True to form, Miami-Dade School Board Member Raquel Regalado is not going to shut up and go away just because she fell a bit short in her shot to become the first female mayor of Miami-Dade.

Conceding Tuesday night and thanking her supporters, Regalado vowed to continue to fight for Miami-Dade residents and against the special interests at County Hall. Looks like the reporters there missed the lead because she laid out specific goals that have not been reported in stories that, instead, speculate about her future aspirations.

Because just because she wasn’t elected this time, doesn’t mean she’s going to stop representing us.

Regalado, who has already fought for us against the ridiculous courthouse tax referendum and in court to get back $9 million Mayor Carlos Gimenez gave to one of his top donors, said she was going to set her sights on charter changes that would hinder the abuse of power going on at County Hall and reform campaign finance.

Specifically, a change to have our elections supervisor elected by the people rather than appointed by the mayor and a referendum for campaign finance reform. Gimenez — who may have abused his power to provide the elections department with a replacement check after hours — spent somewhere around $10 million between his campaign account, his PACs and his multiple non-profits that we can’t track. And much of that came from people and companies who do business or want to do business with the county.

Regalado told supporters Thursday that she was going to reach out to the Accountable Miami-Dade group that failed to get campaign finance reform measure on the ballot to talk about joining forces.

Read related story: Gimenez submits late night campaign check (10:20 p.m.)

These are serious issues that are about to be tackled by a serious woman with a serious track record of getting things done. Yet reporters want to keep speculating about whether or not she will run for mayor of Miami next year to replace her termed-out father. This was a whisper campaign started by the Gimenez camp early on last year as soon as Regalado announced her intention to run for Miami-Dade mayor. She has said repeatedly that she is not needed as mayor of Miami but is needed at the county. Everybody has daddy issues but her.

Sure, it’s possible she could run for the seat being vacated by Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez, who is running for mayor (again). That would provide her with a $103,000-a-year salary and perhaps keep her busy in public service for the next three years. But no way does she finish the term. Because if she can run for mayor of Miami-Dade again in 2020 as the front runner in an open seat why on Earth wouldn’t she? 

On Wednesday, Regalado — who will be back on Cuban AM radio next week and Spanish-language weekend TV later this month — sent an email blast repeating her intent to continue fighting for the community and to pursue both ballot questions in near future.

“I will continue to fight for them, for you, for us. I will continue to promote our community’s priorities. I will continue to watch what happens at County Hall and voice my concern and bring forces together to fight the special interests that have taken hold,” Regalado wrote.

“In the coming weeks and months, you will hear from me again as I mount efforts to put measures on the ballot that will change our county government. We should elect our supervisor of elections, as they do in the other 67 counties in Florida. And we must pass campaign finance reform to ensure that the decisions at county hall are made in the best interests of residents and not of special interests.”

Ladra is still with her. Because those are both good ideas. Because we need to stick together and keep an eye on Carlos Gimenez.

And because this leadership in fighting for justice and this zest for transparency and pureness of process is what makes Raquel the best candidate for mayor in 2020.

Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine is having a fundraiser for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez Tuesday. Also hosting: Beach Commissioner Ricky Arriola and lobbyist Alex Heckler, who is partners with former State Rep. and original G-man Marcelo Llorente.

The event is at Levine’s company offices, Royal Media Partners at 960 Alton Rd.

Gimenez and Levine have been buddy-buddy almost since the latter was elected in 2014. They did an ice bucket challenge together (photo left). And even though the two disagreed on funding for the BayLink leg of new rail, they joined forces on battling Zika and flew to Washington together (even though Gimenez repeatedly says we have to solve our problems here) to lobby Congress for more funding.

The Beach mayor even has a cameo in a Gimenez campaign ad (so does Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez, the admitted loanshark).

Levine’s support means a lot to Gimenez, who needs Anglos (read: non Hispanic white) voters and Democrats to gain the edge over Miami-Dade School Board member Raquel Regalado, who forced him (surprise!) into a runoff in the August primary.

But what does Levine want from Gimenez? The torch, maybe?

It is no secret that Levine originally planned to run for Miami-Dade mayor. Consultants convinced him that that would be impossible because his last name doesn’t end with a vowel or a Z. But Ladra hears he is a stubborn man. While we also believe that he has eyed the governor’s mansion, maybe he holds out hope that he can compete in a crowded Miami-Dade field come 2020 when Gimenez is termed out. He may think he’d have a helluva leg up with the predecessor’s blessing.

