With the qualifying deadline upon us and the Coral Gables Election only 46 days away, candidates continue to raise funds for their campaigns — and spend it, at an alarming rate in some cases.
Sometimes what’s more important isn’t how much a candidate has raised but how quickly it gets spent and how much is left in hand at the most crucial times, like when absentee ballots drop.
Of course, there are still about five weeks to shake those trees, but here is the tally so far, according to the latest reports filed for the first two weeks in February.
Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli got another $8,200 in those 14 days for a total of $89,000. But Valdes-Fauli has spent $51,685, including $7,014 in those two weeks, leaving him with less than $38,000 now that he’s really got a fight on his hands.
Former Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick is filing Friday morning and hasn’t raised any campaign funds yet. But she’s good at raising money. Not only did raise more than $250,000 in 2017, when she lost her first round against Valdes-Fauli by a scant 187 votes, but she’s raised money for other candidates in state and national races.
Read related: Rematch! Jeannett Slesnick will jump into mayor’s race
Commissioner Mike Mena, who is unchallenged with less than 12 hours ’til qualifying deadline, has raised $112,850 and spent only $17,990. But if he doesn’t get an opponent, he’ll have to return most of that money — after running a few “thank you” ads and mailers, of course.
In the crowded race for the open seat, left by a retiring Commissioner Frank Quesada, the handpicked successor Jorge L. Fors, Jr. has been burning through his money, too, with a whopping $33,263 out just in the 14-day reporting period: including $9,950 for mailers, $7,500 for a phone bank, $3,825 in advertising, $1,200 for absentee ballot generating handouts, $6,000 on social media and more than $4,000 on canvassing.
Fors has spent a total of $56,864. He raised $2,575 more in the last two weeks reported for a total of $84,350, leaving him with less than $28K in hand.
Former City Commissioner Ralph Cabrera, meanwhile, raised almost twice as much in the same time, with $5,650 making for a $37,270 total. He has proven to be much more fiscally conservative, spending only $7,280 so far. So Cabrera still has $30K in hand, more than Fors, who has raised more than twice as much. Hmmm.
Onetime Interim City Manager for five minutes Carmen Olazabal hasn’t even raised that much in total. Despite getting help from former Mayor Jim Cason and his wife Carmen, Olazabal has raised a total of $27,671. including $4,800 raised just in the first two weeks this month. She spent almost as much, however, with $4,116 out for a total of $15,620. That means she has just over $12,000 left in hand.
Read related: Coral Gables activist blasts email against candidate Carmen Olazabal
And jumping into that race from the mayoral contest after former Slesnick jumped in, Uber driver and downtown property owner Jackson “Rip” Holmes is paying expenses as they come out of pocket without a single contribution from anyone, loaning himself a total of $1,280, most of it paid to consultant Pedro Diaz.
Taken all together, there’s about $350,000 invested in this election so far. With more than six weeks to go, that’s likely to surpass the half million mark.
The next campaign finance reports, through the end of the month, are due the first week in March.

