Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo is defending himself against another civil lawsuit, this time from two former employees of the Bayfront Park Management Trust who say they were forced to resign after they uncovered, and reported, inadequate accounting methods and questionable expenses. In their whistleblower complaint, filed last month, former executive director Jose Suarez, a longtime Carollo ally, and ex finance director Jose Canto allege that Carollo used the Trust to benefit friends and get kickbacks on overpriced and unnecessary deals.
Well, he’s not really defending himself. Carollo will once again be defended by former City Attorney Victoria Mendez, who is now in private practice, and former Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who has defended Carollo before. Both work at Shutts & Bowen. Mendez joined last fall after she was unceremoniously fired from her post (read: allowed her to resign).
Ladra bets this is not what the commission had in mind when they let Tricky Vicky go.
Read related: Fired Miami City Attorney Victoria Mendez gets new gig at big firm, award
Commissioner Miguel Gabela, one of the architects of Mendez’s exit, is again bringing up a proposal to suspend any upfront payments of legal fees for elected officials “in certain cases,” providing for a review of future cases that require outside council due to conflicts of interest. It’s been continued twice and deferred once since he first put it on the agenda in November.
It’s on the agenda again for Thursday’s meeting.
But it’s something Gabela also brought up quickly in March of last year, only four months after winning his election, beating former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla after the latter was arrested on public corruption charges and suspended from office (the case has since been dropped by the Broward State Attorney’s Office). Back then, Gabela wanted to stop payments to lawyer Benedict Kuehne, asserting a conflict of interest because he is retained to represent the city and commissioners and also suing Gabela and the city on behalf of Diaz de la Portilla, who wanted to disqualify Gabela on residency.
Read related: Miami Commissioner Miguel Gabela wants to slow the city’s legal spending
According to a complaint filed in federal court last year by QBE Specialty Insurance Company, a firm that provides legal insurance coverage for municipalities, Carollo’s legal defense costs — mostly spurring from the First Amendment violation lawsuit he lost against two Little Havana businessmen — had already exceeded $10 million.
 
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After several months of holding the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency hostage, Miami Commissioner Miguel Gabela — who has pushed for its expansion into Allapattah, the heart of his District 1 — looks like he is ready to compromise with a CRA all his own.
Miami Commissioners last month directed City Manager Art Noriega to expedite the establishment of an Allapattah Community Redevelopment Agency and secure funding so that they can begin “priority projects” by the end of February. The proposed boundaries are Northwest 39th Street to the north, Northwest 19th Avenue to the west, Northwest Seventh Avenue to the east and the Miami River to the south.
Read related: Fight over Omni CRA causes new rifts, alliances on Miami City Commission
Commissioner Damian Pardo, who has been fighting to keep the current Omni CRA boundaries, get an extension on its life and create a separate Allapattah CRA, must be smiling ear to ear. He’s also putting his money where his mouth is. Pardo wants the city manager to find a way to “claw back” $2 million in tax increment funding a year, for the next five years, from the Omni CRA to be directed for capital improvements, infrastructure repairs/enhancements and affordable housing projects in Allapattah. It’s on Thursday’s agenda.
That’s guaranteed seed money of $10 million that can be leveraged to get more.

Will Gabela go for it? He has previously said help like that is too little, too slow and that he wants to leverage the future TIF monies an expanded Omni CRA could generate for Allapattah. Will $10 million cut it?

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With no discussion or debate Tuesday, the Miami-Dade Commission approved the spending of more than $41 million for a new fleet of vehicles this year. Only Commissioners Micky Steinberg and Rene Garcia voted against it.
The rest of the commission voted to approve the purchase of 580 vehicles.
Miami-Dade County considers a vehicle ready for replacement it’s either 10 years old or has over 100,000 miles on it. Departments are supposed to look for replacements that could be “reallocated” from within the county’s inventory first.
“Repair history, age and mileage are also reviewed to ensure that replacement is more economical than repairing and maintaining a vehicle that is past its life cycle. Maintaining vehicles over 10+ years and/or over 100,000 miles can generate average annual maintenance costs in excess of $3,000 for light vehicles and $17,700 for heavy vehicles when compared to newer vehicles which are under manufacturer’s warranty for major repairs.”
Okay. But that means that if all 580 cars being replaced need maintenance at the heavy vehicle cost, it would still only be $10.2 million, instead of $41 million.
Read related: Miami-Dade Commission considers land buy near airport for $17 million

