Before Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago hand-picked attorney Richard Lara to run for city commission, in an effort to try to get his majority back with a third guaranteed vote, Lara was not at all involved in city politics. He hasn’t served on any boards. He never spoke before the commission, until he announced his run for office last year in a tacky move.
He hasn’t even voted in a single Coral Gables election since 1999.
Lara is asking for Gables residents to vote for him in this April 8 election, paints himself as a lifelong resident who cares deeply about the city. Yet he hasn’t cast a ballot in the City Beautiful in more than two decades. That’s because he lived in Westchester for a 17-year stint between calling Coral Gables home.
According to public records obtained from the Miami-Dade Elections Department, Lara has voted almost exclusively in national and state elections. He voted absentee in November, but did not vote in the primary last year. Ladra can’t help but wonder if Lago knows that Lara didn’t vote in the 2023 election, where the mayor’s two other handpicked candidates lost to commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez. Lara voted in the general election in 2022, but not in the city elections in 2021.
Read related: Coral Gables candidate Richard Lara campaigns in public comments — again
That’s because he was not eligible, or not registered to vote in the Gables election until June of 2021. Lara, who has repeatedly said he has lived in Coral Gables all his life, lived in Westchester for a spell. Miami-Dade property records show he purchased a home on Cadagua in 1998 and sold it in 2003. That could explain why he voted in the city in 1999.
But Lara hasn’t voted once since then. Not even 2001. Or after he moved back in 2021, when, county records show, he and his wife Bertha — who were married in 1997, according to the county clerk’s records — purchased their home on Coral Way for $1.5 million. Before that, Lara was registered from 2003 to 2021 to vote at a house near 97th Avenue and 30th Street owned by Bertha Canales, which is his wife’s maiden name. So, her house or her mom’s.

 
Lara, taking a page from his master’s book, did not return calls, texts and emails from Political Cortadito.
Attorney Thomas “Tom” Wells, who is running in the open seat against Lara (and transit lobbyist and onetime commission candidate Claudia Miro, too), is making this an issue. It’s smart. It is yet more evidence that Lara is just a Johnny Come Lately, and at the behest of the mayor for no other reason than to be a pocket vote on the commission dais.
At a recent forum hosted by the Gables Good Government group, Lara — whose entire campaign mirrors the issues that are hammered by Mayor Lago — tried to backtrack on the lies about living in the Gables his whole life saying that he has “always considered” Coral Gables home even though he technically lived out of the city. “His response prompted laughter from the audience,” says a story in the Coral Gables Gazette that provides a snapshot of the event.
Read related: School-based PTA forum for Coral Gables candidates has no big surprises
Strangely enough, Wells — who is endorsed by the active resident group Coral Gables Neighbors Association — also pulled the data for Lara’s wife, who did vote in the Gables elections of 2001 and 2005, which seems to indicate that she and Richard Lara were not living in the same house. Or that she committed voter fraud. Either, or. Ladra would ask the newly elected Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia to look into it, but she was at Lago’s town hall Thursday, so she may be biased.

