The mayoral race in Coral Gables is a rematch between Raul Valdes-Fauli and former Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick. But some people really see it as a do-over of 2017, a second chance to make things right.
“Let’s not make the same mistake again,” is not just the headline of an email sent by the Gables Neighbors United group of Riviera neighborhood residents. It’s also the mantra of people who don’t like the development boom they’ve seen in the City Beautiful and people who don’t like how incumbent Mayor Valdes-Fauli handled the battle between the city manager and the popular police chief.
And people who thought Slesnick had it in the bag in 2017 and didn’t vote.
Valdes-Fauli won two years ago by a scant 187 votes. That’s not exactly a mandate. But there were a bunch of factors that don’t exist this year. The last election was during spring break. Many families were away. Spring Break this year is over. All of Slesnick’s friends will be here.
Also, the big developments she voted against — like Gables Station on Douglas Road and the gigantic Paseo de la Riviera project going up where the Holiday Inn used to be across from the University of Miami (photo, right) — are either finished or going up.
“Now people can see what I was worried about, these monstrous buildings looming over us,” Slesnick told Ladra. “Now they see it. And they don’t like it.”
So, two years later, the contest is still centered on development and the rapidly changing character of this Miami-Dade suburban paradise and that gives Slesnick the upper hand. The former commissioner, wife of former Mayor Don Slesnick and real estate pro has been talking about reigning development in for years, both on the dais and in her Jeannett’s Journal publication. It is the reason she ran for commission in 2015 in the first place.
Read related: Rematch! Jeannett Slesnick will jump into Gables mayor’s race
“Coral Gables is fragile. And its been overrun by developers and all these mega construction projects it doesn’t need,” Slesnick said. “Ninety-nine percent of the calls I get are about development.”
Valdes-Fauli counters that hers is a single-issue campaign.
“She has a negative campaign. She’s running on one issue,” the mayor whined in a short, terse telephone interview. “I’m running on my record. I didn’t have a record the last time.”
But that’s not really true, is it? Valdes-Fauli was voted out of office in 2001 by voters who disagreed with his plan to pave over and close off Biltmore Way and build a huge, 60,000-square-foot annex to historic City Hall. He was beaten by — drum roll please — Don Slesnick, who Valdes-Fauli blames for the development boom.
And while some of the big developments that have been criticized over the last couple of years were approved during Mayor Jim Cason‘s tenure, Valdes-Fauli — who has Cason’s endorsement — has said that he would have voted for all of those projects. He may have told the Miami Herald he would not have voted for the Paseo project, but that is not what he told the Riviera Neighborhood Association when they met the newly elected mayor right after the 2017 election.
He says he is for “smart” development in the downtown and along the U.S. 1 corridor to go with the Underline park that is being developed underneath the MetroRail. He says “smart” development does not add traffic.
But it looks like he has not voted against a single development since elected, including the 9-story Venera project for 165 apartments on a property owned by a developer of student housing, despite significant opposition from residents. Not sure how “smart” that project is.
“We fight so much to downscale projects,” Valdes-Fauli told Ladra, “reducing height from 160 feet to 140 feet or lot coverage.”
What he didn’t say is that 140 feet was still over what’s allowable via the city’s zoning and master plan, which keeps being ignored.
And voters are catching on to the bait and switch where electeds beholden to developer money tell their sponsors to ask for more height and more density so it can look like a compromise when they meet somewhere in the middle.
Valdes-Fauli has the support of the development community through dozens of campaign contributions from developers and builders in suspicious bundles that indicate it’s more of an investment than support for his public policy. This includes $10,000 in 10 separate $1,000 maximum checks from Armando Codina and his companies, $5,000 from developer Tibor Hollo and his companies, $5,000 in 10 checks from Sergio Pino, at least $6,000 from Carlos Marquez and his multiple construction companies, $11,000 from real estate investor Hugh Culverhouse and at least $1,000 from NP International USA, the developer behind the Paseo project and Gables Station (photo).
Read related: In Coral Gables, campaign cash goes out as quickly as it comes in
Perhaps more will be reported in the next campaign report. All but the $5,000 from Hollo were reported in the last campaign report, covering contributions from March 15 to March 31, when Valdes-Fauli collected almost $52,000, more than a quarter of his total $173,325 bank.
“We believe that Valdes-Fauli is bought and sold by developers,” said Sue Kawalerski, an active Riviera neighborhood resident and member of both the Gables Neighbors United and the RNA. “We do not trust Valdes-Fauli.