Or maybe he just wants Gimenez and his monied pals — Heckler et al — to help him raise funds for the governor’s race?

Nah. Levine is a proud millionaire who likes to self-fund his campaigns and buy little old Cuban ladies with chachkies and salsa parties.

In fact, why is he hosting a fundraiser at all? Can’t he just write a check for whatever it is he’d raise?

Ladra can’t wait to see how many Beach city vendors are on Gimenez’s next campaign report.

You would think, from hearing Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez tell it, that he won the election Tuesday night. You would think wrong.

Gimenez, who may very well be the first incumbent mayor ever to be forced into a runoff in Miami-Dade, can claim victory all he wants. It rings hollow. He may have come in first with the most votes and almost 48 percent, but he really lost Tuesday.

I mean, does it look like he’s celebrating a victory here? A picture says a thousand words. Compare his face to his challenger Raquel Regalado‘s in these side-by-side Miami Herald photos of post-result candidates giving speeches. Is he holding back tears?

Gimenez tweeted that he had won every key demographic group. But he didn’t win the one key demographic that mattered most: A majority.

He told reporters in a mostly empty “victory party” room at the Miami Airport Doubltree Hotel that he was “well-poised to take this to victory in November.” Well, he thought he was “well-poised” to take this to victory yesterday — and look how that worked out.

Everybody knows Gimenez totally expected to win outright in the first round on Tuesday. He bragged about it to reporters. He dismissed Regalado as nothing more than a nuisance. Operatives were telling people that his early voting exit polls were at 53 or 54 percent.

But Gimenez and his team sure weren’t acting like they were leading. They blew his cash wad with giant mailers, constant radio ads and TV commercials. They went hyper negative with a mailer that morphed Trump’s face with Regalado’s (it totally backfired, by the way) and an uber repetitive robocall his campaign made disguised as Regalado’s campaign to piss people off, a dastardly deed and possibly illegal move (more on that later). In fact, they threw everything they had — actually everything they invented — against Regalado, who suddenly goes from underfunded underdog to front runner.

Yes, I said front runner. Everything changes now. Because, despite all the mayor’s talk, the demographics in a November race favor the challenger. She has the teachers, the cops, the nurses and doctors and the majority of the public employees. She has the librarians and the Pets’ Trust community. Because of her advocacy for immigrant children, she has the Dreamers and those who love and support them. In other words, she appeals to voters across party lines.

In November, there will be far more voters driven to the polls by the presidential election. There are a projected 600,000 voters or more who have never voted for Miami-Dade mayor — or for Carlos Gimenez. There’s no loyalty or history there for them. And many of them in this predominantly Democrat county will be excited about the possibility of the first female U.S. president topping the ballot. Regalado, who would become the first female mayor of Miami-Dade, is definitely going to get some of that #ImWithHer action.

So what on Earth does Gimenez see as his clear path to victory?

Maybe Gimenez suddenly announces today or next week that he endorses Hillary Clinton. The Democrats around him might even stage a big photo op or something.

He could even change his party registration to Democrat or Independent. He already toyed with the idea in 2014 — or just said he was considering it because he knew it would get him lots of free press.

Either of those strategies would be a way to appeal to Democrat voters in a nonpartisan race that now features two lifelong Republicans. In fact, he may not have to switch to pander for those blue votes. Just suggesting it is enough to put this into the news cycle for a week! People will assume he switched.

Certainly the Democrats surrounding him are mulling these ideas over. His county communications director, Mike Hernandez, who really wants to work for Hillary instead, is the one who came up with that whole party switch PR stunt in 2014. The mayor’s consultant, Freddy Balsera, might work for Donald Trump and his Doral resort, but he has advocated and campaigned for Clinton, most recently in Puerto Rico. And his golden goose fundraiser, Brian Goldmeier, is a former Democrat Party operative who worked for the gubernatorial run by Alex Sink and who would love nothing more than to be a blue blood again.

So it’s really not that far-fetched to think that Gimenez would switch to gain an advantage in an election. Not in Florida, where we have party switchers like former Gov. Charlie Crist and former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan.

Although it really hasn’t worked that well for them.

Because voters are smarter than he thinks.

