Almost one week before the end of the Coral Gables city elections for mayor and two commissioners April 8, and each of the races is looking more like a tight, nail-biting contest that could go either way. The smart money is on runoffs for all three.
Even if fat chance mayoral candidate Michael Abbott, who is suing the city and claims the police violated his rights, only gets 5% of the vote — the people who don’t like incumbent Mayor Vince Lago or just want a change and think that Commissioner Kirk Menendez is not serious enough, so there’s an alternative — there could be a runoff. Some observers who spoke to Ladra say that Menendez — who performed well at the Gables Good Government forum, but was not smart enough to record it — isn’t campaigning hard enough. That he’s counting on the anti-Lago vote to get him over the top. That might not be enough.
He’s killing it at public appearances, by all accounts, but needs to get his message out to more voters.
Meanwhile, “muscle headed” Lago — that’s a term a voter actually used — is “angry all the time,” and boring people with his same ol’, same ol’ schtick about the salaries and the city managers and moving the election to November, blah, blah, blah. These are the three things on which he has failed to lead, frankly. Even his petition drive failed miserably, with thousands of invalid signatures (more on that later). This is his agenda, not the people’s. But no matter what the question is, Lago pivots to one of these things because they are campaign red meat and because it distracts from his arrogant, demeaning behavior, conflicts of interest and public temper tantrums.
Menendez has been direct and far more factual about the salaries, which were raised for the first time in decades to $65,000. Lago didn’t get to hear when Menendez explained it at the GGG event because the mayor left right after he spoke. Maybe Lago’s campaign manager, Jesse Manzano — hanging out in the back of the room “like a stalker” — told him about it afterwards.
Everyone who spoke with Ladra agrees that Lago must have taken a Xanax, or he was given one or two by his handlers, because of how calm and even-headed he was, given several opportunities to fly off his sensitive handle. “It was surreal, unsettling knowing how amped up he’s been,” a voter said.
It’s incredibly sad that nobody recorded it for so many reasons.
Also, none of the 118 people on the Zoom meet-and-greet last week hosted by the Coral Gables Neighbors Association with their chosen candidates asked about the salaries or the changes of city managers. Not one. Because who cares?

The CGNA has endorsed, along with Menendez: Tom Wells, who is running in the commission race to fill Kirk’s seat, and architect Felix Pardo, who is running against Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, a Lago loyalist who has lost her anti-development base and must count on the Lago vote to win her first re-election. Good luck with that.
In Anderson’s Group 2 race, Laureano Cancio is also running, so he’s the reason there could be a runoff, but he won’t be in it. Not because he’s not a good guy with good ideas. He is. He just doesn’t have the community presence of the other two.
Pardo and Menendez also have the the endorsement from the fire union and the police union. While Wells is getting help from the Coral Gables Democratic Club against Richard Lara, the Republican mayor’s handpicked Seguro Que Yes vote, and FreeBee transit lobbyist Claudia Miro — officially vice president of business development –who once worked with former Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff. Miro has already lost one commission race, to Anderson in 2021.
Interestingly, her campaign manager is Tania Cruz Gimenez, who also ran in that same 2021 race and last year helped newly-elected Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz win that historic race. Wells is being helped by the Coral Gables Democratic Club. Members had volunteered to canvass for Wells in North Gables Sunday afternoon.
Ladra suspects that Miro, who has the Miami Herald endorsement, is going to be in the runoff, the question is with who.
So, it’s very possible that the April 8 election is just practice for the real thing, which would then be April 22. But the first round of early voting is from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday, this weekend.
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Former Councilman Bryan Calvo blasts Bovo’s last acts
As expected, Hialeah Mayor Steve Bovo is leaving the city for a job as a lobbyist in Washington, DC. The Miami Herald, which first broke the news about the rumored move in January, reported earlier this month that he is following his wife, Viviana Bovo, who has been a longtime right hand for Marco Rubio, from the Florida House to the Senate and now the State Department.
Bovo’s office said he would be stepping down from Hialeah’s top post in April. Las malas lenguas say he’s going to be making more than $190,000 in salary and paid expenses.
But it’s never enough.
One of Bovo’s last acts as mayor was to make sure he got a cushy “deferred compensation plan,” which is a fancy, legal way to get around saying pension, retroactively, for himself and other Hialeah electeds. He got it passed unanimously by the still Seguro Que Yes council earlier this month.