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Maria Cruz is a Coral Gables activist who is not afraid to speak.
She does so quite often at commission meetings, letting the mayor, commissioners and city administrators know exactly what she thinks. She has no hair on her tongue. She asks for more public records than Ladra and keeps her neighbors and friends informed on key issues.
Cruz is such a pain in the neck to her critics that the former administration had a police major spy on her at a commission meeting, possibly taking photographs of text messages that the taxpaying citizen was sending to the electeds, her employees, with whom she had a right to communicate freely.
Read related: Coral Gables spying major keeps her job, maxes pension
That spy? Former Coral Gables Police Major Theresa Molina, who had once been tapped for police chief by then interim city manager Carmen Olazabal. now a commission candidate and the only woman running in the April 9 election so far (qualifying ends Friday).
So when Olazabal’s social media accounts started buzzing with female power messages, Cruz took notice and decided it was time to speak again: In an email she sent to the 7,575 Gables residents — addresses she got from the city’s newsletter email list, a public record — she reminds voters about Olazabal’s questionable judgement, at best.
I’m writing to you today on my concerns about the current race for city commissioner. As a 43-year resident of the City Beautiful, I find myself obligated to share my experiences with one of the candidates, Carmen Olazabal, whom I believe is not the clear choice for our commission.
While Ms. Olazabal was interim city manager, she went against our elected officials and appointed an interim police chief, Major Theresa Molina (Miami Herald, September 12, 2014), without review. Major Molina violated my rights by spying on me, taking photographs, unbeknownst to me, at a city commission meeting. As a result of this abuse of authority, Major Molina was suspended and subsequently forced to retire.
As a woman, mother of three daughters, and grandmother of two young girls, I feel strongly about the importance of women representing us in all levels of government. However, this belief should not lead us to elect candidates with poor judgement and questionable track records.
Coral Gables, my home since 1976, deserves better.
Your neighbor,
Maria
Cruz was already upset that Olazabal was running and when the former manager pulled the female card and attached #WomenWhoRun to all her social media posts, it bothered her enough to pen the note.
Read related: In Coral Gables money race, unchallenged incumbent is leading
The email — which Cruz said she paid for out of her own pocket — also comes with five hyperlinks to stories about Molina and Olazabal’s time in the Gables. Ladra is kinda proud that three of them are Political Cortadito stories. Two others are stories that were published in the Miami Herald.
“My letter is not a campaign letter. My letter was to make sure people remembered,” Cruz told Ladra Tuesday, a few hours after the email went out. “Coral Gables voters have to vote for the best candidate, not the one who happens to be a woman.”
How much do you wanna bet it becomes a campaign letter?
Either Ralph Cabrera, who Cruz supports but didn’t name in the letter, or Jorge L. Fors, Jr. — the two other candidates in the race for this seat, vacated by Commissioner Frank Quesada — are going to send it in a mailer to more voters.

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With less than two weeks before qualifying ends, Coral Gables Commissioner Mike Mena still has no opposition in his group in April’s upcoming election. And chances are it will stay that way because of his war chest.
Mena has amassed $111,650 in contributions since last April, according to the last campaign reports filed this week. That includes $31,950 just in January, his second best month and the best since July.
This is someone who, again, has no challenge at all.
Having spent only about $10,000, Mena is holding onto a fat 100K to unleash on anybody who dares run against him (qualifying ends Feb. 22). It’s smart. He’ll have to return or donate the money to charity if he is elected unopposed, but not before he sends everyone a big thank you and spends some of it gratuitously on furthering his next political aspiration.
In the only real race for the group 4 seat vacated by Commissioner Frank Quesada, former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera also had his best month, with $21,650 collected in January for a $31,620 total. This includes $1,000 from former City Attorney Elizabeth Hernandez, $250 from former Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick and $250 from David Bolton, the late great Roxcy Bolton‘s son.
Cabrera, who has spent a little more than $6,000, is running against former Interim City Manager Carmen Olazabal, who has raised a total of $22,871, including nearly $9,000 last month, and attorney Jorge L. Fors, who has proven himself quite the rainmaker with $11K more in January for a grand total of $81,775 so far.
Read related: Merrett Stierheim: Coral Gables extra city manager for $50K
At least half of Olazabal’s money is from outside Coral Gables, and a lot of it comes from family and friends in Puerto Rico. She also has a $250 from former city manager to anyone Merrett Stierheim, who made $50,000 as a city manager’s consultant when Olazabal was in charge.
Meanwhile, she has spent the most of the three candidates in the open race, with $11,500 or about half her total — already out in expenses that include fees for “consultant” Dario Moreno, who is really a pollster and data guy who gets paid publicly while Carmen Cason, the former mayor’s wife, does much of the ground work.
Fors has only spent $2,360.
It is also notable that Fors, a newby — whose contributions include a $1,000 gift from former Commissioner Wayne Withers (ouch Ralph!) — has raised more than Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli, who has raised $80,800, including $13,350 last month.
Read related: Newby leads cash race in Coral Gables 3-way contest in open seat
Valdes-Fauli — who only won by less than 190 votes last time — has also blown more than half of his wad, spending more than anybody else by far. Last month he spent more than $17,000 on holiday cards, media and campaign literature, through the company of his campaign manager Jorge de Cardenas.
This means he has less than $40,000 in hand, which means there’s still time ladies and gentlemen. This would not be a hard race to win. Valdes-Fauli is a crybaby who is hugely unpopular, even the people who pretend to like him. He disappeared for 13 years after leaving office in 2001 and suddenly wants to be relevant again. Yawn.
But, so far, it’s not like he has much to worry about. His only challenge is from perennial candidate Jackson “Rip” Holmes, who sounds like a crazy person when he talks about aliens behind the Boston bombing and “sacred Jeb Bush” — who he has apparently forgiven for sending him to prison for 3 years after he made a threat — has only been able to get money from himself.
He has loaned his campaign $615 and spent nearly $500 on a voter’s list and a logo. Holmes does not list any expenses for his website so Ladra wants to know who his server is. He apparently is going to run the campaign on a shoestring budget of iphone videos.

