Emilio Gonzalez Miami mayoral PAC raises almost $700K in three months

Half a mil is from candidate’s asset management firm
Even before former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez won his lawsuit against the city of Miami for cancelling this year’s election, the retired Army colonel had raised a little more than $750,000 for his mayoral run between his campaign account and his political action committee, Mission Miami.
His campaign account has raised a modest $69,280, according to the campaign finance reports for the second quarter, through June 30. But his PAC, formed in March and chaired by Tallahassee operative Christian R. Camara, raked in a jaw-dropping $681,055 in just three months. And if you think that came in $20 checks from abuelitas, think again.
El pez gordo here is a Wall Street outfit called RIA R Squared — an investment management firm that primarily serves foreign institutional investors. It’s also where Gonzalez has worked for the last five years after leaving the city manager’s job in 2020 under pressure by the commission, primarily Commissioner Joe Carollo. Gonzalez is a partner at R Squared, which manages approximately $1 billion in assets on a “discretionary basis” — and dropped not one, but two $250,000 checks to Mission Miami in April. That’s half a million bucks right there, gente. Enough to buy two condos in Allapattah. Cash.
There’s also a $15,000 contribution from Timothy Patrick Torline, who is a financial advisor at an R Squared subsidiary. And $1,000 from David Kang, the CEO of that subsidiary.
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“They believe in me,” Gonzalez told Political Cortadito, adding that he does no sales and his company does no business in the state of Florida. “They simply believe in what I stand for and my vision for the city.”
Gonzalez, who has never run for office or had a political action committee before, is starting from scratch and doesn’t have anybody to shake down like Carollo does. He doesn’t have the power of incumbency like Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, whose PAC raised $250,000 in the same period.
The other big donors to the Gonzalez Mission Miami PAC are:

$30,000 in two checks, for $18K and $12K, from Palmetto Bay’s Roger West, CEO of Pyramids Property Management.
$25,000 from SGD Offices, a Doral company with Max Alvarez as one of its principals.
$25,000 from Peninsula 2705 LLC, a North Miami Beach real estate holding.
$23,000 from the law offices of Miguel Inda-Romero.
$10,000 from the Carlos M. De La Cruz Revocable Trust in Key Biscayne.
$10,000 from Maybe Beach attorney Jay Eric Gould.
$10,000 from Juan “J.C.” Flores, a Tallahassee political operative who has worked for Marco Rubio and Carlos Giménez.
$10,000 from Black River Productions, an audio studio in Doral.

On paper, Gonzalez’s own campaign account looks modest by comparison: about $69,000 raised in Q2 from nearly 146 donors, most of them local. Notable names include:

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