In yet another effort to thwart a recall effort he likes to belittle, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago has funded a phone bank to call voters and tell them not to sign the petition.

One of those calls went to Commissioner Melissa Castro over the weekend. She was out of town, on an impromptu vacation with her son, but saw the call came from a 786 number and answered it, thinking it was something important from back home.

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‘Mafia-like thuggery’ is tied to vote on city manager

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Can you imagine a sports bar without TV screens? Neither can Fernando Yanes, the owner of Bar77 on Giralda, where fans can almost always find a football or futbol game to watch.

Yanes has been working to make the TV screens up against his windows legal since code enforcement cited him last year. The city has a 12 foot setback. But these are screens for his outdoor tables.

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So, it was apparently Coral Gables Commissioner Kirk Menendez who came up with the plan to give himself and his colleagues some pretty big raises in salaries, more wiggle room in their expense accounts and brand new car allowances where there were none.

Newly-elected Commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez apparently agreed, according to City Manager Peter Iglesias, who can count.

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Coral Gables Mayor Vince “Sore Loser” Lago is still upset about having both his commission candidates trounced in the April elections. So he keeps cutting newly-elected Commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez — who was once a Lago ally — out of photographs he posts on social media. And he keeps ignoring them at public events, like ribbon cuttings, pretending they aren’t there.

“I have a business. I am a single mom. So when I take time out to go to an event, to a function and you don’t acknowledge it, it’s disrespectful,” Castro said at the meeting, calling the mayor out publicly.

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Three commissioners opposed him on firefighters and tax rate, too

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