“The vehicles requested will be used to support various essential operations that service the Miami-Dade County community, to include water distribution and processing, police operations support and training, materials management, building and facility maintenance, community outreach programs, zoning enforcement and other related operational support activities that provide countywide services. The requested allocation will be used by departments as follows:

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Free testing available at County Hall next week
We’re No. 1! But we probably don’t want to be this time.
Miami-Dade is the nation’s leader in new HIV cases reported every year, according to the Center for Disease Control.  In fact, the county has had the highest annual rate of newly diagnosed HIV infections of all cities and counties in the United States monitored by the CDC since at least 2017 (42.9 cases per 100 000 residents back then). According to the Florida Department of Health, one in 82 adults in Miami-Dade County were known to be living with HIV in 2022.
This week, the Miami-Dade County Commission instructed the mayor to apply for up to $73.4 million in federal grants to test and treat people for and with HIV.
“Miami-Dade County once again leads the nation in new HIV cases,” said Commissioner Rene Garcia, who has been working to bring the number of HIV cases down for years, since his days in the state senate. “I think it’s important for us as a board to come together and the community to come together to see how we confront this epidemic once again in our community.”
Garcia told his colleagues on Tuesday that black and Hispanic women are the ones who are currently most affected and that he is going to work on some kind of awareness program through the healthcare community.
“We need to do a lot better job in making sure our people are tested and get them treatment,” Garcia said.

The resolution approved Tuesday retroactively authorizes the county mayor or her designee to apply for a combined total of up to $73,402,688 in Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative (EHE) funds from the United States Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (HHS) and expend them during a five year period from March 1 this year through Feb. 28, 2030. The funds would address Pillar Two (treat people with HIV rapidly and effectively to reach sustained viral suppression) and Pillar Four (respond quickly to potential HIV outbreaks to get prevention and treatment services to people who need them) of this initiative, according to the memo attached to the resolution.
At the same time, the commission approved the authorization of a one-year extension of existing contracts providing services already “in anticipation of this grant award” to “ensure that client services are not unnecessarily disrupted while a new RFP can be developed.”

