There may have been no contributions and no activity in the reports for his political action committee until the $5,000 check from Fisher Island developers in late August, but Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez first began soliciting contributions for Miami Dade Residents First in March of last year.
Maybe he’s losing his golden touch.
According to the form he filed with the county — which last year began requiring that all electeds and candidates for office disclose if they are soliciting funds for a particular PAC or electioneering communication organization, which is a PAC with a different name — he’s been pounding the pavement for almst 18 months.
Gimenez filed what the county calls an MD ED 28 form in June of 2017, saying he had begun to solicit funds for Miami Dade Residents First on March 23 and for Miami First, Joe Carollo‘s PAC, on May 27. The form was filed June 23, which is past the five days that elected and candidates are given from the first day of solicitation to file the document. It’s past 60 days from the first solicitation for his own PAC!
And those dates are so specific: March 24 was a Friday and May 27 was a Saturday. Why were those the days he started soliciting rather than, say, March 1 or May 15
Gimenez did get a notice for the first time violation, even though he is the self-declared head of the elections department. Second time violators are fined but nobody’s done that yet, said Miami-Dade Elections spokeswoman Suzy Trutie. And Gimenez is not alone. After all, 2017 was the first year electeds and candidates had to file these MD ED 28 forms. A few others, including Commissioners Jean Monestime and Xavier Suarez and Sen. Rene Garcia, who is termed out and running for county commission in 2020, also got first notice violation.
Read related: Carlos Gimenez is raising funds for his PAC again — but for who or what?
But nobody is getting as busy as Gimenez, who seems to be renting himself out as a rainmaker. The mayor has filed a total of 9 forms for a total of 10 PACs and ECOs he’s soliciting funds for. That’s right. Ten! Is this really an appropriate side gig for a county mayor who oversees billion in tax dollar spending? Who is he soliciting those funds from? How will we know? So if he gets funds for, say, Florida Senate candidate Marili Cancio — and he filed a report for Friends of Marili Cancio last month — from someone who does business with the county, how will we know its his solicited contribution to her PAC? How will we know what favors he owes?
We won’t.
In fact, he could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from special interests before him for someone else in a quid pro quo deal where that person — Cancio or someone else — raises then hundreds of thousands for him from someone who wants something at the state level. This is just rife with potential conflicts and bribes. It becomes that much harder to follow the money.
In addition to his own PAC and Carollo’s, Gimenez has filed MD ED 28 forms for the following PACs that reflected the following in the latest campaign reports filed at the county and also at the Florida Division of Elections:

On July 20, 2017, People for Stronger Neighborhoods, which Ladra couldn’t find active in county or state records. The used to be a PAC named People for Stronger Neighborhoods ran by former State Rep. and attorney to the pols J.C. Planas on behalf of county and city candidates. It lists as “disbanded” now but it collected more than $100,000 of its $159,000 after August of 2017, having its best months in September, October and November.
On Feb. 15, It’s All About The Kids PAC, which collected about $110,000 for the re-election of Miami-Dade School Board Member Maria Teresa Rojas, the mayor’s sister-in-law.
On June 5 for Government With Transparency, a state-registered ECO working on behalf of county commission candidate Zoraida Barreiro, which collected absolutely nothing in June, but, coincidentally (not), raised $155,250 of its $262,000 total in May, which is almost six times more the next highest month. Maybe someone made another election document mistake there and he meant May 5? Sure looks that way.
On Aug. 8 for Citizens for Transparency and Integrity in Government, working on behalf of Miami-Dade Commissioner Javier Souto, which raised $70,000 of its $170,000 total after Aug. 11.
On Aug. 10 for We The People, which is County Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz‘s PAC and raised $168,500 in August — its best month ever by far, of its $581,350 bank.
On Aug. 10 for Friends of Marili Cancio, which received one $5,000 donation from Coral Gables tech entrepreneur Manny Medina since then.
On Aug. 10 for All About Florida, former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine‘s failed gubernatorial run PAC, which was a lost cause by then so why bother?
On Aug. 20 for Alliance for A Better Community, Miami-Dade Commissioner Jean Monestime’s PAC, I guess for an 11th hour money pitch.

Of course, one could argue these people now owe the mayor something. Votes on the commission for his budget or his deals. Funds for a future campaign for himself or one of his children. Something at the state level. He’s not taking time out of his busy day to help these people out of the kindness of his heart.  All except for Rojas, who maybe he was strong armed into helping by his wife, owe him for those solicitations.
And, on the flip side of the coin, what does he owe those who answer  his call to contribute to Cancio or to Diaz or to Souto or Levine?
Ladra also can’t help but wonder how much time Gimenez will be spending between now and November making more fundraising phone calls and asking more people for money for his friends. And what he’s going to get and promise in return.