That’s why Ladra bets Gimenez will have that same constipated look on his face in November.

Everybody knows already that I am voting for Raquel Regalado for mayor of Miami-Dade. I’ve listed my reasons for years, because it’s really a referendum on Carlos Gimenez and the lousy job he has been doing and the climate of pay-to-play politics he has created, all documented here. Just do a search on Carlos Gimenez. Go back to 2012.

But Raquel is a good candidate in her own right. In six years on the school board, she has helped turn what was once a chaotic laughing stock — the fourth largest district in the country — into a national model. She has reformed the way they do business, from an overhaul of their bus maintenance to pioneering social media and tech policies. From construction to facilities to special education — where she has helped bring education into the 21st century — Raquel has had a hands on approach to her job as one of nine school board members in charge of a $3.2 billion budget and overseeing about 50,000 employees, twice as much as the county.

She has a lot of good ideas. Just check them out on her very well written website (ahem).

And we’ve never had a woman as Miami-Dade mayor and I’m excited about that.

But there are a lot of other important races on Tuesday’s ballot, too. And because people are constantly asking me who or how I’m voting, I decided to post my recommendations for this Aug. 30th. As a proud, card-carrying NPA, this at least gives me the chance to cast a ballot, however straw it may be, in races where I otherwise have no say.

I’m not weighing in on every race, just the ones where I feel I can. And where I care. And I may not always have such an articulate and/or valid reason as I do with the mayoral race. But here goes:

FOR U.S. SENATE

Republican Marco Rubio because I don’t have to have a valid reason. See? I told you. I may not agree with a lot of his positions on issues like climate change and gay marriage, but I like him. A lot. I think he’s real and authentic and he isn’t just telling me what I want to hear. I like his story. I like his family. I like his boots. I like the way he talks. His words move me and I’m jaded AF. Ask anyone. It helps that he grew up down the street — who doesn’t want to root for the home team — and that his mom and I worked at the same K-Mart in Westchester (but I don’t know if it was at the same time). Plus I think that he cannot negatively impact gay marriage, which is legal now, or sea level rise response, which is inevitable.

Democrat Pam Keith because Ladra is half rabblerouser, like her. And because everything she says makes sense. And because the other two guys get on my nerves. Someone please tell Congressman Patrick Murphy that he shouldn’t email me more than once a day.

FOR U.S. HOUSE

DISTRICT 26: Democrat Joe Garcia, because no matter how hard she tries people just don’t like Annette Taddeo — or maybe it’s that they don’t trust her — and I still think Garcia has a better chance of beating Carlos Curbelo in November. And if Carlos Curbelo, a liar and lobbyist with a secret client list, isn’t upset this year he’ll be there forever, like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. And we can’t have that. Garcia isn’t always right. But, like Rubio, he’s a true believer. He really thinks he’s right. He’s not doing it for a proxy. And I’ll take a true believer who just happens to be wrong sometimes to a sinister liar trying to game the system any day. The former congressman might have been beaten two years ago by Curbelo, but that was in an off year.

Read related story: Awkward! Annette Taddeo, Joe Garcia face off with polite jabs

DISTRICT 27:

Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen because none of the others can hit the ground running. IRL is a legend who still has a little pull in D.C. With Republicans. With Democrats. She is a popular senior in high school. She is not a Freshman transplant. She will be able to do more.

Democrat Scott Fuhrman because it doesn’t really matter since nobody can beat Ileana, not even a Democrat in a Hillary year. Her gay cred with a transgeder son and her pro-Dreamer immigration stance makes her a crossover darling. But Fuhrman is fun to watch and might make a good elected — one day. So let’s give him the practice.

There’s more. Please press this “continue reading” button to “turn the page.”

Carlos Gimenez is not the man I voted for in 2011.

The man we once considered an outsider on the dais, the voice of the people, has turned into the consummate inside deal broker, a man so entrenched in special interests and corrupt that his best friend and campaign finance chair has a $200-an-hour county contract worth $18 million over the next 12 years.

Gimenez went from being Ladra’s “Golden Boy” to a “Tainted Boy” — after he hooked up with the Hialeah hoodlums — and then “Cry Wolf Carlos,” after he kept threatening to lay everybody off, to “Mr. Giveaway,” when he started just giving millions away to millionaires.

