Two old oak trees on Grand Avenue in Coral Gables were cut down to make way for an entrance into the Wawa gas station and convenience store that is planned for that corner, despite the opposition of many residents and parents at the elementary school across the street.

WaWa will pay a little more than $17,400 for “tree mitigation,” according to emails obtained from the city.

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In the end, the attack mailers on Coral Gables Vice Mayor Vince Lago didn’t work. His signature on a letter to Carollton School from parents and alumni protesting new curriculum on race relations didn’t sway voters. The withdrawn Miami Herald endorsement didn’t matter much.

Lago was elected the mayor of Coral Gables Tuesday in a race against Pat Keon that had gotten pretty heated in the last week or so. And by a very comfortable lead — 58% to 38%, a near perfect reflection of the polls done before any of the Carrolton stuff came to light. Jackson “Rip” Holmes got 4% (Ladra thought he would do better this year).

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The rain Sunday didn’t dampen the early voting crowd in Coral Gables as much as Ladra thought it would. There were almost as many voters as on Saturday, for a total of 1,554 ballots cast at the Coral Gables library.

Another 540 vote-by-mail or absentee ballots were stuffed into the drop box — 254 on Saturday and 286 on Sunday. That makes it a total of 2,094 votes just over the weekend.

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He made a mistake.

As many people (and voters) now know, Coral Gables Vice Mayor Vince Lago signed a letter from parents and alumni at the Carollton School of the Sacred Heart way back in September that opposed increased education about racism and black history in the wake of the George Floyd murder and ensuing protests for justice and police reform.

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Pat Keon must be desperate. She must have seen the same poll numbers that many insiders have on the Coral Gables mayoral race, where Vice Mayor Vince Lago beats her by a very comfortable double digits.

Because, this week, she has doubled down on the negative and ludicrous attacks on Lago as a developer’s dreamboat when the truth is quite the opposite. Images of Lago as a puppet or a fox in a henhouse are not only disingenuous but also just plain lies.

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It’s not a huge surprise that the Wawa gas station and convenience store planned across the street from G.W. Carver Elementary was the focal point of a Coral Gables candidate forum Thursday night organized by a coalition of parent-teacher associations.

And Ladra imagines that nobody’s answers satisfied the group of concerned parents and residents who have sued to stop the development.

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