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Are nonpartisan municipal races a thing of the past?
 
The Democrats made them do it.
That’s what Nelson Diaz, chairman of the Miami-Dade Republican Party, said about an email they blasted Wednesday for Zoraida Barreiro, who is running in the special shotgun wedding election for the county commission district 5 seat vacated by her husband Bruno Barreiro, so he could run for Congress.
“Of course we’re going to help Zoraida,” Diaz told Ladra last week. “And you can blame the Democrats. My preference is not to do that. It’s important to have independent, free elections at the local level. But if Democrats are going to get involved to push their radical, left wing agenda, then we will get involved.”
And so they did.
“We Need to Stop the Democrats,” the email reads.
“The Democrats are trying to force a radical, left-wing liberal that just recently moved to Miami from out of state. She is so out of touch with our community, she has stated her support for the elimination of the Homestead exemption. If she wins, they will have enough Democrats to take down the tax deduction and it will increase our taxes,” it says, urging votes for Barreiro.
“We cannot allow the Democrat to win!”
Read related: Dems push full court press for Eileen Higgins in special District 5 county race
Sure sounds like a desperate cry — and Ladra is pretty sure Higgins would not advocate lifting the Homestead exemption, which isn’t the county commission’s purview anyway, but, hey, it’s a good tactic in the working class parts of the district: “Oh! My! God! She’s going to raise taxes!” It’s almost as good as “She’s a communist!”
Diaz said Higgins said as much in a Spanish-language TV  interview. But la gringa — whose Spanish is okay but could be better — was only saying what many electeds at the county and cities are saying: That this additional exemption voters are likely to pass in November is going to drain government coffers and cause serious cuts. Government officials and sitting electeds everywhere are worried about that and planning.
“It must have been misinterpreted in my terrible Spanish,” Higgins said, adding that the county mayor has done a good job. “We have to plan for it. When we sit around meetings and say we want more buses we have to remember that when we vote in November.”
Democrats have been actively and publicly helping Eileen Higgins in this race since the very beginning. She was the only Democrat running against three Republicans, including former State Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla. The party paid political consultant Christian Ulvert, who took precious time from a gubernatorial candidate. And Higgins had local electeds, state reps and even another gubernatorial candidate endorse and promote her online.
She won the first round with 35%, two points over Barreiro, forcing a runoff. Democrats like to think they did that. After all, it’s not their first rodeo.
While it’s the first time the local GOP steps into a traditionally non-partisan municipal race, Diaz said, the local Dems have been involved in them since at least Daniella Levine-Cava ran for Miami-Dade Commission. Her race in 2014 against incumbent Lynda Bell, who happened to be a staunch right-to-life Republican, became the first local non partisan election the Miami-Dade Democratic Party got really involved in. Since then, they’ve helped Homestead Mayor Jeff Porter, Miami Beach Commissioner Micky Steinberg and Miami Commissioner Ken Russell.
Read related story: Eileen Higgins would upset the apple cart, add checks and balances
“We’ve always had the approach that if you’re running for office, who you affiliate yourself with, what party, speaks to the types of decisions you’ll be making at the dais,” said Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chairman Juan Cuba. “Even though it’s local, we’re dealing with zoning and services. And you also deal at the local level with national issues — minimum wage, affordable housing, police oversight.”
Sanctuary cities. Gender-neutral bathrooms.
“We do want to make sure we are electing people who align with our values, especially at the local level where we need more people who will fight for working families,” Cuba said.
The Miami-Dade Commission already has a Democrat majority. And that doesn’t necessarily translate to a “progressive agenda” when it comes to the votes. The mega mall development, for example, was passed with Levine-Cava as the sole dissenting vote. In fact, that happens to her a lot. And the ordinance to hold immigrant detainees for ICE — to remove Miami from the list of sanctuary cities and please Donald Trump — was sponsored by Sally Heyman, a Democrat and former state rep.
On the flip side, Mayor Carlos Gimenez endorsed Hillary Clinton — though one could argue that was a publicity stunt since his son works for Trump — and Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz, another Republican, is very friendly to labor, which is usually a Democrat characteristic. Barreiro has long been considered a moderate Republican because he pioneered LGBT issues. But he represents Miami Beach, so maybe he sorta had to.
Read related: Lynda Bell vs. Levine-Cava debate becomes heated spar
Levine-Cava, the first Democrat elected to the commission with the party’s help, says she doesn’t see the commission as a partisan body. “It’s more about local issues and quality of life. Transit is not a Democrat or a Republican issue,” she told Ladra.
Well, maybe not. But let’s bring up the idea of raising taxes for it or having special taxing districts and you will see partisan division.
Some people fear that this marks the end of nonpartisan races in Miami-Dade and they could be right. Florida law requires judicial candidates to stay non-partisan, but how much you wanna bet that we know who is a Republican and who is a Dem. Candidates in the big cities like Miami Beach and Homestead are already using the invisible “D” and “R”behind their names for campaigning. Small cities are likely next in an increasingly divided and polarized political society.
 

