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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It took him more than 30 years to finally get a seat at the table, or rather dais. But less than 12 months after being elected to the Miami city commission last November, Manolo Reyes is already campaigning again for next year.
He hasn’t really stopped.
With $116,000 already in the campaign coffers, according to campaign reports filed with the city, Reyes — who won a special election to fill the seat vacated by then commissioner, now mayor Francis Suarez — had a fundraiser Thursday at Cuban Crafters hosted by all four of the other city commissioners. Sources say it netted at least another $30,000.
Reyes is the only incumbent who has started raising money for the 2019 election.
Read related: In Miami, Manolo Reyes finally wins and Carollo vs Leon… or Barreiro?
He may not look like he needs it now, as there is nobody yet lined up against him (activist and wannabe consultant Tony Diaz withdrew), but there are rampant rumors that a female candidate is going to jump in and make a campaign issue out of Miami’s all-male board.
Las malas lenguas say that female candidate is Maryin Vargas, who just lost a barely-there challenge against Miami-Dade Commissioner Rebeca Sosa that got her 24% of the vote.
Vargas — who apparently campaigned mostly in the Flagami neighborhoods that overlap with Miami District 4 — was reportedly recruited by Commissioner Xavier Suarez, who has denied it. He also initially denied putting anyone up against Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz, but then endorsed Rafael Alberto Pinyero, who lost with 26% of the vote.
And it might make sense that he wants to run someone against Reyes, who has come out against both his son’s strong mayor initiative and the giveaway of the Melreese Golf Course for a soccer stadium and retail/hotel/office complex.
Even though both those things are coming to the ballot before Reyes, the general sentiment is that the Suarezes would prefer to have someone on the dais that was more friendly to the Baby X agenda.
Either way, anybody pretending to run against Reyes is going to have to catch up to his fundraising lead.

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There’s not a lot of surprise in the Miami election that ended Tuesday. Everybody knew we would have Mayor Francis “The Future”  Suarez in charge with some ridiculous support against two nobodies (86%) and that there would be a runoff in the race for District 3 to replace him between former Mayor Joe Carollo and someone else.
That someone else may turn out to be surprise dark horse Alfie Leon, the former policy advisor for termed out Commissioner Frank Carollo. He may be the one who will now face his former boss’s estranged brother in round 2 on Nov. 21.
Zoraida Barreiro, who flew sorta under the radar in an ugly race that focused on Carollo and Tommy Regalado, the namesake son of the current Mayor Tomas Regalado, came crazy close to going head to head with Crazy Joe. But in the end, Leon edged her out with 17 votes between them at nearly 20% each.
Provisional ballots counted in the next couple of days may change that. Barreiro may ask for a recount. It’s that close.
Read related story: Denise Galvez (Turros) fights for her full name — except when she’s DUI
But in the other race, we finally have Commissioner Manolo Reyes, who has waited almost 30 years to hear those words.
Reyes solidly Ralph Rosado, who was hoping for a runoff, and won outright with 57% percent of the vote to Rosado’s 36%. Latinas for Trump co-founder Denise Galvez (Turros) can now officially be called Denise “Single Digits” Galvez, with less than 8%, but you just know she is going to blame Ladra for exposing her old theft and DUI arrests.
Commissioner Reyes, let’s say it often, is a sweet win. He’s like everybody’s abuelo and won votes with his common sense and longtime activism in the city. People know him. They have to. He has walked the district six times already.
“This is fantastic. It’s a dream come true,” Reyes told Ladra as he walked into his victory party at Renaissance Banquet Hall on 32nd Avenue, where he was quickly surrounded by friends and supporters with hugs. “At last, I have the opportunity to serve my people.”
He said he was especially happy that voters so soundly rejected the negative campaigning by his main opponent. “It’s about time these campaigns stop and candidates respect the intelligence of the people,” Reyes said.
Rosado went so negative that he had hit piece palm cards at the polls — something Ladra has never seen before. They didn’t say to vote for Rosado. They didn’t have his punch number. They just said to reject Reyes based on a mailer that a non-profit sent on Reyes’ behalf with a bad photo of Ralph Rosado.
Read related story: Finally! Manolo Reyes looks real good in Miami commission race
That’s a hoot. Because Rosado is the one whose campaign went negative months ago, first with TV ads and mailers calling Reyes a career beaurocrat — though he has worked in both the public and private sector — and then suggesing that he was falling asleep at a debate with a photo of the candidate with his eyes closed.
Rosado’s campaign got so personal that Reyes got help from outgoing Mayor Regalado, who went on the radio with ads and recorded a robocall urging voters in his old commission district to support Reyes. He accused Rosado of waging “attacks and lies.”
But that was not the race with the most attacks and lies. No, that would belong to the District 3 race and the crown belongs to Carollo’s campaign, or the part of it designed by former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla. The attacks calling the Regalados communists and putting a caricature of Tommy Regalado in diapers, the allegations they took Chavista money — all of that may have backfired because Carollo was positioned to take more than 35%, according to all the polls.
Read related story: Crazy Joe Carollo adds twist to crazy Miami race
Instead, he got 30% and is now headed into a runoff against Alfie Leon, commissioner Frank Carollo‘s former policy advisor, who came in number two with just over 20% (unless Barreiro turns it around in provisionals).
But Tommy may have been hurt by some of the negative campaigning — there was a lot of it. One reason why it would have been better to have Barreiro in the second round is it would have been harder for Carollo (read: ADLP) to attack a woman. That could double backfire. But Ladra expects to hear pestes about Leon now.
Popular political theory says all the support behind Tommy and Barreiro and the other candidates for the other candidates, will now go Leon’s way. Will it be enough to keep Crazy Joe out of office?
That’s the question everyone is going to be asking themselves on Wednesday.

