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.

The Coral Gables election Tuesday is the most important event this week. But it’s not the only thing happening.

The Cortadito Calendar for the second week of April has a protest, a council meeting, horses and trees. And, of course, something or two about transportation. Don’t we always have something on transportation?

It would have been heavier, but every single one of the county committee meetings scheduled for this week were cancelled. All of them. Ladra will try to find out why.

And sorry about Monday getting away from us. I don’t like Mondays so if you want your shindig to be on this list for sure, don’t risk it. There are six other days to choose from.

As always, please keep sending information about your government meetings, candidate forums and political powwows to edevalle@gmail.com and they’ll keep — or start — appearing in the Cortadito Calendar. Unless it’s on a Monday. Then it’s 50-50.

TUESDAY — April 11

7 a.m. – 7 p.m. — The Coral Gables election is finally upon us. Voters will elect a new mayor and could elect two new commissioners — although one of them won’t be all that new. The mayoral race is the one being watched the most, with Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick facing off against former Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli in a contest that has turned ugly — and ethnic. Look for Ladra’s recommendations coming soon to Fresh Colada.

8:30 a.m. –The Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club is back to a weekly gig. And it looks like there’s only going to be one. Longtime moderator David Kelsey, the president of the South Beach Hotel and Restaurant Association who had planned a dueling Tuesday Morning club featuring one of the hated developers of Miami Beach, has given up. In an email he said he didn’t have the stamina to fight the activists, who in his words, took over the meetings like in a coup. So, there will only be one breakfast meeting in Miami Beach on Tuesdays. Today, the guest speaker is another Group 2 candidate, Rafael Velasquez (two other Group 2 candidates have already been guests). Former Mayor Matti Bower is moderating again at Puerto Sagua Restaurant, 700 Collins Ave.

7 p.m. — District 3 residents in Palmetto Bay can see the first presentation of traffic data about their specific neighborhoods at a public meeting Tuesday night at Village Hall, 9705 East Hibiscus Street. The results of a citywide traffic calming study have been piece-mealed into district specific power point presentations. The one for District 1, for example, was already given last week and can be seen here online. The gist of this study is to find location for traffic calming devices and identify what devices will be used. Speak now or forever hold your peace when, not if, they put a circle or speed bumps on your street.

WEDNESDAY — April 12

10 a.m. — The Doral City Council meets Wednesday morning and will spend too much time talking about accounts receivables software and the credit card processing contract (going to Wells Fargo) and the building and funding of two informational/police kiosks in the city. But they also may have to refund $55,000 in development fees to Doral Preparatory Charter School and will consider the approval of a $1 million contract to replace the artificial turf fields at Doral Meadow Park. They may also award a $2.1 million contract for canal stabilization to Enco Engineering Construction and a $570,000 contract for street sweeping to SFM Services. There are some smaller contracts also and the ratification of the city’s agreement with the police union. The whole agenda is published online here. The council meets at City Hall, 8401 NW 53 Ter.

5 p.m. — There’s actually a tree advisory board in Palmetto Bay and it meets Wednesday evening. Ladra couldn’t get an agenda online but Councilwoman Karyn Cunningham invited people to participate via an email blast, so they are seeking some input. What do you think about the canopy in the village. Where could the municipality plant more trees and foliage in the public right of way? This seems like the best place to opine on that. The meeting is at Village Hall, 9705 East Hibiscus.

THURSDAY — April 13

6 p.m. — The newest member of the Citizens Independent Transportation Trust, Melissa Dynan, will be sworn in at their next meeting Thursday evening. In addition to the regular progress reports from the Miami-Dade Department of Transit and Pubic Works and the regular financial and strategic committee reviews, the CITT will be discussing resolutions that urge the count to (1) acquire the easement of land along Southwest 137th Avenue, (2) apply for a federal grant for $960,000 from a pilot program for transit oriented development, (3) enter into a multi-year agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation to build a $1.8 million bus depot park and ride lot called Tamiami Station (the state would fund half), and (4) approve a contract extension with Southern Gas Companies (dba Florida City Gas) for compressed natural gas for the department of transit and public works.

FRIDAY — April 14

5:30 p.m. — This is no ordinary dog and pony show. The 2017 International Agriculture Horse and Cattle Show, the highlight of Miami-Dade Commissioner Javier Souto‘s social calendar, is having it’s 10th year. Souto, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and a slew of other electeds, most likely including Commissioners Esteban Bovo Jr., Jose “Pepe” Diaz and Rebeca Sosa — who can count on Souto to vote their way 99% of the time — are having a reception Friday afternoon at, where else?, Tropical Park, where Souto’s beloved Ronald Reagan Equestrian Center, 7800 Bird Road, was built with taxpayer dollars and opened in 2013 (and is pictured to the right here). Ladra thinks its by invitation, but if we got one, that means it can’t be too selective. Just RSVP with Aldo Gonzalez or John Montes at 305-222-2116.

