On her 50th birthday, Denise Galvez Turros — a longtime resident, marketing professional and community advocate — will officially announce her candidacy Tuesday and file paperwork to run in the November election for the commission seat in District 3.
Today, that is Commissioner Joe Carollo‘s seat. But he is termed out and threatening to run for mayor.
Galvez — who lost a previous bid for office in 2017 — says her vision is to “create an Efficient, Safe, Clean and Smart Miami.” ESCSM? You can’t even pronounce that. A marketing guru should know better.
Read related: Is Miami’s Joe Carollo using District 3 public money to campaign in District 4?
Galvez has been a champion and activist for Little Havana for several years and has spoken out against corruption at City Hall and, specifically, Carollo, who she often blasts on her social media. She served on the city’s Historic Preservation Board and is taking credit, in her statement, for exposing City Attorney Victoria Mendez‘s family scheme involving the state Guardianship program and the homes of elderly, vulnerable people. Mendez and her husband have been accused of gaming the system to buy properties for much less than they were worth. She was eventually fired, though it was for far more than that, believe it or not.
And, here, Ladra thought it was the dogged reporting by WLRN that exposed Tricky Vicky.
In 2017, Galvez ran in District 4 against Manolo Reyes, who won and passed away earlier this month, and lobbyist Ralph Rosado, who is running to replace Reyes in the June 3 special election against Jose Regalado, son of the former mayor and current property appraiser and brother of the county commissioner. Galvez got 534 votes out of 7,413 for 7%.

She had sued to get her name first on the ballot as Galvez instead of Turros, which is the name of husband, a well-known local musician. It would have given her an edge, but would have delayed the election, and a judge ruled against her. The court battle, however, caused Ladra to sniff around and learn that Galvez, sans Turros, was arrested in 1994 for credit card fraud and 2010 for driving under the influence.
Since the redistricting, her home has been shifted into District 3 and she could be running in a crowded field that includes former Commissioner Frank Carollo, brother of the current commissioner who served there previously, and Brenda Betancourt, president of the Calle Ocho Inter-American Chamber of Commerce and a frequent speaker at commission meetings, too.
Read related: Jose Regalado resigns city job to run for Miami commissioner in District 4
Thee other candidates have filed paperwork intending to run: Oscar Elio Alejandro, Yvonne Bayona and Rolando Escalona, who reported raising the most in the first quarter with $37,722 — $5,000 of which came from lobbyist and former State Rep. Manuel Prieguez, who also helped elect former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla and current District 1 Commissioner Miguel Gabela.
“After years of pushing for meaningful change from the outside as an activist, Galvez Turros is now stepping forward to deliver results from within City Hall,” said an email announcing her candidacy. “Her campaign focuses on enhancing public safety and public transportation, revitalizing neighborhoods, preserving Miami’s historic character and tree canopy, and cutting government waste and corruption.
“Miami deserves a government that works for them. Galvez Turros’ priorities will include a review and overhaul of our entire City codes including the many conflicts in Miami 21 that have for years been a barrier for small businesses and residents navigating the bureaucracy.”
“I’m ready to get to work,” Galvez said in a statement. “I’ve been building a list of priorities since 2017. I know exactly what needs to be done — and I’m not here to make a career out of politics. I won’t be deterred by political games or special interest pressure.
“Let’s fix what’s broken, protect what matters, and plan boldly for Miami’s future.”
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Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo is having a Mother’s Day event this Friday — but it’s not in his district for his own constituents. It’s in District 4, where there is a special election next month to fill the vacancy caused when Manolo Reyes died.
Ya think Crazy Joe could be thinking to take D4 candidate Ralph Rosado, the lobbyist that Carollo is openly supporting in the race? That election is June 3 and there’s not a lot of time to do the meet and greets — or to get people to request their absentee or vote-by-mail ballots.