Read related: Steve Bovo’s parting gift: Retirement benefits for himself, Hialeah electeds
Bovo has also suggested he would support Miami-Dade Commissioner Rene Garcia in the November election. Garcia, who did not return calls and texts from Ladra, has said in the past that he would not speculate about stepping down to run for Hialeah mayor until Bovo announced his departure officially. Wellllll?
Former Council Member Bryan Calvo — who filed to run in February, immediately after the rumors were first reported — blasted Bovo in an email to voters titled “Hialeah deserves better than corrupt politicians who take care of themselves while raising your taxes.” Calvo says the calculated vote for the taxpayer-funded pension was deliberately timed by Bovo with full knowledge he would be leaving.

“Now, he’s cashing out and heading to Washington, D.C., to take a lobbying job. Yes, the same Steve Bovo who raised your taxes and increased your water bill is now walking away with your money in his pocket,” the email says.
Calvo also suggests that Garcia will “protect Bovo’s pension and continue covering up years of wasteful spending.” He cites a “shady $150,000 consulting contract handed to a close friend with zero transparency.”
This is a $50,000 a year contract for three years — actually $49,992, for a total of $149,976 — approved the same day as the pensions for a lobbyist named Terrence “TC” Wolfe, Garcia’s “close friend,”and his firm, New Century Government Affairs. The services provided are basically to rub elbows with electeds and push the city’s federal legislative priorities. With an office in DC, Wolfe lobbied the U.S. House and Senate in 2023 on behalf of the Association of Builders and Contractors’ Florida East Coast Chapter.
Wolfe is also president at H.O.P.E. Mission Inc., the same non-profit resources referral agency (reported $138,000 in revenue in 2023, according to ProPublica) founded by Commissioner Garcia, who has served as chair and treasurer, and who has remained involved with the organization through book bag giveaways and food distributions, along with other events. Last December (photo, left), HOPE Mission had a reception and awards event.
Miami Lakes’ newly elected Mayor Josh Dieguez, a longtime Garcia ally, is listed as a director in public records with the Florida Department of Corporations.
“This is how they do business — taking care of themselves while Hialeah families struggle to make ends meet,” Calvo boldly writes in the email. “Hialeah is being looted in broad daylight, and these career politicians think they can get away with it.
Read related: Bryan Calvo becomes first candidate to file for November Hialeah mayor’s race
“As your former councilman, I fought against corruption. I fought to lower your taxes, fix our water problems without raising your bill, and make our city safer. Now, I’m running for mayor to clean up the mess these insiders have made and put Hialeah back in the hands of its people.
“This election is about one simple question: Do you want more of the same corrupt, backroom deals? Or do you want a mayor who fights for YOU? This November, it’s time to take our city back.
“Let’s drain the Hialeah swamp and restore integrity to City Hall.”
With a swamp that deep and wide, he’s going to have to do more than win just one race.
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Village leaders and worried residents in Palmetto Bay sounded the alarm last year when Miami-Dade County chose Magnum Construction Management to build the controversial bridge that crosses over a canal that breaks up 87th Avenue at 164th Street. After all, MCM (former Munilla Construction Management) was one of the contractors involved in the awful Florida International University pedestrian bridge collapse over Southwest 8th Street in 2018, which killed six and left an indelible mark on the rest of us forever.
“This is a direct threat to the safety of our families and our community,” wrote Mayor Karyn Cunningham in a mass text to residents, informing them of a special meeting she had called. “As your mayor, I’m fighting to stop this dangerous project,” Cunningham’s text read.
Lots of people thought she was exaggerating and playing politics as a fierce critic of the bridge.
Read related: Miami-Dade picks FIU bridge builder for 87th Avenue bridge project
But this week, a man was found dead under the 66-foot expanse under construction at connecting 164th Street and 87th, the victim of what authorities say was an “industrial accident.” No foul play is expected. NBC6 Local News reported that the man was found in a pool of water with his shirt off on the construction site.
Without having the full information yet, Cunningham issued a statement Friday that doubled down on her position and asks the county to halt the project in mid construction.
“I’m writing to express concern over the incident that occurred on March 25 at the location where the SW 87th Avenue Bridge is being built over the C-100 canal, here in Palmetto Bay,” she wrote on a message posted on the village website.
