Palmetto Bay may be the “Village of Parks,” but right now it looks more like the Village of Political Theater. All over a patch of 8.7 acres of woods that have been sitting untouched for a century.
On paper, the property known simply as “The Woods” technically belongs to Miami-Dade County. But since 2019, the Village of Parks has been leasing it for the grand sum of $10 a year, promising trails and park amenities that never sprouted. Instead, what’s grown is the political posturing.
Now, as Monday’s budget hearing looms, Vice Mayor Mark Merwitzer is out front waving the green space flag, warning residents that Mayor Karyn Cunningham and her administration want to give the land back to the county — “abandoning” it and leaving it wide open to developers.
Read related: Palmetto Bay residents urged village to save Coral Reef Park tree…so they did
“This was supposed to be a park,” Merwitzer said, calling the move a “betrayal” of everything the village supposedly stands for and having a “press conference” about it last week.
Cunningham, meanwhile, says the vice mayor is making mulch out of molehills. She points out the Village has already tucked $9,000 into this year’s budget for maintenance and will be bringing a resolution in October to officially designate the parcel as parkland — a move that would keep it from development.
“There is no proposal to develop this land,” the mayor said in a statement, accusing the VM of straight-up demagoguery. “Residents deserve honest conversations about the budget, not political theater.”
But Merwitzer calls the $9,000 a joke and says that the village is under a “contractual obligation” to the county to turn the 8.3 acres into a pocket park by the middle of next year. “If we do not do that, the county has every legal right to take away that land form us and turn around and sell it to a developer,” the vice mayor said on a social media post over the weekend, urging residents to go to the first budget hearing at 7 p.m. Monday at Village Hall, 9705 Hibiscus St.
Many residents have already gotten flyers about the hearing delivered door to door.
And if you think The Woods are in danger, wait until you see what happens to your patience.
Because let’s face it: this isn’t just about the woods. It’s about who gets to play the hero in Palmetto Bay’s soap opera. Merwitzer wants to be the defender of green space. Cunningham wants to be the responsible steward of taxpayer dollars.
And residents? They just want their so-called Village of Parks to act like it.

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Ladra could have told you this was coming.
Donald Trump has been salivating for years at the idea of hosting the world’s power players at his Doral playground, the golf resort he scooped up in bankruptcy and turned into his Miami-Dade monument to himself. He tried to stick the G7 there back in 2020 until COVID got in the way. He wasn’t about to let another shot slip by.
So now, in 2026, the G20 summit of world economic leaders will land in… wait for it… Doral. Not “Miami,” like Trump kept repeating last week– with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez beaming and falling all over himself to thank him at his side in the Oval Office — but Doral. You know, that suburb best known for traffic or arepas.
Trump said the Trump National Doral was perfect because of the weather and nearby airport and insisted that we, the people of “Miami,” wanted it. Pero claro, who wouldn’t want thousands of cops, Secret Service agents, motorcades, barricades and headaches right in time for Art Basel? Doralites already know what traffic looks like when there’s a junior golf tournament. Multiply that by a hundred, add a few heads of state, and you’ve got December gridlock.
But make no mistake: this is all about Trump finally pulling off what he couldn’t in his first term. He has always wanted his name in the backdrop of world leaders’ photo ops, his Crystal Ballroom on the evening news, his private cabanas whispered about in security briefings. He gets to say he brought the G20 to Miami-Dade — while really bringing it to the only piece of real estate that matters to him.
And Suarez? Ay, the mayor couldn’t thank him enough, practically calling Trump the savior of the hospitality industry. “I know you own many hospitality assets and properties,” Baby X said. Wink, nod.
Read related: Donald Trump’s Gold Visa puts the American Dream up for sale for $5M
Never mind that the city of Miami won’t be hosting squat. It’s Doral that will be on the map, as Doral Mayor Christi Fraga quickly reminded everyone, already polishing the welcome sign.
“Doral is ready to shine. From business to culture, we’ll showcase our city on the world stage,” Fraga posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Residents of Doralzuela, where thousands of Venezuelans have remade their lives after fleeing the dictatorship back home, might not be as enthusiastic. The same president who is now trying to deport more Venezuelans than ever — even those who had legal protections just five minutes ago — wants to showcase their adopted hometown as his shiny global stage. He’ll fill his resort with heads of state while ICE fills planes with families.
