Former Coral Gables Mayor Raul Valdes Fauli will have that word “former” removed from his identification after he is sworn in as the new mayor again.

Valdes-Fauli beat Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick in the mayoral race Tuesday, 51 to 49, after Mayor Jim Cason said he would not run for a fourth term. As expected, it was a tight race and a slim victory — by a scant 187 votes. And it’s almost all absentee ballots.

Only 15 people more voted for him than for her on election day. The other 172 additional votes he got were via AB.

A total of 8,415 people voted in the mayoral election Tuesday (there was a drop off of about 200 an 300 in the two commission races), which is on the high end of a typical turnout.

Read related story: Coral Gables candidates will spend more than $1 million

“I always said I was going to need 4,000 votes. I just needed a little more,” Slesnick told Ladra late Tuesday night after several people had left her campaign party.

She said her business partner will be happy to have her back at work full time, but that she will stay involved in Gables issues. “I never stopped being involved,” she said, and she wasn’t talking about Valdes-Fauli but she may as well have been since he disappeared for 13 years until endorsing Cason two years ago and then getting rewarded with a charter review committee seat.

“We had a great turnout today and we ran a really good campaign. They were all volunteers except for one person. Everybody else was volunteer from start to finish,” she said. “I ran a very clean campaign and I’m very proud and I don’t know anything I could have done differently.”

With all due respect and my apologies for not writing enough about the race or earlier, maybe she could have gone a little negative? Valdes-Fauli sure did. And it seemed to work for him.

The former mayor waged war in this campaign, which was more of a grudge match for Valdes-Fauli, who lost his seat in 2001 in a bitter defeat to former Mayor Don Slesnick, the commissioner’s husband. Jeannett was cast as not much more than a shill for her husband, whose administration was mired in scandal and financial chaos, which was sort of the case but certainly not Don Slesnick’s fault.

Read related story: Mucho mailers mean to mislead in Coral Gables election

“I’m sorry he had to take the brundt of the campaign madness,” the good wife said. 

But Valdes-Fauli got his licks in on her, too. Using innocuous votes against her, saying she voted for the Paseo project when, in fact, it had already been approved and she was voting for subsequent measures, some of which downsized the project. She did her job. Another cast her as “Speedy Slesnick” because she voted against a feel-good measure to lower speed limits to 25 MPH on some streets whe her point is that what the city needs is police officers to enforce the already pretty good 30 MPH limit. 

The worst attack, however, was the whisper campaign about Slesnick being anti-Hispanic or anti-Cuban, which is a ridiculous and, frankly, insulting card to pull. It becomes especially injuring when it is pulled by a Castro apologist who recently visited the island, had some eye-opening experience and now advocates for closer relations with the Cuban regime. Que descaro!

We’ll know more in coming days about the demographics of the vote, but I bet that a lot of Hispanics were targetted and came out.

Read related story: Coral Gables mayoral race takes a nasty, ethnic turn

This victory is not just a victory for Valdes-Fauli — and for Sergio Pino, one of the developers that funded his campaign (with at least $10,000). This is a victory also for Commissioners Frank Quesada and Vince Lago, who endorsed the former mayor and will now have a third vote to push their agenda through.

And if people were concerned about over development before, they can just kiss the old Gables good bye, because it’s not about to get any better for the next two years. It doesn’t really matter anymore that Commissioner Pat Keon got re-elected or if Marlin Ebbert pulls out an upset and beats Mike Mena in a runoff (more on that later).

A majority is three votes. They have preserved that with Tuesday’s vote.

By the time the Coral Gables mayoral race is over on Tuesday evening, the two candidates will have spent at least a half a million dollars, maybe more. Ladra is not sure but is willing to bet that’s a record.

The six candidates in the two commission seat races raised almost exactly the same amount of campaign cash combined as of the last reports available, through March 28: $474,000. You just know that by April 11, that number will go up — making it a total of more than $1 million spent on this Gables election cycle.

