Gonzalez wins in Miami Beach race
She may have lost the Congressional race — nobody expected her to win against Donna Shalala, who was sworn in Thursday, same day that Rosen Gonzalez’s resignation became effective — the former commissioner is a good public servant who has said some stupid things and once trusted the wrong guy. Those episodes have gotten way too much attention from all the good she has done in only three years, much of that against a block of political opponents who worked against her.
Still, she was able to bring paternal leave to city employees, outlaw plastic straws and bags and proposed and passed a city law to protect hotel housekeepers from sexual harassment.
She brought the an energy home improvement program to Beach homeowners and the Common Threads program to teach teens about obesity and eating healthy. She got Bell Isle their park, brought affordable solar to the Beach and helped a condo association get the parking lot they needed.
She also championed the next generation of leaders, forming the Miami Beach Youth Commission and the Miami Beach Youth Job Fair. She brought free test preparation for high schoolers and free drug education for teens and their parents.
In between those things she helped hold the line on over development in mid beach, successfully lowered the density and height of many projects and had uncomfortable trolleys retrofitted for senior citizens.
Several active residents and homeowner association members want to see her appointed to serve out her term.
You might think this is a no brainer. Rosen Gonzalez was elected to a four-year term by voters and should be first on the list of potential appointees. But there’s one problem: She votes her conscience. She belongs to nobody.
There are at least two commissioners — Ricky Arriola and John Elizabeth Aleman — who would feel better with their old ally back and some say the fix is in with Mayor Dan Gelber on their side so he can have a fourth vote.
Read related: Ex Miami Beach elected Joy Malakoff got, then dropped juicy $50K city job
Mayor Dan Gelber
Gelber, who wants everyone to see him as a super Democrat and ran on an ethics campaign, should do the right thing and reject the GOP agenda by leading the charge to appoint Rosen Gonzalez to her seat. It would really be a signal to his independence from the former regime that some think he is beholden to. It would be the ethical thing to do. Especially after his role in the bonds job fiasco where he voted to waive the two-year waiting period to hire Malakoff, even after she donated to his campaign.
If Gelber votes for Malakoff again on Jan. 29, Miami Beach voters should ask why.
Appointments already stink because they raise the possibility of cronyism. With Malakoff it’s practically guaranteed cronyism. After all, she is not going to vote against the commissioners who bring her on.
It’s only one more year. If the mayor or anyone else wants someone other than Rosen Gonzalez in that seat, wait for the election, like the voters intended.

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The congressional primary in dielection is too important. So I did something I thought I would never do. I registered as a Democrat.
Ladra has been a deep purple, card-carrying, proud NPA all her adult life. It started as a pragmatic choice by a journalism student who did not want to be linked to either extreme agenda. It ended up being perfectly suited to me since I found issues and problems in both parties that I was just unable to swallow. So I stayed NPA and proudly proclaimed it from every rooftop.
This year, I have already vowed to vote blue up and down the ballot because of Parkland. Yes, a school shooting at a Broward high school that took 17 lives did what LGBT rights and immigration battles, climate change and taxation and energy priorities and even the systematic privatization of what should be public education couldn’t do — it turned me into a single issue voter. After watching the Florida legislature debate gun control in the wake of those deaths at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, I had no choice. Those creeps who said the MSD students didn’t know what they were talking about and put guns in our schools, they need to be voted out. We need a blue majority in Florida.
So, yeah, I am going to vote for the Democratz in November in both my House race (Jeff Solomon has my vote Aug. 28) and Senate District 40.
But I couldn’t wait for November when it comes to congressional District 27, because there is only one Democrat candidate in the primary on Aug. 28 that I know can beat the eventual Republican winner, who is apparently going to be Maria Elvira Salazar — and that’s Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez.
I can hear some of you now saying that I am only doing this because I am a paid campaign staffer. That’s ridiculous. Do the people who worked for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez only support her because they work for her? Do the people on Marco Rubio’s staff secretly wish they could support someone else but are there only because of their paychecks? Shame on you. If you think my vote is worth any amount of money, or that I would change my voter profile from my entire life, you are delusional. This is something I treasure. Nobody can pay for my vote. You have to earn it. And Kristen has. I was always going to vote for her. Rosen Gonzalez only invited me to be part of Team Kristen because I’ve supported her for the three years she’s been in office. Heck, I supported her candidacy two years prior to that, before she withdrew from the 2013 city elections on the Beach. So, yes, I am paid to help her with her messaging and media. But no, I am not paid to support her. I do that for free and happily because of who she is.
What is it about her? A few things.
A single mom, like me, she is the only candidate in the Dem #FL27 primary who has a full time job and lives paycheck to paycheck, like me. She recycles obsessively and drives a hybrid. She walks the walk, not just talks the talk. She is a teacher, with ten years experience as a professor at Miami Dade College and a real intense desire to make community college free for everyone, so higher education becomes a right and not a privilege. She has passed legislation to raise the minimum wage and protect hotel workers from sexual harassment, so she took on the hotel industry in a city that depends on hotels. Sure, she is often unpolished and sometimes says things off the top of her head that she later regrets. I kinda like that about her. Because at least she says something. Her answers are not pat rehearsed and practiced talking points written by someone else. Trust me, sometimes I wish she would stick to my script. She can’t. It is in her nature to be natural. She is the real deal.
She has also been campaigning the longest, having announced a bid for that seat before Ileana Ros-Lehtinen retired. So she was willing to challenge the congresswoman on her own turf. That takes guts. She has something slightly resembling gumption. Nobody else had the nerve. They only jumped in after it was an open seat, which makes them opportunists of a sort.
Most importantly, Kristen is the only candidate in the Democratic primary who speaks Spanish fluently. That is going to become important after Aug. 28 when whoever wins has to battle Salazar for votes in a district that is 73% Hispanic.
Ladra likes Matt Haggman. We worked together at the Miami Herald and he was a fine journalist. But he and his campaign are out of touch with the average voter or resident in my community. Ladra likes former State Rep. David Richardson. Despite his stupid trip to Cuba and the fact that he talks about being the first gay elected to the House like its his only achievement, I think he has good intentions. I love the fact that he took it upon himself to visit state prisons and evaluate their operations as a state legislator.
But neither of them speak Spanish very well. And when pressed to vote for a David Richardson or a Matt Anything against a Maria Elvira Salazar, I fear that a lot of the elderly, high performing voters in the district will go for the name with the Z in it. This is not racism. It’s clarity. Nobody is saying this is how it should be. Just that it is what it is.
And that Gonzalez has two Zs.
There are only a few hours left to change your voter’s registration, if you are an NPA like me and want to vote in the primary. You have to do it before midnight at this website here.
But this message is also or more for those of you already registered as a Democrat: Think about the impact of your August vote in November and don’t throw it away. Think about who would be the best match against the eventual GOP nominee before you cast your ballot. Think about who will best be able to represent the majority of the district, and speak to her constituency in their language.
Then vote for Kristen Rosen Gonzalez.