SATURDAY — April 15

10 a.m. — Shouldn’t Donald Trump release his tax returns? A lot of people think so. Some of them will gather downtown Saturday at Miami’s “Show Us Your Taxes March” in front of our federal building at 51 SW First Avenue. Ladra isn’t sure a protest in front of a federal building on a Saturday when nobody will notice is going to sway President Donald Trump as much as, say, a protest in front of his golf course property in Doral. But I’m not organizing this. The march is expected to end at noon, also. So I guess two hours is about as pissed off as some activists can get on a Saturday in April.

With little more than a week to go before the Coral Gables election, voters are getting a mailbboxful of promises and endorsements and attacks. The mailers in Coral Gables are almost always something to talk about — and this year is no exception.

From the endorsement of a former governor to the image of a university that had to be pulled to the giant, trifold of Herald stories from the city’s ugly past that landed in mailboxes Saturday — the Gables has been deluged in postal politics for a couple of weeks now.

The most prolific mailing candidate in this election has to be Mike Mena, who is running for commission in Group 3. Nobody in that race has come close and, in fact, Ladra is not certain that Serafin Sousa, the non candidate, has sent any mailers at all. Marlin Ebbert and Randy Hoff will have each sent two or three by election day. Hers focus on her standing with the anti-development residents and says that she will listen to and speak for them. His focus on his service of almost 30 years as a police officer and include two separate endorsements from former Chief James Butler and former Assistant Chief Ana Baixauli, which should have been one piece with both of them combined. Hoff could have sent another message on the second piece.

Meanwhile, Mena has sent so many mailers that voters are coming to expect a new one when they get home from work. They were getting one every day the week that absentee ballots dropped. But are they memorable? Nah. They’re pretty much cookie cutter. Take his picture out and plug in another young, ambitious lawyer from Miami or Miami Lakes or Miami Beach or wherever and you have the same thing. He uses phrases like “common sense” and “commitment to security.” Yawn.

Read related story: Hoff, Mena stand out in 4-way Gables commission race

That was the same reaction Ladra had with former Commissioner Wayne “Chip” Withers‘ endorsement from former FIU President Modesto “Mitch” Maidique, who coincidentally had picked up an election package and who, Ladra suspects, has an itch to run for office (this endorsement could be a tit for tat). I’m sure it was intended to connect with the hundreds or thousands of FIU students and alumni in the City Beautiful, but it was eh for the rest of us who didn’t go there and there are just as many of non FIU students in the city. Withers, a proud graduate of the University of Florida, would have been better served to use the University of Miami logo.

Then FIU and former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera complained and Withers had to take the image of the smiling Maidique in front of an FIU buillding — letters blazing in neon at the top — off his social media.

“The Withers campaign and you should be aware that neither the campaign nor you are authorized to use the FIU logo or imagery without the express approval and licensing of FIU,” wrote FIU General Counsel Carlos Castillo in a cease and desist letter last week.

Cabrera, who actually did go to FIU (Withers didn’t) and actually led the alumni association at one point, filed a complaint with the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust. After all, Withers is a Gator! A bull Gator at that, who actually had a skybox in Gainseville at one time and has flown up to see the games.

Read related story: ‘Chip’ Withers vs. Pat Keon because of the Paseo project

“He should have known better. To mislead and say you have done it before without repercussions is completely wrong,” ,” Cabrera told me after Withers was quoted in the Miami Herald saying he had done it before. “I can’t recall him using a university logo before,” added Cabrera, who worked on three of Withers’ past campaigns.

The complaint says Withers intentionally misled voters into thinking that he got the FIU endorsement vis-a-vis Maidique because it implied that he was still the voice of the university.

“The mail piece sent by Withers specifically attempts to confuse voters into believing that Modesto ‘Mitch’ Maidique is still part of FIU and endorses Withers in his oficial capacity. While the piece states that Maidique is the ‘former’ President of FIU, it lists him as a current professor and thus provides the endorsement as part of Maidique’s oficial capacity, an illegal act,” wrote attorney JC Planas in the complaint, because a state university cannot endorse anybody.

“Perhaps the most blatant violation in the piece is the use of the FIU logo in the picture. Had the campaign simply used a picture of Dr. Maidique actually taken in front of that building, it still would likely have been a technical violation. However, super imposing his picture on a larger than ordinary picture of the building with the logo, was a deliberate attempt by Withers to deceive voters into thinking the endorsement was something other than that of an ordinary public citizen with no current leadership role at the University.”

Yeah, maybe. But what Ralph and JC really did was make a blah mailer and make it newsworthy and infinitely more interesting. Now, Ladra wants one for her collection.

