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.
 
The post Bryan Calvo becomes first candidate to file for November Hialeah mayor’s race appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Florida State Rep. and House Speaker Daniel “Danny” Perez attended some of the inauguration festivities in Washington D.C. last month, as did many other South Florida electeds who were there. But Perez flew to DC in a private jet with fundraiser Brian Goldmeier and several political influencers, including John Ruiz, the University of Miami booster who wanted to build a stadium at Tropical Park and who is under federal investigation for fraud.
Perez would not comment on the flight and refused to answer any questions about the passengers and whether or not he was provided the air transportation via an in-kind donation or gift. He referred all inquiries from Political Cortadito to his deputy chief of staff, Amelia Angleton, who also did not return phone calls and text messages. Ladra has given her lots of time told Ladra Friday morning that the Speaker paid for his flight. She said that “there was no legislative business” on the trip so the office has no further information on who was paid and how much. It was a personal flight and he paid personally, she told Political Cortadito.
Maybe Perez has been too busy fighting with Gov. Ron DeSantis on the immigration bill that is likely to be vetoed. Perez, who didn’t even agree with having a special session, went on Jim DeFede’s Facing South Florida show last weekend to defend the bill that the legislature passed to “disincentivize” illegal immigration and blast DeSantis and his own version of the bill, which was rejected.

“The problem is he has two years left and unfortunately he is trying to stay in a place of relevance,” Perez said about DeSantis, reminding viewers that DeSantis lost in the primary to Donald Trump, “one of the greatest presidents this country has ever had.
Read related: Rep. Danny Perez enters Miami-Dade politics — as precursor to mayoral run?
“At this point, there’s no time for pride and ego. We just have to find a solution that gets us to the end point, and the governor is getting in the way of stopping illegal immigration in the state of Florida,” Perez said, also blasting the guv’s idea to appoint an immigration czar. “He wants to appoint some bureaucrat inside his office, not elected by the people, so he has all the power.
“This is about Ron DeSantis wanting to be the deporter in chief and the legislature wanting it to be President Trump.”
Perez sounds like he’s still high from the trip to the capitol.
There are rules about accepting gifts that are valued at more than $100 as an elected Florida official. Perez may have would have had to report the flights as a gift if he didn’t pay for it — or if it wasn’t his plane. Ruiz has a private jet, a Boeing. Ladra is still waiting to hear from Angleton who the Speaker paid for the flight and how much it cost.
Ladra doesn’t recognize all the people aboard on the flight, but Ruiz is the guy on the left in gray. He is a University of Miami booster whose Coral Gables based company, LifeWallet, is being investigated by federal authorities, according to the firm’s recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year. It has been characterized as a Ponzi scheme. Federal civil and criminal subpoenas have sought corporate documents about the company’s data analytics as well as its stock price decline, marketing materials and agreements offered to potential investors.
Goldmeier’s wife, LSN Partners Chief Operating Officer Nicole Gomez Goldmeier, was also on the flight, which served as a gender reveal party for their impending parenthood. It’s a boy, by the way. ¡Felicidades!

