Want to meet with Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez? Got $15,000?
Apparently that’s the price for a half-hour meeting with the county’s strong mayor, the one in charge of all the purse strings and who would be instrumental in getting your retail/residential development all the green lights.
According to his calendar, Gimenez met from noon to 12:30 p.m. Thursday with Andy Hellinger, principal of Urban-X, the Coral Gables-based development firm that wants to build the $425-million River Landing Shops and Residences on 8.14 acres at 1500 NW North River Drive.
Read related: Carlos Gimenez nets $70K vs city strong mayor — for what in return?
Currently under construction, the latest version of River Landing Shops — and there have been a few — has 529 residential units and approximately 345,000 square feet of retail space along the Miami River. There will also be 2,200 parking spaces and a riverfront park and promenade.
“The ground floor of the project will have a variety of restaurants—from casual and fine dining to chef-driven concepts—with indoor and outdoor seating, opening to a landscaped linear park inspired by Manhattan’s High Line,” Hellinger told Multi-Housing News last month.
“We seek to offer retail options that our shoppers care about, including retailers that cater to Millennials that are health-conscious, tech-savvy, foodies and more.”
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But if they already started construction, then what would Hellinger need from the mayor? Funding? Now that Gimenez is raising funds for so many political action committees, maybe he has a future as a rainmaker. And as of last month, Hellinger said, roughly $117.4 million had been invested in the project, out of the total estimated cost of $424.8 million.
Or maybe Hellinger wants to make sure that other riverfront developments are not too competitive? Who knows?
What can’t be denied is that Urban-X made a $15,000 contribution to Miami Dade Residents First on Oct. 8 — the single largest donation made to finance the opposition to the Miami strong mayor initiative — and the company’s principal got an audience with Gimenez exactly one month later.
Now that’s a quick return on an investment.

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In a resounding defeat to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, voters solidly rejected the strong mayor initiative by 65% of the vote Tuesday — a signal that the new mayor doesn’t exactly have the mandate he thought he had.
Is Francis the Future suddenly the Prince of the Past?
Maybe it wasn’t a complete loss. Voters did approved the Miami Freedom Park retail complex with a soccer stadium that he lobbied so hard for. But they approved that and the lease and development of the Miami Riverfront Center property by 60 percent — and then shut Suarez down.
It was like, yeah this, sure that, and then nananina to the Suarez power grab, which he has spent several years and millions of dollars on.
It’s not just a huge blow to Baby X — whose allies on the dais just got targets on their backs — it hurts his papa, Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, who has had thoughts of running for county mayor in 2020.
It’s bittersweet for Ladra. Because while we did not support the strong arm mayor move, we certainly don’t enjoy how smug Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and his cohorts are feeling right about now. Both raised money for campaigns against the measure. We won’t know how much they spent for weeks.
And Ladra is pretty sure this sets the stage for a Gimenez run for Miami mayor in 2021. Then he will try to push forward a different strong mayor referendum that he will call strong mayor lite.
Suarez is likely going to lie low for a few days, but he already told the Miami Herald that he wanted to try again with a different, probably also “lite” version.
Ladra thinks he should try to score a few victories first and concentrate on making the voters who elected him — and who have been shaking their heads for the last few months — remember why he was once Francis the Future.