Even if Carollo doesn’t take Rosado (now that he is busted), it looks like an official city event. That means he is using District 3 funds and staff for an event at the the gallery at Smathers Plaza in District 4, an affordable housing community for seniors with 182 units, the same year that he is threatening to run for mayor citywide. Smathers is a beehive of super voters on 30th Avenue, about eight blocks out of District 3. And Carollo needs some help in District 4 if he wants to beat the boatload of other candidates that are signing up for the mayor’s race in November.
Read related: Miami voters to fill Manolo Reyes’ District 4 seat with June special election
Why not a Mother’s Day event? He or Rosado can bring roses with the pastelitos. The ladies will go nuts.
Who cares if he’s campaigning on city time and the city’s dime? It’s not like he needs it. Carollo has more than $1.7 million on hand in his political action committee, Miami First. But Ladra bets he has other events planned outside District 3.
The party Friday gets started at 3 p.m. and there will be music, food, entertainment, “gifts and more,” according to the poster that was spotted on a wall in one of the towers.
And, just maybe, there will be absentee ballot requests.

 
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From town halls in Apopka county and Tampa Bay to caucus powwows in Tallahassee, it looks like David Jolly — a former Republican congressman who fled the party due to Donald Trump and has been a commentator on MSNBC for several years — was already campaigning earlier this month for the Florida governor’s seat in 2026.
Then he announced Thursday that he changed his voter registration from no party affiliation to Democrat, which is a necessary step in that direction.
Meanwhile, State Sen. Jason Pizzo, the now former Senate minority leader who has also toyed with a gubernatorial run, announced that he had changed his registration from Democrat to no party affiliation, saying the blue party “is dead.”
Is this setting Florida voters up for a gubernatorial race between Jolly and Pizzo and whoever is the Republican nominee?
Jolly still says he is only “seriously considering” a run for the state’s top job. “Exploring,” is another word he uses a lot.
“It’s clear to me there is a coalition of Floridians that want change,” he was quoted as saying last month in POLITICO. But some who know him say his mind is pretty made up. And now he has a political action committee, curiously called Florida 2026, so he can start to raise campaign dough to “engage in voter outreach and research work focused on key issues in the Sunshine State,” according to the website, which is found at Florida2026.com or DavidJolly.com. Either takes you to the same page.
Sure, there are already the inevitable comparisons to Charlie “Turncoat” Crist, another former congressman who ran for governor and lost in 2022 against Ron DeSantis. Sure, there are about 1.2 million more Republican voters in Florida than Dem voters. Sure, there isn’t a single Democrat elected statewide. Sure, Trump has won Florida three times. Sure, Florida hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since Lawton Chiles in 1994.
That’s more than 30 years.
Read related: Downtown Miami protest planned Saturday vs Donald Trump policies
But if there’s someone who can bridge that gap, who can reach out to the middle and get the desilucionado Trump voters, it might just be David Jolly. Everybody says, like a broken record, that the only way to beat a Republican candidate for governor is to get all the Dems, most of the NPAs and, say, 1 out of 10 Republicans. Who can do that better than a desilucionado Republican himself?
“I’ve considered myself a proud member of the Democratic Coalition for years now,” Jolly told Florida Politics in March. “The coalition I would need is essentially the same. You need Democrats, independents and kind of mainstream Republicans to build a coalition. If you do it as an NPA (no party affiliation candidate) or as a Democrat, you are still asking if you can change the state.”
That seems to have been foreshadowing.
Jolly, an attorney and former lobbyist, is a fifth generation Floridian who grew up, by the way, in South Florida. So he understands our rhythms and strengths and issues, despite now living in the St. Petersburg area, where he served as the U.S. representative for Florida’s 13th congressional district from 2014 to 2017 — as a Republican who won a Democrat-leaning district. He was unseated by Crist. After leaving office, Jolly became a outspoken and prominent critic of President Donald Trump and a political pundit on MSNBC, where he did things like deconstruct the GOP’s approach to the Trump indictment.
In September 2018, Jolly left the Republican Party and registered as an independent.