Also on the private jet ride was Mexican actor and “Catholic” activist Eduardo Varestegui, who is MAGA’s man in Mexico, even though he could not gather the signatures necessary to run for president (he tried).
Varestegui was a member of the boy band Kairo before going solo and embarking on an acting career and then political life.
One of Ladra’s followers on the platform formerly known as Twitter identified the two flanking in front as Sean and Ana Wolfington. Sean Wolfington is a technology entrepreneur with businesses in the automotive, ad-tech and film industries. He is founder and chairman of CarSaver, a mobile auto buying platform that is Walmart’s exclusive partner for auto sales, finance and insurance. The person identifying them said they are good people and probably don’t know how dirty Ruiz is.
But Perez should. He willingly went on this private jet with Ruiz knowing the trouble he’s been in.
And then, he didn’t want to talk about it.
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Miami Commissioner Crazy Joe Carollo, accused of using the Bayfront Park Management Trust as his own personal piggy bank, has gone nuclear with his proposed solution: Abolish the agency altogether.
Sued last month for abusing his power and getting kickbacks in shady deals as chairman of the Bayfront Trust, Carollo put an item on the agenda for next week’s commission meeting would just get rid of the Trust and replace it with a new “Division of Bayfront Park and Maurice Ferre Park” within the Department of Parks and Recreation.
This wouldn’t protect the parks, of course. Everybody knows that Carollo is capable of weaponizing a city department against the citizens. He’s done it with the code enforcement and legal department. The parks department is a piece of cake.
It’s just a reaction to a discussion item that was placed on the agenda earlier by Commissioner Miguel Gabela about the chairmanship of the Bayfront Trust. Sources say he wants to be the chair. Sources also say he has the votes. Even Commissioner Damian Pardo would support Gabela becoming the char.
“He listens to people,” Pardo told Political Cortadito on Wednesday. “I think he’d do a good job, listening to downtowners. That’s all I want.”
Read related: Miami Joe Carollo Bayfront scandal snares Coral Gables pal Javier Baños
Pardo has never taken issue with Commissioner Manolo Reyes begin chairman of the Downtown Development Authority, which is also in his district. “Why would I? He’s doing a great job.
“There’s enough work to go around,” Pardo said.
Gabela did not return calls and texts from Ladra. But in an interview with The Miami Herald’s Tess Riski, he called his item a “vote of no confidence” in Carollo, who he said should “relinquish” his post because of the “controversy.”
Commissioner Miguel Gabela at a meeting in December
The controversy is a whistleblower complaint filed last month by two former employees — Jose Suarez, who lasted less than a year as executive director of the Trust, and Jose Canto, who lasted less than that as the new finance director — who say they were forced to resign after they uncovered irregularities in the accounting. Irregularities is being kind.
Carollo and Trustee Javier Baños, who is Carollo’s personal and campaign accountant and probably knows a bunch about his finances, are both named in the civil complaint, which has detailed accounts about the “lack of proper accounting practices and procedures that enabled Carollo to (a) use the Trust’s funds to pay for Carollo’s own political ventures; (b) use the Trust’s funds to support Carollo’s District 3 Political Office (c) use the Trust’s funds to pay and overpay Carollo’s political allies; (d) use the Trust’s funds to overpay Carollo’s District 3 Social Media provider, (e) waste the Trust’s funds on a 2007 Vet mobile that was never used and that had a suspicious and seemingly untraceable past; and e) seek to use the Trust funds to pay for Carollo’s Holiday Party.
“Together, these wrongful expenditures totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars of misused and wasted Trust funds in less than one year, and Carollo has Chaired the Trust for the past eight years without any legitimate oversight,” the complaint states.
The allegations in the lawsuit should have led to multiple criminal investigations already. It should definitely be the nail in the coffin for Carollo’s rule at the Trust.
Read related: New petition drive aims to oust Miami’s Joe Carollo from Bayfront Park Trust
“And if Carollo wants to go to battle with me because of that, we’ll go to battle,” Gabela is quoted as saying in the Herald article.
Fun. There’s going to be a battle at the commission meeting Thursday.
This would be at least the second time Gabela raises the issue, after talking about changing the chairmanship last June (it was deferred). Back then, Carollo said he would step down in January. This past January. There was also a petition from downtown residents and others last year, asking for his resignation as the chair.
“All of us are elected for a certain time. That’s why we have term limits, so new fresh ideas can come in,” Carollo said, reminding everyone that he had about 17 months left in his term and suggesting that the commission make the change six months later. He probably had more graft to make sure of.
“I think there should be a new chairman when we bring this up again in the first meeting in January,” Carollo said at the June 18 commission meeting, and you can hear and see it yourself in this video clip. “It is good government that whoever has the institutional knowledge stays on for those last 11 months so that whoever comes into the new position can have the ability or possibility, if they need it or want it, to go back to that institutional knowledge that the colleague had before.”
Without violating the Sunshine Law, of course.

