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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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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There are still a couple of months to qualify, but so far there are no challengers to Coral Gables Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli and Commissioner Mike Mena in the April election.
That’s too bad, because neither of them deserve an easy slide without a challenge.
There are three candidates — including former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera and one-time crazy ass city manager-for-five-disastrous-minutes Carmen Olazabal — running for the open seat left by Commissioner Frank Quesada, who apparently is not running for re-election. Instead, Quesada is backing the third candidate, Jorge L. Fors, who looks like a bigger Mike Mena and raised incumbent money in his first two months. (But more on that later.)
Read related: Interim Coral Gables manager got a 20% raise — but ‘for now’
The mayor and Mena are vulnerable, and Ladra hopes anyone waiting in the wings won’t wait much longer to come out and stop the flood of money going to them — $47,200 for Valdes-Fauli and $70K for Mena, according to their last campaign finance reports (found on the city’s website) through November — simply because there is no other choice.
Heck, Mena feels so free in his seat that he didn’t raise a dime last month.
Both stood by while the police chief and his employees were dragged through the mud unnecessarily by the city manager’s office. They stood by like they currently stand by paying Frank Fernandez a six figure salary to stay at home and look for another job.
But while Mena has been pretty much in a coma and only put his big boy pants on yesterday, Valdes-Fauli has been arrogant and awful to people, even right from the dais. He also talks out of both sides of his mouth, telling people he was going to get rid of City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark — as far back as the campaign trail two years ago — and then defending her every chance he got on the dais. His story changes for the audience.
Cabrera, who lost twice against Cason, won’t try a third time. He is running for commissioner because its safer in an open seat and he can do just as much without the ribbon cutting ceremonial stuff.
Read related: Coral Gables Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark quits job in battle with chief
Former Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick is a possibility. She only lost to Valdes-Fauli by 187 votes and later learned that hundreds of her friends had not voted. If she runs again and makes sure those friends turn in their absentee ballots, she should have it in the bag.
“I think I could win. I just don’t know if I want to spend the time,” Slesnick told Ladra after the tree lighting Friday. “It took three months out of my life.”
While she prefers to spend her time these days raising funds for Democrat candidates to higher office — which she is very good at — she could very well be talked into it.
Ariel Fernandez is another good possibility. An activist turned one-time commission candidate, Ariel — who has stayed active — has the Hispanic name that would help the Hispanics who only voted for Raul out of some misguided loyalty to culture turn. After all, Valdes-Fauli traveled to Cuba under the Castro rule and defends the opening of relations with a country that still criminalizes political speech.
Like I said, he is not that hard to beat.
Fernandez said he would need to raise a lot of money to beat Valdes-Fauli but Ladra believes he can win without the big bucks by making the election a referendum on the mayor.
Who else is there? Anyone?

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It’s been two weeks since Cathy Swanson Rivenbark, officially and reluctantly resigned as city manager in Coral Gables in the light of major commission resistance to her battle with the police chief and insistence that her No. 2 keep his status as the highest ranking cop in the city.
In an ironic twist, Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez — who many believe is the cause of all the anguish with his sworn status and public safety domain — seems to be sticking around. Fernandez is still a top city administrator, though he is no longer overseeing public safety. The police and fire chiefs report directly to interim City Manager Peter Iglesias, who has made it very clear that Chief Ed Hudak is the top sworn officer in the city.
Everything is happening quietly and quickly, so as to not get any more negative attention that the city leaders hate so much. But, although it is not on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, some of the details of the new administrative structure — and hints about the future — may come up anyway. An ENews blast sent Sept. 19 said “The City Commission will discuss the process for hiring a new City Manager at the next Commission Meeting scheduled for September 25.”
Read related: Coral Gables Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark quits job in battle with chief
Ladra’s sources said they expect the mayor to bring it up in his comments. And word is Iglesias will be made acting manager for the foreseeable future, perhaps forever.
Neither Mayor Raul Valdes Fauli nor Commissioner Mike Mena, who have re-election bids six months from now, want to have the whole city manager mess in the public eye with a national search at campaign time. Las malas lenguas say they want to put it off ’til after the April election because they don’t want it to become a campaign issue.