Trump swears he and his own family won’t profit from the decision. ¿De verdad? At a resort he owns? Where every suite, cocktail, and catered lunch gets rung up at Trump National Doral? Ladra will believe that when the Venezuelan cartelitos stop laundering money through Doral condos.
So sí, the world is coming to Doral. But don’t let the White House spin fool you. This isn’t about Miami’s “global city” moment.
It’s about Trump finally getting to show off his golf course to the planet — even if he has to snarl traffic, crash Art Basel, and make Miami look like a backdrop for his resort ad in the process.
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With a lucky 13 candidates expressing interest in the Miami mayoral seat, now that Francis Suarez is termed out, only one qualified on opening day Friday: Former Commissioner Ken Russell.
Russell has been openly campaigning for months, after entering the race in March. The former District 2 commissioner resigned in 2022 to run for congress and lost in the Democratic primary against Annette Taddeo (who then lost against Maria Elvira Salazar).
Meanwhile, another former Miami commissioner, Alex Díaz de la Portilla — yes, the same one who was suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis after getting slapped with bribery and money laundering charges in 2023 — filed his first paperwork.
Diaz de la Portilla, who has been campaigning in the shadows for months, didn’t qualify, however. Candidates have until Sept. 20 to do that. All he filed was a statement of candidacy and a form appointing a treasurer to a campaign account. Maybe he is still putting his financial information together. It’s pretty complicated. Or maybe he’s still threatening to run and won’t qualify.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla is knocking, giving out mameys to be Miami mayor
“The ‘threat’ became a reality, mi gorda,” he texted Ladra Friday evening, after he sent a new photo of his same ol’ goodie bag, except now it has three mameys, an avocado and some sanitizing wipes in it. Did he have those left over from COVID supplies?
Except it’s still just a threat. He could have filed the forms he filed Friday months ago. Why didn’t he just qualify while he was at it?
ADLP might also still be thinking about it. Political observers say he may have a better chance at running to replace Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins — who has announced her own Miami mayoral bid — in the county’s District 5. He has run and lost there before. Right now, the only potential candidates are former State Rep. and onetime Miami Beach commissioner David Richardson, who lost a bid for tax collector last year, and former Miami Commissioner Joe Sanchez, who lost the 2024 Republican primary for Miami-Dade sheriff, who is rumored to be asking around to see if he can get the funds (more on that later).
Filing and qualifying ain’t the same thing. There are ten other candidates who filed way before ADLP did. It does not mean they will all qualify. Higgins submitted petitions last month to qualify, but still has to submit her financial statement and other documents. Former Miami City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, the one who sued the city and got the election back on this November — after three commissioners tried to cancel it — is expected to qualify soon.
The others on the maybe list are former Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, the current mayor’s dad, who was mayor of Miami twice, first elected in 1985 as the city’s first Cuban-born mayor, onetime congressional candidate Michael Hepburn, former Miami-Dade Community Council Member Christian Cevallos, perennial candidates Max Martinez and June Savage and first timers Alyssa Crocker, Ijamyn Joseph Gray and Linda Anderson, who doesn’t stand a chance as an official member of the Socialist Workers Party.
Let’s see how many of them pan out. But it’s almost guaranteed there’s going to be a runoff after the Nov. 4 election. And a poll last month indicates that contest could be between Higgins and Gonzalez.
Read related: Poll has Eileen Higgins in Miami mayoral runoff with Emilio Gonzalez
Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo has also been threatening to run, coyly tossing out the notion that he may or may not on his daily morning “Loco Joe Show” on AM radio and attacking Gonzalez and Higgins on the regular. But he still hasn’t filed a single page with the city clerk.
Russell was the first and only one to qualify on Friday. He filed everything in the morning: the oath, a change in campaign treasurer, his financial disclosure and a voluntary, signed statement that he will adhere to fair campaign practices (let’s see if ADLP does that).
“It’s official,” Russell posted on social media. He said he will issue a statement over the weekend.
Russell likes to tell the story that his political career started with a sandbox. When the city wouldn’t clean up the contaminated park where his kids played, he rallied his neighbors and did it himself. It’s a great origin story.
