Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Captain Omar Blanco, a 20-veteran of the department and former union president, has officially announced that he is running for Florida House of Representatives in District 115, where Rep. Alina Garcia is vacating to run for Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor.

It was known that Blanco, who ran for Congress four years ago, would run for the open seat. He filed his state candidate statement and treasurer appointment with the Florida Division of Elections last month almost right after Garcia’s announcement. But Monday, the campaign made the official announcement.

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A downsized version of the Ponce Park Residences, an Allen Morris project that’s been pitched to the city of Coral Gables at least four times in the last three years, will be considered Tuesday by the city commission. This time, the proposal is for a 9-story building — down from an original 16 — with 60 residential units and 20,000 square feet of commercial or retail space on the first floor.

The scaled down design by Zyscovich architecture is reportedly the result of several meetings with nearby residents concerned about the density and the traffic it would bring to an already busy area, next to the Agave Plaza project. Development, or overdevelopment, is a key issue in the Gables.

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Former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla lost his house to a foreclosure sale last November, even though he is fighting it now in court. And on Thursday, he lost the family farm.

A Krome Avenue property owned by Diaz de la Portilla, who was suspended last September after he was arrested on a dozen felony public corruption charges including money laundering and bribery, was auctioned off by the county for what looks like $9,938 in unpaid taxes, according to the case files at the Miami-Dade Clerk’s office.

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Says new rules target people who ‘look like me’

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Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres.

That’s an old Cuban saying my mom used to tell Ladra to get me to stay away from my more, um, troublemaker friends. “Tell me who you run with and I’ll tell you who you are.” It’s still true today. And nowhere is it more true than in politics.

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