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Coral Gables resident and activist George Volsky got home one day last week and found a surprise in his front yard: A political sign for the campaign of Jorge L. Fors, Jr., who is running for commission.
A note on the front door explained.
“Thank you for allowing my campaign to place a sign on your lawn and for your continued support,” it starts. And then: “If the sign was placed by mistake, please feel free to remove it. Best, Jorge Fors.”
If the sign was “placed by mistake?”
Seems more like a campaign strategy. Instead of a “quita y pon” committee removing signs and putting up his, Fors has a “mejor pedir perdon que pedir permiso” committee who would rather “as forgiveness than ask permission.”
Volsky said he left his house at noon Thursday and came back at 3 p.m.
“This has never happened in Coral Gables. I have lived here 56 years and it never happened to me,” said Volsky. “I feel disrespected. I don’t feel this is proper.”
Volsky is used to having people ask to put signs at his high-traffic Alhambra Circle home. The only one he has ever put up is one for the current Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli, because he felt that the campaign had become ethnic.
Read related: Newby leads cash race in Coral Gables three-way contest for open seat
He hasn’t decided who he’ll support in this open commission race, a three way so far to fill Commissioner Frank Quesada‘s empty suit, er, seat: Fors is running against former City Commissioner Ralph Cabrera and former interim city manager Carmen Olazabal. But now it’s between the two other candidates. Fors is out. “I’m not going to support him,” Volksy said.
That’s exactly what he was afraid of, said Fors who called the episode an error, not a campaign tactic — which actually could work in some other communities where people might not care as much. He blamed an overzealous volunteer in North Gables who mixed up a thank you list — to send postcards to voters who opened their doors to canvassers — with a yard sign list.
“I know exactly who he [Volsky] is and I wouldn’t put a sign on his house without his permission,” Fors said. “I don’t have the courage to do that in Coral Gables. I would be afraid of losing a vote.”
And the note?
“Because I know some people who said they would put up a sign may have forgotten,” said Fors, who went back to Alhambra Circle and removed the other signs placed without permission as soon as he learned of the snafu.
All except one, because the homeowner decided to keep it.

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Of the three candidates (so far) running for the open seat in April’s Coral Gables election, the newby handpicked by the incumbent is winning the money race.
In two months time, attorney Jorge L. Fors, who is backed by Commissioner Frank Quesada, who is not seeking reelection has raised almost $65,000. That’s incumbent money, $5K less than what has been raised so far by Commissioner Mike Mena, who isn’t facing an opponent yet, but who has been raising funds for eight months, not two.
While this is first-time candidate money, squeezed from relatives and coworkers and college buddies turned believers, this still could give Fors a significant advantage over both Commissioner Ralph Cabrera, and insurance benefits consultant who has raised only $8,670 so far, and former City Manager Carmen Olazabal, a onetime water carrier for the former city manager Pat Salerno, who only has $11,176, including a $5,000 loan from herself. The rest of her money is from outside Coral Gables — New York, Chicago, Boston, California and even Puerto Rico.
Fors has been better at shaking those trees. He raised $43,500 in his first month and another $21,350 last month. Much of it is from attorneys and law firms but there are no obvious bundles.
Fors has also spent the most so far, with $2,756 spent, including $1,000 on food and wine for an event and $825 on a walk piece by none other than Steve Marin.
Olazabal has spent almost $1,300, including $1,000 to Emiliano Antunez‘s Dark Horse Strategies for website services and consulting, even though word on the street is that Carmen Cason, left, the former mayor’s wife, is her campaign manager.
Cabrera has only spent only $35 so far but has Jorge de Cardenas, the mayor’s consultant, allegedly working on his campaign and a website coming soon.
While the mayor and Commissioner Mike Mena have not drawn any challenges, at least this open seat presents some interesting blogger fodder.
Perhaps a new reason to say thanks, Frank.
 

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