The showdown that some people thought was gonna happen two weeks ago in Coral Gables City Hall over the city manager’s handling of the police chief may come Tuesday when commissioners finally talk about the strange structure that has an assistant city manager act as the de facto head of the police department.
Well, wait a minute. Nevermind. It might not happen at all.
Seems that the original item to discuss the administrative structure — which has been fueling if not directly responsible for serious issues from vacancies to morale — has been changed at the last minute. Now the mayor wants to discuss “constructive talks underway between the city Manager’s Office and Police Chief.”
Oh, really? You don’t say.
Maybe Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli is satisfied that the Fraternal Order of Police is now going to choose the investigative agency or investigator who looks into the “anonymous complaint” (read: trash job) against Chief Ed Hudak for dropping by, after being invited, to a pool party thrown for female officers. But this consolation prize is not enough.
The Coral Gables FOP is only getting this opportunity to find a truly independent investigator — and they’re going to suggest three options they are okay with — only after it was revealed right here on Political Cortadito that City Manager Cathy Swanson Rivenbark had tried to manipulate an investigation by the same agency once before. Emails obtained by Ladra show that Swanson tried to whitewash a background investigation that was done before the hiring of Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez, who s also the “director of public safety.” She asked the investigator to ignore and not seek any information from the Broward PBA because it would shed some negative light on Fernandez, who she apparently had already decided she was going to hire no matter what. What it means is that she wanted the information that she already knew existed off the reports that commissioners would get.
Wait a minute. Again? Isn’t this the kind of thing that did former City Manager Pat Salerno in? And how can anyone know when the city manager is telling the truth? Ladra would suggest you can’t. Swanson cannot be trusted. This is not the only reason why.
She already orchestrated a massive cover up when she put Maj. Teresa Molina on paid leave until she retired after the police officer was caught spying on citizens and electeds during a commission meeting, taking cellphone pics of text messages over Maria Cruz‘s shoulder. Everybody knows that Molina was doing this for someone, not for her own health and pleasure, but there was never an investigation into that and, instead, the major was given what amounts to a paid vacation for her silence.
She then paid a $50,000 penalty fee to suspend a study in progress that the city commission had requested on the impact of recent and proposed development on the U.S.1 corridor, She did this on her own without seeking the commission’s approval.
She’s hired a number of cronies, some with six figure salaries for positions that didn’t exist before she got to the City Beautiful (more on that later).
And Ladra will bet that she knows more than she lets on about the “anonymous complaint,” which was really a planted precursor meant to trigger an unnecessary investigation meant to provide the city manager with fodder to fire the chief. When that didn’t pan out, after her independent inquiry cleared Hudak of any wrongdoing, the city manager stretched and misconstrued the investigator’s words to issue an obviously gratuitous and retaliatory reprimand — more than 10 years in the making — which she was forced to rescind two weeks later.
If not then why go to such extents to keep the investigation into the “anonymous complaint” from happening?
Swanson is a good actress and she is also a good producer. At the last meeting, a citizen who spoke seemingly spontaneously and of his own accord about not needing an independent investigation into the “anonymous complaint” — and, indeed, trying to discourage the city from pursuing it — seems to have done so at her request.
Emails obtained by Cruz show that attorney Terence Connor — who also, by the way, gave Commissioner Pat Keon $100 in her last election — may have gotten a call from someone in the city administration inviting him to come to the meeting.
The attorney had previously written an email to Keon in November saying that it would be inappropriate to end the investigation that was started by the “anonymous complaint” midstream. That email was apparently forwarded to Swanson, who then forwarded it to Raquel Elejabarrieta with one line from her. “You should drop him a note.” The email was sent at 10:18 p.m. the night of April 24 — after residents showed up at City Hall to support Hudak and, in many cases, trash her.
Hmmm. You should drop him a note.
Valdes-Fauli and other commissioners — and Ladra mean Vince Lago, because we know Mike Mena is a useless empty suit who won’t do anything — should ask Swanson what did she mean by that?
They should also instruct her to go back to the administrative structure that existed before she came to the city, where the police chief is the police chief and reports to the city manager and police officers don’t feel like they have two different bosses. Hudak needs to be able to be chief and control the department and be listed as the head of the agency at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, especially Internal Affairs, where Fernandez hired someone against the chief’s will.
