In a span of eight days after the Coral Gables election earlier this month and before the runoff in Commission Group 3 Tuesday, attorney candidate Richard Lara — who hasn’t voted in the city since 1999 — raised more than $102,800. Eight days!
That is a huge injection into his campaign account, which totals almost $272,000 as of April 17, according to the latest campaign finance reports, and further impacts this already lopsided race. It’s the largest amount in one single report since he began fundraising last year. The second largest is his first report of $45,000 — but that was over the course of three months.
It’s not only because Lara came in with pole position in the first round — getting 47% to attorney Tom Wells‘ 39% — but also because he has the support of both Mayor Vince Lago and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, who won his re-election handily. Many of the contributions between April 9 and April 17 are real estate or development related, from lobbyists (Lago’s brother Carlos Lago gave $1,000) or Lago loyalists, like former commissioners Frank Quesada and Wayne “Chip” Withers, as well as attorney and University of Miami booster John Ruiz, whose LifeWallet company was under a Department of Justice investigation last year for fraud.
Included in the contributions were $5,000 from developer Armando Codina, $5,000 from developer Tom Cabrerizo and $3,000 from three of the late Sergio Pino‘s companies that now belong to his estranged wife, Tatiana Pino.
Read related: Coral Gables mayor’s power hinges on runoff — Richard Lara vs Tom Wells
And Lara is spending it faster than he gets it, with $145,000 going just in one April 17 check to consultant Alex Miranda for advertising. That’s more than half the $245,250 Lara has spent in total. It may include the cost of several mailers he has sent out to voters, including one with an endorsement from his wife and a couple that attack Wells on the same exact arguments that Lago used to attack Commissioner Kirk Menendez, who lost his mayoral challenge with 55% of the vote April 8.

Lara also spent $3,000 to rent the Coral Gables museum for his watch party event and reimbursed himself $95.88 for an email expense.
That’s just from Lara’s campaign account. Mayor Lago is also using his political action committee, Coral Gables First, to benefit his handpicked yes vote, paying for mailers and text messages. Lago has a lot riding on this runoff.
Wells is the only thing standing between Vince Lago and anything he wants. He is the last defense against a new mayoral majority that will revisit the annexation of Little Gables, roll back the salary increases for commissioners, try to move the election to November and lower taxes for their developer friends, who will feel empowered with the Lago slate. Wells is independent, in the sense that he has gone against both the mayor and the other faction on the dais, favoring a national search for a new city manager rather than an on-the-spot appointment. He is not beholder to anybody.
Read related: Coral Gables election choice is a Vince Lago yes vote or an independent voice
While he has the endorsement of The Miami Herald and Coral Gables United, the political branch of the Coral Gables Neighbors Association, Wells is woefully underfunded in comparison, paying for everything out of his own pocket to the tune of $19,000, so far.
He’s that committed to the City Beautiful. He’s willing to put his own skin in the game.
Richard Lara hasn’t even voted in the city since 1999. He is simply a puppet for the mayor to get his majority back and move his agenda along without any checks and balances.

Turnout has been lower for the runoff, with almost 13.5% of the registered 34,017 voters in the Gables. The turnout for the first round was almost 30%. Of the 4,580 votes cast as of Sunday the end of early voting Sunday night, more than half, or 2,789, are absentee or vote-by-mail ballots. On Saturday, 1,155 people voted early. On Sunday, it was 636.
But that was Easter Sunday so it’s not as bad as it could have been.
Voters have one more day — Election Day on Tuesday. There are 14 polling locations open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
And then we will either have two years of Vince Lago running roughshod over everyone and doing whatever he wants, or two years of a more balanced and civilized commission where no one person has all the power.
The post Richard Lara pulls in $103K for Coral Gables runoff Tuesday vs Tom Wells appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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The Coral Gables election is almost over with early voting this weekend for the runoff coming Tuesday. The choice is between two attorneys: Richard Lara, general counsel for Spanish Broadcasting Systems, and the handpicked candidate, groomed by Mayor Vince Lago — who was just solidly re-elected — and Tom Wells, a member of the city’s charter advisory board who has spoken at the commission meeting 14 times in the last several months and is likely to be more independent.