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It looks like Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo loves a good spanking.
After getting smacked down by a Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge who said his lawsuit to block the strong mayor referendum on the city ballot had absolutely no merit whatsoever, Carollo filed an appeal late Thursday — an 11th hour hail Mary to deny voters the chance to weigh in on this controversial charter change.
Carollo, who asked for an expedited hearing because the election is Tuesday, must think the strong mayor measure is passing. Why else appeal the decision this far in?
But, more importantly, who is paying for these frivolous lawsuits? What is this costing taxpayers? It’s costing them something. More than half of the eight (!) attorneys involved — including two former federal prosecutors — represent city or county employees or entities.
Read related: Judge calls Joe Carollo sore loser, rips apart strong mayor lawsuit
City Attorney Victoria Mendez represents the city, Mayor Francis Suarez and City Clerk Todd Hannon in the matter. Every hour that Mendez works on the case is paid by city taxpayers. Deputy Miami-Dade Attorney Oren Rosenthal, who makes $298,000 a year, represents Supervisor of Elections Christina White. Every hour Rosenthal works on the case is paid by county taxpayers (including city taxpayers).
But there is also outside counsel: Raquel Rodriguez, of McDonalds Hopkins, for the city and the city clerk, and Robert Martinez, of Colson, Hicks Eidson, for the mayor. Every billable hour of theirs for this case is on taxpayer’s back and on Carollo. That’s already a hefty bill for the city. Ladra made a public records request Friday for the payments or invoices so far but had not received a response as of the evening.
And we still don’t know whether the city will end up paying Carollo’s attorney, too. Mendez told Ladra on Friday that the city had made no payments to either Jesus Suarez, who filed the lawsuit, or Genovese Joblove Batista, his law firm.
But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be payments made later. Both the original motion and the appeal repeat that the plaintiff is Carollo, “individually and as commissioner of the city of Miami.”
Read related: Miami taxpayers could be on hook for Joe Carollo’s frivolous lawsuit
It’s those last six words that could leave the city on the hook.
Carollo won’t talk about it. He did not return multiple calls and text messages. But the attorneys aren’t doing this for free.
There are no legal expenditures reflected in either Carollo’s PAC or the Miami Dade Residents First, the PAC belonging to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who is using it to push a no vote.
Also, while she is not on the list of attorneys who got a copy of the notice, Gimenez daughter-in-law Tania Cruz is involved in some way. She got a text message from Jesus Suarez two minutes and three seconds after the lawsuit was first filed. “FILED,” it said, all in caps. Like he was reporting to a supervisor?
Then there are also Jennifer Blohm, Ben Keuhne and Marcos Daniel Jimenez representing the Miamians for an Independent and Accountable Mayors Initiative PAC, which gathered the petitions to put the question on the ballot. Strangely enough, Keuhne was on Carollo’s team just recently when the commissioner won a challenge to his residency.
Read related: Mayor Carlos Gimenez clan involved in Joe Carollo lawsuit vs strong mayor
One of the arguments made in the lawsuit is that the petition did not meet requirements — which Circuit Court Judge Miguel de la O ruled did not matter since it was the city commission that voted to put the measure on the ballot.
The main argument is exactly the same, which the judge categorized as tears over spilled milk: Carollo didn’t get his way on the dais and the question moved forward to the ballot. So he took his gripe to court.
Does this mean that he’s going to legally challenge other decisions that go against him on the dais?
Because that can get expensive.