“Jeannett was the only one who stood by us with Paseo,” Kawalarski said. “Jeannett would never vote for something that would disrupt a residential neighborhood. She is accessible. She listens to us. She represents us.
“We have to stop the madness.”
Voters see a vote for Slesnick — who is not taking any developer money for her mostly self-funded campaign — as a vote for some very much needed balance to the board. Her critics say she did not accomplish much in her two years as a commissioner before she abandoned the seat to run for mayor. But her champions say she was a consistent vote against over development and that made her an outsider who was “punished” with a lack of support.
The other big issue that could hurt the incumbent is the lack of leadership he showed during the former city manager’s campaign against Police Chief Ed Hudak. Valdes-Fauil talked a big game when he was campaigning about changing the city manager, but once he was elected he let Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark run over Hudak with administrative baggage and a bogus investigation that she tried to use to hurt the police chief — even after it exonerated him. Valdes-Fauli let that saga drag on for months.
He argued that he did provide leadership — by putting the item on the agenda seven times. One of those times, he called it “The boil in Coral Gables.” He is proud of that because he made sure to remind Ladra. But seven times? Some might call that all talk and no action.
“We resolved the issue in a very legal and adequate manner,” the mayor insisted. Yeah, sure. Ask the police officers who were used for the city manager’s vendetta if they thought it was handled in an adequate manner.
Read related: Bob Graham, others host huge campaign gig for Jeannett Slesnick
His supporters are counting on an ethnically divided contest. Part of the reason Valdes-Fauli won last year was because of an ethnic whisper campaign about alleged discrimination that does not exist. They still believe that he has his base, the Cubans, and she has hers, everybody else. But Coral Gables Cubans are not Little Havana Cubans or Hialeah Cubans who vote along ethnic lines and can get spooked by campaign propaganda about the hidden “communists” among us.
In fact, several prominent Hispanic Gables voters are supporting Slesnick. Raul Mas Canosa and Ana Permuy-Mas, Frank and Maria Elena Gonzalez and Sergio and Maria Concepcion recently hosted a very well-attended fundraiser at the Concepcion home.
Slesnick, who made commission town halls a thing in the Gables, has made civility part of her campaign: “People deserve a mayor who treats them with respect and courtesy and not ignore them and impose his will, which is what we have now at City Hall.”
Valdes-Fauli is known to be rude and arrogant and makes misogynistic comments on the regular, saying at one forum that his opponent sounded like a nagging wife. He welcomes the developers and vendors to commission meetings and calls them Mr. This and Mrs. That. But he berates, belittles and bullies residents and tells them to “sit down and shut up” when they’re time is up if he doesn’t like what they’re saying.
Not that he is listening to what they are saying. Valdes-Fauli often stands up, leaves the dais and walks out of commission chambers in the middle of the discussion — that’s if he is not playing his Dominos app on his cellphone while residents speak.
A few voters who supported him last time told Ladra they would not vote for Valdes-Fauli again. They see this election Tuesday as a second chance to get it right, they said.
 

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Longtime Democrat political operative Christian Ulvert — who helped put Sens. Jose Javier Rodriguez and Annette Taddeo, Miami-Dade Commissioner Daniella Levine-Cava and Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber into office — wants a seat of his own now. Ulvert is running for city council in Miami Shores and had his kick-off earlier this month.
How many chips you think he’s gonna cash in?
While the municipal election April 9 is non partisan, Ulvert has been a major player on the blue team in Florida for years. In addition to helping Levine Cava, Taddeo and Gelber gain their seats, he also worked on the gubernatorial campaigns for former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine and, after he lost, former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who also lost.
In 2017, the American Association of Political Consultants named Ulvert one of the 40 under 40 when it came to the best campaign pros in the country. But when it came time to announce his own bid for public office, this campaign pro did it pretty quietly, on Facebook:
“I’m excited to share that I’ve decided to take on a new challenge and embark on a journey to serve my community. I have filed to run for Miami Shores Village Council because the opportunity to achieve some great things for our Village is extremely exciting. I also reflect on one of my favorite quotes by Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has…” as a basis for my run- I’m ready and eager to be part of the positive change that comes through public service!
I will need your help though as no campaign is a journey done alone. We are getting our website ready and our volunteer operation underway- in the meantime though, if you are able to donate, no amount is too small, please click on the link. With your support, we will be able to do great things for Miami Shores!”