It’s been a slippery slope. And as he faces the first real challenge to his dark and arrogant rule, it’s time to remind everyone why Carlos Gimenez should not be allowed to have another four years, what would be his last four years as mayor.

2011 — The Year of Setting Up

The descent started right after being elected in 2011. The new mayor asked the Commission on Ethics and Public Trust for an opinion on deals that were brought to the county by one of his two sons — the red light camera lobbyist or the project manager for a major construction firm. He was told to keep an arm’s distance. So he created an arm. Or, rather, five of them.

The deputy mayor system was created specifically to insulate Gimenez from his sons as well as his lobbyist friends and their special interest and still be able to wheel and deal at arm’s length. But it’s all a show. Because don’t think for a minute that dealing with Alina Hudak or Ed Marquez is any different than dealing with Carlos Gimenez. They will do what he wants them to do.

He also cut taxes by 12 percent, without really considering how that would impact the county in the following years. He did this 19 days after being sworn in July 1, 2011. And we’ve been paying the consequences ever since. Talk about inexperience and mismanagement. It was irresponsible. But, heck, it sounds good in robocalls and radio ads.

2012: The Year of the First Taste of Power 

In the summer of 2012, Mayor Gimenez got the commission to approve up to $5 million in funding to meet the county’s insurance deductible for damage done by heavy rains that year to the Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Arsht Performing Arts Center. Somewhere around 2,500 patrons had to be evacuated after water came gushing through the roof during a May performance of The Lion King. Though the $5 million comes from county coffers, the independent Performing Arts Center Trust was charged with hiring the contractors to make the repairs. Normally the PAC gets the county procurement department to request bids for its projects, but this was an emergency, county staffers told Ladra. And the job went to the company that hired the mayor’s son, Julio Gimenez.

In August that year, his campaign against a challenge from former Commissioner Joe Martinez gets caught up in an illegal absentee ballot operation. One of several people caught and arrested with dozens of absentee ballots was seen walking in and out of his Hialeah campaign office. He may not have known about it, but he certainly didn’t do enough about it after he found out. The man who told me personally in 2011 that he would reform absentee ballots to cut down on fraud was now looking the other way because it benefited him.

Nothing happens. Investigators later say they were stopped from going into Gimenez’s Hialeah campaign office because the State Attorney, whose campaign manager was also working for Gimenez, would not seek a subpoena. Nobody got jail time. And nobody followed up on the investigation, even though there was evidence that there were more people involved.

It’s never been spoken of again.

2013: The Year he “saved” Libraries

An obsession with sports stadiums started when early in 2013, Gimenez proposed a tourist bed tax increase to fund renovations and a roof at Dolphins Stadium, something he needed the state legislature to pass. He thought the idea was so revolutionary and fantastic — “best idea ever,” he called it — that he went so far as to having it put on fast track for a referendum and having the Miami Dolphins pay for it. The measure failed to get any support in Tallahasee and died.

Not to get too depressed about it, Gimenez flew to Paris for the air show and then later met his pal, lobbyist Jorge Luis Lopez, in Italy so they could get backstage passes to the Vatican.

When he came back, Gimenez proposed fire rescue cuts known as “brown outs” that would have some units at some stations out of service for several hours or days at a time. It would have severely impacted neighborhood service and response times. After firefighters had several street protests, the idea was dropped and money magically found (one of several times) to keep the fire rescue staffing levels.

But to fix the broken budget — which he had broken two years earlier, folks — Gimenez also proposed closing libraries and drastically cutting library programs and services. After much protest at County Hall and a number of budget town halls around the county, money was magically found again and the administration ended up only closing some branches on some weekdays and cutting staff.

There’s more. Please press this “continue reading” button to “turn the page.”

Three times in one week, Miami-Dade Carlos Gimenez‘s secret non-profit has paid for robocalls to tens of thousands of voters saying that Raquel Regalado committed fraud.

It’s a lie.

So is the robocall saying she’s had to pay some elections violation fine. So is the mailer saying the Miami-Dade School Board member has been absent at many meetings.

All lies. Deliberate, malicious lies meant to smear her name and damage her chances.