Much more independent.
In fact, many of the mailers for Lara that Gables voters are getting in their mailbox almost every day come from Lago’s political action committee, Coral Gables First. Lago needs Lara desperately if he is going to move his agenda — which would include annexing Little Gables and building a multi-million dollar mobility hub — forward. That’s all Lara is there for — to give the mayor back the majority he lost shortly after Commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez beat his candidates in 2023.
Lara won’t be independent. He can’t be. Lago will have put him there for a purpose. His will have to be loyal and complicit.
Read related: Coral Gables mayor’s power hinges on runoff — Richard Lara vs Tom Wells
Wells was a de facto member of the losing slate in the first round this election, but only because the same people who supported him supported Commissioner Kirk Menendez for mayor and architect Felix Pardo for commission against Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson. He is the anti-Lago candidate inasmuch as he is not Lara, the decidedly pro-Lago candidate. But he has spoken against measures taken by the other faction: Menendez, Castro and Fernandez.
So he is nobody’s go-to pocket vote, like Lara would be. In fact, he would be a much needed swing vote on that dais, able to go whichever way the wind blows best for residents.
Wells sent an email Friday, hours after getting The Miami Herald endorsement, explaining how his campaign had started about restoring civility and now it’s about stopping voting blocks.
“Our five-person commission needs five independent decision makers to address the needs and issues of all neighborhoods,” Wells wrote. “I am independent, and as your next commissioner, will vote independently on each issue in the best interest of you, the residents.”
That independence is also reflected in the fact that he is self-financing his campaign. He is not taking any special interest money. In the end, and ironically, that could be what ends him. No money to counter the messages that the other side — including Lago’s PAC — is hammering voters with.
At last count, through April 3, Lara raised more than $169,000, according to the most recent campaign finance report, and still had about $75K in the bank. Wells has spent less than half of that, or more than $36,000 of his own money, according to his reports. At some point, that’s going to hurt. Especially if it doesn’t make a difference.
Lara’s messaging has stayed pretty consistent with Lago’s platform. Even though it’s harder to attack Wells on them because he is not an elected already, like Menendez, they still have. Wells won’t immediately rescind the salary increases for the mayor and commissioners that Mayor Lago promised to roll back. Lara promises to roll them back also. Not a coincidence.
He also wants to change the election to November from April. And agrees with a tiny cut that would save the average homeowner less than $100 but the big property owners and developments tens of thousands in taxes, and possibly cut services.

Lara sounds like a parrot. Lara the loro. And, if he wins, people better get used to it. Lago is going to be getting an echo from both his left and his right side on the dais. Speaking of which, Anderson, who also won pretty handily April 8, also endorsed El Loro.
Several of the mailers sent out for Lara notes that he is endorsed by “trusted local publications,” citing the Community News and Coral Gables Magazine. Trusted must be a subjective term. At that time, Wells did not have the Herald endorsement, like he has now. The Herald said both candidates were good, but that Wells was simply better prepared. Lara, they suggested, should try joining a city board, if he wants to be involved.
That’s a good one. Because Lara obviously doesn’t want to be involved. He doesn’t even vote. This was all Vinnie’s idea.
Read related: Coral Gables candidate Richard Lara has not voted in the city since 1999
Lara — who, remember, hasn’t voted in a city election in Coral Gables since 1999 — also got the endorsement, as predicted by Political Cortadito, from transit lobbyist Claudia Miro, who lost the first round with only 13.5% of the vote against Lara’s 47% and Wells’ 39%. Many people expected Miro, who shares Lago contributors like former Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff — who she used to work for — to endorse Lara. In fact, some of them think she was planted all along to thwart the race. There will be far fewer turnout this Tuesday, April 22, than there was last week. It’s Easter weekend. People are out of town. That could affect the outcome.
It could work in Wells’ favor, if the people who come out to vote are the engaged residents who are already involved and know the truth from the propaganda they’re getting in the mail and on their phones. Lago is not on the ballot, so some people will just forgo the runoff and let whatever happens, happen.