Ulvert told Ladra he was encouraged to run by friends and neighbors who (1) felt someone with his government experience and connections to Tallahassee would serve village interests well and (2) said there was no gay candidate and no gay council member to represent an increasing demographic. He and husband Carlos Andrade have lived in Miami Shores for two years.
“There’s just so many things going on in our little village. It’s a very diverse community and there are no gays running,” said Ulvert, adding that he has no work or clients in the Shores. Furthermore, it is an unpaid position with no committee meetings. Council members meet once a month on a Tuesday.
“Folks just wanted diversity. And a voice,” Ulvert said.
Four of the seven council seats are up in the election. They currently belong to Mayor Mac Adam Glinn and Council Members Alice Burch, Jonathan Meltz and Steven Zelkowitz.
Zelkowitz is moving so he is not seeking re-election and Glinn is moving also and ending his term early. Burch and Melch are running for re-election. Ulvert is not the only hopeful joining them on the ballot. Also running are Stephen Loffredo, Julio Martinez, Miryam Rojas and Crystal Wagar.
The four top vote getters will win seats and the candidate with the highest number of votes serves as mayor for the first two years of a four-year term.
Naturally, Ulvert is leading everybody by far when it comes to the campaign warchest, thanks in part to buddies like Gelber and Levine, who gave $500 and $1,000, respectively, and a bunch of lobbyist friends. In his first month raising funds, Ulvert reported $21,440 in contributions in February — that’s almost twice as much as the next candidate, which is Wagar — the former chief of staff to former Miami-Dade Commissioner Jimmy Morales — with $11,500.
Ulvert also has a political action committee called Engaged Florida that has about $35,000 on hand, $25K of which was raised last month.

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Former Coral Gables Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick — in a bitter mayoral rematch race against Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli — got a big endorsement Wednesday when former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who served 1987 to 2005, gave her his support.
Graham — who was also Florida’s 38th governor from 1979 to 1987 — and his wife Adele were among the hosts of a reception for Slesnick on Wednesday along with Raul Mas Canosa and Ana Permuy-Mas, Frank and Maria Elena Gonzalez and Sergio and Maria Concepcion, who opened their Santa Maria Street home for the fundraiser.
Read related: Rematch! Jeannett Slesnick will jump into Gables mayor’s race
The bartender said there were at least 150 people there. That’s more than three times the number of people who RSVPed.
Concepcion, who is in real estate also, said some nice things about Slesnick being one of the first people he met in the Gables and how he now goes to her for market advice because nobody knows more about Gables real estate than Slesnick.
The election is less than two weeks away and people have already been voting. Of the 7,546 absentee ballots that have been sent, 1,931 received had been received as of Wednesday, representing a 25.59% turnout so far, according to Miami-Dade Elections spokeswoman Suzy Trutie.
Every single vote counts since Valdes-Fauli only won by 187 votes in 2017.
Meanwhile, Valdes-Fauli has the endorsement of former mayor Jim Cason and the current Coral Gables Commission — the same people who dragged their feet and stood by while the former city manager and her henchman from Hollywood made the police chief’s life a living hell and who rubber stamped most of the zoning variances to allow out-of-scale development that many voters believe has gone overboard. No surprise here.
What happened to Jeb? Former Gov. Jeb Bush had endorsed Valdes-Fauli in 2017, very early on in the election.
Ladra guesses Jeb is as disappointed in Valdes-Fauli two years later as the rest of the Gables is.

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Pinecrest voters rejected a plan Tuesday that would seek $15 million in bonds to pay for approximately 18.5 miles (98,000 linear feet) of pipeline infrastructure so 739 properties can connect to Miami-Dade County water.
The vote came down to 63% against and 37% for taxing themselves an additional 23 cents per $1,000 of taxable value, or an average of $158 a year — of course, some homes would pay much, much more — for the next 20 years so that every property in the village would have access to county water.
Not even the promise of an additional 208 fire hydrants — which are not necessary to cover water needs according to the fire rescue guys but good for drumming up fear votes — could sway villagers who made the decision via a mail-in ballot only.
According to Miami-Dade County’s elections department, 5,720 of the 13,083 registered voters in Pinecrest returned ballots. That amounts to practically a 44% turnout.
The village undertook an aggressive “get out the vote campaign” that included eight — count ’em, eight; two per week, including the last one this past Saturday  — public workshops for residents and property owners to learn about the project and see the map. They were not very well attended.
The village slapped posters in public spaces and sent postcards to all registered voters and a letter from the administration explaining what the financial impact would be.