“I’ve had the pleasure of knowing him for years and I’ve known him to be a brilliant, ethical, good-faith individual who is truly concerned about the state and the country,” said Fernand Amandi, a well-known Democratic strategist who helped Barack Obama win Florida in 2008 and 2012. “He’s always had a congenial willingness to solve problems. He reminds me of the great Florida leaders of the past. People like Ruben Askew, Bob Graham, Lawton Chiles.
“When people hear Jolly speak, they are shocked at how personable and knowledgable he is,” Amandi told Political Cortadito. “When people are exposed to David Jolly, they see someone they like and who they trust is telling the truth. That is something rare in U.S politics and completely lost in Florida.”
Jolly has been described by many as an extremely talented communicator with an analytical mind who doesn’t speak in insider language. “He connects very quickly with the concerns of the people,” Amandi said. “Not only is he aware of the problem, he has a way to solve it.”
It certainly speaks to his appeal that all he has to do is suggest he’s seeking the Democratic nomination for governor and that scrambles the ambitions that Pizzo may have had, switching to NPA rather than face a potential primary with him. “If David Jolly had not announced his potential run as a Democratic nominee,” Amandi said, “I don’t think Jason Pizzo would have left the party last Thursday.”
The timing certainly seems sus.
But a potential Pizzo candidacy as an independent — and about 26% of Florida’s registered voters are NPAs — could actually help
whoever the Republican nominee ends up being, most likely Republican Congressman Byron Donalds of Naples, a financial analyst and onetime contender for VP for Donald Trump. Daniels has the POTUS endorsement. Casey DeSantis, the current governor’s wife, is still flirting with a potential run, but we know that spouses of electeds traditionally don’t win elections. And she has that Hope Florida scandal now blemishing that pipe dream.
Democrats have blasted Pizzo, a former Miami-Dade assistant state attorney first elected in 2018, for abandoning the party, saying, basically, “good riddance.” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said he was useless, anyway.
“Jason Pizzo is one of the most ineffective and unpopular Democratic leaders in recent memory, and his resignation is one of the best things to happen to the party in years,” Fried said in a statement Thursday. “His legacy as leader includes continually disparaging the party base, starting fights with other members, and chasing his own personal ambitions at the expense of Democratic values.”
Read related: A red wave rode over the U.S., Florida and Miami-Dade on Election Day
If the party is dead, as Pizzo claims, isn’t it also to blame?
Pizzo did not return calls and texts to his cellphone.
Jason Pizzo on the Senate floor.
Fried, too, believes that Jolly possibly entering the guv’s race as a Democrat was the last straw.
“Jason’s failure to build support within our party for a gubernatorial run has led to this final embarrassing temper tantrum,” Fried said. “I’d be lying if I said I’m sad to see him go, but I wish him the best of luck in the political wilderness he’s created for himself.
“The Florida Democratic Party is more united without him.”
Ouch.
Still, many Dems are concerned that if Pizzo runs, he could hurt any chances that Jolly — or whoever ends up being the Democratic nominee — may have to win.
“Jason Pizzo has a decision to make, and I hope and trust he makes the right one,” Amandi told Political Cortadito. “But if he decides to barrel forward anyway and run as an independent, he’s only going to guarantee that the Republican wins. And if he does that, he should probably change his name to Jason Spoiler.”
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Three municipalities in Miami-Dade are possibly signing up to be inspected by the Florida State Department of Governmental Efficiency, the state’s own Elon Musk group —  let’s just call it Baby DOGE — to find and root out waste, inefficiency and fraud.
Last week, the city of Miami Commission voted to ask Baby DOGE “to come to the city of Miami and look for government waste and fraud.” And in Coral Gables, a commissioner wants the state’s DOGE to review the city’s budget “to make recommendations on elimination of government waste” before this year’s budget process begins. They’ll discuss it next month.
They join Hialeah, whose council last month approved a resolution supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ establishment of Baby DOGE and Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo invited the governor to come check out the city’s books. What does he care? He was already on his way out to go work in D.C. as a lobbyist, anyway.