“As we previously reported on our social media, a fatality occurred that day at the construction site. So far, we have learned that deputies from the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the scene shortly after 1 pm to find an unresponsive adult male beneath the bridge area. The person was pronounced deceased on scene. An investigation ensued and is currently underway. According to the Sheriff’s Office, preliminary findings point to an industrial accident and no foul play is suspected. A final determination on the manner and cause of death will be made by the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner.
“Our Village Council has been concerned about the safety of this project for quite some time. On August 8, 2024, we called a Special Council Meeting shortly after learning that the contractor selected by Miami-Dade County to build the bridge was the same company whose subcontractor was found to be responsible for the 2018 FIU bridge collapse that took the lives of six people.  The purpose of the public meeting was to discuss safety concerns and issues surrounding the project, which were then voiced in a comprehensive letter sent to the Inspector General and county officials. That letter addressed potential misconduct, ethical breaches, and violations of state and county law that we felt constituted genuine safety concerns for our residents and our community. We asked county officials to consider pausing the project until these concerns were addressed, but despite our best efforts, construction of the bridge was allowed to proceed.
“After the death of the worker at the construction site, we feel that our concerns for public safety were justly warranted. Our Village Council and staff join the community in mourning the worker who lost his life, and we offer our deepest condolences to his family. And, as the investigation into his death continues, we once again urge the county to consider a comprehensive assessment of the project, evaluating all associated safety concerns that pose a potential risk not only to other workers on the site, but possibly to our residents as well.
“Given the magnitude of this project, we feel that no amount of oversight is too great to ensure the public wellbeing.”
Of course, Cunningham never wanted the bridge to begin with.
Read related: Danielle Cohen Higgins earns distrust with surprise revisit to 87th Ave bridge
The construction of the bridge was approved by a majority of the county commissioners, against the village’s official wishes, in 2021, after hearing from more than 130 people at a county TPO meeting. Mostly those north of the bridge were against it and those who live south were in favor. The county’s Department of Transportation and Public works began the process last year. But residents have continued to protest along the way.
Ladra reached out to the office of Miami-Dade District 8 Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins, who started championing the bridge soon after her appointment to the board, but Political Cortadito has not been able to connect with her staff at the time of this late Friday posting.
Check this space for updates.
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Bringing political campaigns to an all new low — or is it a new high? — a Coral Gables supporter or supporters of Mayor Vince Lago posted a photo on social media earlier this month that morphed the face of Commissioner Kirk Menendez, who is running against the incumbent for mayor, with an image of Jesus Christ.
The message beneath the post by Aesop Gables, a known surrogate for Lago: “Whoever has the Kirk, has life; whoever does not have the Kirk does not have life.” It cites the book of George. Merrick?
Was this mocking Menendez’s strong faith and longtime active involvement in the church? How does this help the Lago campaign? Is the incumbent mayor appealing to people who hate Christ?
Whatever the message was, it has backfired some. Las viejitas in Coral Gables (read: senior voters) are clutching their pearls. The shocked reaction forced the Lago campaign — not Lago, but the campaign — to issue a statement denying association to the image. But it seemed really like a self-promotional plug. Not an apology or even a disassociation.

“The Vince Lago campaign strongly condemns the use of religious imagery for political attacks,” his handlers posted on social media. “Mayor Vince Lago is a proud Catholic, as is his family. His faith is personal, not political. His daughters attend Catholic School, and like many in our community, he believes faith should unite, and not divide.
“Let’s keep this campaign about the issues that matter to our residents,” the post read, listing the issues that really don’t matter to many or maybe most residents, “… not cheap shots and religious attacks.”
All he had to do was make a phone call. Because the one who made the cheap religious attack was Aesop Gables, a blogger long known to be a strong Lago supporter and surrogate. It would be insane to think that Aesop posted that image of the Kirk Christ without Lago’s permission or, at the very least, knowledge.
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Before Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago hand-picked attorney Richard Lara to run for city commission, in an effort to try to get his majority back with a third guaranteed vote, Lara was not at all involved in city politics. He hasn’t served on any boards. He never spoke before the commission, until he announced his run for office last year in a tacky move.
He hasn’t even voted in a single Coral Gables election since 1999.
Lara is asking for Gables residents to vote for him in this April 8 election, paints himself as a lifelong resident who cares deeply about the city. Yet he hasn’t cast a ballot in the City Beautiful in more than two decades. That’s because he lived in Westchester for a 17-year stint between calling Coral Gables home.