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A judge last week dismissed a motion by a Miami City Commission candidate who thought her name should be first on the ballot and wanted the election delayed so that new ballots could be printed.
The frivolous lawsuit isn’t the only time that Denise Galvez Turros has been in court. But it’s the only time she’s been in court with that name.
She was just Denise Victoria Galvez when she was charged in 1994 with credit card theft of more than $300. But she probably wasn’t married yet. Another arrest — for driving under the influence and disorderly intoxication — is from December 2010 and under the name Danise Turros. No Galvez. And I guess she didn’t want to correct the officer who spelled her first name wrong (so it would be harder for anyone like me to find).
That’s probably why she’s smiling in the mugshot.
So, we guess she is only Turros when it’s convenient.
She doesn’t use it in her business. She doesn’t use it when she speaks on TV as cofounder of Latinas for Trump. She only uses it when she’s getting arrested. Or trying to get elected. Gotcha.
Galvez is in PR — she owns a boutique firm called GTMPR (which used to be Go To Marketing) — so she should know: If you want to make a stink about your name, make sure that stink doesn’t come back on you. If you have something to hide, don’t rock the boat. I hope she consults her clients better than this.
Read related story: Denise Galvez (Turros) sues for Miami ballot reprint — with her name first
The candidate made us curious when she sued last month to throw out the ballots and reprint new ones with her name in the coveted top space. Many political observers think this “pole position” gives the candidate an advantage among low information voters who might just check off the first name. Galvez — who didn’t know that she needed to hyphenate to get the G counted as her first last name letter — probably thinks that is her only chance against the other two candidates, Manuel “Manolo” Reyes and Ralph Rosado.
Well, maybe her only chance to get double digits.
But Ladra agrees with the principle: Her last name starts with a G. There are going to be more and more compound names sans hyphens and this community needs to have policies reflective of that. In the future. Ladra calls on Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White to do whatever it takes to make that change. That can be your legacy.
Galvez did not return several calls and text messages and one email to seek her comment or information about the circumstances of her arrests — or why Turros was good enough for the 2010 charge. She did, however, call my mom (she’s a friend of the family’s) 20 minutes after Ladra called her. But she didn’t answer when Mami called her back the next day. The candidate, who had already blocked me on Facebook, blocked me on Twitter last week after I started following her, which is a terrible sign for someone who wants to be a public servant.
What did she expect when she signed up for this? She already had to hope this didn’t come out. And then to file an injunction to stop the election two weeks before it’s over? After absentee ballots had already gone out? Boneheaded. You should only do that if you are okay calling attention to yourself and your name.
Another sign that Galvez is not ready for prime time.