DeSantis announced he had established the task force in February to, among other things, “look into local government expenditures by utilizing publicly available county and municipal spending records to expose bloat within local governance.” But, of course, he has asked municipalities to cooperate.
Gables Commissioner Ariel Fernandez has asked the city clerk to put a resolution on the agenda for the May 20 commission meeting to discuss a possible Baby DOGE review with his colleagues. “There may be things that we have not noticed,” he told Political Cortadito.
In Miami, it was Commissioner Joe Carollo‘s pocket item at Thursday’s meeting. Even though Miami’s Chief Financial Officer Larry Spring said that the city did not meet the threshold for DOGE intervention, Carollo said it would be a good idea anyway.
Commissioner Miguel Gabela asked if not meeting the threshold means the city is in good financial health. Um, Spring said, don’t get carried away.

“I’m not gonna use the words ‘good financial health,’” Spring said. “We affirmed what they asked us, which is… have we met any of the criteria [to trigger a review]. And the answer was no.”
Read related: Miami Commission moves forward with Allapattah CRA — sans Joe Carollo
Two speakers from the public were also in favor.
Brenda Betancourt, president of the Calle Ocho Inter-American Chamber of Commerce and a candidate for commission in District 3, dared the commissioners to do it.
“This would be a good way to make sure that every single dollar that is collected from the city of Miami residents are actually invested in the best interest of the residents.” Betancourt, a frequent speaker at public comment, said. “If the city, in the way it has been managed for years, doesn’t have any problems, I don’t see why they can’t have the department of efficiency that can actually prove to the city of Miami residents that we are spending our money correctly.”
And Downtown Neighbors Association President James Torres, who has been on a social media tear against the Downtown Development Authority, was also supportive — and it gave him another opportunity to hit the agency.
“This is an important issue that should be taken up. We do have government waste, especially with the Downtown Development Authority,” he said. “If this agency moves forward, it’s going to do what we’ve been asking for.”
But a third woman said it could wreak havoc, like it’s done at the federal level.
“It concerns me. We need a certain number of employees and we need a certain number of procedures to function as a government,” she said. “This is again move fast and breakl things that’s what scares me. I have a computer science degree. I am a systems thinker. I understand hs concepts,” she said about Musk. “Again, I worry about applying software mentality to people.
“Consider the health of our functioning democracy.”
Read related: Effort to dissolve Miami DDA cites ‘bloated’ salaries, redundancy, UFC gift
It almost seemed like Commission Chairwoman Christine King and Commissioner Damian Pardo were going to do just that.
“I don’t want there to come in and be a swift sweep of whole departments and people are out of work,” King said. “Efficiency? Yes. But just a broad stroke of… and whole departments are gone? I am not in support of that.
“I am always in support of looking at our processes. We should do that just regularly every so couple of years,” King added. “But I will not support a broad stroke of getting rid of whole departments.”
Pardo said he wanted to “remind everyone that we have an inspector general’s office that is kicking in and we do have audits, I believe in forensic audits. if we want to invite further oversight, great,” he said. “But like you, madame chair, if it’s something that’s fast and let’s break things, I will not support it.”
All Carollo had to say, though, was that it was just to identify efficiencies, and that an ultimate decision would come back to the city commission.
“This is an additional set of eyes,” Carollo said, “so the we can truly live on that word that is thrown around so often — transparency.”
At the end of the discussion, it passed unanimously.
Nobody wants to be seen as defending waste and fraud.

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In what seems like an obvious case of political retaliation, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo — who is still butt hurt over being stripped from the Bayfront Park Management Trust — tried in vain Thursday to stop the Allapattah Community Redevelopment Agency from moving forward.
He used to support Allapattah getting its own CRA, when he and Commissioner Miguel Gabela were pals for a short while, since both of them were mad at Commissoner Damian Pardo. But then Gabela dropped his lifetime pensions idea and Carollo — who is accused of abusing his post and mismanaging funds at the Bayfront Trust — was removed as chairman, which was then given to Gabela, who represents District 1, including Allapattah, and has been fighting to get his own CRA for more than a year.