Wells got the Herald endorsement, as noted. But wouldn’t anybody who is swayed by that already be voting for him? And, again, he really doesn’t have the money to get that message out, anyway.
Meanwhile, there is money being spent on smear campaigns that have gotten their way to another blog, citing two sources that say they saw Wells at the Master’s golf tournament last weekend in Augusta, Ga. Even though Wells said he hadn’t gone — though he usually gets tickets comped by one of his clients — and been to Charleston to visit his mother in the hospital, instead.
“Just like anybody else might feel in that position, I did not want to end up having any regrets because I didn’t go,” Wells told Political Cortadito. He flew in the day after the election and flew back two days later, on Friday, to campaign.

Ladra bets the two “sources” that allegedly saw him in Georgia were Lara himself and Lago lackey Nicholas Cabrera, the self-described “prince of Coral Gables” who is serving as Lara’s body man on the campaign (because, surely, Jesse Manzano is running that show).
Other smear campaigns include that he has promised to make Menendez city manager in exchange for his endorsement. First, Menendez hasn’t endorsed Wells and, secondly, he would not really be the best choice from a national search, which is what Wells advocated for when the commission fired former manager Peter Iglesias. He still would go that route if the current city manager were to resign. Wells spoke at a city meeting against the position held by Castro, Fernandez and Menendez on that one — and no, the other two candidates have not endorsed him, either. And, no, Fernandez is not running his campaign.
This all smells like desperation on the part of Lago, er, we mean Lara. Aren’t they super confident they’ll come in ahead?
Wells’ only endorsement has been from Gables Neighbors United, an affiliate of Coral Gables Neighbors Association — an active group of residents focused on fighting overdevelopment — and, now, The Miami Herald. And the only people working on his campaign are his wife, Diane, and some friends. And gratis.
“I think it is wrong to get any elected official to endorse a candidate,” Wells says. “This is up to the residents to choose. Why would an elected official intervene in an election? I know that is what Mayor Lago and Vice-Mayor Anderson have done for Mr. Lara because they are running a slate — and I think it is wrong.
“I am independent. I would appreciate the vote of Commissioners Fernandez and Castro — as well as any other resident — but not their endorsement.”
Read related: Vince Lago, Rhonda Anderson handily coast to re-election in Coral Gables
Sue Kawalerski, the president of Coral Gables Neighbors Association, said that the residents deserve checks and balances on the dais.
“He wants a one-side commission,” Kawalerski said about Lago. “We need a balance of power and the only independent candidate is Tom Wells. He won’t be on one side or another, she said. “He will be on our side.”
Wells has also committed to stop any efforts on the city’s behalf to annex Little Gables, because city voters overwhelmingly rejected the idea on a ballot question last August with 63% of the vote. Gables voters don’t want to absorb the $23 million cost that it would take just over the first five years to bring Little Gables into the City Beautiful fold. Lago, who has been obsessed with this annexation and whose brother used to lobby for the largest property owner in Little Gables, has not made the commitment to let it go. He voted against dropping it last year after the vote, because he said there was low turnout. So he will try again.
Wells also commits to keeping the zoning code intact and not grant exceptions and variances to developers for larger and denser projects that increase traffic and burden other city services.
Ladra and some Gables observers and critics of Lago’s are worried that if Lara wins, that means that there will be no checks and balances on the commission, the mayor will have the power he needs to run over the wishes of residents or business owners he doesn’t like and the temperature on the dais will get even hotter. But developers will be happy.
And so will Lago, who will have free reign for the next two years and be even more insoportable than he is already.
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“¡Cobarde! ¡Mudo!”
Coward! Voiceless! These are the names the narrator calls Congressman Carlos Gimenez in a video released Thursday that shames the former Miami-Dade mayor for his silence and complicity on Donald Trump’s immigration policies, including the rollback of protected status for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, many of whom live in his community.
“Where is Carlos Gimenez hiding? Trump is stripping 500,000 cubanos, nicaraguenses y venezolanos of legal status, sending them back to hell,” the narrator says in the 30-second spot, which is viewable on YouTube.