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Now that the mayoral election next month is all but a technicality, the real question is who Commissioner Francis Suarez, our next city of Miami mayor, wants to have serve on the dais with him. He’s been non-commmital because he wanted to focus on his own race. But now that he’s got no opposition, not really, he can put his considerable weight behind the right candidate.
Too bad he still won’t tell us. Now, we can only guess.
“I’m not supporting anyone right now. I get along pretty much with everybody,” Suarez told Ladra this week, adding that no mayor or elected supported him when he first ran in 2009 even though he started out 25 points behind Manolo Reyes, who is leading all the polls for the seat now.
“And I liked it that way. I didn’t even use my middle name, which is the same as my father’s,” said Suarez, a chip off the old block that is Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, who was also the first Cuban mayor of Miami. “I wanted to rise on my own merits, my own ideas.”
The flip side of the coin is that he doesn’t want to piss anybody off.
“As mayor, you have a responsibility to create a coalition on the commission and set the tone and get things done. If you pick the wrong side, you may end up offending somebody and shooting yourself in the foot,” he said. “I want to hit the ground running. My responsibility isn’t to the candidates, it’s to the residents.”
But just who does Baby X think he’s fooling? Some political observers say he’s being a passive aggressive pussy who is secretly helping candidates but doesn’t have the cojones to publicly endorse them. “Like always, el tira le piedra y esconda la mano,” said one Miami voter and political junkie. It’s a Cuban saying that literally means he throws a stone and hides his hand but actually means he starts some kind of trouble and avoids the blame.
Read related story: Francis Suarez says definite maye to Miami mayoral race
Ladra, too, thinks that he does, indeed, have a great deal of interest in the two commission races (especially in one). Why else would he spend money polling the commission races along with his own race and issues every time? And it is very difficult for Ladra to believe that he and his dad and his political allies in Coral Gables and beyond would just pass on this opportunity to silently grow allies and build their machinery, especially trying to help the candidates that Suarez knows will be friendlier and happier to work with him instead of on their own agenda.
Yeah, Joe Carollo, I’m talking about you. The former Miami mayor and Doral city manager likes to be a star and the protagonist and could battle Suarez for attention and control of the commission.
Despite the fact that the two candidates are apparently sharing Steve Marin as campaign consultant, the two families sorta hate each other. Ladra can’t beieve that’
Suarez wants to sit on the dais with the guy who basically unseated his father from office in 1997 for absentee voter fraud that may not have been X’s doing (it was former City Commissioner Humberto Hernandez and former State Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who las malas lenguas say is helping Carollo now). The election was thrown out and a second vote put Carollo in office. So, no, Ladra does not believe that Suarez isn’t actively working against Crazy Joe. You can’t trusth him because he could turn on you at any minute, like he has on almost everybody, even calling a press conference to stab you in the back. Just ask former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre. We have to believe that Baby X is ABC — Anyone But Carollo.
Read related story: Crazy Joe Carollo adds twist to crazy Miami Commission race
Athough maybe not Tommy Regalado, son and namesake of the current mayor, tampoco. There’s no real love loss between these families either. Maybe also because Suarez had the nerve to try to run against Mayor Tomas Regalado four years ago before he had to abandon the campaign after several missteps. Suarez just got rid of one Regalado, you think he wants to be saddled with another? And compete for media darling status with another block chip?
That leaves us in District 3 with Zoraida Barreiro, the wife of Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, or one of the other three guys who don’t seem to stand a chance next to the legacy candidates. Zory, as she is known, makes sense because her husband is a colleague of the new mayor’s father. This allegiance has legs. Also, Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro has not lost one election. Not for State Rep. Not for county commissioner.
There’s also a small possibility that Suarez likes Alfie Leon, the former chief policy advisor, for Commissioner Frank Carollo. But Ladra is making that hypothesis only because someone in his camp has defended Leon in private and Coral Gables Commissioner Vince Lago, a top Suarez ally, is backing Leon openly.
Still, it’s practically a toss up between the other two.
One might think Baby X is helping Reyes, who he beat by 260 votes when first elected in 2009, since he is leading all the polls, after all. Suarez has reportedly shared the polls with people to help Reyes raise campaign cash. And also allegedly lent Reyes his professional fundraiser — Brian Goldmeier reportedly made some calls on Reyes’ behalf.
But, on the other hand, Manolo is tight with the Regalados so there’s that little snag. And Baby X has been seen with Ralph Rosado at some events and neighborhood homeowner association meetings. Rosado has also shown that he can raise more money, which could be important to Suarez– or both Suarezes — in the future.
Maybe he’s hedging his bets. Does that still count as passive aggressive?

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A no-chance Miami commission candidate at the rock bottom of all the polls wants a judge to toss out the ballots that have been cast so far and reprint them, claiming discrimination as a female and as a Hispanic because her name was put last instead of first.

Denise Galvez, who is now suddenly calling herself Denise Galvez Turros for the election, says she filed her complaint Wednesday afternoon in order to get the coveted “pole position” on the ballot, which many political observers and candidates think is an advantage among low information voters who just check the first candidate on some lists. She wants all the absentee ballots returned so far to be invalidated and for new ballots to be printed and mailed — which might delay the Nov. 7 election.

Galvez is running in the District 4 race against, in alphabetical order, Manolo Reyes and Ralph Rosado. Using Turros, Miami City Clerk Todd Hannon put her name under the two men. If he had used Galvez, she would have been listed first.