Not as much, however, as I want that mailer with commissioner Jeannett Slesnick in a hot rod. In it, she is nicknamed “Speedy Slesnick” for her lack of support for a 5 MPH reduction that does nothing if there are no police officers to enforce it. “Stupid,” is what most voters reacted when they got it. The piece is so bad, it’s good. I want to frame it and hang it on a wall.

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

Ladra also wants the mailer sent by Raul Valdes-Fauli‘s political action committee over the weekend (more on that later), which could be the largest political mailer any voter anywhere has ever gotten. It’s practically a postal billboard. But I only want it because it features me prominently — in several Herald articles from when I covered Coral Gables for the daily newspaper in 2008 and 2009… which means it’s an attack of former Mayor Don Slesnick, who beat Valdes Fauli in 2001. Talk about sour grapes! But guess what? Don Slesnick, who inherited a lot of those problems as well as a recession, is not running now. And, frankly, Jeannett Slesnick — who should, and Ladra suspects will, be judged on her own merits — will make a better mayor than her husband did.

Still, this piece is worthy of applause. It highlights the bad headlines in yellow and makes the stories look like they’re on microfiche with a back background and reverse type on the dates they were published. It’s brilliant campaigning, if somewhat disingenuous. I remember those stories. In fact, I remember Mayor Slesnick complained to the Herald editors about me and asked to have me reassigned. He said I had a “hidden agenda” (don’t they always when they don’t like what I write?). But I wasn’t reassigned because there was no agenda. And when I confronted Slesnick about his complaint, I delivered a print out of all the positive stories about the city, which far outnumbered the bad ones.

Of course, voters are not going to get a mailer on those. Because, like I said, Don isn’t running to get his seat back, unlike some people. And Jeannett Slesnick is running on her own record, not anyone else’s.

Valdes-Fauli must be a bit nervous because he has been the one mostly on the attack. Sure, there have been a few mailers about his endorsements, which include Gov. Jeb Bush, whose low energy cost him the presidential nomination last year, and current empty suit and Mayor Jim Cason and commissioners Vince Lago and Frank Quesada. The message is: If you want things to stay pretty much the same and the development to continue, vote for Raul. Again, Ladra gets the feeling that whoever is running Cason would run Valdes-Fauli, too.

Meanwhile, Slesnick’s mailers have stuck to the endorsements and the issues and the reasons why she is the best candidate for the job, not why Valdes-Fauli ain’t. Voters will get a bi-fold this week with several Gables residents and leaders — including former Florida Gov. and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham (a Democrat) and former State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla (a Republican).  The mailer ran as an ad in Sunday’s Herald’s Neighbors section. Ladra likes that one if only because it has so many people in it.

She also sent a 20-page magazine about the development — her signature issue and the one thing that can help push her over the top. It details her vote on the different projects and shows that she is not against all development, only what she calls “unacceptable development that strays quite a bit from our master code.”

Perhaps she felt the need to set the record straight. Valdes-Fauli — whose had several attack mailers that intend to mislead the voters — had already sent one out that said she actually voted for the Paseo project. That’s just a lie. A lie nobody believes.

The record clearly shows she voted against it, the sole commissioner in a 4-1 vote. She did vote subsequently on votes benefit the city and to lessen the impact to residents. That’s her job. She’s not going to vote against things that are going to make an already approved project better.

The Coral Gables mayoral race this year already had an epic, Count of Monte Cristo vibe — what with the freshman, lone anti-development commissioner on the dais going up against a former mayor that was booted out 15 years ago for over-development, among other things, by said lone commissioner’s husband.

But now, it seems that former Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli has pulled the ethnic card, starting a whisper campaign that Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick is anti-Hispanic.

El pobre. His Cuban card is all he’s got going for him.

Read related story: Coral Gables mayoral race: Slesnick vs Valdes-Fauli, Vol. 2

“A lot of people say that its become an ethnic campaign because of the slate,” said Jorge de Cardenas, Valdes-Fauli’s campaign manager, who also ran the campaigns for Mayor Jim Cason. He is referring to the Riviera Neighborhood Association of homeowners who are royally pissed off at the Paseo project approval, and who apparently sought out two candidates for the commission positions. The group has morphed into a grassroots political group called Gables Neighbors United, which has endorsed Slesnick for mayor and longtime activist Marlin Ebbert and former Commissioner Wayne “Chip” Withers. They think they’ve got a cute little acronym for people to remember: SEW. Like, let’s SEW this up.

“Some of these people are going around saying ‘The Cubans are going to take over,’” de Cardenas said. “I guess we’re in Miami. That happens.”

Yes, we’re in Miami. So, sometimes, it’s just expedient to say it happens. This sounds like a campaign strategy to Ladra because (1) why would Slesnick be responsible for what some racist on South Alhambra (and they’re everywhere) has to say and (2) Guess what? The Hispanics have infiltrated the Riviera neighborhood already (they’re everywhere, too), so it would be sorta silly to say something like that — and/or dangerous.