From there, he parlayed the “dad with a mission” vibe into a seat at City Hall, where he talked about affordable housing, sea level rise, police accountability and fair wages. His current campaign is centered on affordable housing and fighting the corruption he says has so obviously taken over City Hall. “Miami must stop paying tens of millions of dollars in legal fees to defend the corrupt practices of elected officials and their staff and put that money to good use: Improving our neighborhoods,” he writes on his Ken Russell for mayor website.
Since leaving City Hall, Russell has been a lobbyist and consultant, most notably for the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club, a position he may have lost because of pressure from Higgins.
Read related: Eileen Higgins pressures Sierra Club and Ken Russell resigns as lobbyist
Before politics, Russell, who speaks five languages (six, if you count Miami Spanglish), was an international yo-yo salesman (yes, really), which took him to more than 50 countries. Now he says he’s ready for his toughest trick yet: cleaning up Miami City Hall the same way he cleaned up that little park.
“It seems like a mugshot is a prerequisite for running in the city of Miami,” Russell told Political Cortadito. “Voters are over it  and they are not letting Alex near the cookie jar again.”
The charges against Diaz de la Portilla — 14 felony counts from a public corruption investigation — stem from a pay-to-play scheme in which the commissioner was accused of taking campaign contributions totaling more than $250,000 to giveaway a public park to the owners of a private school outside his district. Actually in Russell’s old district. The charged were dropped last November, just weeks before trial. It was being handled by the Broward State Attorney’s Office after our esteemed Miami-Dade SAO, Kathy Fernandez-Rundle, recused herself. ADLP, who was arrested weeks before his re-election failed (lost to Commissioner Miguel Gabela), has been calling them politically motivated from day one.
Ladra bets we’ll continue to hear that refrain again and again as he continues to paint himself as some kind of victim. Like Donald Trump. But taxpayers will be the real victims if the city of Miami ends up paying his $1.3 million in criminal attorneys’ fees.
Anyway, Gabela is not termed out until 2027 and ADLP didn’t want to wait. Besides, the mayor’s office has always been his pipe dream. He has talked about it at least since he lost the state rep race in 2012 to Jose Javier Rodriguez.
And while he had not opened a campaign account before Friday, Diaz de la Portilla raised $278,000 in the second quarter, through June 30, for his political action committee, Proven Leadership for Miami-Dade. That includes $100K from the same couple he was accused of taking bribes from. The Dean has also been posting more regularly on social media, but for some reason started a brand new Instagram account in recent weeks, where he has basically been writing love letters to himself.
Read related: David and Leila Centner give fresh $100K to Alex Diaz de la Portilla PAC
“My commitment to the community is not measured by speeches, but by constant presence, by a sincere embrace and by truly listening to every neighbor,” he posted Aug. 25. “Being with our seniors, sharing with families, and walking through every corner of our communities is what inspires me and gives me the strength to keep moving forward.
“I firmly believe that leadership is built hand in hand with the people. Not from a distance, but from closeness sharing joys, concerns, and dreams. Politics only has meaning when it turns into concrete solutions that improve people’s lives, and that has always been my commitment.”
Cue the violins and the photo ops: Alex hugging viejitos in parks, handing cafecitos to abuelas, and pretending this is about anything other than clawing his way back into political power — one creepy abrazo at a time. It’s too predictable.
There are a whole two weeks for ADLP to make good on his threat, or Carollo for that matter. If Crazy Joe throws his hat into the clown car, he could be the second Carollo on the ballot. Brother Frank Carollo, who was the commissioner in District 3 before Joe, has filed paperwork to run for the same seat again. But the only one to qualify in that race is Yvonne Bayona, president of the Miami Historic East Shenandoah Homeowners Association.
Nobody has qualified in the District 5 race, where King may face one or two challengers: Frederick Bryant and Marion Brown have both filed some paperwork with the city clerk’s office indicating their intent.
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Cancelled: The special Miami commission meeting Friday to put two questions on the November ballot — one to change the municipal election year and another to approve a new and improved Marine Stadium deal.
Also cancelled: The November referendums on both those things.
There was no quorum at the meeting Friday, said City Manager Art Noriega, who added that the marine stadium item was not ready anyway. Apparently, Commissioners Joe Carollo, Miguel Gabela and Christine King had better things to do. Carollo missed his morning “Crazy Joe Show” on America Radio for “city business,” but we don’t know what that was, if not the meeting.