Read related story: Jeannett Slesnick winning Gables mayoral money race

Obviously the two cash cows are in the mayoral race. Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick and former Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli have each raised almost a quarter of a million themselves — $247,819 for Slesnick, and $246,494 for Valdes-Fauli between his campaign account and his political action committee, Coral Gables First. Practically every dime of the $73,794 contributed to the PAC is from outside Coral Gables and most of it is development and real estate money — like the $10,000 in bundles from developer Sergio Pino‘s mulitple companies — except for $20,000 from a Mercedes Benz dealership in Brooklyn that seems to come out of nowhere.

But Valdes-Fauli has been burning through his piggy bank faster than the commissioner. Slesnick still has more than $107,000 to spend next to his $60K as of March 28. That could make a big difference in the last two weeks.

Read related story: In Coral Gables election, only a clean sweep will change course

The next heavy hitters are incumbent Commissioner Pat Keon, who has raised almost $222,000 to former Commissioner Wayne “Chip” Withers‘ $39,411 as of March 28 (but Ladra doubts he will catch up). Also on that date, she had about $125,000 left to spend while he had about $14,200.

In the open seat race that Slesnick had to resign from, the four candidates have raised $211,800. Well, three candidates, since Serafin Sousa has only raised $1,000 and we don’t even know if he loaned it to himself or who gae it to him because he doesn’t know how to fill out a campaign finance report and nobody cares enough to ask him to fix it. So, its $211,800 between three candidates — and more than half of that belongs to land use attorney Mike Mena.

Mena, who was reportedly recruited by Commissioners Frank Quesada and Vince Lago, has raised $136,540 as of March 28. He had spent a ton of that ($119,178) and only had about $17,362 left as of Matrch 28. Meanwhile, retired police officer Randy Hoff has been far more thrifty and had $18,497 left from his $53,666 booty on the same day. Activist grandma Marlin Ebbert hasn’t even spent that much, with $12633 of her $21,595 going out, leaving her with just under $9,000 to get her to election day, unless she picks up a few contributions.

Read related story: Mucho mailers mean to mislead in Coral Gables election

Ladra knows that it’s not a guarantee that the candidate with the biggest bank gets to win on the ballot. Look at Miami Commissioner Ken Russell and Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez. But it helps.

If the money helped them get the message out, then Keon and Mena might be sittine pretty tonight. If anti development forces were able to rally the troops and get their turnout up, then, and only then, it won’t matter.

Former Coral Gables Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli isn’t the only one who wants his old job back at City Hall. Former Commissioner Wayne “Chip” Withers, who served for 20 years before leaving office in 2011, qualified last month — for the seat occupied by incumbent Commissioner Pat Keon.

He could have run for the open seat. But Withers has personal, friendly relationships with three of the four candidates there, he told Ladra. Apparently, he does not have a friendly relationship with Keon. Withers supported Mary Young against Keon in 2013.

“I felt I could really go after an incumbent,” Withers said in his aw-shucks Forrest Gump style, which seems disarmingly honest.

And Keon is ripe for the taking. Not known for being exactly responsive to residents, she has become a target for some of the anti-development forces who don’t like some of the larger projects on the city’s horizon, including the Riviera Neighborhood Association, of which he is a member (and who reportedly was shopping around for a candidate), who fought hard against the Paseo project and is now up in arms about a possible overlay zoning district along South Dixie Highway. The commissioner always seems to be making excuses for developers, they say. She treats residents like they don’t know what’s best for them and she knows better.

Read related story: Jeannett Slesnick winning mayoral money race

“There is a general concern that when the choice is between the wishes of a residential community and a developer, they feel that its in favor of the developer a lot of the time,” Withers told Ladra. “Whether that’s perceived or real, it’s there. And there’s an erosion of trust.”

Keon said she was not surprised when Withers jumped into the race. “People were looking for someone to run against me, and I guess he was the taker,” she told Ladra. “We’ll still run a good campaign. He has name recognition. He was a good commissioners for along time, but he said he was tired of it. Now he’s back.”

Keon said it’s all because Withers is mad that the Paseo project was approved last year. But, she added, she only voted in favor after developers scaled down the size and height and made it more palatable for the surrounding neighborhood. “They brought it down a lot and stepped it back from the neighborhood.”

But Withers said the project is still too large and out of scale for the people who live adjacent to it and, more importanty, that the process was flawed. The peer review was tainted, he said, because it was done by architects who worked for the project’s architect on other sites or boards. And he did not get a notice about the zoning hearing because he lives 1,150 feet away on Hardee and the city only notifies residents within 1,000 feet.