“Nuestros compatriotas are stranded in tyranny and dictatorship and this monster is killing millions that fund charities and people that would have helped them,” the narrator says, in very cubanaso language, referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development. “He even blew up Radio and TV Marti.”
Read related: Downtown Miami protest planned Saturday vs Donald Trump policies
Ladra can’t help but wonder if Gimenez and the other Cuban-American legislators are proud that Trump was able to do something that Fidel Castro tried desperately for decades to do but could not — end Radio and TV Marti.
“And all this time Carlos Gimenez has stayed silent. Coward! Mute! Betraying us all,” the man in the video says.
Well, not entirely silent. Gimenez was on WPLG Local 10’s This Week in South Florida last month and admitted to Glenna Milberg that he was not “entirely sure” what Trump’s cuts mean for TV Marti and Radio Marti. While Democrat Congresswoman and non-Cuban Debbie Wasserman-Schultz blasted the end of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Gimenez seemed to stand by Trump’s decision, while still promising to do something — in the future.
“I think it has to be evaluated and each agency head is going to do that. The people may be placed on administrative leave for a while, but you can be certain the the three republican members from South Florida will be fighting to maintain effective broadcasting to Cuba,” Gimenez said on the popular Sunday morning show. “There may have been some doubts about the effectiveness of TV Martí and Radio Martí recently during the Biden administration. We want to make sure that if it is reconstituted and it continues, that it’s effective.”
What? So Biden is being criticized now for the way the OCB communicated during the last four years? Can you imagine what would happen if Biden or another Democrat had called for the end of Radio and TV Martí? Protests that paralyze the expressways and shouts of  “¡Communista!” on Cuban radio. That’s what would happen.
The video ends with a call to action and the display of the congressman’s district office phone number. “Call Carlos Gimenez and tell him to man up to Trump.”
That number, by the way, is 305-222-0160.
The ad is sponsored by Keep Them Honest, Inc., a group that has formed to call out these liars and hypocrites. There is no political action committee or information on the Florida Division of Corporations website. And their address in Kendall is of a shared workspace office. This is their first video.

Cubanos Con Biden co-founder Chris Wills, who also worked with former Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey in his congressional campaign last year, told Political Cortadito there would be more.
“As somebody who was born and raised in South Florida, the son of a Cuban exile mom and a Venezuelan exile dad, I’m hearing from my own family, my neighbors, my friends that not only is there an incredible amount of fear over this mass deportation and taking away of legal status from those who have fled dictatorships, but increasingly there is a lot more disappointment and feeling of betrayal from Carlos Gimenez,” Wills said.
He said Gimenez and his counterparts on the Miami-Dade delegation have the power, because they represent three Republican votes, to force the administration to change its position on temporary protected status, which was revoked last month for more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
“If the three of them would unite and hold their votes, it would stop the Trump agenda in its tracks, until he resolves TPS,” Wills told Ladra.
Read related: Cuban American congress members stay silent on TPS, immigrant detention
Gimenez and Congress Members Mario Diaz-Balart and Maria Elvira Salazar, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a true hypocrite who has gone against everything he used to stand for, were also targets of a billboard off the Palmetto Expressway — right smack between Hialeah and Doral — paid for by the Miami-Dade Hispanic Democratic Caucus calling them traitors to the community and the American Dream.
While Congresswoman Frederica Wilson and Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava demand tours of the Krome Detention Center, where there are reports of overcrowded chaos and unsafe and unsanitary conditions, these Cuban-American politicians — who pander to the Venezuelan and Colombian vote, also — have not. Emails to his spokesman, Roberto Lugones, have gone unanswered. Constituent Services Director Beatriz Viera, reached at the congressional district office Friday morning, said she did not know anything about a tour but assured Ladra that Gimenez was “working very closely with the administration.”
So, then, he’s not just silent. Gimenez is complicit.

Viera, who was only in the office to receive the submissions for a congressional art contest, downplayed any criticism, saying that there were many people who supported how Gimenez was handling the current administration.
“That sign is irrelevant,” she said about the billboard. “That’s the party that’s against him.”