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As the war of words between Carlos Gimenez and his family and Xavier Suarez and his family continues to heat up, a new radio spot paid by the Suarez PAC began to air Tuesday — calling Gimenez a fraud.
Suarez narrates the Spanish language, 60-second spot and makes comparisons between Gimenez and his son, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, asking voters to reject all the county questions on the ballot and vote yes on the three charter amendment questions in the city.
“Democracy gives us the opportunity to reward politicians who represent us well and punish those who defraud us,” Suarez starts, after introducing himself.
“In the city of Miami, Mayor Francis Suarez has worked like a champion for the people. He kept his promise and immediately took out the red light cameras. He goes to the comedores and community meetings day after day. He added free trolleys all over the city. And he connected us by rail to Broward and Palm Beach.
“He asks us to vote yes to the three questions on the ballot,” Suarez says.
Read related: Hypocrite Carlos Gimenez knocks strong mayor, petition pay
“Meanwhile, the county mayor has misspent the half penny tax, to the tune of $100 million a year, and he’s taken control of MDX with its tolls and unnecessary construction,” Suarez said.
“Say no to Gimenez. Vote against the referendums for the county. Vote yes for our Mayor Francis Suarez. Vote yes to the questions in the city of Miami.”
The spot is paid for by Imagine Miami, the senior Suarez’s PAC, which, according the the latest campaign finance reports available, hasn’t raised any money since July and has only spent $20,000 since September, mostly on donations to other candidates and PACs. There is still more than half a million available there to be used through Nov. 6. We’ll find out how much Suarez spent on producing and airing the ad in the next report. Ladra expects it to be on the radio a lot.
In comparison, Gimenez, who is indeed chair of the MDX board, has raised $70,000 for his PAC just in the last two months, using it to send at least four or five mailers urging Miami voters to reject the strong mayor referendum. He’s used the opportunity to attack both Papa X — his nemesis, as his strongest critic on the commission — and Baby X, who las malas lenguas say he will challenge in 2021.
Last month, after Suarez tweeted about $100 million in MDX monies that seemed missing from the budget, but were added later under capital improvements, Gimenez got personal, taking a swipe at X’s time as Miami Mayor and saying he left the city in better shape when he left as city manager, presenting budget figures that sources say his staff got through a public records request at the city.
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That would be a second time Gimenez uses county staff or officials for his family feud. The first was when he got Commissioner Rebeca Sosa to tie up the CITT request to disentangle the half-penny tax funds from the operational budget. That vote by the board that voters created to oversee the tax they voted for in 2002 has still not been presented to commissioners (more on that later).
“I have dealt with him politely, almost obsequiously,” said Suarez, who did dial his criticism down last year before ratcheting it up again this summer.
“He has promised me he was going to do it [detangle the half-penny tax funds from the general budget] three or four times — in my house, with his son present — and then went back on all those promises that he made not only to me personally but to the electorate, which is more important.”
Then he went after Baby X, which is unforgivable.
Read related: Carlos Gimenez nets $70K vs city strong mayor — for what in return?
“Without any particular reason, without any consultation, without any discussion, he went after the strong mayor in the city,” Suarez the senior said. “He is already the strong mayor in the county. He has the airport, the seaport, water and sewer and plus now he has MDX. What more do you want?”
He wants to land as mayor in the city of Miami, unseating your boy. That’s what.
“That’s laughable,” Suarez said.
Ouch. Strong words again. Ladra fears that Gimenez will strike back.
“How can he hurt me? Gimenez is termed out,” Suarez said. “I don’t see a political future for him.”

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Last June, when Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez went on vacation, he designated his authority to Deputy Mayor Jack Osterholt.
When he went to Asia for two weeks from March 13 through the 28th this year and when he went to Israel for a week in November 2017, Gimenez also delegated all his “delegable authority” to Osterholt.
When he attended the Socrata Summit in Washington D.C. and to meet with Dell in Austin in October of 2015, he put then Deputy Mayor Alina Hudak in charge.
When Gimenez went to China in September 2015, he delegated to Deputy Mayor Ed Marquez. Poor Deputy Mayor Russell Benford only gets a Saturday here and there, like a dog gets a bone.
Even when he is gone for a day or an afternoon, Gimenez will delegate his duties and authority to someone of  his choosing to act as a temporary boss in his absence. Our globe-trotting county mayor names his own replacement — someone who was not elected — whether he is off with his wife or traveling with lobbying buddies, playing golf around the world or taking the afternoon off for a secret off-the-books meeting.
In fact, Gimenez has designated someone to be the de facto acting mayor more than two dozen times since 2015, which is as far back as one can search correspondence on the mayor’s website, using keywords “out of office.” There are likely more than we even thought. Ladra sent a public records request asking for them Monday, but we were still waiting for the complete list Friday.
So it makes him at best selfish and at worst a hypocrite when he claims that part of the issue he has with the strong mayor referendum in Miami is that the strong mayor would be able to name a successor who would temporarily step in should the mayor resign or be removed from office.
Yet, that is precisely one of the issues he has, Gimenez told Humberto Cortina Friday on Radio Mambi, where he got a free hour — maybe it was free because you know how Spanish-language radio is — to trash the referendum.
He wants to be the only strong mayor in town.
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Gimenez says all this with a straight face, like he’s not grooming Commission Chairman Esteban Bovo to be his hand-picked heir so that he still has a hand in operations (read: procurement) and his friends and family plan can stay pretty much intact.
And the mayor, who was ushered in post recall, wants to make sure he is not recalled himself too easily, which is why he also told listeners to vote for the county referendum that prohibits paying petition gatherers per signature. Good enough to recall former mayor Carlos Alvarez, to make room for Gimenez, but not good enough for him now.
There is not one single amendment or referendum question that the mayor campaigns for or against because it is the right or wrong thing to do. It’s all about self interest. Or self preservation.
Gimenez also spoke against state amendment 3, putting gambling in the hands of voters — because then his lobbying sons don’t have as many opportunities — and state amendment 10, which would give us an elected sheriff and supervisor of elections, because he doesn’t want his hand picked successor to lose that power that he’s been able to abuse so freely.
Read related: Elected Miami-Dade Sheriff, SOE could curb mayor’s abuse of power
But he only spent a total of five minutes on the other questions, focusing the hour-long interview on the strong mayor measure.
“This gives too much power to one person. Not Francis Suarez because we don’t know who comes behind Francis Suarez,” Gimenez said on Radio Mambi regarding the current mayor, who happens to be the son of his nemesis on the county commission. Francis Suarez being strong mayor would only help his father, Commissioner Xavier Suarez, if he were to run for top dog in the county, and Gimenez doesn’t want that.
Self interest.
Ladra may also believe that the Miami strong mayor measure should be rejected by voters because it gives too much power to one person. Gimenez is living proof.
But let’s not stop there. The strong mayor structure at the county should be eliminated — and that question should be on the next countywide ballot.