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It’s been 19 days. Less than three weeks ago, President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, the de facto leader of the free world. But it seems like it’s been several months already. Maybe a year.
Ladra is exhausted. Numb. Scared. Angry. Dumbfounded. All at the same time. People are calling it emotional whiplash.
It’s weird that it keeps getting worse, even though you think it can’t get worse.
It couldn’t get worse than calling it the Gulf of America. Then it couldn’t get worse than approving immigration raids at schools and churches and hospitals. Then it couldn’t get worse when he rescind the 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity Act. Then it couldn’t get worse than the dumbest trade war in U.S. history, maybe world history. Then it couldn’t get worse than calling Canada a potential 51st state of the union. Then it couldn’t get worse than abolishing the Department of Education. Then it couldn’t get worse than proposing we “own” Gaza and redeveloping it into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” as if it were some real estate deal.
Then, Thursday, Russell Vought, co-author of Project 2025 — remember when Trump said he knew nothing about it? — was confirmed as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, which often goes under the radar but can be key in implementing Project 2025, er, the president’s agenda. As has become the norm, it was a totally partisan vote.
“Confirming the most radical nominee, who has the most extreme agenda, to the most important agency in Washington,” is what Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called it in a floor speech. “Triple-header of disaster for hardworking Americans.”
It shouldn’t be surprising anymore and to some degree, it’s not. People have Trump fatigue. Our news alerts have never come in so fast and furious. Mental health experts are urging us to shut off notifications.
“Trump officials eye daily migrant detainee flights to Guantanamo Bay.”
“Illinois locked in legal battles with Trump administration over immigration policy.”
“Trump imposes sanctions on International Criminal Cout for investigating Israel.”
“Trump’s tariffs will raise the roof on home prices.”
“How Elon Musk boosted false USAID conspiracy theories to shut down global aid.”
“Miami-Dade teacher with DACA faces deportation after being detained by Ice.”
That’s just a small sampling over a 24-hour period.
The last one is about a middle school science teacher in Miami-Dade, a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, otherwise known as a DREAMer (someone brought to the country as a child), who had gone to a regularly scheduled immigration hearing, which is the process to legalize one’s status. This is someone who was raised here, educated here and certified here to teach our children. In other words, not a criminal.
Miami-Dade Public Schools, preparing for the impending raids, saying that student information is protected and that immigration officials can only enter a school campus if they have a judicial warrant.
This rapid fire of changes and information is a strategy, folks. They call it “flood the zone” and it is meant to overwhelm the media and public opinion so they can sneak shit in.
Did anybody catch the fact that Trump signed an executive order Tuesday pulling out of the United Nations Human Rights Council? Probably not. But it makes sense. He’s violating human rights right here in America, so why be a hypocrite?
Did you know that hours after her confirmation, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi created a “weaponization working group” to review all the cases against Trump? Let’s call it a political retaliation group because that’s what it is.
And while we were busy reeling at the crazy confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, nobody paid attention to the fact that employees at the new Elon Musk DOGE department were told to stop using a team communication platform called Slack at work until they can transition to a different platform that is “not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.” They don’t want anyone to know what they’re up to.
That’s the whole philosophy behind this “flood the zone” rapid fire strategy: Get people so confused and exhausted that they can’t really see the big picture. But we have to resist. We must stay vigilant.
Drink more coffee. Take your vitamins. Do whatever you have to do to stay on top of the Trump administration and its efforts to dismantle our democracy.
It’s only been 19 days. We have 1,442 days to go. At least.
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With Hialeah Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo‘s pending departure from public service to become a Washington D.C. lobbyist — because his relationship with Secretary of State Marco Rubio is suddenly very valuable — there is wide speculation about who might run for the post this year now that it’s become an open seat.
Council President Jacqueline Garcia-Roves will serve as interim mayor until November — which Ladra bets nobody thought about when they made her council president. She is the first female mayor in the City of Progress. But not for long. Nobody expects her to run for the permanent job.
Former Councilman Bryan Calvo — who resigned to run for tax collector, losing in the Republican primary to Dariel Fernandez, who went on to win the general — has become the first candidate to jump into the race. City Clerk Marbelys Fatjo confirmed Thursday that Calvo had submitted an “Appointment of Campaign Treasurer and Designation of Campaign Depository for Candidates form designating Mayor as the Office Sought.”
Other potentials that have been mentioned are Miami-Dade Commissioner Rene Garcia and Hialeah Councilman Jesus Tundidor. Either or, but not both, because Tundidor will likely run for county commission in District 13 if Garcia runs for mayor.
Garcia did not return calls from Political Cortadito, but he told the Miami Herald, which first reported Bovo’s move, that he was in a wait and see mode. “Until I hear from Steve Bovo directly on what he is or isn’t doing, there’s no point in me discussing what I may or may not be doing,” Garcia is quoted as saying.
Many observers say he’d be an immediate front runner.
Longtime campaign consultant and former Hialeah Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador — who now dedicates herself to a podcast called The Sasha View (with 6.8K subscribers!) — thinks it is highly likely that Garcia, a former state senator, gets in.
“No one remembers county commissioners. Nobody remembers state legislators,” Tirador told Political Cortadito. “This is the time to set his legacy.
“He loves the city. He hates injustices and he loves Hialeah,” Tirador added. “This is the city he grew up in.
“Rene Garcia is an old school politician. And old school politicians care about legacy,” she said.
She also called Calvo a “clown.”
Calvo, who is likely to cast himself as the anti-Bovo candidate, told Political Cortadito that although he lost the Republican primary for tax collector last August, he won in all the Hialeah precincts. “And this was with Steve Bovo sending out mailers and radio adds endorsing my opponent.
“Obviously, it still didn’t make up for other places in the county, but it shows that what I’ve done for three years as councilman resonated with the people.
“I have a track record,” Calvo said.
Read related: Hialeah mayor, councilman clash over tax collector election endorsement
That includes voting against water increases and taxes and getting into an infamous fight with Bovo over the city’s 911 response time. In 2023, Calvo sued Bovo to get records from the beleaguered 911 center (it was dismissed in January of last year).
The deadline to qualify for the Hialeah Nov. 4 election is 5 p.m. Monday, July 28.
If Garcia jumps to Hialeah, the District 13 seat becomes open and there will likely be a special election to fill it. As Ladra said earlier, Tundidor might go for that. But he won’t be alone. Las malas lenguas say that State Rep. Alex Rizo and Miami-Dade School Board Member Roberto Alonso are possibilities. Either, or, because both are represented by David Custin, the political consultant who represents Bovo.
There is also a promised upcoming special election to replace Miami-Dade Commmissioner Kevin Cabrera, who should shortly be approved as the U.S. Ambassador to Panama. State Sen. Bryan Avila is said to be eyeing that one, but so is West Miami Mayor Eric Diaz-Padron, West Miami Vice Mayor Natalie Milian Orbis –who happens to be wife of Cabrera’s office Chief of Staff Manuel Orbis — and Francisco Petrirena, who is the director of the city of Miami’s government relations department.
Let the dominos fall where they may.
 
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