Read related: Compromise may be reached at Miami commission on Omni/Allapattah CRAs
Carollo tried to make it seem Thursday like his motive for voting against the CRA was to keep the property tax dollars from leaving the general fund to go directly into that neighborhood. It’s also the “reason” why he had the item deferred from the last meeting earlier this month, to find out how much it was going to cost the city. He and Gabela got into it then, too, with Gabela asking how much the city had spent on attorneys for the multiple lawsuits stemming from Carollo’s abuse of power — since he was so “fiscally concerned” — and Carollo calling Gabela “Tony Soprano.”
He said Thursday that the funds for the CRA were the same dollars “we use every day for police, fire, garbage collection and every city service. How will we replace those funds back in. Because when you take money away, there’s only two ways to resolve it: You have to make cuts or you have to find new money.”
Staff tried to explain the CRA projects would be funded by any tax revenue greater than the amount collected on the base year. They can receive 50% of this tax increase or 95%, and Miami Chief Financial Officer Larry Spring recommended the Allapattah CRA be funded with 50%. That means $281.4 million would be diverted to the CRA over 30 years. It would have been $534.5 million at the higher percentage, he said.
But it’s like shouting into a vast void.
Carollo also said that it would take more than five years for enough money to accumulate to make a difference. And if “we’ll assume and make believe he gets re-elected,” then Gabela “won’t even be around when the real money comes in to make an impact.”
He doesn’t know how CRAs work, apparently. Maybe he thinks it’s like the Bayfront Trust, a personal slush fund for the chair.
“This is not money that is being taken from the general fund. It doesn’t exist yet,” explained Pardo, adding that CRAs work with the city and sometimes pay the city’s debts, like the Omni CRA — the extension of which was held hostage while Gabela fought for his Allapattah one — is doing with the port tunnel.
“It is not us against them,” Pardo said.
Read related: Fight over Omni CRA causes new rifts, alliances on Miami City Commission
Either way, Gabela didn’t care. “I don’t need your vote. Call the question.” He must have said “call the question” five or six times. It wasn’t as good as the meeting April 10, where the two yelled at each other and Gabela banged on the dais and demanded to know what Carollo had cost the city in legal fees.
“I want the figure. I want it one my desk,” Gabela told City Attorney George Wysong. “I expect, please, an answer to the question I’ve been asking for a year now. How much has Joe Carollo cost the city in legal fees?”
The answer was still elusive last week. But the CRA motion, which was establishing the business plan and setting boundaries, passed 3-1. It still need to get approval from the county before a CRA can be officially established.
Gabela, who always seems to be looking down when he talks, was also able to pass a resolution so the the city attorney is informed any time legal fees for outside counsel reach $500,000 in any new case where they are retained to represent an elected official. It was totally about Carollo, who has cost the city close to $10 million in legal fees for different cases. “You know the gentleman over there has a truck record, a very bad track record,” Gabela said.
He had originally wanted it to be a $150,000 threshold but changed it to $500K to get the needed vote from Chairwoman Christine King. “Something is better than nothing,” Gabela said.
“As a practitioner, I know cases don’t wrap up in a few months. Cases sometimes take years,” King said, adding that the rule would now apply to future commissioners as well. “I am not going to legislate based on personalities because this doesn’t only affect us.”
But the measure only calls for the city commission to be informed, much as it is informed when another city department is going spend more than $25,000 on something.
“I think we’re talking about transparency and having a threshold where it’s disclosed,” Pardo said.
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Just one day after taking the oath of office and saying that he was ready to extend his hand to his colleagues and work together “not as factions divided by yesterday’s campaign, but as neighbors united in tomorrow’s purpose,” re-elected Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago lashed out at Commissioner Melissa Castro at the Carnaval de Barranquilla event in downtown Coral Gables.
He called her a “venomous snake” in front of several dignitaries and city staffers, refused to take a photograph with her and told others present that she was “bad news,” Castro told Political Cortadito late Saturday.