So, what happened? January came and went and Carollo now wants to abolish the institution he once made look súper important. This is a regional park, after all, with events that impact and benefit the whole community, right?
Read related: Miami paid $150K for one long Joe Carollo commercial on New Year’s Eve
He’s being a petulant child, again. If he can’t have the Bayfront Trust for his own personal use, then nobody can. If he can’t play, he’s going to break the toy.
Luckily, Carollo won’t get away with it this time. It’s just too much already. Observers expect at least three votes in favor of making Gabela chair. Commission Chairwoman Christine King should join them and make it 4-1.
In fact, it is time to bring back Pardo’s idea from last year of overhauling the Trust and making the commissioners trustees, much like the community redevelopment agencies, with two additional members appointed from the downtown area. Gabela can still be chairman.
But Carollo should recuse himself, at least until the civil lawsuit and/or any completely appropriate criminal investigation is resolved.
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A whistleblower lawsuit filed last month against Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo for abusing his power as the chairman of the Bayfront Park Management Trust and paying friends exorbitant fees to get alleged kickbacks has snared onetime Coral Gables commission candidate Javier Baños, who is now the editor of the Gables Insider and a frequent critic of Mayor Vince Lago.
So, of course, it has already become political fodder in the City Beautiful, where there’s going to be a contentious election in April.
It took Lago less than 24 hours after the Miami Herald broke the lawsuit story to send an email from his political action committee that calls Baños the “spin master” for his political opponents. Funny enough, when Commissioner Ariel Fernandez was the editor, he was Lago’s “spin master.” Lago has admitted as such.
Read related: Miami politics creep into Coral Gables election via Javier Baños, Claudia Miro
Carollo and Baños are accused of having “threatened” two employees — the new Trust director Jose Suarez and the new finance director Jose Canto — and having forced their departure after the men began to question the “lack of proper accounting practices and procedures that enabled Carollo to (a) use the Trust’s funds to pay for Carollo’s own political ventures; (b) use the Trust’s funds to support Carollo’s District 3 Political Office (c) use the Trust’s funds to pay and overpay Carollo’s political allies; (d) use the Trust’s funds to overpay Carollo’s District 3 Social Media provider, (e) waste the Trust’s funds on a 2007 Vet mobile that was never used and that had a suspicious and seemingly untraceable past; and e) seek to use the Trust funds to pay for Carollo’s Holiday Party.
“Together, these wrongful expenditures totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars of misused and wasted Trust funds in less than one year, and Carollo has Chaired the Trust for the past eight years without any legitimate oversight,” the complaint states.

Finally. Everybody knows that Carollo’s handling of the Trust was shady AF for years. Ladra has barked about nearly $1 million spent on the Dogs and Cats Walkway that never went through a competitive process that led to the resignation of a board member the outdoor gym that was put in place without the proper permitting or process. There was a petition to remove him as chair of the Trust.
Read related: Bayfront Park board member resigns on Joe Carollo’s $1 mil no-bid giveaway
Almost every page of the 23-page lawsuit could be another story here. And we might get to them. But the reverberations were felt in the City Beautiful right away because of Baños involvement.
Within days of the lawsuit being filed, Lago’s political action committee sent an email blast calling him the “spin master” for Menendez and the two other commissioners who have been consistently voting against him. He said that the Gables Insider had been “spreading misinformation and disinformation” since Baños took over after the election of Fernandez.
Gables Insider has “shamelessly cheered and advocated for the 101% pay increases that Menendez and Fernandez gave themselves in 2023 without resident approval, for denying increased voter participation by moving our elections to November (which Mayor Vince Lago and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson have supported — saving the City $200,000 per election and raising voter turnout), and most recently, for the disastrous appointments of two city managers in less than 11 months without notice, due process, or our resident’s input.”
This is going to be Lago’s drumbeat until April.
“Whatever credibility Baños and Gables Insider might have had left should be gone as a result of these serious allegations,” the PAC email states. “However, unlike Gables Insider’s brand of ‘reporting,’ we don’t want you to take our word for it. Instead, we are providing you with the links to the stories published  for you to decide whether Menendez, Ariel, and Baños deserve the trust of our community.”
The email proceeds to list four excerpts and links to local TV stories and a Miami Herald story about the lawsuit, which is also linked. It calls Gables Insider a “local propaganda machine.”
Read related: Kirk Menendez runs for Coral Gables mayor against city bully Vince Lago
Baños told Political Cortadito that his involvement in the Trust was limited and that he never threatened either man. He said he had spoken to Suarez no more than seven or eight times since he was made the executive director last March.
But the lawsuit makes it clear that Baños’ financial role may be key to building a case against Carollo.
In the complaint, the attorneys — Jeff Gutchess, who represented the Little Havana businessmen in the first amendment lawsuit against Carollo that won a jury award of $63.5 million, and Jay Rhodes, who used to work in Carollo’s office– claim that Baños not only “ominously warned” Suarez that he “would rather Ca to not express any issues with the accounting at the open board meeting,” but is also protecting an outside accountant who just happens to be another in-law.
Their relationship extends beyond the Bayfront Park Trust and Baños, who lost his Gables commission race because of his ties to Carollo, may know more than he’s letting on. In fact, Ladra is surprised he wasn’t deposed in any of the other cases against the commissioner.
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Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago is coming apart at the seams.
His latest public meltdown was caught on camera last week during a press conference called by Police Chief Ed Hudak about the two human trafficking incidents that were recently thwarted by the department within the City Beautiful’s borders. Hudak had just finished briefing the local media on the latest arrests Tuesday — the first incident was Jan. 17 — after a 911 call alerted police to a van with 26 mostly Chinese migrants, when Lago rushed up behind the press and started yelling, heckling the chief, royally pissed off that he wasn’t “invited” to the media event.
Except he was. Chief Hudak told everyone about the 2 p.m. press conference that same morning at the short and uneventful commission meeting. We’re all bored, but maybe L’Ego shouldn’t be spending so much commission time on his phone.
Commissioners Melissa Castro and Kirk Menendez, who is running for mayor against the incumbent, both went over after the meeting to support the chief, who provided details about the evidence found with the migrants, including documents and a handgun. He then thanked the media for being there.
Read related: Kirk Menendez runs for Coral Gables mayor against city bully Vince Lago
“Thank you, chief,” Lago snapped quickly. “Thank you, mayor,” the chief responded, a little surprised. Watch this video clip.
“I appreciate you, my brother,” Lago yelled. “Thank you for calling me. I appreciate it.” Then he directed himself to the press gathered.
“Hey, if anyone wants to hear from the mayor. I’m the mayor of Coral Gables. I wasn’t included in this,” Lago said, and you can hear the hurt in his voice. “If you’d like to hear from me, I’m here.”
Awwww. Pobrecito. He’s there if anyone wants to hear from him.
“Mayor, if you want to talk,” Hudak began, about to invite him to the podium. But Lago interrupted him.
“Thank you guys I appreciate it,” the mayor said. “It’s a shame that we dont offer the same courtesy to the mayor that we offer to to other colleagues.”
Key word: Colleagues. He’s calling Menendez and Castro his colleagues. That’s new.
Hudak’s face in the video is priceless. Other city employees looked mighty uncomfortable, too, as they shuffled around.
But, c’mon. These public outbursts are becoming more and more frequent.