“We were going to defer one or two items anyway and I think that may have led to the fact that we don’t have a quorum,” Noriega told a room full of people who were there to speak on both items and apologized. He said “there are new dynamics” to the marine stadium deal, which means that is the one that was going to be deferred.
Read related: Miami Marine Stadium’s revival plan could be on city’s November ballot
“We are still full steam ahead on getting the marine stadium done. So, don’t be disheartened that we’re not going to get it on the ballot in November,” Noriega said. “We are still 100% committed.”
Not so much commitment on the other item, though: The election year change that has caused much hand-wringing and legal expenses on the city’s part after three commissioners tried to move this year’s mayoral and the districts 3 and 5 elections to next year — effectively giving themselves an extra 12 months in office — without the voter’s permission. Mayoral candidate Emilio Gonzalez sued to stop it from happening and four judges told the city to stuff it. Then, both Mayor Francis Suarez and Commissioner Damian Pardo — who had sponsored and championed the change by ordinance — said they were going to put it on the ballot as quickly as possible.
Turns out, it’s not going to be possible this year.
“As for the other item, I really don’t have a perspective on that, and if it will come back or when,” Noriega said, not even saying what the other item was.
And did he just say “if?”
How did this very important piece of election reform, so important that commissioners were willing to cancel an election and give themselves and extra year in office, suddenly get on the back burner. Oh, wait…
“Guess it’s not important if it didn’t give them an extra year in office,” former Commissioner Ken Russell posted on his social media, where he also posted a photo of himself qualifying for the mayoral race, the first of an expected boatload of candidates to do so on the first day Friday. The deadline is Sept. 20.
But it was still going to give them an extra year in office. There’s just no hurry now.
A source in Pardo’s office said Friday that as the last opportunity for the commission to approve the ballot language and submit the question to the county supervisor of elections.
The election change referendum would have asked voters whether to align City of Miami elections with state and federal cycles to increase participation and reduce costs. If approved, it would begin in 2032, which means that those elected in 2027 (districts 1, 2 and 4) and those elected in 2029 (districts 3 and 5) would get a bonus year in office.
“This single five-year period would exist solely for that purpose. Those elected during those cycles would have voter approval for the additional year,” Pardo said. “More importantly, this reform would not affect the terms of the current mayor or commissioners.”
Read related: City of Miami drops legal fight to change/cancel election, takes it to voters
Well, that last part is not entirely true. It might affect Pardo and commissioners Gabela or Ralph Rosado. Only Commissioner Carollo and Mayor Francis Suarez are termed out. Chairwoman King will be termed out after the next term, if she is reelected in November.
Pardo did not return calls and texts to his cellphone and district office. His chief of staff, Anthony Balzebre, also did not return a call and a text. At this point, it might be Pardo’s orders to ignore Ladra. But an outside public relations consultant sent out a really lame statement on the commissioner’s behalf:

“We’re disappointed that two voter referendums could not be heard today due to a lack of quorum. The special meeting was scheduled to advance two items to the ballot: moving City of Miami elections to even-numbered years and advancing the Miami Marine Stadium item.

“Both were drafted ballot questions so residents, not commissioners, would make the final decision, but for those resolutions to move forward, a commission vote was required. With only two commissioners present, short of the three needed for a quorum, the meeting could not proceed, and the commission did not take any votes,” Pardo said in his carefully crafted message, where he again stressed the importance of increasing voter participation from 20% to 70% or more.
But he didn’t limit his comments to his precious election reform.

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Just weeks into the new school year, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his right-hand anti-Woke doc, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, are taking aim at something else that has kept Florida kids healthy for decades: vaccines.
At a press conference Wednesday, Ladapo said the state is going to eliminate every last vaccine mandate, because forcing kids to get shots to go to school is “wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.” Yes, he really said vaccines were like slavery.
But he offered zero details about how this would actually work. Right now, all 50 states and D.C. require certain vaccines for students to attend school. We’re talking the basics: polio, diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B. Stuff that stopped wiping out kids a generation ago thanks to public health, not thoughts and prayers.
Read related: Gov. Ron DeSantis sends Florida DOGE squad to sniff out Miami-Dade budget
Florida would be the first state to toss those requirements out the window.