Maybe Wells did it because he wanted to tout his wife’s own voting record, which is perfect. Dianne Wells has voted in every city election back to 1999. That’s 15 times, while Tom Wells, the candidate, has voted 10 times. He could not tell Ladra why he did not vote those years he was a no-show. “Maybe I was traveling,” he told Ladra.
But the local vote is important, he says.
“It shows commitment and passion to the city. It just shows you care,” Wells told Political Cortadito.
Records indicate that Miro, a former planning and zoning board member who ran for commission in 2021 and lost in a crowded race (Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson won in a runoff), is close behind with only one less vote in the city recorded. She was endorsed by The Miami Herald this week and is basically seen as an independent candidate. Lara is on an intentional slate with Lago and Anderson. Wells is on a defacto slate with Commissioner Kirk Menendez, who is running for mayor, and architect Felix Pardo, who is running against Anderson.
The next day, Community Newspapers — which endorsed Lara’s master, Mayor Lago, earlier — endorsed Lara, without even questioning the other candidates. Tsk, tsk. Ladra expects an endorsement for Anderson next.
Most longtime political observers believe this race (more on it later) is heading into a runoff because none of the three candidates will pull 50% plus one of the April 8 vote. That would be proof that every vote counts.
Someone better tell Lara.
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There are two new candidates for commission in the Coral Gales election this April.
It didn’t take long for someone to file to run in Group 3 after Kirk Menendez decided last week to run for mayor instead for someone to take his place. Attorney Tom Wells, who is Menendez’s appointment to the city’s charter review committee, filed Friday for the seat and will run against attorney Richard Lara, who is the mayor’s hand picked puppet.
Attorney Laureano Cancio (no relation to former Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Cancio) also filed Friday to run against Commissioner and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, who is also an attorney and a Lago puppet.
So this April’s election may be a referendum on Vince Lago.
Wells, a Gables resident for more than 30 years, has raised two daughters in the City Beautiful with his wife Diane and is an active member of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, serving as senior warden and on the vestry. He is a member of the Coral Gables Country Club, as well.
A North Gables resident, he fought to keep Burger Bob’s and then became active in the push to reopen Burger Bob’s and then the opening of it’s new reincarnation as the Birdie Bistro — which opened last month. He assists in restaurant operations on the weekends, like serving ice cream to people who recently attended the 76th Annual Junior Orange Bowl Parade. He also advocated for the renewal of the Fritz & Franz lease earlier this year.
Wells often speaks at commission meetings. He supported the ouster of former City Manager Peter Iglesias and opposed changing the election to November and the proposed 2% tax cut last year because it could affect services for a tiny savings to residents.
He said at a town hall organized by Commissioner Melissa Castro that the big winners would be the large developers. Houston-based owners of Gables Station would get a $29,408 savings while Wells’ own taxes would fall by only $94. “Why are we giving these foreign companies a tax cut that’s going to hurt our services?” He called it “a $2.65 million giveaway.”
Read related: Town hall on tiny tax cut in Coral Gables shows residents don’t want it
This pretty much aligns him with the positions of Castro, Menendez and Commissioner Ariel Fernandez, and against Mayor Vince Lago, who has been gas-lighting the commission in an egocentric battle since his two hand-picked candidates lost in the last commission race (read: referendum on Lago) two years ago. Lake Sour Grapes.
“It’s so toxic. It’s so personal,” Wells, 52, told Political Cortadito about the current state of affairs on the commission. “I think I can help restore civility in Coral Gables at City Hall.”

 
To that end, he called Lara — who announced his candidacy during public comments at a commission meeting — on Saturday, the day after he filed. “I said, ‘Let’s try to keep it clean,’” Wells told Ladra. “It’s not going to make or break either of us. It’s not going to define our lives.”
Still, he’s been hazed before at military school so he’s not scared of what may come.
He already has a website and says he won’t be doing a lot of fundraising. He expects to loan himself about $20,000 and will do a grassroots campaign. “We’re not in this to curry favors,” Wells said. “We just want people to vote and put signs in their yards.”
Cancio is a Pedro Pan kid, coming from Cuba in the Peter Pan flights for unaccompanied minor children. He grew up in Coral Gables, went to school in New York then returned 35 years ago. He went back to run the New York Marathon with his daughter, Olivia, in 2017. He lost 45 pounds training for the 26.2-mile race and was featured in the New York Post. The 74-year-old has since run three miles almost every day.
This is one of the reasons traffic is going to be one of his main issues. He sees the near collisions on his daily run and even has been close to being run over, he said. The other issues he will focus on are controlling over development — he became involved when his neighbors and he opposed a large development across from the Plaza proposed two years ago — and education. With all the new condos being built and families moving in, Cancio thinks public school options are too limited and wants to explore having the city run its own school system.
Read related: Kirk Menendez runs for Coral Gables mayor against city bully Vince Lago
He realizes that he will be running against Anderson, who  “is tied to Lago and has supported Lago in everything he’s done,” but also Lago, who is going to do whatever he can to keep his only mostly-guaranteed vote on the dais (that is, if he can pull any energy from his own campaign against challenger Menendez).
“I’m 74-years-old. I feel fine. I have an obligation to, at some point in my life, give back to my community. And I don’t like what’s going on in Coral Gables,” he said. “I’m not going to lose my job. Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m in the enviable position of having the ability to do this.”
He’s no fan of Lago’s, who he calls a “pompous ass” who “doesn’t know what he’s doing.” He said the mayor met with him and his neighbors two years ago when they were fighting the development. “The mayor is the most obnoxious mayor I’ve ever run across,” Cancio told Political Cortadito. “He was going to call the chief of police and have some of the residents arrested!”
Anderson hasn’t done much fundraising yet, with only $4,100 in her campaign account, according to campaign finance records at the city clerk’s office. Lara, the Lago plant, has raised $61,600, but only 3,000 since June, which could show a lack of true community support.
Ladra fully expects there to be more candidates very soon.
There will be thorough, ongoing coverage of the April election. To support Political Cortadito’s efforts on this beat, please consider making a donation to grassroots, government watchdog reporting. Thank you.
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