 
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Miami commissioners on Thursday abandoned a plan to take someone’s riverside property through eminent domain proceedings and, instead, purchase another property in Little Havana owned by the same man. Instead of a park along the Miami River, the city will use the vacant land between 8th and 7th streets at 14th Avenue to build affordable housing.
Arturo Ortega didn’t want to sell his waterfront property in what’s becoming a fast-rising hot spot and where he recently started construction on a two story restaurant. Maybe he doesn’t really want to sell the lots in Little Havana either. Ladra can’t know for sure because he did not call back after a voice and text message was left on his phone. But he may not have a choice.

City Commissioner Joe Carollo wanted to build Simón Bolivar Park, in honor of the Venezuelan hero, on the riverside property — a vanity project for his wife, who is Venezuelan. He got the city to take Ortega to court. Crazy Joe gets them to do all kinds of crazy things. In 2023, a judge ruled that the city could take the land through eminent domain, a process by which a government can force the sale of private property for a necessary public use, paying a fair market value. And, last month, a jury decided that the property was worth $10.8 million, which is more than the city wanted to pay but less than Ortega though he should get.
Read related: Miami: Joe Carollo uses eminent domain to take private property for park
The city had 20 days from the ruling to make the payment, but on Thursday entered into a settlement with Ortega to buy the 8th Street property for $9 million, instead. Carollo agreed because the riverfront lot equaled about 15,000 square feet, or a third of an acre, while the Little Havana property is about an acre.
“There’s a lot that the city could do with that property,” Carollo said, although the resolution from the city’s Department of Real Estate and Asset Management specifically says it will be an affordable housing project.
Carollo always claimed that the slice of riverside land should be a park, even though Jose Marti Park is a hop and a skip away.
Ortega bought the property for $4.3 million in 2014, according to the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser’s records. So he’s still making a tidy profit. But he was likely strong-armed into selling it so that he could keep the riverside lot.
Political Cortadito will be watching and reporting on the Little Havana property and the affordable housing project to come.

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