Read related: Coral Gables electeds sworn in; pledge unity, stability after bitter divisions
“He said he was going to ruin my life, that he was going to make sure I’m not elected in two years, that he’s going to get me out,” a shaken Castro said, shortly after she posted this video on her Instagram story.
“I am walking out of the Carnaval de Barranquilla festivities, where they called me to say a few words because I am the first Colombian commissioner in the last 100 years, and I am in disbelief right now at the disrespect and humiliation that Vince Lago has done to me in front of my child, right next to my child.” Castro says breathlessly, as she walks away from the event at Ponce Circle Park.
Her son, wearing a team shirt from La Seleccion Colombia, goes on the camera and testifies that Lago called Castro a snake.
“Actually, a venomous snake,” the 8-year-old corrects himself. “He wouldn’t take a picture with you and he pushed you aside,” he told his mother.
Nice, Vinnie. Looks like you’re learning how to treat women from your friend, former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla.
“It is not possible that he would treat a woman who has done nothing to him, and since Day One, he has attacked me,” Castro said in her Instagram post, visibly shaken and fighting off tears.
Castro told Ladra that the Colombian consular officials were shocked and didn’t know what to do. They asked her to please go on stage separately from him, to appease the mayor.
Lago did not return calls and texts to his phone. As usual. But sources who were there confirmed what happened, and one told Ladra the mayor has never before been to the event, now in it’s fourth year. So, it looks like he wanted to stir things up. The organizers will be lucky if he doesn’t take away the city’s sponsorship because organizers invited Castro to speak.
This is not the first time that Lago takes digs at Castro and Ladra has wondered if he maybe has a secret crush on her.
Read related: In Coral Gables, Melissa Castro calls out Vince Lago for his rudeness, disrespect
In 2023, five months after she was elected, she called him out for his disrespectful actions, which include not referring to them at events and cutting them out of photos he posts on social media. Saturday’s actions are much worse. It seems things are escalating.
One might think that winning his election and getting his slate elected, which gives Lago back the majority on the commission, would soften him up some. Turns out he’s just as much a sore winner as he is a sore loser. What’s Lago still so angry about?
And what can Castro do? People just re-elected this bully with 55% approval. The police chief is on his side. The city manager is on his side, having sent an email to residents five days before the election to say how great the city was doing.
She was so hopeful at the swearing-in ceremony, too.
“These past two years have been rocky, but I’m pretty sure that moving forward we will find civility, peace, harmony,” Castro said Friday, one day before she was “disrespected and humiliated” at Ponce Circle Park.
“If it was up to me, this would be a beautiful, united commission. I’m looking forward to great days again.”
Yeah, Ladra is pretty sure that she doesn’t feel that way now.
In an email late Saturday to Police Chief Ed Hudak, Castro said “his behavior was not only abusive but also a blatant attempt intimidate me into quitting. Despite my telling him that my child was present, he persisted.”
She seems to ask Hudak for police protection and makes a chilling statement: “Let me know how to document this please, and if anything happens to me after this email… let it be known that he is to blame.
“I am a woman and a harmless public servant who deserves respect and a safe environment. This tarnishes the image of Coral Gables and creates a hostile environment for public officials,” Castro wrote. “There were numerous witnesses to this outburst and his behavior demonstrates a pater of bullying and vindictiveness. The mayor’s vindictive actions, including his threats to ruin my life and remove me from my position over the next two years, are unacceptable.”
She said that Economic Development Director Belkis Perez and International Business Development Coordinator Leticia Perez witnessed the confrontation, “though they might be too intimidated to speak up given the mayor’s known vindictive nature.
“What’s most alarming is that the mayor felt emboldened to humiliate and disrespect me in front of numerous people, including my child. Crossing that line shows he has no scruples and is unhinged. I fear for my safety and what he might do next,” Castro wrote, requesting “immediate measures to ensure my safety at future public events and that the mayor be held accountable for his actions. This kind of behavior cannot continue.”
Unfortunately, Ladra is afraid that this type of behavior is just getting started.
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