Doctors and public health experts are calling it exactly what it is: reckless. Dr. Rana Alissa, president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said vaccines are especially important in schools because, let’s face it, they are like petri dishes. Smart parents take precautions at home when it’s back-to-school time so they don’t get sick, too.
South Florida has already seen declining vaccination rates. Miami-Dade’s kindergarten immunizations have slipped almost 3% since 2019. Broward dropped by 10%. In 2024, there was a measles outbreak in Weston that infected seven kids at Manatee Bay Elementary. This year, the CDC has logged more than 1,400 measles cases nationwide, including six in Florida.
Miami-Dade School Board Member Luisa Santos told Roberto Rodriguez-Tejera on Actualidad Thursday morning (and it’s so nice to have him back, even temporarily) that there are already exemptions for religious and medical reasons. Nobody really asks any questions, though. And there has been a sharp increase — from 3,700 in the 2019-20 school year to 7,200 last school year. Statewide, Florida had 10,556 non-medical exemptions in the 2024–25 school year, the second-highest total after Texas, according to the Center for Disease Control.
“So it is something this community for different reasons is already saying, ‘I’m going to take this exemption,’” Santos said. “But that puts the whole community at risk.” Particularly immunocompromised children, teachers and staff.
But not yet. Santos explained that students are still required to be vaccinated to be in public schools this year. DeSantis and Lapado can get good press for their red meat base from this, but the state lawmakers would have to make that change for next year. That’s almost a sure bet though, since the Republican-led legislature has been sharpening their anti-woke talking points.
Mirroring the national debate, local parents and leaders are mixed on the topic. Some anti-vaxxers and GOP champions are cheering the move.
“Florida continues to lead the way on medical freedom,” posted Miami-Dade Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez, who has been trying to grow his political profile since he led the county’s drive against fluoride. “Proud to stand with the MAHA commission in protecting every Floridian’s right to make their own health decisions free from mandates and government overreach.”
Others worry that there could be outbreaks.
“Are we losing our minds? This is getting ridiculous and pathetic,” Congresswoman Frederica Wilson posted on X.“Are we trying to kill millions of innocent children? Childhood vaccines save lives. Abolishing them is INSANITY. 
“As a former teacher and principal, I know how vital childhood vaccinations are. Ending vaccine mandates puts the whole community at risk of preventable diseases. Decades of research show the effectiveness of vaccines, and we cannot just disregard the health of our children,” Wilson said. “Joseph Ladapo’s tenure as Florida’s Surgeon General has been marred by misinformation and harmful narratives. Enough is enough — Governor DeSantis must fire him, or Joseph Ladapo must resign before more harm is done.”
Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith kept it short: “Today is a great day for chickenpox, measles, and polio in Florida.”
Miami-Dade School Board Member Steve Gallon III seemed offended by the slavery comment. “The comparison of vaccinations to the horrors of slavery is incredible,” he posted.
‘This is devastating news,” Jill Roberts, associate professor at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health, told Axios Tampa Bay. “You’re going to leave kids susceptible to diseases that are deadly and have lifelong consequences.”
Even Republican Sen. Rick Scott was scratching his bald head and told Marc Caputo, “Florida already has a good system that allows families to opt out based on religious and personal beliefs, which balances our children’s health and parents’ rights.”
United Teachers of Dade, the local labor union for teachers in the county’s public school system, issued a statement calling the plan “deeply concerning,” because it could expose vulnerable children to preventable disease. “From our standpoint, for decades, school vaccinations and requirements have played a role in keeping classrooms healthy,” said UTD spokesman Ricky Junquera, who was also a political advisor for former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in her 2024 race for Senate.
Osmani Gonzalez, president of the Miami-Dade County Council of PTAs, was far darker: “This is the type of policy that creates the possibility of preventable tragedies and the unnecessary loss of children’s lives within our schools,” he told The Miami Herald.
And Ladra can’t help asking the obvious: Why are we pretending polio and measles are woke?
Because that’s what this is really about. Not health. Not kids. Not science. It’s about the next culture war headline for a governor desperate to keep his name in lights — even if it means Florida becomes the testing ground for preventable epidemics.
The post Ron DeSantis wants to make Florida the first state to scrap vaccine mandates appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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