And Fernandez should go with Swanson — they seem to be a package deal — and the city should look for a new city manager they can trust.
And maybe they need to add the Terence Connor emails to the scope of the investigation of the “anonymous complaint.” Ladra would seek his phone records.

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One-time longshot Miami-Dade mayoral candidate Alfred Santamaria has returned to politics two years later — shooting a little lower this time as a candidate in Commission District 10 and adding an o to his name to make him a little more Hispanic.
Javier “The Senator” Souto is a much easier target for Alfredo Santamaria, who used the new Latinized name when he filed paperwork earlier this month intending to run for the seat.
“It’s not a firm decision yet,” Santamaria told Ladra. He has a month to think it over before the qualifying deadline June 19.
Folks may remember Santamaria who — despite having claimed to have found an anti-Zika balm — came in fourth in the 2016 mayoral race that was mostly a match-up between incumbent Mayor Carlos Gimenez and former Miami-Dade School Board Member Raquel Regalado. Ladra always suspected Santamaria was a plantidate. Especially since the newby was able to raise almost half a million (that we know of) between his campaign and his political action committee.
But now one has to wonder if this wasn’t his end game all the while, running for mayor to build name recognition and get his feet wet.
“The main reason I am interested in running now is the same reason I ran two years ago. We need new blood in the county, a new generation to move us forward,” Santamaria said. “The world has changed a lot in the past 20 years and we need to compete to create well-paying jobs in Miami-Dade County.
“My main motivation is to get differen segments of the community engaged and excited from the youth to the Haitian Americans, the black Americans, all the Latin Americans, the Colombians,” said the Colombian-born son of missionaries.
He could be a threat to Souto, arguably the most vulnerable veteran on the county dais, with 25 years on his belt and fewer and fewer lucid moments. Sometimes, it feels like Commissioner Rebeca Sosa is babysitting him up there.
A Killian High grad with roots in the community, Santamaria is a Republican who has worked for both former congressman David “King Nine Lives” Rivera and former Miami-Dade recalled Mayor Carlos Alvarez, as well as the conservative Libre Foundation, where he may have left under questionable circumstances.
Santamaria collected almost $450,000 in contributions between his campaign account ($50,000) and his New Leadership political action committee ($398,000). Not bad at all for a first-time newby with no obviously visible political machinery. He got 8.7% of the vote, a tenth of a percentage point less than the only black candidate, which was 22,277 votes.
Yes, Santamaria got 22,277 people to vote for him, more than a quarter of the people who voted for Regalado.
But he’s an odd egg who talks with a computer voice — as if each word is pre-recorded individually — two alleged PhDs from religious institutions and a self-proclaimed prophet for a mom. For a campaign event, he gave away hundreds of samples of an “anti-Zika balm” that turned out to be antiseptic lotion. He has no known or visible means of support. He says he does consulting for a number of companies and is director of his family business, but is vague on details. And his 2015 tax return, filed as part of his 2016 campaign finance disclosures, listed $27,000 in income and as a “field director,” which I think was his title at Libre.
Ladra has to wonder if he’s not a plantidate again this year, thrown into the race by someone supporting Souto — who Mayor Giveaway Gimenez can count on for anything he wants — to peel anti-Souto votes from another candidate who has been campaigning for months: Jose Garrido, a former Souto district office staffer, real estate agent and land use consultant who founded the Westchester Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce in 2013, filed documents in October and has raised $7,000 so far (and is in the photograph, left).
While Souto has faced a flurry of challenges over two decades in office and has beaten them down pretty solidly, this cycle seems different. The anti-incumbent, anti-Republican voter sentiment could very well spill over to the county commission races as people who have never voted before or have not voted often find themselves suddenly very motivated to cast a ballot.
Souto, who has riased $210,000 to defend his seat, should just retire with dignity while he still can. Maybe, he’ll agree if we promise him he can still be on MDTV once in a while talking about all the great things he loves about Miami-Dade.

