Old CRA director gets nearly $200K in exit package
It must be nice to have friends in high places. Or maybe just the right commissioner on your side.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s chief of staff, Carlos I. Suarez — no relation, but definitely part of the mayor’s extended orbit — is about to float gently from one cushy taxpayer-funded gig into another. The Omni Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) Board is expected Thursday to approve his appointment as executive director — complete with a $265,000 salary, $800 car allowance, $200 cell phone stipend, and a benefits package that would make a county administrator blush.
That’s a huge raise from the publicly recorded compensation of approximately $180,000 Suarez makes now.
Add the 5% annual raises and another 5% cost-of-living bump every year, and you do the math. He’ll be making nearly $300,000 by the end of next year — and that’s before the CRA’s famously generous executive 401(a) contribution of 15% of his salary.
For comparison, that’s more than Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava ($200,000). It’s more than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ($141,400). And more than a state Supreme Court Justice ($258,957).
And for what, exactly? The Omni CRA — which encourages redevelopment to alleviate slum and blight in parts of downtown and Edgewater — has a staff of fewer than 20 employees and a budget that’s largely on autopilot.
Read related: Fight over Omni CRA causes new rifts, alliances on Miami City Commission
But it does have a board made up of city commissioners, including Commissioner Damian Pardo, who happens to chair it. And Pardo also happens to have become Mayor Suarez’s most surprising ally this year — moving with him on controversial initiatives like the proposed lifetime term limits for commissioners and changing the city’s election year, which would have extended their terms by a year. And Francis Suarez is term limited. He’s out.
So is this appointment a thank you to the mayor from Pardo? Or is it a “With this, I owe you nothing” parting gift, now that Suarez is about to be out of office and out of staff? Ladra bets it’s a little of both.
Either way, the timing stinks. Suarez is out of City Hall in a few weeks. His guy lands a golden parachute, courtesy of the CRA. And it’s all dressed up in bureaucratic language — a resolution full of “whereases” about nothing really — when everyone in Miami knows this is a political redevelopment at its finest.
Isiaa Jones, the former director, will get an exit package totaling $191,244, which includes 20 weeks severance — which indicates she did not leave on her own — $33,000 in an “employee manual” payout and more than $48,000 in accrued sick and vacation time.
So, this is a very expensive employee shuffle. Calls to Commissioner Pardo and his chief of staff were not returned.
Carlos I. Suarez, a bilingual Miami-native and Cuban-American, holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Florida International University and an MBA from Nova Southeastern University. Suarez held management roles in the cruise industry — including at Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises — for more than 12 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He then worked as chief of staff at the U.S. Mission to the Organization of American States and as acting assistant administrator at the Latin America and Caribbean Bureau of USAID. After that, he became a lobbyist before joining the short-lived and always doomed Francis Suarez presidential bid and then his staff when the White House didn’t pan out.
While the board cites authority under Florida Statutes for the appointment, critics say the move is more about political alliances and patronage than redevelopment expertise. Shouldn’t there be a more professional, open, transparent process?
The Omni CRA — which was almost not extended last year — has been through enough political subterfuge already since former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla snagged it away from former Commissioner Ken Russell in 2021 and used it as a shakedown central for contributions to one of his baby brother’s ill-fated campaigns. Then Diaz de la Portilla was removed after investigators found his aide, Jenny Nillo, running errands and drinking beer out of a paper bag in a city car while she was supposed to be working on the public dime. Then he was put back in and fired the executive director, Jason Walker.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla is investigated on ghost city employee at Omni CRA
Then he was arrested for public corruption charges that included bribery and money laundering related to a scheme where he took at least $245,000 in political committee campaign contributions from the owners of a private school and gifted them a park so they could build a sports dome for their students. The charges were ultimately dropped, after the city rescinded the plan for the Centner Academy’s extension into a public park. But it revolved around the CRA being in the wrong hands.
Do we really want to do that again?
The CRA board — city commissioners wearing a different “hat” — will vote Thursday, but if you think this is anything but a done deal, you must be new here.
Stay tuned. Ladra will be watching to see whether any of the commissioners — besides maybe Miguel Gabela, who sometimes shows signs of a conscience — even blink at this obvious insider handoff.
Because for everyone else, it’s just another day in the Magic City — where the revolving door between City Hall and the CRA doesn’t just spin, it glides on silk bearings.