They got one of those FDOT-like signs with the blinking lights to remind folks to vote — and they hired a guy with a spinning sign on U.S. 1.
Read related: Pinecrest voters to decide if they’ll pay extra taxes to get county water
The two recurring themes among some of the 3,593 who voted against it were (1) a reluctance to subsidize the water hookup for homes of multimillionaires and (2) the concept that it should be a responsibility of Miami-Dade County, which would retain the infrastructure and derive all the profits from the water sales. Those were exactly the reasons that Councilman James McDonald voted against putting the referendum on the ballot and campaigned against it.
The red properties are the ones that need lines. The yellow properties already have lines and will have to pay for hooking up to water in addition to the additional tax.
Miami-Dade County policy dictates that the cost associated with new water infrastructure be borne by private developers/private property owners. Revenue from the sale of water to existing customers can only be used to fund expenditures and improvements to the existing infrastructure, not new infrastructure — not unless, of course, they can cover it with “economic development” like the megamall in Northwest Dade.
But the county has paid for some of the hookups.
When Pinecrest first incorporated in 1996, about 1,500 homes were on wells, without any way to hook up to the county water supply. The 2004 countywide Building Better Communities bond referendum supplied the village with $4.3 million and a Florida state grant gave another $1.5 million for the water pipeline infrastructure up to the sidewalk. That work was called Phase I and Phase II and was completed about 10 years ago, said City Manager Yocelyn Galiano.  Property owners still had to pay for the service hook-up connection from the public right of way to their homes/buildings, she said.
More than 2,100 people voted in favor, including, we suppose, advocates like former mayors Evelyn Greer and Cindy Lerner and former Councilwoman Cheri Ball, right, who basically stepped down to push for the measure and served as treasurer of the Pinecrest H2O political action committee.
Ball and her husband also happen to own a two-story, 6 bedroom, 4 bath house they bought in 2016 for $1.6 million — that doesn’t have access to county water.
Some might think this is over, that the referendum was a way of putting this long fought issue to rest. But Ladra knows it’s never that easy. Ball and the other proponents are unlikely to give up. And while it’s not a big county issue — only 2,000 people lack water access countywide compared to hundreds of thousands on septic tanks (more on that later) — there may be other places to turn to for funding.
“We’ll just keep looking for the funding from the state legislature, which we’be been doing but we keep getting vetoed,” Galiano said. “Maybe with this new governor…”

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Voters might not be sure if Carmen Olazabal is running for a commission seat against three other candidate — or if she is running against activist Maria Cruz and little ol’ Ladra.
The girl has gone off on Maria and I, wasting precious campaign ink on our distaste for her unethical behavior and her role in covering up for former city manager Pat Salerno, instead of concentrating on the issues.
And I do believe she doth protest too much.
In a recent email missive — because that is all Olazabal can afford, no real mail — she tries to deflect attention from her own failures and unethical acts by calling any and all criticisms about her smears and falsehoods.
How convenient.
Read related: Commission candidate Carmen Olazabal can’t rewrite ugly past
Olazabal, who can’t spell my name right even once, also lashes out at the Gables  Good Government — which paid me to write a completely unbiased piece, which I still sometimes do — and Commissioner Vince Lago, who she said I interviewed to lend the post more “credence.”
First, the GGG came to me and after much initial discouragement, I took on the job because it seemed easy enough. If she didn’t like that one, Carmen should have seen my original version before they edited all the good stuff out.
Secondly, I don’t make electeds say what they say. Or, wait, is Olazabal suggesting that its irrelevant what Lago — perhaps the most respected elected there and future Gables mayoral shoe-in — thinks of her? By the way, it’s what a lot of people think. They either don’t want to be named or aren’t as relevant.
Earlier, Olazabal issued a “fact checks” section on her website that sounds a lot more like a fairy tale than anything resembling the truth, which Olazabal apparently has a distaste for. But since Olazabal likes to play with the facts, and voters need more than she said, she said, here is Ladra’s fact check check.
Fact 1: She was part and parcel to the lie that got her boss and mentor, former City Manager Pat Salerno, fired. She doctored the document that was prepared by the Police Chief for the commission about a 170% increase in accidents on North Ponce de Leon Boulevard related to some palm trees that caused some line of sight issues for drivers.
