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.
Read related: Mayor Carlos Gimenez clan involved in Joe Carollo lawsuit vs strong mayor
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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People watching the City of Miami meeting last week were surprised when Commissioner Joe Carollo went with the majority and voted against the very contract he helped negotiate with Ultra Music Festival organizers, even after getting everything he demanded.
The three-day electronic music event was kicked out of Bayfront Park, its home the past 18 years, when commissioners voted Sept. 27 unanimously not to renew their contract for next year. They cited the noise and traffic bothering downtown residents as their prime concerns.
But in reality Carollo is just trying to trade in one noise and traffic nightmare for another: Formula One racing. He thinks that if he can appease the downtown residents on Ultra — there, I did that for you — then it will be easier to sell the Miami Grand Prix.
Read related: Joe Carollo files late campaign report, with $60K to mayor’s daughter-in-law
And he’s doing it for his new BFF, lobbyist CJ Gimenez, son of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez. CJ represents Formula One racing interests.
But what people need to know is that its not apples for oranges.
Yes, the Formula 1 racing would likely not extend into the wee hours of the morning like Ultra does. But the noise is arguably worse and the traffic is still going to be a nightmare. And the agreement negotiated so far with the city manager provides far less rent to the city than Ultra, whose organizers had agreed to pay $2 million annually to the city for the three day use of the park, a demand Carollo had made.
Read related: Why is Joe Carollo on Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s camp’s payroll
But Carollo and the Gimenez clan have a very special relationship. It’s a relationship where Mayor Gimenez was paying him $6,000 a month through his political action committee — for what? nobody knows — and where Crazy Joe paid the mayor’s daughter-in-law Tania Cruz, an attorney, almost $60,000 for mailers and campaign work. Both CJ and Tania, photographed right at a 2017 campaign event, were very present during Carollo’s commission contest and Cruz helped represent him after Alfie Leon challenged his residency.
Yes, it was an anonymous vote to deny Ultra another year. But Carollo was the one who negotiated and brought the contract to the table. Was it sabotage? Did he bring a poison pill?
Why wouldn’t he make it easier for his pal CJ to get Formula One passed? Todo en familia.

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Authorities need to investigate the latest campaign finance report filed Monday by Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, and not because it’s several months late, for which the commissioner should be fined.
One expenditure on the campaign termination report — which closes out the account for the 2017 campaign — smells questionable and should raise eyebrows in law enforcement circles: A $59,820.47 payment for mailers to Tania Cruz on November 20.
Tania Cruz is not a campaign consultant who does mailers, even though she billed almost $100,000 total to Carollo’s campaign for just that. She is an attorney who also got $1,300 paid in the same Carollo report for legal fees, and, more importantly, the daughter-in-law of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez. She is married to the mayor’s lobbyist son, CJ Gimenez, who has become nearly a fixture in Carollo’s office. She was emailed by Carollo’s attorney against the strong mayor referendum two minutes after he received confirmation the case was filed.
Read related: Mayor Carlos Gimenez clan involved in Joe Carollo lawsuit vs strong mayor
She is also, however, the rumored girlfriend of Alex Diaz de la Portilla, (remember that Boston Police caught them smoking in a hotel room together?) who is said to be the real author behind some of Carollo’s more hateful mailers calling Tommy Regalado a communist and  Zoraida Barreiro a whore.
But those mailers would have been sent weeks earlier, like when Tania Cruz (photographed here talking to Carollo’s wife on the campaign trail) got $3,382 on October 13 or $5,640 on October 23 or $5,880.60 on October 25. At the very  least, they would have been covered by the $17,998 paid on November 6, which was when both Regalado and Barreiro were eliminated anyway.
That’s a total of $39,900 to Tania Cruz (aka Alex Diaz de la Portilla) for the first round.
But another $60K would have covered, more or less, 10 mailers, according to sources who are legitimate vendors and do this kind of thing for real. Ten mailers sent between November 6 and the runoff Nov. 20 against Alfie Leon? Seems unusual, at best, a complete fabrication at worst, that there were 10 negative mailers sent.
Read related: Gimenez family hit in Senate campaign… ADLP’s wag the dog?
“It seems calculated, like that was exactly what was left over at the end of the campaign,” said one legitimate campaign consultant who knows what he’s talking about.
“It’s a shell game. No way they sent 10 mailers at the end like that,” said another.
So what did that money really pay for? Or who did it really go to?
Mail is pretty easy to track down and prove. Even the United States Postal Service should have records. This should not be a difficult thing for the State Attorney’s Office to look into.
Or maybe it can be the 18th complaint against Joe Carollo at the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust?