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The city of Miami commission meeting Thursday is a doozy.
There are agenda items on two potential ballot questions — one strengthening term limits and another setting up a redistricting committee — on the extension of the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency, the establishment of a needs assessment for the Allapattah CRA, a $135 million Parrot Jungle/Watson Island transaction, controversial amendments to the construction noise mitigation ordinance and the appeal of a historic preservation board decision that declassified the historic designation for part of Miami First Presbyterian Church to make way for an 80-story residential high rise.
Pace yourselves. Ladra expects there to be hours of public comment.
The noise waiver ordinance, alone, is expected to draw a crowd. It has not been significantly changed since the 1980s, said Commissioner Damian Pardo, who is sponsoring the amendment, which would expand the hours of permitted construction operations and make other changes to the construction noise mitigation process that critics have said are beneficial to developers.
Pardo said the amendments are “resident-led” and add protections.
“Our noise ordinance update tackles illegal and excessive noise in our communities. This initiative puts noise waivers under a magnifying glass — ensuring that activities requiring them meet higher standards of transparency and accountability,” the commissioner posted on Instagram.
“It’s about identifying bad actors early, protecting our neighborhoods, and making sure our communities remain places where people can live and thrive in peace,” Pardo said. “And while there are those people using dog whistles to build their profile, political ambitions or readership, we encourage residents to contact us, work with us productively and provide their feedback in order to create policies that serve our residents.”
There are increased fees for violations, a tougher process for applicants and an easier process for city staff to revoke a waiver or permit, he said. But critics worry that it also allows staff, not the city manager, to provide a waiver or a permit and that repeat violators will be let off the hook.
“And the kicker? Pardo claims this came from residents — yet most neighborhoods oppose it,” said DNA Vice Chair James Torres, a onetime D2 commission candidate. “The DNA wasn’t consulted, and he ghosted reporters when pressed for answers. Community quality of life is on the line.”
Pardo should withdraw this and concentrate on passing his very important referendum for the November election, which would ask voters if they want to extend term limits, creating “lifetime” limits for electeds who have already served two terms in that same position. He has said it is not to target his colleague on the dais, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, a two-time former mayor who has threatened to run again, though he hasn’t filed. But it would affect Carollo’s possible aspirations.
Read related: Voters in Miami may get to strengthen term limits and ban political retreads
In fact, it could change the dynamics on the commission for years to come, blocking people like former commissioners Frank Carollo, Willy Gort, Keon Hardemon and Marc Sarnoff from running for the same office again. Frank Carollo has already filed to run for commission in District 3, where he served twice before.
In a city like Miami, where recycling is usually about campaigns and not the environment, this is huge.
The other proposed ballot question for a proposed charter amendment that would prohibit the redrawing of City Commission districts with the intent to favor or disfavor a candidate or incumbent, establish a Citizens’ Redistricting Committee to draw districts after each Census and when required by law and provide a process for the naming of such a committee and getting its proposals to the city commission.

The commission Tuesday basically has to instruct City Attorney George Wysong to come back with the ballot language for the November election because this public referendum was part of the settlement agreement that the city reached last May after several residents and organizations sued in 2022 over the last time the districts were redrawn, saying that the districts were gerrymandered to favor partisan incumbents. Which it was.
But the item still should produce some interesting discussion — or bloviating from a particular commissioner (read: Carollo).
Several people from the public will likely speak to support the appeal of the declassification of the historic designation given to Miami First Presbyterian Church, which hopes to sell the back lot to developers who want to build an 80-story high-rise. There is a lot of opposition and the president of the Brickell Homeowners Association president wrote the commissioners to support the appeal (more on that later).
The items on the CRAs are interesting because there are three of them and two that seemingly compete. A resolution to expand the Omni CRA into Allapattah, sponsored by Commissioner Miguel Gabela, may be withdrawn, and probably will be if another resolution to accept and approve a “finding of necessity” to establish Allapattah’s very own CRA is passed first. That needs assessment states the areas to be “slum and blighted” and establishes the need for an Allapattah CRA with the prosed boundaries of SR 112/Airport Expressway to the north, I-95 and NW 7th Avenue to the east, the Miami River to the south, and NW 19th Avenue to the west.
Read related: Compromise may be reached at Miami commission on Omni/Allapattah CRAs
Then maybe the long-awaited Omni CRA life extension — needed to complete several projects in the pipeline and held hostage over the Allapattah situation for months — will finally pass. It is also on the long agenda, sponsored by Pardo, again.
Ladra hopes that this is the last time these two communities are pit against each other. At least on this.
The item on the Watson Island property seems pretty important, too. It would authorize the city manager to sell 5.4 acres of city-owned property near Parrot Jungle Island to developers for $135 million to develop residential and commercial uses, “and to return the balance of the property to the city for use as a new public waterfront park to be constructed by the developer.”
Also on the agenda is a memorandum of understanding with the management organization of The Underline’s “investment, operations, programming, maintenance, and management,” which would also authorize the city manager to spend up to $8.7 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year from the general fund, and a gazillion other things that seem pretty important.
It seems almost certain that several things will be withdrawn or deferred early on, which happens with some frequency and often leaves speakers in limbo after they’ve made plans to be at City Hall for a particular item.
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The first city of Miami budget hearing on Saturday was dominated by a plea from the community to increase police patrols, especially in the Downtown Miami area and marine officers on the Miami River. But the discussion on the dais was dominated by the growing tension between District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo and commissioners Miguel Gabela and Joe Carollo, who seem to have formed an alliance.

Ew.

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The city of Miami’s Omni Community Redevelopment Agency is responsible for 35% of the debt service paid for the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center. It is so delineated in the 2007 interlocal agreement and has always been paid. Every year.

Until now.

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