Carmen check: Ms. Olazabal, — as she calls herself to lend credence to the argument because it is presented as third person verification — says she simply edited the police memo. She and Salerno “discussed the numbers presented …and they determined they did not accurately represent the issue because the statistics covered a wider area than the median construction and included inaccurate construction dates,” she quotes her own excuses from a Miami Herald article. “Ms. Olazabal’s professional determination was that “if [she] would have forwarded [Hudak’s memo] to the commission, it would have been wrong.”
Reality Check: Um, no. It was wrong to change Hudak’s memo and present it as his own work. Is she really defending that. What she should have done, if she and Salerno thought the numbers were wrong, was add their own memo to the memo, explaining the accurate dates and median locations, which, by the way, did not end up being “wrong.” That’s just cover.
Read related: Coral Gables must remove Ponce palms Salerno lied about
And this photograph of an overturned car on Ponce de Leon Boulevard is not propaganda. It is real, it is really someone’s car and there was somebody in it when it really turned over. Nobody placed this car upside down on the street as a prop. It was taken during the time frame that the report looked at. The photo is not Ladra’s. It was provided by someone in Coral Gables at that time. It may have been part of the report. It was an example of an accident caused by a line of sight issue that Olazabal not only failed to address but denied even existed. There is no reason not to use it to illustrate a point. Of course, she doesn’t like it. It’s hard to look at. Especially since she tried to cover it up. She doesn’t want to be reminded of her mistakes.
Like…
Fact 2: Giving herself a 10% raise.
Carmen Check: “Rather, the Coral Gables City Commission approved her contract as Interim City Manager on May 5th, 2014, and her salary reverted back when a new city manager was appointed.” she writes, back to third person for validity.
Reality Check: Rather, the commission approved the interim manager’s agenda item on her own pay raise. Oh, and she asked to keep her 10% raise when the city hired the permanent city manager.
Fact 3: So inept at her job, Olazabal had to hire former county and municipal manager everywhere Merrett Stierheim to hold her hand.
Carmen Check: “Rather it was the Coral Gables Commission that directed the hiring of Mr. Stierheim.”
Reality Check: Again, the commission certainly approved the hiring of and payment for Stierheim’s services, up to $50,000, but the item was a recommendation from, guess who? The interim city manager. In fact, Commissioner Frank Quesada congratulated her on the idea at a public meeting.
Read related: Merrett Stierheim — Coral Gables’ extra city manager for $50K
Fact 4: Carmen Cason was identified as Olazabal’s campaign manager.
Carmen Check: “Rather, Mrs. Cason is an active and valued volunteer in the campaign.”
Reality Check: Mrs. Cason was described early on as the campaign manager before Olazabal brought FIU Professor and pollster Dario Moreno on board. But most people close to the campaign would say Carmen Cason, showed in a supervisory role in this photo, is a little bit more than an “active and valued volunteer.”
Fact 5: While she was acting as city manager, Olazabal decided to name Maj. Theresa Molina the acting police chief, against the wishes of the commission, which had called a special meeting to make the decision themselves. An email to voters from Cruz questioned her judgement, noting that Molina was the major who was later forced to resign when she was caught spying on the activist and commissioners.
Carmen Check: First, Olazabal said that the spying incident happened two years later. “Ms. Olazabal could not have known that Ms. Cruz’s incident would occur.  This is a standard misleading association common in propaganda materials,” she says, adding that Molina had “no prior violations or internal affairs investigations in her personnel file.” She said she had every right, as the city attorney said she had, to name an acting chief.
Reality Check: Nobody said you didn’t have the right, Carmencita. But it was kind of a shocker to the commissioners when she did that after they asked her to wait until the special meeting, which I believe was the very next day. So when Ms. Olazabal says in the meantime, she means 12 or so hours. Also, it was left unsaid but should be noted, that Ms. Olazabal also took it upon herself to fly former Maj. Scott Masington in from Tennessee or somewhere like that even though at least one commissioner had told her not to. As for Molina, who was being investigated by the State Attorney’s Office at the time, all Cruz and Ladra were saying was that, even if the spying incident was years later, it could serve as example of Olazabal’s terrible judgement of character.
The truth is that Olazabal needs to rewrite her history. And remember, she likes to edit. As assistant city manager, she cut and paste information from a police report to take out important data about public safety that didn’t jive with the administration’s perspective. Today, she cut and pastes — or juts cuts — comments from her Facebook page that call her out.
And she attacks those who recall her real history and she cries foul and calls them names, all the while saying her campaign is the cleanest. Tsk, tsk.
Maybe it is because she needs to deflect from the fact she is totally lost on the issues.

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