According to public records obtained from the Miami-Dade Elections Department, Lara has voted almost exclusively in national and state elections. He voted absentee in November, but did not vote in the primary last year. Ladra can’t help but wonder if Lago knows that Lara didn’t vote in the 2023 election, where the mayor’s two other handpicked candidates lost to commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez. Lara voted in the general election in 2022, but not in the city elections in 2021.
Read related: Coral Gables candidate Richard Lara campaigns in public comments — again
That’s because he was not eligible, or not registered to vote in the Gables election until June of 2021. Lara, who has repeatedly said he has lived in Coral Gables all his life, lived in Westchester for a spell. Miami-Dade property records show he purchased a home on Cadagua in 1998 and sold it in 2003. That could explain why he voted in the city in 1999.
But Lara hasn’t voted once since then. Not even 2001. Or after he moved back in 2021, when, county records show, he and his wife Bertha — who were married in 1997, according to the county clerk’s records — purchased their home on Coral Way for $1.5 million. Before that, Lara was registered from 2003 to 2021 to vote at a house near 97th Avenue and 30th Street owned by Bertha Canales, which is his wife’s maiden name. So, her house or her mom’s.

 
Lara, taking a page from his master’s book, did not return calls, texts and emails from Political Cortadito.
Attorney Thomas “Tom” Wells, who is running in the open seat against Lara (and transit lobbyist and onetime commission candidate Claudia Miro, too), is making this an issue. It’s smart. It is yet more evidence that Lara is just a Johnny Come Lately, and at the behest of the mayor for no other reason than to be a pocket vote on the commission dais.
At a recent forum hosted by the Gables Good Government group, Lara — whose entire campaign mirrors the issues that are hammered by Mayor Lago — tried to backtrack on the lies about living in the Gables his whole life saying that he has “always considered” Coral Gables home even though he technically lived out of the city. “His response prompted laughter from the audience,” says a story in the Coral Gables Gazette that provides a snapshot of the event.
Read related: School-based PTA forum for Coral Gables candidates has no big surprises
Strangely enough, Wells — who is endorsed by the active resident group Coral Gables Neighbors Association — also pulled the data for Lara’s wife, who did vote in the Gables elections of 2001 and 2005, which seems to indicate that she and Richard Lara were not living in the same house. Or that she committed voter fraud. Either, or. Ladra would ask the newly elected Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia to look into it, but she was at Lago’s town hall Thursday, so she may be biased.

Maybe Wells did it because he wanted to tout his wife’s own voting record, which is perfect. Dianne Wells has voted in every city election back to 1999. That’s 15 times, while Tom Wells, the candidate, has voted 10 times. He could not tell Ladra why he did not vote those years he was a no-show. “Maybe I was traveling,” he told Ladra.
But the local vote is important, he says.
“It shows commitment and passion to the city. It just shows you care,” Wells told Political Cortadito.
Records indicate that Miro, a former planning and zoning board member who ran for commission in 2021 and lost in a crowded race (Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson won in a runoff), is close behind with only one less vote in the city recorded. She was endorsed by The Miami Herald this week and is basically seen as an independent candidate. Lara is on an intentional slate with Lago and Anderson. Wells is on a defacto slate with Commissioner Kirk Menendez, who is running for mayor, and architect Felix Pardo, who is running against Anderson.
The next day, Community Newspapers — which endorsed Lara’s master, Mayor Lago, earlier — endorsed Lara, without even questioning the other candidates. Tsk, tsk. Ladra expects an endorsement for Anderson next.
Most longtime political observers believe this race (more on it later) is heading into a runoff because none of the three candidates will pull 50% plus one of the April 8 vote. That would be proof that every vote counts.
Someone better tell Lara.
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For years, the rumors have persisted about the emotional and physical affair between Mayor Vince Lago and his now Chief of Staff of One Chelsea Granell, who used to be Chelsea Granell Lindsey before her divorce.
Ladra has ignored these rumors despite the fact that Granell has seemingly benefitted from the relationship with promotions and significant raises, while the mayor attacks his opponent for having voted to increase commission salaries fo the first time in decades. But now it has become campaign fodder as a public records request for a slew of public documents referring to communications between Lago, Granell and Lago’s wife, Olga Lago — including text messages, call logs or “any reports referencing confrontations between them” — is making its rounds with City Hall insiders.