Ladra says too late!
But further than that, there are rampant rumors that Iglesias already has the job permanently. Even while residents and business leaders demand a true national search that is not a total joke like the last one.
Commissioner Vince Lago told Ladra in a text message that he was in no hurry to make another change.
“I am interested in giving Peter a few months to acclimate and show his ability,” Lago wrote. “The issues with Frank are still being ironed out. They are reviewing his job responsibilities and seeing how he can continue to serve in a limited capacity in regards to public safety.”
Ladra heard Fernandez doesn’t even have an office at the police station anymore. Nobody saw him there Monday.
But is he still going to wear a uniform? Is he still gonna carry a gun?
Read related: Coral Gables leaders to discuss police structure; or will it be more theater?
And there is still the issue of human resources, which he also oversaw. If he can still hire and fire police personnel and force Hudak to work with people that he would have passed on, it’s still a problem. That’s something that maybe should be discussed. Is the new Internal Affairs major who was hired despite Hudak wanting someone else going to stay on as well?
And if Fernandez is not overseeing public safety, which — as he and Swanson-Rivenbark liked to stress — is his wheelhouse, then what the hell is he going to be doing? Historic preservation? Parks and Rec?
Iglesias, photographed here taking his seat on the first day of his new job Sept. 11, was hired away from the city of Miami in 2016 by Swanson-Rivenbark to oversee Public Works, Development Services, Parking, Historical Resources and Cultural Arts, Economic Development, and Community Recreation. Some think he’s part of a Bermuda triangle with Fernandez and Cathy but he’s made it clear to commissioners he’s his own man.
Sources say he’s a very capable and straightforward guy and, according to the city, he still makes $179,263.34 a year. No raise. Not yet anyway.
But he’s an engineer, a scientist, a geek of sorts. He’s not a generalist or a deal maker. And some are gonna say he’s not typical city manager material.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
According to the separation agreement signed with the city, Swanson gets a severance of 20 weeks at $3,942 a week for $78,840 and maybe another week if she can sell her accrued sick time. She also gets a 401K valued at $196,458 after the city contributed $51,250 a year for almost four years. But she must give up her car, her medical insurance and her life insurance.
It seems like the bronze version of Pat Salerno‘s golden parachute.
Read related: Pat Salerno upped his retirement benefit before he left
Swanson-Rivenbark wasn’t at the Sept. 11 meeting where her resignation was accepted unanimously. She wanted to be. Sources say an 11th hour effort to list her laurels and make a case for herself was thwarted. So Swanson-Rivenbark put it on paper, in a three page resignation letter with a five page addendum of her proclaimed achievements. To no avail.
Like Ladra said, the decision was unanimous. Even Commissioner Pat Keon, her most stalwart defender, had given up by then. Mounting missteps in the manager’s personal vendetta battle against the popular police chief had already disillusioned the other four at varying degrees. The key was Commissioner Mena, who woke up from a coma just in time to maybe ward off a legit challenge to his seat next year, which is why he wants, shhh… be quiet.
Who? What?
Exactly.
Move along now. Nothing has happened here.

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The showdown that some people thought was gonna happen two weeks ago in Coral Gables City Hall over the city manager’s handling of the police chief may come Tuesday when commissioners finally talk about the strange structure that has an assistant city manager act as the de facto head of the police department.
Well, wait a minute. Nevermind. It might not happen at all.
Seems that the original item to discuss the administrative structure — which has been fueling if not directly responsible for serious issues from vacancies to morale — has been changed at the last minute. Now the mayor wants to discuss “constructive talks underway between the city Manager’s Office and Police Chief.”
Oh, really? You don’t say.
Maybe Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli is satisfied that the Fraternal Order of Police is now going to choose the investigative agency or investigator who looks into the “anonymous complaint” (read: trash job) against Chief Ed Hudak for dropping by, after being invited, to a pool party thrown for female officers. But this consolation prize is not enough.