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The big news isn’t that Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo fired his one-time campaign manager, right hand man and District 3 Liasion Steven Miro. The big news is why.
Sources tell Ladra that Miro made a complaint to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office recently about Carollo using city funds and city personnel to campaign for Alex Diaz de la Portilla‘s county commission bid, which the former senator lost, coming in third, last month. This about those events at almost every elderly public housing facilities and comedores in the district — and maybe $3,000 or so worth of paella. 
Miro would not comment on the investigation into Carollo using city funds and people — practically everyone on his staff — to promote Diaz de la Portilla. Both men are in a photograph here from Carollo’s own Instagram account, posted May 19, at the Little Havana Nutrition and Activities Center, handing out paper platefuls of paella. Miro would only say that he had hired Matthew Sorelson as his attorney to sue for wrongful termination. “I was given no justification. I am not a slacker. I work,” he said.
Sorelson works with JC Planas and was one of the lawyers working for Alfie Leon, who challenged Carollo’s residency days after he lost last year’s commission runoff election, with only 47%. Leon lost his final appeal last month when a judge, in essence and loathe to overturn an election, basically said he acted too late. Sorelson confirmed to Ladra Wednesday night that he had been retained by Miro but would not comment further on the merits of the case.
Carollo did not return two calls and two text messages to he and his wife’s cellphones late Wednesday. But if it’s true, it would be a little ironic in the sense that Carollo said he was fired as city manager in Doral by Luigi Boria because he was cooperating in state attorney led investigations against the then mayor. He was a whistleblower. Now he is firing the guy who blew the whistle on him?
Ladra has three sources, including one very close to the investigation, who told her that Miro had made the complaint to the SAO in recent weeks. And it may be a good one: There are photos all over social media indicating that Carollo used city resources to campaign for Alex. “This week, I was able to visit our seniors and bring a paella lunch,” Carollo wrote on the Instagram Post. Facebook photos on his wife’s page from an event at another public housing facility are posted under “A big day! Supporting senator Alex Diaz de la Portilla in his career to the Miami-Dade County Commission District 5.”
There are also a number of complaints against Carollo being investigated simultaneously by the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust — which should maybe just open a Carollo division. Miro, we’ve been told, is included in at least one of those complaints.
Read related: We get Joe Carollo in Miami — and all the drama, interest it comes with
But of course he is. In fact, people for the most part think of him as Carollo’s go-to guy for all the dark stuff. Miro practically ran Carollo’s campaign. Blogger Al Crespo called Miro the commissioner’s “enforcer,” and here they are, seemingly buds, on the night of Carollo’s victory a little more than six months ago.
“Since Carollo has been Commissioner, Miro was the guy who it was claimed would show up at your door if you pissed Joe off, like he was alleged to have done a couple months ago when he showed up with cops and tried to get the owners of that illegal sandwich shop on SW 8th Street arrested,” Crespo wrote when he announced the firing in his blog this week.
One can’t help but wonder if that’s one of the ethics complaints.
So what made Miro, who has been carrying Carollo’s mud for years, suddenly turn around and turn him in to the SAO?
Well, dicen las malas lenguas that it was because he supported Zoraida Barreiro, like Carollo was reportedly going to do until he pulled the old switcheroo again at the last minute. Barreiro — who made it into the runoff June 19 against Eileen Higgins — had endorsed Carollo against Leon after she came in third in the Miami race. And Crazy Joe was expected to return the favor. Only he apparently changed his mind. At least he did it this time before Barreiro called a press conference about his endorsement.
But it might also be because it is one thing to take some uniforms with you to flex some muscle with a sandwich guy that has no permits but refuses to close shop, and it is quite another to steal public dollars for political favors. And the line has to be drawn somewhere.

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