The request is also for any “official or unofficial records, security logs, visitor logs, or documentation indicating Chelsea Granell’s presence at Mayor Lago’s home, any city records or internal communications discussing or acknowledging Chelsea Granell visiting Mayor Lago’s home for personal reasons, including interactions with his wife,” and “any surveillance footage, security reports, or other documentation related to Chelsea Granell’s presence at locations associated with Mayor Lago outside of normal work-related duties.”
Also requested are any emails or texts messages between Olga Lago and city staff regarding the alleged relationship, any Human Resources complaints or reports or documentation related to their alleged relationship, and any records of media inquiries or photographs, video recordings or phone records that reflect the relationship.
Read related: Kirk Menendez strikes back at Coral Gables Mayor ‘Lyin’ Vince Lago’
The requests sound like “Mike Fernandez” has first hand knowledge or knows someone with first hand knowledge of details.
This might sound like a well-timed, politically-motivated fishing expedition but it’s really a map of sorts to a real affair that may have caused the mayor to abuse his power and position. Ladra has spoken to several City Hall insiders, past and present, as well as two people close to the husband, David Lindsey, who used to work in the city’s public works department (his departure was for a better opportunity before he learned of the affair, sources say). They all say the affair was real and was what led to the divorce. It may have ended at one point and Granell tried to make amends with her estrange husband. That may have been around the same time of an alleged confrontation between her and the mayor’s wife and also her promotion to “chief of staff” — although there is no actual staff — which resulted in about a 10% raise.
Chelsea Granell and Vince Lago at the Alhambra Parc launch event earlier this year.
In fact, since she started working for Lago, Granell’s pay increases through promotion, merit, cost of living or special compensation for her work as a “legislative manager advisor” (even though the city pays a professional lobbyist), has gone up several pay grades, which is what the mayor keeps hammering his opponent, Commissioner Kirk Menendez, for, after the latter voted with the majority in 2023 to increase their salaries from a laughable $36,488, which hadn’t increased in decades, to a less laughable but still funny $65,000.
Granell’s salary was $91,165 last year.
She also was one of the real estate agents, with Lago, who hung their license at Rosa Commercial Real Estate, the brokerage firm owned by former Hialeah Councilman Oscar de la Rosa, stepson of Hialeah Mayor Esteban “Stevie” Bovo, and that got a $640,000 commission for the sale of a Ponce de Leon building to Location Ventures and developer Rishi Kapoor, who we have since learned was paying Miami Mayor Francis Suarez at least $170,000 for “consulting” while seeking approvals for a development in Miami.
Read related: Brokerage firm cleans house after corruption arrests, drops Vince Lago
The sources closest to Granell also say that, as a real estate agent, she sold the house on Aledo street to Lago’s fundraiser, Brian Goldmeier — the one where he nailed the orchid to the tree — and that she has done freelance work for the company owned by Jesse Manzano, who is running Lago’s campaign and is heavily invested in his political future.
Lago never calls Ladra back or responds to texts. Granell got immediately defensive and dramatic after the first courtesy phone call to provide her the opportunity to comment. She said she knew nothing about the public records request — which would make her one of the last at City Hall to hear about it — and threatened to sue Ladra for defamation. After the call was disconnected and Ladra tried again, she said she was driving to the new public service building to file a police report about my “harassment.”
Goldmeier did not return a call. A recording on a call made to Jesse Manzano said Ladra’s number was blocked, but that I could leave a message anyway, so I did.
Ladra hears the mayor is reeling from this public records request and has lashed out for the first time against fat chance opponent Michael Anthony Abbott, who, las malas lenguas say, is the one that made the request. Lago had been ignoring him before.

Abbott denies having made the public records request. “I haven’t made any public records requests about Lago,” Abbott, who is embroiled in a lawsuit against the city, told Political Cortadito. And it is very possible he is being scapegoated because he didn’t even know who Granell is. “Who?” he asked.
He also said the information on the text is from sealed records and would forward it to his attorney for a response.
The attack text is paid for by Miami-Dade Residents First, which, according to public records with the Florida Division of Elections, was created last September and has raised $230,000 — including $78K from Mayor Francis Suarez‘s Miami For Everyone PAC, and, through another PAC, at least $5,000 from attorney Ben Alvarez, who Lago was going to appoint to the code enforcement board and then backed off after complaints about his checkered past.
Most of that was spent through the last report through December, some of it to one of the campaign consultants working for Lago. We may not know how much was spent this first quarter of 2025 until the April 8 election is over.
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