But these repeated dishonest digs, false as they are, show how desperate Carlos Gimenez has become in his effort to keep the seat that serves as a gravy train to his family and friends. And how far he will go to protect his control of billions of dollars in county spending over the course of the next four years.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez’s links to lobbyists lead straight to his staff

Make no mistake: Carlos Gimenez knows these are lies. The property appraiser cleared Regalado of any wrongdoing. An investigator said that there was no intent to commit fraud and that Regalado did not benefit from the Homestead exemption status that mistakenly remained on her home after the bank took possession. So there is no fraud. Gimenez knows that. Ladra dares say he always knew there was no fraud. Just like he knows there is no elections law violation. An inquiry into a bogus elections complaint — its become commonplace, part of regularly scheduled campaign work to file a complaint about something — is not even completed, so there is no fine. At least not yet.

And Regalado has never missed a school board meeting. Not one. She just doesn’t go for all the proclamations in the first hour or so. Who has time for that?

The mayor’s campaign mouthpiece, Jesse Manzano, dared say that the people who are getting the employee of the month award or the school getting the day named after them for their recycling efforts or whatever deserve her attendance. I would say that the people who go to speak at commission meetings about the Pets’ Trust betrayal or the mismanagement of the special taxing districts or other instances in which Gimenez has simply gotten up and walked away would deserve his ear even more.

Manzano is just defending their lies. Because these lies are crucial to the Gimenez campaign. They have nothing else for him to get re-elected on. The Gimenez track record of broken promises, mismanagement and no-bid contracts to family and friends is well documented. So the entire re-election effort is centered around lies that they themselves planted. The story about the property issue was fed to a blogger by them. The blogger was the one that created the issue. The bogus campaign finance complaint that was supposed to stay confidential and was made public days before the election, what a coincidence (not!), is made by them. All of this was planned a long time ago as the crux of their campaign. Since Gimenz can’t defend his own terrible track record as mayor and because he knows that Regalado poses a real threat to his reign of power, he has to turn to the lies and absurd attacks.

Like the mailer that arrived in mailboxes Friday with Regalado’s face morphed into Donald Trump’s. It calls her the “mini Donald Trump Miami-Dade doesn’t need.”

Mini? Wow. Is that another jab because she is a woman?

Ironically, Trump is a client of the mayor’s son. CJ Gimenez has done lobbying for Trump in Doral, where he is still registered as a lobbyist. His boss Freddy Balsera was so happy to represent Trump and the Miss Universe contest last year that he tweeted about it.

The truth is the only mayoral candidate with ties to Donald Trump is Carlos Gimenez.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez’s next mancrush giveaway to Donald Trump

That was the second mailer making comparisons between Regalado and Trump. This morphed Trump face mailer is funded by an anti immigrant PAC called Leadership for Florida’s future, that also donated more than $180,000 this month to another PAC called Stop Benefits to Illegals Now. 

The group also got $184,000 from Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy and $105,000 from the Main Street Leadership Council. It’s like one of those PACs that look like they are laundering money through other PACs and you can never trace it back to its original donation.

What’s an anti-immigration PAC doing helping Gimenez?

The other negative mailer likening Regalado to Trump, sent a few days ago, was funded by a mystery corporation created just two months ago and calling itself Committee for Integrity. As if. Florida Division of Corporation records don’t have any names listed behind the nonprofit, just a registered agent service in Tampa. So we don’t know who is paying for the mailers and the dishonest robocalls. Integrity? That’s a joke.

Because the real story is that Carlos Gimenez is the fraud, hiding behind multiple secret nonprofit PACs that smear his opponent while he says on live TV that he won’t say anything mean to a girl. Pfffftt. He is not the man we voted into office in 2011. He has become the crooked politician he used to rail against. Power corrupts, ladies and gentlemen.

Or maybe he was always a fraud, a liar who intended to fleece us the whole time.

Because Gimenez has been lying to the people for years while his son’s construction company gets a $4 million no-bid contract to fix the roof of the performing arts center and, now, his BFF and campaign finance chair has a contract that pays him $200 an hour and could give him $18 million over the course of 12 years. That’s a mil and a half a year for mostly clerical work like filing documents and going to meetings. Soon, you’ll find out that another family member coincidentally got a job (wink, wink, nod) at another subcontractor that got the “public outreach” portion of that same $139-million water and sewer contract that pays his buddy $200 an hour.

All that, folks — unlike the BS spun from the other side — is true.

Raquel Regalado doesn’t have to lie about Carlos Gimenez to get elected. The truth about him is bad enough.