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The city of Coral Gables will host a candidate forum Wednesday with the four people running for Miami-Dade School Board in District 6, which includes The City Beautiful.

Ladra hopes that Carlos “CJ” Gimenez, the mayor’s quick-tempered son, won’t be there just to scare off the candidates who are not his aunt, Maria Teresa Rojas.

CJ Gimenez, an attorney/lobbyist who lives in the Gables, already called other candidates after qualifying to try to get them to drop out of the race to replace Raquel Regalado, who resigned from the school board because she is running for Miami-Dade mayor against his dad. The Miami Herald reported last month that at least three candidates said they got calls from CJ and/or his colleague, Luis Mata, who also works at Balsera Communications with the mayor’s son and who has political aspirations of his own, just wait and see (more on that later).

CJ Gimenez

The candidates said they were urged with a “really strong tone” to withdraw. “It did sound like bullying to me,” Modesto “Mo” Abety told the Herald about his conversation with Mata. “Sort of like, ‘It would be better for you if you drop out.’

“I don’t know what to make of it or if it’s standard operating procedure,” Abety was quoted as saying. “Especially when the person is the son of the mayor.”

Ya think?

Although it sounded an awful lot like an offer he couldn’t refuse, Abety did, indeed, refuse. So did Gus Machado, whose name rec is any campaign consultant’s wet dream thanks to the Ford dealership he doesn’t own or have anything to do with.

Only college professor Richard Tapia ended up dropping out, though he said he was going to do it anyway. But he didn’t officially withdraw. Instead, he cancelled his check, which disqualified him. And one has to wonder if the county is going to go after him to collect the check as it does with other cancelled checks, or if there was some kind of agreement made. Because Tapia did meet with CJ Gimenez at a restaurant to talk about the race.

The other two stuck it in. And they are the ones most likely to give Rojas a run for her money.

Machado, a corporate travel salesman, doesn’t have to raise a lot of money because everyone in Little Havana wants to vote for Gus Machado, even though this one has no relation to the auto mogul. He has two special needs children and is running because he is afraid that, without Regalado, the gains made in special needs education will wane.

Clockwise from top left: Modesto Abety, Maria Teresa Rojas, Gus Machado and Pedro Mora

Abety, former president and chief executive of the Children’s Trust, has been old-school campaigning this with fundraisers and meet-and-greets and door-knocking.

Maria Teresa Rojas is a longtime educator and former principal at several schools who is now working as School Board Member Susie Castillo‘s aide and just happens to be Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s sister-in-law.

Someone named Pedro Mora is also running, but he is like the Farid Khavari of this school board race. He didn’t even warrant a menacing call from CJ.

Dicen las malas lenguas that the mayor didn’t even want his sister-in-law to run. This was allegedly all his son’s idea — probably so the family can get their hands elbow-deep in another pot of public money, since Papi’s reign of terror is coming to an end. Otherwise one has to wonder what on Earth Donald Trump, one of CJ’s clients, might want with our public schools?

Ladra doesn’t think there will be a winner Tuesday. More likely there’s going to be a runoff between Rojas and Machado. Or Rojas and Abety. Or, if there is a God, between Abety and Machado.

But chances are Rojas will come in the top two. After all she had already spent, as of Aug. 12, about $98,000 — which is more than twice her opponents have raised combined. She has Steve Marin working on her $70,000 worth of materials, like mailers, and a phone bank. She has Freddy Balsera work on a “special production” for $3,000. And Dario Moreno, her brother-in-law’s own pollster, getting $8,000 to provide direction.

And she has at least $38,000 left from the total $136K raised so far. A lot of it is in $100 or $150 contributions from teachers and school administrators. But quite a bit of it is from the same people who give to Gimenez — $7,000 from Armando Codina, at least $5,000 from the Pedro Munilla family of builders, $4,000 from Demetrio Perez , $3,000 from the Zulueta family (charter schools), $3,000 from Felipe Vals (Versailles/La Carreta) and $2,000 a piece from Marcelo Llorente, Ralph Garcia-Toledo, Herman Echevarria and Al Maloof.

We know that the Gimenez absentee ballot machine is helping his wife’s sister. And so is CJ and Mr. Mata and the whole Balsera operation, which is not as great as it promotes itself to be. But even if it’s half of its former self, it’s something Machado and Abety don’t have.

It’s going to take educated voters to send the message that we don’t want puppets who will be answerable to lobbyists and special interests. So gatherings like this, where voters can hear directly from the candidates, are crucial.

The Coral Gables forum starts at 6 p.m. at the War Memorial Youth Center, 405 University Drive. Have a question you want to ask one of the candidates? Email it to nlevi@coralgables.com.

And watch out for CJ. He might be lurking in the bushes.