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Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has come up with a genius solution to the county’s massive traffic gridlock and mass transit problems: Cars that fly.
Ladra is not kidding. Gimenez wants to be George Jetson.
We don’t have money to expand rail, which is what was promised to the people with the half-penny tax increase in 2002. Not even for one extension south or north up to Broward. Not even for a light rail across the bay to Miami Beach.
But we apparently can find the money to entertain thoughts of a public private partnership with Lilium, a German engineering startup that raised $90 million to build air taxis just last year and whose five-seat jets could be crossing our skies in as little as two years, according to the mayor’s vision.
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You know, like those Amazon drone planes only bigger and carrying people. Don’t worry. They have parachutes! These electric-powered jets are safe because they have parachutes that discharge if there is any “in-flight failure” or collision.
“So you can just float down,” Gimenez told Miami Today. And, apparently, they took him seriously.
Gimenez has met twice already with representatives from Lilium, the last meeting taking place with executives Tuesday afternoon.
“It’s definitely cutting edge, so I’m interested,” the mayor told Miami Today after the first meeting earlier this month, because you know how he loves shiny new stuff. “We have an interesting place to try out the new concept. We want to be the city of the future.”
Is that why you are buying so many buses?
Read related: Termed out Mayor Carlos Gimenez gives self undeserved 70% pay raise
Not that this isn’t something that Ladra is happy to welcome into our world, like jetpacks and hologram TV. It’s kinda awesome. It’s just not a transit solution.
The five-seat jet can go 186 miles in an hour. Except there doesn’t need to be five people for a trip that, for now, would start and end at one of the county’s four airports — MIA, Opa-Locka, Miami Executive (formerly known as Kendall-Tamiami) and Homestead. Eventually, there will be ports built elsewhere. The developer of Paramount WorldCenter Miami designed a skyport atop the 60-story building for future air taxis.
And certainly it won’t come cheap. Think Uber Super X.
How does this do anything to take care of the massive gridlock most of us face daily? Answer: It doesn’t. But Gimenez isn’t concerned with that. This air taxi idea seems like a quicker turnaround and he is all about immediate gratification.
And shiny things.
Read related: Add another son to Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s lobbying clan
And immediate graft? Ladra tried to find out who the lobbyist was for Lilium and couldn’t find anyone in the county lobbyist registrations going back to the beginning of the year. But maybe it’s early. Maybe that’s next as they meet with commissioners.
It’s too bad that Gimenez can’t get excited about finding ways to make a public private partnership for rail happen because that is what the people were promised and that is what the people want.
Nothing, not even flying cars, will be an acceptable alternative.

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Ya que se las cago with the Cuban-American vote, former University of Miami President and congressional candidate Donna Shalala may be going after the Colombian vote in District 27 with a new gimmick Saturday aimed at endearing her with the Hispanic community: A chiva tour.
Ladra said long ago that Kristen Rosen Gonzalez was the only Democrat candidate who could beat Republican nominee Maria Elvira Salazar — who the most recent polls show head-to-head with or ahead of Shalala — because both are young attractive women who speak Spanish. But Democrat insiders insisted on Shalala and bulldozed everyone else out of the way.
Now, they’re not only losing a race they had in the bag a year ago, they should be downright embarrassed about how clueless Shalala is pandering to Hispanics — who make up more than 70 percent of the voters in the district — in a last ditch and plainly oblivious effort to stop the bleeding.
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First, she pretends to sing the Guantanamera on Enrique Santos radio show, but Santos really does the singing while Shalala shakes her head back and forth and utters a few syllables. I mean, who doesn’t know la Guantanamera?
Then, last week, the Shalala campaign launched a new Spanish-language ad reminding voters of Salazar’s interview with Fidel Castro and the words she used to complement him. They call it “Sinverguenza.”
“El Comandante… the man who captured our social imagination in the 60’s,” Salazar calls Castro in that interview, a clip of which is shown in the ad.
Salazar is also shown talking about it, explaining that all journalists called Castro comandante, which isn’t true, as evidenced by a series of clips where journalists refer to Castro as a dictator, instead. We held our breath and used the word president at the Miami Herald.
But while its true that Salazar was practically drooling in that exchange, it seems disingenuous for Shalala — who invited Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Lee to campaign with her in Coral Gables — to judge.
Read related: Dumb Dems invite pro-Cuba pols to stump for them in Miami-Dade
It’s like family. We can say Maria Elvira es una comemierda. Shalala — whose party embraces giving more opportunities to a government that continues to repress its people, jail dissidents and deny basic human rights — can’t.
The latest gimmick: A chiva — the traditional, colorful, folkloric two-tiered bus used in rural Colombia and Ecuador — will take the candidate to early voting locations in Shenandoah and Little Havana, as well as area parks, leaving from Coconut Grove Park, 3628 Grand Ave., at 3 p.m.
Ladra kids you not! Photo op!
Will there be yerba mate? Pastelitos? Tamales? Cigars? What’s next? Canvassing with mariachis?
All this is to substitute for the fact that Shalala does not speak Spanish and that’s not the only reason she doesn’t understand a majority of the constituency she seeks to represent — but it sure is part of it.
Y le van a pasar la cuenta.
In Spanish, that means that they’re going to hand her the bill, make her pay. In Cuban Miami politics, it means she’s toast.
So maybe that’s why she’s going after the Colombian vote now? Someone ought to tell her that voter bloc is in District 26.

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