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A mailer landed in Miami mailboxes this week from Joe Carollo‘s electioneering communications organization, Miami First, telling voters that Mayor Xavier Suarez is being dishonest about the strong mayor referendum and asking them to say no and punch 383.
Ladra wasn’t surprised that it broke election law. ECOs, similar to a political action committees but with different rules, can refer to a candidate or issue only “without expressly advocating the election or defeat.” Seems that “say no to” and adding the punch number advocates defeat.
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But it’s no surprise, first, because it’s Joe Carollo, who cares very little about those technicalities and, second, because his alleged mailer consultant is Tania Cruz, the daughter-in-law of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who is relatively new at this.
Yet, for someone who makes stupid mistakes, the girl is already banking, getting more than half of the $188,130 spent by Miami First, with $101,585 for consulting and mailers. Add that to the $60K the wife of lobbyist mayoral son CJ Gimenez got from the campaign account, first reported on Political Cortadito last month, and it’s a total of $161,000 so far from Carollo to Cruz. Which, yeah, sure, she may have to split with former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who seems to have taught her a thing or two, but it’s still a good amount.
Read related: Joe Carollo files late campaign report with $60K to mayor’s daughter in law 
And she ain’t the only one in her family on Carollo’s payroll. Barby Rodriguez Gimenez, the other daughter-in-law married to the bad boy son, got paid $14,269 for “consulting” also. If you add it all up, the Gimenez clan has been paid at least $175,000 by Carollo since last year.
It breaks down like this:

$10,000 for Barby Rodriguez on Jan. 10 for consulting
$37,384.05 to Tania Cruz on Nov. 18 for consulting
$15,758.52 to Tania Cruz on Nov. 11 for consulting
$17,641.80 to Tania Cruz on Oct. 25 for mailers
$17,641.80 to Tania Cruz on Oct. 21 for mailers
$13,159.30 to Tania Cruz on Oct. 7, 2017 for mailers
$4,269 to Barby Rodriguez on Sept. 27, 2017 for consulting

Cruz also got bank from the Ultra Music Festival organizers, who hired her as a lobbyist so they could get a meeting with Carollo, who ended up stabbing them in the back, maybe so he could do CJ a favor.
Read related: Ultra out for Formula 1 could be Joe Carollo nod to CJ Gimenez
But don’t worry. This hasn’t been a one way street. The cash flowed the other way when Gimenez paid Carollo $6,000 a month for years through his PAC. We never knew what that was for. Maybe he was sewing the seeds for this.
And you know there’s more coming. These figures are just through the last campaign report, which counts through Oct. 12. Miami First hasn’t shown any activity from May, when it collected $48,000 from development interests on two separate days. The last expenditure was to La Rue Management for $3,000 worth of more consulting.
We have to wait until the 19th to see next one with this mailer’s expenses on it.
And to see how much more the mayor’s daughter-in-law gets paid.

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