He wants to increase notification to residents within a three-mile radius. He also wants to change the amount of time between first and second reading from 30 to 60 days and require a 4/5ths vote on land use changes.

Read related story: Coral Gables explores more development along U.S. 1

Withers said the more recent move to create a zoning master plan for U.S. 1 “is scary” and that the city should work to redevelop or revitalize its 1.8 miles along the federal highway with the cities of South Miami to the southwest and Miami to the northeast for a more consistent zoning application. Otherwise, he says, what we may end up with is a canyon of tall buildings like there is on Bird Road just east of Ponce de Leon Boulevard.

“This is why I got back in,” he said. “All these projects coming online. If we don’t get everything in order, it’s going to be a mess,” Withers said.

“I know I’m an old guy,” said the 65-year-old grandfather. “But I was there for 20 years and I know what worked and what didn’t work.”

He said that things put on the books 20-years ago, like the Mediterranean ordinance that provides for more density as bonus for Mediterranean architecture, might be tweaked. Maybe bonuses should be considered for downtown infill development. “Maybe instead of getting an extra four floors for looking like a Mediterranean castle, you get a bonus for having more green space or more open space.

“I’m not a ‘burn it down’ guy. I know we need development. We have a downtown that pays a majority of our tax base. It would be stupid to kill the golden goose.

“But we can’t let it kill our quality of life,” he said.

Keon said that the city is doing better than it was when Withers was in office, with more money in reserves and a AAA bond rating. She sounds a lot like the city manager when she talks, and no, it is not just because both are women. It’s almost like Keon has picked up Cathy Swanson Rivenbark‘s buzzwords, cadence — even her southern twang.

Withers told Ladra he is staying out of the mayoral bout because he knows and respects both Valdes-Fauli, who he served with for many years, and Slesnick, whose husband he also served with on the dais.

But the Gables is a city where voters, not the candidates themselves, often create slates. Withers and Slesnick are already getting grouped together — along with Marlin Ebbert in the second commission race — by an endorsement from the Riviera Neighbhorhood group.

You can already see the yard signs for the three candidates all up and down South Alhambra and the surrounding streets.

Coral Gables Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick is going to ask her colleagues Tuesday to put the future of a controversial sculpture of flowers on Segovia Street in the hands of voters, with a referendum on the April ballot to relocate the $1 million work of art to almost any place else.

But it’s an uphill battle. Commissioners already voted earlier this month to reject a petition by area residents who are upset not only at the aesthetic they say is incompatible with that part of the City Beautiful, but also with the process by which it was put there, with no public input. Petitioners gathered more than 1,500 signatures, way short of the 6,000 that are required by city ordinance for a citizen petition to make it on the ballot. The vote was 4-1, with only Slesnick supporting the citizen-driven action.

“I may not even get a second,” Slesnick told Ladra. But she’s going for it anyway. 

One thing is for sure: Such a measure on the ballot would certainly not hurt her mayoral campaign. People driven to vote on that question would likely vote for Slesnick over former Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli. Slesnick told Ladra that was not her motivation.

“I’m doing it because I believe people ought to have a say. There was a different city manager who ran things his way. It was done in a closed process,” the commissioner said, adding that there was little to no public input on the selection and placement of the sculpture. The selection was made during the reign of former City Manager Pat Salerno, who was pressured to resign after he was caught lying to commissioners.

“I want things out in the open. What’s wrong with letting the people of Coral Gables vote on whether or not they want it moved? I’m for listening to the people,” Slesnick said. “I’ve gotten more mail on this issue than any other issue in the Gables, except maybe the Paseo development.”

Well, wait… didn’t she lose that fight?

City staffers have repeatedly said that there were a number of public hearings before Passion, the sculpture by Alice Aycock, chosen from 180 applicants, was approved unanimously at a November 2014 meeting purchased and placed on the traffic circle a block west from City Hall on Biltmore Way in July. It wasn’t installed overnight, they say. But residents said they were caught unaware and are overwhelmingly against it. They say it is distracting to drivers and not in keeping with the historic Mediterranean vibe of the area. Some don’t like the artwork itself. Most say they like it fine, just not there.