Wills said that Gimenez an the others “have refused to actually take any meaningful action to help those immigrants and families who are living with monumental fear.” He added that business owners are also feeling the pinch as fewer people fill restaurants and retail stores, staying home instead to avoid the authorities. He’s also noticed an increase in police presence, even before Doral and Homestead became the latest cities in Miami-Dade to sign 287g agreements with the federal government to help the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department in the identification and detention of illegal immigrants (more on that later).
Read related: Maria Elvira Salazar takes credit for judge extending TPS for Venezuelans
“This is not the America that Carlos Gimenez, Maria Elvira Salazar, Marco Rubio and Mario Diaz-Balart were brought to or raised in, to believe that we all should be hopeful of achieving the American Dream,” Wills said. “We have an immigrant community that is living the American nightmare.”
Where is Carlos Gimenez hiding? Behind a bill he has proposed to create a federal task force to focus on security for the upcoming major intentional events coming to the U.S. over the next four years — including the FIFA World Cup, some of which will be played in South Florida, America’s 250th birthday celebrations next year, and the 2028 Olympics. He’s hiding behind a call to end travel and remittances to Cuban families on the island prison from Cuban families in the U.S. (mostly in Miami). He’s hiding behind a petition to the Department of Homeland Security to deport Cuban nationals he believes to be regime agents. While Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen visits the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, to make sure that Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a man married to a U.S. citizen with U.S.-born children who the Trump administration admits was deported in error and ordered returned by a federal judge — hasn’t yet been killed, Gimenez is hiding in Guantanamo on a trip to check out the concentration camps where Trump had planned to send illegal immigrants.
He couldn’t help but take a selfie, ’cause he was in Cuba for the first time in 64 years.
Gimenez is just too busy to stand up for his community, right?
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Ironically, lawmakers want to repeal Parkland gun law
 
The inevitable barrage of “thoughts and prayers” is coming.
A mass shooting Thursday at Florida State University in Tallahassee ended with the death of two people and the injury of five others. Phoenix Ikner, a 20-year-old political science student, was taken into custody. The son of a former sheriff’s deputy reportedly used his mother’s service gun. CNN reported that other students said he had expressed extreme right, anti-diversity views on campus.
That hasn’t been independently confirmed and there are certainly going to be other factors involved. There are still details being learned today.
But what we do know is that this is the sixth mass shooting in Florida just since January, according to Wikipedia.
And yet, about a mile from the FSU campus at the state capital, the Republican-led Florida Legislature is actually considering a repeal of the gun control law that was passed weeks after the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, in which 17 people were gunned down by a 19-year-old with a semi-automatic rifle, which basically stopped most people under 21 from purchasing certain types of guns and rifles. They can still get one as a gift, which should also be illegal.
Read related: Florida Republican aims to undo post Parkland gun laws
In fact, the repeal passed the Florida House last month in a 78-34 vote mostly along party lines. It could die in the Senate, where similar bills have died in 2023 — when lawmakers did pass the open carry law — and 2024 . But why is it even being considered?
On Thursday, as the events took place at FSU, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted the same ol’, same ol’ on his social media.
“Our prayers are with our FSU family and state law enforcement is actively responding,” DeSantis said. Like a robot. Like on cue.
It’s the state legislature that has to respond — with real action and gun reform that makes senses, not by taking us backwards with just words and thoughts and prayers.
The post Mass shooting at FSU elicits ‘thoughts and prayers’ but no real gun solution appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who has repeatedly said he is running for Miami mayor and has reportedly been campaigning, hasn’t filed any paperwork yet with the city clerk’s office indicating that he’s going to run. But his political action committee, Proven Leadership for Miami-Dade County, spent almost $108,000 in the past three months on expenses, including two political consultants, according to the campaign finance report for the first quarter of the year.
Veteran campaign designer and absentee ballot queen Sasha Tirador got $5,000 in January and another $5,000 in February for her consultation. It’s going to be hard to swallow her anti-corruption, anti-Trump spiel on her podcast now. Axel Turcios of New York City, got paid a total of $20,400 since January for “consulting services.”