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We are going to need a  couple of clown cars this summer for the debates in both primaries for Congressional District 27.
Add Spanish language journalist Maria Elena Salazar (Republican) and Donna Shalala (Democrat) to the other 15 candidates from both parties that have made known their intentions to run for the seat vacated by the retirement of U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who has understandably grown tired of having to defend her party.
Both women announced their candidacy in recent days, adding to an already interesting mix that includes another journalist, two state legislators, two city commissioners from two different cities, a former city commissioner, a county commissioner, an alien abduction survivor, a Latin Grammy winner and a former federal judge.
Here, let’s list them alphabetically so nobody gets offended. Everybody’s website is also linked (only one couldn’t be found):

Former Miami Commissioner Marvin Dunn
Former federal Judge Mary Barzee Flores 
Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez 
Award-winning journalist and community activist Matt Haggman
Non profit VP and UM academic advisor Michael Hepburn
Mark Anthony Person (couldn’t find anything on him)
State Rep. David Richardson
State Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez
Miami Commissioner Ken Russell

The Republican half of the ballot is almost as long and — save for the one candidate who was abducted by aliens and the daughter of a Cuban American musical idol — not as exciting and, so far, pretty much a done deal:

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Thank you, Kristen Rosen Gonzalez. Thank you very much.
The Miami Beach Commissioner and congressional candidate made the right choice over the weekend when she risked her political future and accused Democrat activist Rafael Velasquez, a progressive commission candidate that she had supported, of sexually harassing her earlier this month.
She could have stayed quiet. She could have let Velasquez, who she had endorsed and helped raise money for, get elected next week. She would have had another “friendly” on a hostile dais where three mayoral puppets already vote against her on a regular basis.
But woulda coulda does not equal shoulda.
“I could not help him get elected. I could not raise more money for him,” Rosen Gonzalez told Ladra late Monday, after she had given news interviews to several television stations.
Read related story: Kristen Rosen Gonzalez to challenge Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Despite the fervor taking over the nation after the multiple accusations and fallout against Hollywood filmmaker Harvey Weinstein making it easier for women all over the country to make #metoo outcries of their own experiences, it was not an easy decision for Rosen Gonzalez, who is running for Congress in District 27 to replace the retiring U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (she announced before the veteran lawmaker announced her retirement).
She may have taken a political risk when she made the accusation about Velasquez public in a Politico story posted Sunday.
About two weeks ago, she said, Velasquez paid her a visit and said he was in the neighborhood canvassing for votes. She said she didn’t feel comfortable with him in her home that evening and suggested they go to a nearby restaurant, Café Avanti. There, she said, she had two glasses of wine and he had two mojitos.
“He began to say things that were delusional, that his next step would be governor of Florida,” she said. “He said over and over he loved me and I told him no, I’m helping you with your campaign.”
Velasquez scoffed at her recollection and said he made no such comments. “People say she’s crazy,” he said. “I really didn’t believe it until now.”
During the drive back to his car, she said, Velasquez grew more excited, exposed himself and tried to place her hand on his exposed crotch.
“He took it out. I tried not to look. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. And I can’t forget it. And that’s the worst part,” she said. “I have felt guilty and horrible and ashamed about this and I wasn’t the one who did anything wrong. He put me in a situation, and it’s like what do I do?”
Velasquez said her story doesn’t add up because, just this Friday, she was still talking to him about the campaign and his opponent.
“Are you feeling good,” she asked him in a text message reply to him.
“Yes. We got this!” he replied, adding an emoji of a clenched fist.
“Nobody is voting,” she told him hours later, noting that only 600 people had returned absentee ballots.
“She was my friend until Friday. I really don’t know what happened,” he said.