And it’s not like there were a ton of Hispanic choices. Withers is running against another white anglo, Commissioner Pat Keon — pictured to the right in the most blonde on white, ethnic card-free race, lucky them — and while Ebbert is running in an open seat with two Hispanics, only one of them is actually viable (more on that later).

And why are we talking about this anyway? In 2017? Really? The only reason must be that it’s part of the RVF campaign narrative.

Valdes-Fauli did not return a call to his phone. But Slesnick told Ladra that she was going to stick to the issues. “I don’t know how to combat something like this. What do you do? What do you say?”

Maybe she’s right. What can you say? “I am not a racist.” Didn’t work for Richard Nixon with crook. Maybe she doesn’t need to say anything. Valdes-Fauli’s polls must show that he is trailing, with the election two weeks away on April 11th. People are already voting absentee. Time to panic. Which goes a long way to explain the Valdes-Fauli mailer where the successful residential real estate agent is tagged “Speedy Slesnick” and photo-shopped in a red race car. This is because she would rather hire more police officers to enforce the 30 MPH in residential neighborhoods than go down five MPH and still have nobody there when people blow by the required twice as many roadway signs going 50 MPH. The mailer — paid for by one of two Valdes-Fauli PACs — is so bad, it’s good. Someone, please, please save one for Ladra’s collection.

Let’s take a moment here to remind folks that this is likely Valdes-Fauli’s last chance to get back into the office he was tossed from in 2001 by Don Slesnick in a sea change election — two new commissioners were also elected — after he led the effort to close Biltmore Way to vehicular traffic and build a massive administrative annex next to historic City Hall. Ladra covered Coral Gables for the Miami Herald back then, and it seemed to me that he envisioned the building would eventually bear his name.

Valdes-Fauli has been kind of absent since that defeat, coming out of his self-imposed sore loser exile 14 years later, only to endorse Mayor Jim Cason two years ago. In hindsight, Ladra wonders if that was tit for tat since Cason, who immediately rewarded him with an appointment to the charter review committee — a classic step in making the man relevant again — has endorsed him back.

Read related story: Jim Cason runs again ’cause nobody else will

Why does Valdes-Fauli want to be mayor again now — a whole 16 years later? Might it have something to do with all the development that wants to apparently keep coming now in North Gables and along South Dixie Highway? Might he resurrect the City Hall annex idea?

Does anyone else get the impression that someone brought Valdes-Fauli out of retirement and it wasn’t really his own idea to run? Like whoever runs the empty suit that is Cason is going to run him, too?

And since he lost against a Slesnick once before, and he’s desperate, and it’s late, he has gone on the offensive. Ladra hopes Hispanic voters in the Gables see through this pandering and reject it. And I can’t help but wonder if the Cubans in North Gables with his yard signs — the same ones who supported Slesnick in 2015, then were told she was anti Hispanic — know that Valdes-Fauli went to the island and can’t stop talking about what a marvelous trip it was and praises the normalized relations with Cuba’s repressive regime. I bet nobody told them that.

But that’s not really important. The Cuba trip doesn’t make him a worse candidate. Ladra has been to Cuba several times and believes that family trips — not junkets disguised as “educational packages” — are beneficial to the parallel economy that makes the government increasingly irrelevant. It just makes him even more of a calculated sin verguenza for pulling the ethnic card.

Read related story: Jeannett Slesnick winning Gables mayoral money race

What makes Slesnick a better candidate is that she is honest in her campaign, which is mostly about her policy positions — not anybody’s ancestry — on transparency in government and over-development. Like she works super hard to sell single family homes — and everybody knows she is a workaholic — she has worked super hard in the last two years since she was elected, having multiple town hall meetings to gauge constituents’ needs and concerns and being extremely communicative. She is very accessible and is not afraid to go against the administration or the majority on the dais if its what the residents want. Slesnick truly understands that her job is about serving the people and representing their best interests and their hopes and dreams.

And that’s why she has voted four times, at least, against these big, massive developments that have a lot of people in Coral Gables on edge. She was the only no vote, in fact, on the Paseo de la Riviera project on U.S. 1 (rendition to the left), The Plaza on Ponce de Leon — which was Old Spanish Village and then became the Agave project and then Mediterranean Village before it was reborn with one word like Prince or Madonna — and 33 Alhambra. I believe the 16-story Gables Station by Grand Avenue may have been a 3-2 vote.

Funny enough, Valdes-Fauli is trying to get people to believe that she voted for one of those projects, when she simply voted for increased setbacks and lower density after the projects had already been approved. Any suggestion otherwise is disengenuous and further evidence of desperation.

That’s like trying to get them to believe that this house seller, who is an abuela to Hispanic grandchildren, is anti-Hispanic.

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.