Other reported expenses include $18,000 plus on “event supplies,” $13,000 on printing services, $3,549 on rental cars, almost $900 in gas, $4,700 on postage, $787 on food, $200 on voter data, $1,200 to a mail house, and $28,400 on wages, which indicates Diaz de la Portilla has a campaign staff. That includes Julio Guillen, who once had a ghost job at the city with a salary paid by taxpayers and could be angling for a new job if ADLP is elected in this crazy world.
Read related: Ethics board: Miami’s ADLP had three ‘ghost’ employees on taxpayers’ dime
Guillen was caught building a fence on Diaz de la Portilla’s agricultural property on Krome Avenue in the middle of a weekday afternoon while he was being paid $63,000 a year by the city.
The PAC also paid for a subscription to The Miami Herald — so don’t let Diaz de la Portilla tell you. he doesn’t read it — and made a $5,000 contribution to Coral Gables First, the PAC for newly re-elected Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago.
Oddly, the PAC didn’t report any contributions. So Ladra is looking for the new one.
Diaz de la Portilla has not officially announced or opened a campaign account for his mayoral campaign. But he has been actively engaging with voters, according to his social media platforms, which also look like he’s positioning himself as the Donald Trump candidate. So is Commissioner Joe Carollo, who has also announced widely that he is running for mayor.
Carollo has more than $1.7 million in the bank for his PAC Miami First, according to its latest campaign finance report. ADLP had less than $44,000 left on March 31.
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The post Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s PAC raises nada, spends $108K on Miami campaign appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Former State House Rep. and Miami Beach Commissioner David Richardson, a Democrat who lost last year’s tax collector race, filed paperwork on Wednesday to run for Miami-Dade Commission in District 5, where Eileen Higgins sits now. Higgins announced earlier this month that she was going to run for Miami mayor.
Richardson, who did not make any public announcement or issue any press release on his candidacy, told Political Cortadito in a text message late Thursday that he would talk about it on Friday.
Higgins announced her candidacy on April 2, about an hour or so after it was posted on Political Cortadito that she intended to do so. She has joined a crowded field of declared candidates that include former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell, former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, perennial candidates Max Martinez, Michael Hepburn and June Savage, and someone named Ijamyn Joseph Gray. Not declared but campaigning anyway are Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo and former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla. Who knows? There may be a surprise.
“I love this city, and I’m running for Mayor to get things done — because I believe in the power of public service to improve people’s lives,” Higgins said in a statement. “From affordable housing to transit to thriving small businesses, I’ve delivered results that matter. As Mayor, I’ll continue doing what I’ve always done: listening to our community, solving problems, and making sure Miami works for everyone who calls our city home.
“Our residents want a city where they can build a future, raise a family, and count on local government to get the job done – that’s the leadership I bring,” she continued. “As your County Commissioner, I’ve been proud to fight for our community and deliver real results. Now, I’m ready to bring that momentum to City Hall – clearing obstacles for residents and small businesses, and creating a city that’s affordable, connected, and full of opportunity.”
Read related: Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins could join Miami Mayor’s race
Lots of names have been kicked around as potential replacements for Higgins on the county dais. In addition to Richardson, las malas lenguas say there could be interest from former Miami Commissioner Joe Sanchez, who lost the Republican primary for Miami-Dade Sheriff last year, and former Pinecrest Councilwoman Anna Hochkammer, executive director of Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition — a political committee focused on reproductive rights — who recently moved into the district with her boyfriend, former Congressman Joe Garcia.
Richardson was first elected to the Florida House in 2012, one of the first two openly gay members of the legislature (the other was Joe Saunders of Orlando). In 2014, Richardson was re-elected to his second term in the legislature without opposition. In 2016, he got 64% of the vote in a district that was 60% Hispanic. In 2019, he was elected city commissioner in Miami Beach.
In between he bounced around with attempts to run for state senate and for state House again in a redrawn district.
Last Nov. 5, Richardson, a forensic accountant by profession, lost the tax collector’s race to Dariel Fernandez, who won with 56%, in what was really a Trump Train for the Republican candidates in all the constitutional offices. His consultant is Christian Ulvert, who is also the campaign and political consultant for Eileen Higgins, keeping it all in the family.
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