And while I think the founder of Latinas for Trump, who works in marketing by day, is a terrible choice for commissioner, she is right about this. On principle, anyway, if not legally. After all, Galvez is not her middle name. Her full, compound last name is Galvez Turros, which begins with a G. The process should not require that she hyphenate it. Our culture certainly doesn’t require it.

Read related story: Trump Latina Denise Galvez runs for Miami city commission

“City has written me last on ballot instead of first bc I’m a woman who kept my maiden name and didn’t add a hyphen,” Galvez posted Wednesday on her Facebook campaign page, where she is just Denise Galvez. And of course she didn’t add a hyphen because she never added his name ’til now. Ladra doesn’t think she has called her Galvez Turros even once in any previous stories, except to note that she suddenly added her hubby’s name and filed to run with both. She is just Denise Galvez to us who have known her for years. All last year she was on TV pushing Donald Trump as Denise Galvez, not Denise Galvez Turros. Google it.

So maybe this is poetic justice. She was trying to pull a fast one by adding Turros and it backfired.

But that doesn’t mean that this practice is not stupid and outdated. Ladra’s puppy has a compound name with no hyphen so this is an issue near and dear to me that needs to be addressed for future Hispanic candidates, male or female, that use both their parents’ last names. In our increasingly diverse and heavily Hispanic community, there will be more and more candidates with names like former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan or Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez and no hyphen — although in both those cases, they benefit by being listed according to their second last name. Rosen Gonzalez was third on the ballot in the 2015 election, before Isaiah Mosley, Jonathan Parker and Betsy Perez. If the city clerk in Miami Beach had gone with Rosen, she’d have been listed last.

Galvez probably didn’t know this when she opportunistically added Turros to her name. Maybe she should have gotten some legal help with her qualifying documents. An attorney might have also advised that she hyphenate, which would have guaranteed Galvez came first.

She may have some issues with her case at this point. The main one is that she waited too long.

“After ballots have gone out, I do not see a court changing the names on the ballot,” said Jose “Pepe” Herrera, a longtime government attorney who has worked on election lawsuits before and said that Galvez, or Galvez Turros, should have made the case earlier, as soon as she saw how the ballot would be printed. He is not working for any of the candidates in this race.

“If somebody is using a non legal name they don’t normally use and I went ot court to remove him from the ballot, if I wait ’til ABs are printed and sent out, I am upsetting the calendar or timing of the election,” Herrera told Ladra. Any reprinting of ballots could delay the election and disenfranchise voters who have already casted ballots via mail this week.

“Courts have uniformly said if you wait too long knowing the problem exists, you have no case,” Herrera added.

Read related story: Finally! Manolo Reyes looks real good in Miami Commission race

Galvez did not respond to several attempts (read: calls, voice mails, texts) to reach her. She is mad at Ladra, who she blocked on Facebook — where she defends Trump and offends the rest of us with insensitive posts and fake news and smears of anyone who disagrees with the POTUS — after I pointed out that Puerto Rico was not A-OK eight days after Hurricane Maria had ravaged the island. Ladra can still see her feeds because we have multiple friends in common. I just can no longer tag her with the truth about Puerto Rico or the NFL players’ protest or, now, the condolence call crap-up.

But according to a Miami Herald story by David Smiley, Galvez did try earlier this month to have the city clerk and Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White change the ballot:

Hannon declined to change the ballot after reviewing election law and speaking with elections officials at the county and state. He said precedent set by the handling of previous ballots holds that hyphenated last names be ordered based on the first of the two surnames, and that names without a hyphen be ordered based on the last of the two names. He also noted that Galvez didn’t specify by which name she wanted to be primarily identified on her qualifying documents.

“It is important to note that your name will appear on the ballot exactly as you provided ‘Denise Galvez Turros,’ Hannon wrote.

Even if the case is dismissed, Galvez will likely benefit from the free press and additional name recognition that this move could give her. And one has to wonder if that was the point in the first place. It is becoming almost part and parcel of any campaign to file a lawsuit or an ethics complaint, even if you know it’s ludicrous, to get the free PR. Check out this screen save of her campaign Facebook page where she announces her interview on a local news channel.

And it could work. Young women in Silver Bluff with no interest in this race might suddenly feel motivated to vote Nov. 7. And the abuelitas in Flagami might give her the pitty vote. It won’t make Galvez more viable, really, but a small increase in votes could force the other two candidates into a Nov. 21 runoff.

Some people are already saying that she did this to help Ralph Rosado.