Other locations that have been brought up, and which admittedly seem more compatible, are Fairchild Tropical Gardens, Ponce Circle Park and, more recently, Country Club Prado.  Ladra likes Ponce Circle Park because it looks like it would look really spectacular from the high up in the highrises that surround it.

Obviously, commissioners don’t want to have to move it (and everybody knows that is how the vote will turn out right?). Mayor Jim Cason has said that he believes such a move would hurt the city’s Art in Public Places program. That’s why they rejected the petition when they could have certainly voted to make an exception and accept it.

But 6,000 for a citizen petition seems excessive in the Gables, where the last election drew 7,800 voters and Mayor Cason was elected by fewer people (4,424).  Even Commissioner Frank Quesada, who won with 73% of the vote, was elected by 5,305 people, almost 700 fewer than the required magic number. In 2013, both commissioners Patricia Keon and Vince Lago were elected with just over half the required petition signatures.

Ladra believes this number of roughly 6,000 — or a little more than since it’s 20% of the registered voters — was set in stone during or after the truck ban petition put the parking of pick up trucks on the ballot. And it seems like the number is high. Should it take twice as many people to get a question on the ballot as it does to elect someone?

And here’s the thing: It’s going to be on the ballot one way or  another — either in the transparent form as a referendum or as a campaign issue for Slesnick. Because the active residents who collected the signatures can use all that energy to help Slesnick win the mayoral race. And who do you think the 1,500 signors are going to vote for?

Certainly Lago and Keon, who may both face opposition in their re-election, could avoid negative mailers that say they refused to let the people decide by just letting the people vote. What do they have to lose?

But if they vote no Tuesday, they could lose their seats.

Your voice apparently matters. There are several community meetings and charrettes going on in different municipalities asking for the public feedback on important issues or projects.

Anti-development commissioner hosts forum

Coral Gables Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick is hosting a citizens’ forum called “Cranes, codes and collaboration” to discuss the development booming all around the City Beautiful.

Slesnick, who ran on a reduced development campaign and was the sole dissenting vote against the controversial Paseo project on U.S. 1, mailed an invitation to Gables residents to join her from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Thursday, Feb. 18, to talk about promoting smart development, reducing traffic and parking impacts and “advancing community benefits,” which is shorthand for “what’s in it for us.”

You can RSVP to commissionrsvp@coralgables.com or call 305-460-5326 to get more information.

Pat Keon and FIU roll out sea level rise series

The other lady on the Coral Gables dais, Commissioner Patricia Keon, is partnering with FIU to offer a discussion sereries on sea level rise, which the city is trying to address with a community vulnerability assessment to identify our at-risk infrastructure and propose adaptation and mitigation strategies to deal with the projected effects.

As part of an effort to raise awareness among residents and business owners, the series will focus on potential future impacts, public policy implications, climate-responsive design of resistant built infrastructure and much more.

The once-a-month chats begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16, at City Hall, 405 Biltmore Way, with Dr. Todd Crowl, director of FIU’s Southeast Environmental Research Center, who will provide an overview of causes and local impacts of sea level rise.

In March, the series moves to the Coral Gables Museum on Aragon Aveue, where Dr. Ryan Stoa will discuss the public policy implications of sustainable development in Florida and in April public policy implications of sustainable development in Florida. In April, FIU students from different schools — architecture, engineering, computer sciences, biology, law and public health — will design resilient and sustainable infrastructure for the future.

And here you thought Coral Gables was all about old houses and canopied streets.

For more information, please visit www.coralgables.com/sustainability or call 305-460-5008.

North Beach charrette invites resident input 

The public has been invited to participate in a three-day charrette process for the future development of North Beach, where residents recently defeated a plan to upzone Ocean Terrace.

Through Wednesday, anytime between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., residents can stop by the design studio at the Byron Carlyle Theatre, 500 71st Steet, to see the plans evolve and provide input. This is a unique opportunity to talk with the design team as ideas are developed.

Some of those early plans will be on display at an “open house from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday (tonight). Residents and interested parties will be able to review the community input, the draft plans and illustrations and give feedback.

On Thursday, the “work-in-progress presentation” is from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the North Shore Youth Center, 501 72nd Street, where people can see all the work presented so far.

Read More.