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There’s no mention of them in the lawsuit filed Tuesday by Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo against the city and Mayor Francis Suarez in an attempt to stop the strong mayor vote, but the county mayor’s family is involved.
While the emergency complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief was filed in Miami-Dade 11th Circuit Court by Jesus Suarez, an attorney with Genovese Joblove and Battista, an email shot out that very night shows who had to be notified as soon as possible: Tania Cruz, the mayor’s daughter-in-law, and Carlos Gimenez, who could be the mayor’s lobbyist son or the mayor himself — but there’s really no difference as evidenced by last month’s elections interference.
The email was sent just before midnight, two minutes and three seconds after Suarez got notice of the filed documents. It had only one word in it: “FILED” All in caps. Like “DONE” or “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.” Like he is reporting to his real boss.
Genovese Joblove and Battista has long been affiliated with Gimenez and once employed his other daughter-in-law, Barby Rodriguez.
Cruz, who is married to the mayor’s lobbyist son, was the attorney of record for the Carollo campaign and represented him, alongside Ben Kuehne, during the challenge to his district residency brought on by Alfie Leon. Is she consulting now, too?
And CJ Gimenez, the lobbyist son that this is probably addressed to, has been with Carollo since the campaign and now beyond, helping him get an extension from Papi as head of the county elections department for the wording on the strong mayor ballot question and, now, helping Carollo challenge the measure in court.
The lawsuit — which also names Miami City Clerk Todd Hannon, Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor (by proxy) Christina White and the political action committee Miamians for an Independent and Accountable Mayor’s Initiative as defendants — argues that the “ambiguous and intentionally misleading” ballot language doesn’t clearly tell voters what the mayor’s compensation will be under the strong mayor change (watch this become the crux of an anti campaign) and other changes that take power away from the commission. It also argues that the petitions themselves are invalid because some of the circulators are not registered Miami-Dade voters, as required by county code.
Read related: Carlos Gimenez abuses power in election interference for lobbyist son
Interesting  points that seem to have merit. Ladra is not sure she likes the strong mayor idea, either. I mean, look how great it’s been for the county. And the Suarez version is even more powerful and convoluted (more on that later).
But I’m more interested right now in how deeply involved Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez is in this fight. And why?
First he abuses his power to intervene in the elections process on behalf of his lobbyist son and Carollo, getting the commissioner a one week extension because Carollo thought he could kill the referendum measure with time. Gimenez didn’t get the extension for Suarez, who had previously sought an extension of a few days but was told he couldn’t have one and wanted to have the ballot language approved at a special city commission meeting Aug. 6. No, he did that for Carollo, who still couldn’t deliver even after Gimenez took over the elections department and deemed himself the elections supervisor.
And now the Gimenez family is behind, er, um, consulted on a lawsuit against the ballot measure.
What lengths will Gimenez go to on this issue? Isn’t it too bad he’s not as passionate about rail?
A Getty miage captures a much happier and friendlier Francis Suarez and Carlos Gimenez on Marlins opening day.
Is this just an opportunity to muddy Suarez on behalf of Carollo and his son’s career, or is there something more personal at stake? Las malas lenguas say Gimenez has long thought about running for Miami mayor after he is termed out at the county in 2020. Is this the tailgate party? But then, wouldn’t he want the strong mayor measure to pass.
Some political observers believe it’s going to pass anyway, given Miami’s sewn-up vote, and that this presents Gimenez with an opportunity to muddy Suarez while allowing for the strong mayor vote to pass and then using the younger mayor’s inexperience against him in 2021.
It could happen. God help us. At least it is one explanation behind the Gimenez clan involvement in this lawsuit. Have another?

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