The Coral Gables FOP is only getting this opportunity to find a truly independent investigator — and they’re going to suggest three options they are okay with — only after it was revealed right here on Political Cortadito that City Manager Cathy Swanson Rivenbark had tried to manipulate an investigation by the same agency once before. Emails obtained by Ladra show that Swanson tried to whitewash a background investigation that was done before the hiring of Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez, who s also the “director of public safety.” She asked the investigator to ignore and not seek any information from the Broward PBA because it would shed some negative light on Fernandez, who she apparently had already decided she was going to hire no matter what. What it means is that she wanted the information that she already knew existed off the reports that commissioners would get.
Wait a minute. Again? Isn’t this the kind of thing that did former City Manager Pat Salerno in? And how can anyone know when the city manager is telling the truth? Ladra would suggest you can’t. Swanson cannot be trusted. This is not the only reason why.
She already orchestrated a massive cover up when she put Maj. Teresa Molina on paid leave until she retired after the police officer was caught spying on citizens and electeds during a commission meeting, taking cellphone pics of text messages over Maria Cruz‘s shoulder. Everybody knows that Molina was doing this for someone, not for her own health and pleasure, but there was never an investigation into that and, instead, the major was given what amounts to a paid vacation for her silence.
She then paid a $50,000 penalty fee to suspend a study in progress that the city commission had requested on the impact of recent and proposed development on the U.S.1 corridor, She did this on her own without seeking the commission’s approval.
She’s hired a number of cronies, some with six figure salaries for positions that didn’t exist before she got to the City Beautiful (more on that later).
And Ladra will bet that she knows more than she lets on about the “anonymous complaint,” which was really a planted precursor meant to trigger an unnecessary investigation meant to provide the city manager with fodder to fire the chief. When that didn’t pan out, after her independent inquiry cleared Hudak of any wrongdoing, the city manager stretched and misconstrued the investigator’s words to issue an obviously gratuitous and retaliatory reprimand — more than 10 years in the making — which she was forced to rescind two weeks later.
If not then why go to such extents to keep the investigation into the “anonymous complaint” from happening?
Swanson is a good actress and she is also a good producer. At the last meeting, a citizen who spoke seemingly spontaneously and of his own accord about not needing an independent investigation into the “anonymous complaint” — and, indeed, trying to discourage the city from pursuing it — seems to have done so at her request.
Emails obtained by Cruz show that attorney Terence Connor — who also, by the way, gave Commissioner Pat Keon $100 in her last election — may have gotten a call from someone in the city administration inviting him to come to the meeting.
The attorney had previously written an email to Keon in November saying that it would be inappropriate to end the investigation that was started by the “anonymous complaint” midstream. That email was apparently forwarded to Swanson, who then forwarded it to Raquel Elejabarrieta with one line from her. “You should drop him a note.” The email was sent at 10:18 p.m. the night of April 24 — after residents showed up at City Hall to support Hudak and, in many cases, trash her.
Hmmm. You should drop him a note.
Valdes-Fauli and other commissioners — and Ladra mean Vince Lago, because we know Mike Mena is a useless empty suit who won’t do anything — should ask Swanson what did she mean by that?
They should also instruct her to go back to the administrative structure that existed before she came to the city, where the police chief is the police chief and reports to the city manager and police officers don’t feel like they have two different bosses. Hudak needs to be able to be chief and control the department and be listed as the head of the agency at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, especially Internal Affairs, where Fernandez hired someone against the chief’s will.
And Fernandez should go with Swanson — they seem to be a package deal — and the city should look for a new city manager they can trust.
And maybe they need to add the Terence Connor emails to the scope of the investigation of the “anonymous complaint.” Ladra would seek his phone records.

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The Coral Gables City Commission is poised to approve a mostly symbolic ban on the sale of assault weapons — there are no gun stores in the City Beautiful — even though state law prohibits cities from enacting gun restrictions and they could be removed from office.
Let’s keep our trigger fingers crossed.
Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli sponsored the measure, which is on the agenda as a first reading, in the wake of the Parkland school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High last month, where 14 students and three educators were gunned down by a 19-year-old with an AR-15. On Feb. 27, almost two weeks to the day, Valdes-Fauli led the commission in a 4-0 vote (Commissioner Vince Lago had left early, wink wink) to instruct a very unwilling city attorney to write the ordinance with the ban and bring it back to them.
This is pretty much campaign theater for a mayor who has already decided he wants another term next year. Valdes-Fauli has gotten quite a bit of ink and air time from this gimmick, so of course he’s going to ignore City Attorney Miriam Ramos’ warnings about this being an invalid act and the potential consequences — fines of up to $5,000 and removal from office.
Valdes-Fauli told any reporter who gave him a minute that he would gladly pay the price. “If that helps prevent the death of one of Coral Gables’ children, I would happily pay it,” he was quoted as saying in the Miami Herald.
Except it won’t save anyone’s life. Because, as we said in the first sentence, there is no gun store in Coral Gables. So, even if the law passed and remained valid, someone could buy an AR-15 in Coconut Grove and bring it to Miracle Mile. And, also, if he is removed from office it will likely be because the ordinance is illegal. So he’s done nothing.
Jack Thompson, a Gables resident and City Hall pain in the trolley, says that the mayor and his cohorts who vote yes on this must be removed from office by the governor. That it’s not a matter of maybe. That it’s not a choice.
“Should this renegade Coral Gables Commission actually pass its ordinance Tuesday, which calls for violating state law, please proceed with summarily removing all those voting to do so from their offices,” Thompson wrote over the weekend in a letter to Gov. Rick Scott. “The statute in question MANDATES their removal. It does not give you, Governor Scott, the option not to remove them, as the operative word in the removal statute is ‘shall,’ the most powerful command verb in the English language.”
Oh, please let him be right. Everybody but Lago, who has apparently told people he will vote against the ordinance Tuesday, is a waste of space up there anyway. Let’s clean house. Voters need a do over, too.
That’s not to say that Ladra isn’t for a statewide ban on assault weapons. But the way to do it is a binding referendum question on the ballot, which some people are trying to get for the 2020 election. Ladra would like to see it on this year’s ballot, while the momentum is there. This is what the city of Coral Gables should be doing. Pressuring their legislators in Tallahassee and Washington D.C. to pass a wider ban. Because what good is a ban in Coral Gables if some nut can cross the street and get an AR-15 in West Miami or Coconut Grove.
That is the weapon that Nikolas Cruz used to kill 17 people on Feb. 14. It was purchased in a Coral Springs strip mall. Yet, you don’t see Coral Springs Mayor Skip Campbell, whose community is right next to Parkland, moving to pass an illegal ban that would mean nada. Instead, he wants to collect petitions to put it on the 2020 ballot and let voters do what our Republican legislators won’t.
Because the desire to ban these weapons of war and high-capacity magazines is very real. A Quinnipiac University poll done the week after the Broward school shooting, 67% of the respondents said they were in favor of a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons.
But what Valdes-Fauli and his yes people are doing is not so real. It’s theater. It’s a PR stunt to make them look good because gun control suddenly became the hip new thing for politicians to embrace as the teenagers becoming 18-year-old voters demand it.
And it could even be illegal.
“Coral Gables‘ City Attorney Miriam Ramos has publicly and rightly informed the Commission that she will not certify as legal its vote to violate this law,” Thompson wrote in his letter to the guv. “She is a lawyer who takes seriously both her oath upon becoming  lawyer to obey and support the law and her oath of office as City Attorney. If this ordinance is passed, she will not sign off on it.”
Indeed, “the city attorney’s opinion regarding the ordinance remains unchanged,” says the memo in tomorrow’s agenda package.
“You have to love a client who pays its lawyer, with tax dollars, to give legal advice which it chooses to ignore,” wrote Thompson. “Sounds like we have a local manifestation of Trump.”
You know who else are lawyers? Valdes-Fauli and Commissioner Mike Mena. One would think they would know better.
“The Florida Bar has remedies for such brazen oath-breaking,” Thompson wrote, and Ladra has no doubt he is seeking their disbarment.
 

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