Rosen Gonzalez said she understood it sounded strange, but it took her time to consider what happened. And, in the end, she realized she needed to speak up.
“I was going to stay quiet, but if he whips out his willy with a strong middle-aged woman like me, I am worried about what he will do to younger girls when he is a man of influence and power,” she said. “I do not think he should be elected to any office, and this is a man I believed was an authentic soul.”
Immediately, before a second victim came forward with her own Rafael “Wild Willy” Velasquez story, Rosen Gonzalez was questioned and scrutinized. Someone on Facebook implied she deserved it for being a single woman who dates. Someone suggested she was slutty. It was reminiscent of the way some people say rape victims ask for it with the clothes they wear. People questioned why it took her so long to report it. As if 10 days should be characterized as “so long” in this type of abuse. Because that’s what it is. Abuse.
And that is why it often takes women a long time, often years and sometimes decades, to report these sexual assaults, as evidenced by the delay in outcries from other victims against Bill Cosby, Bill O’Reilly and Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump. It is evidenced in the thousands of #metoo stories that have flooded the internet after one woman, thank you, accused Weinstein.
Often one woman’s outcry leads to another. And then another. Frances Alban is the second woman to accuse Velasquez. The publicist came out Monday with her own “Wild Willy” experience: He groped her in a group photo last June and sent lewd texts afterward. She, too, kept the text messages and showed them — complete with a little purple devil emoji — to the Miami Herald.
Seems the soon-to-be divorced Velasquez has a penchant for emojis.
Thank you, too, Ms. Alban, for your courage. Otherwise, people might not have believed Commissioner Rosen Gonzalez. And that is another reason why we should be grateful. Because every time a woman fingers her sexual harasser, another woman is emboldened to do the same.
Velasquez has said that the commissioner is crazy and that he never pulled it out in her car. Is he going to say that he never grabbed Alban’s ass either?
Where is Rafael Velasquez’s right hand? Is Sen. Annette Taddeo one of his victims?
How much you wanna bet Velasquez has more victims by the end of the week? Because this type of behavior is usually serial and if he’s so bold as to whip it out unsolicited in the passenger seat or grab a lady’s ass in a public photo op, then he’s likely committed other abuses also. Which is another reason why it was important for Rosen Gonzalez to speak.
“This was very hard for me to do,” Rosen Gonzalez told Ladra. “I’m embarassed about the whole thing. People are saying it took me 10 days to report. But even right after he did it, it took me time to process. We didn’t speak for three days until I just asked him, almost automatically, ‘Are you knocking?’”
She meant knocking on voters’ doors. She had been helping him and advising him on his campaign for months. She had real hopes that he would win. Rosen Gonzalez is often voted down on the commission and now that former Commissioner Michael Gongora is set to win his commission race and former Sen. Dan Gelber would be the mayor, she hoped to have more allies, including Velasquez.
“I had invested a lot of political capital in this guy. I raised money for him. I had his sign in front of my house. I introduced him to people,” she said. “But then I thought, ‘Do I get him elected so he can support me or do I stop future victims from being abused.’ I just couldn’t empower this guy,” said Rosen Gonzalez, shown here with Velasquez in this photo.
That made the decision easier. And she has been pleasantly uplifted by the amount of support she has gotten, even from high ranking members of the Democratic Party who have abandoned Velasquez’s campaign and called for him to withdraw from the race.
“The fact that he’s lying about it now is the worst part,” Rosen Gonzalez said.
No, Commissioner, the worst part is that he could still be elected. The momentum is there and early voting has already started. Unless voters strongly reject Velasquez, Rosen Gonzalez may find herself in the position of serving on the dais next to her abuser. That’s far worse than serving next to Samuelian, who she’s campaigned against and is aligned with her enemies,.
But, hey, at least he hasn’t whipped it out on her.
So, we should all thank the commissioner. Because she really gains nothing political from this except a lot of grief for the next year one way or another. She did this because it was the right thing to do.
Courage is contagious. Pass it on.

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