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In a last ditch effort to motivate Democrat voters in the Miami-Dade Commission District 5 race, a number of state and local Dems are doing a full press court for Eileen Higgins, the sole blue candidate among three Republicans in this non partisan race.
“My friend Eileen Higgins has the commitment, smarts and energy to be a wonderful public servant,” posted state Rep. Nicholas Duran. “#EarlyVoting runs through the weekend and #ElectionDay is May 22nd #GoVote @eyesonmyworld has my support.”
Miami Commissioner Ken Russell and congressional candidate Matt Haggman are among the many Dems that are trying to get blue voters engaged.
All the way from Tallahassee, Mayor Andrew Gillum took a break from his gubernatorial campaign to talk with Higgins and then encourage his followers to support her: “Had a great chat with @eyesonmyworld earlier today and we need to help get her across the finish line THIS coming Tuesday 5/22 in Miami-Dade,” Gillum tweeted Saturday, referring to Higgins’ and her twitter handle. “She’s the progressive leader we  need. Get involved & make a plan here,” he went on, posting the website and #BlueWave2018.
A day earlier, Miami-Dade Democrats tweeted “Of 200K+ residents, 1K have voted early in person and 6K have voted by mail. This special election will come down to turn out. Last chance, remind your friends in District 5 to vote Eileen Higgins @eyesonmyworld this weekend, before election day.”
Even though this is a non partisan race, Democrats have an opportunity here to advance someone new via the very motivated anti-Trump voters and, possibly, change the balance of power on the county commission. They are taking this very seriously. At both the Democratic primary debates for the Congressional District 27 race, Democrats have told the audience to vote for Higgins and to tell their friends to, too.
The recent tweets take that push to a new level. And maybe it pushed  more people out to vote on the last day of early voting Sunday, with 252 people casting ballots at the four libraries, only two fewer than on the first day. But, seeing as how it is also the last day, maybe the tweets did nada. It’s not direct voter contact. Higgins needs a robocall. Or two.
The total for early voting, which generally tends to lean Democrat, is 1,698. That compares to 7, 029 absentee ballots, which generally tend to lean Republican, that were returned as of Friday. Ladra expects at least another 500 between now and Tuesday.
Higgins is the sole Democrat running against two Republicans to replace former Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, who resigned abruptly last month to run for Congress. Well, three, but nobody counts radio host Carlos Gorin. Not when you have former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla and Zoraida Barreiro, the commissioner’s wife, sucking all the air out of the room.
How come we don’t see Marco Rubio tweeting for his old House mate? Or Ileana tweeting for Zoraida? Feels like the Republican establishment is just not as gung-ho about their prospects in this race.

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How much do you wanna bet that 100 people go and speak against the American Dream Miami mega mall nightmare complex
that is being pushed for the Northwest corner of Miami-Dade?
How much do you wanna bet that commissioners will ignore them and approve the development agreement that basically has the developer, Triple Five, give us a few shiny new buses in exchange for allowing them to build a $4 billion retail center and theme park with a 16-story indoor ski slope, a 20-slide water park, an indoor lake with submarines and a beach, a 14-screen 3-D movie theater and a 2,000-room hotel?
Not only that, but the developer clearly intends to use public taxpayer dollars to make his American Dream come true.  How much you wanna bet?
Read related: American Dream mega mall developer would give us buses for our troubles
Opposing malls who don’t want the competition might be the ones demanding that the American Dream developers vow not to take any public subsidies, but they’re not alone in thinking that. And they are right in demanding that it be a deal breaker. Sure, they hope it’s a poison pill that prevents the Triple Five people from building the mega mall. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t.
It shouldn’t. Not if it’s going to be the huge economic engine success that proponents say it is. It should just make the developers more responsible with how they build it. But that doesn’t matter.
What matters is that there shouldn’t be any more corporate welfare gifts worked into our strapped county budget. We don’t have enough for transit solutions or to keep all our libraries open every day and these developers come and get subsidies — whether in the form of incentives or bonuses or even just discounts on their impact fees — when they should be paying more not less to get the variances they get on everything from density to required number of parking spaces.
And that’s not what the developer said or intended two years ago. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who negotiated this deal and even convinced the state to sell the land surplus at discounted rates to the developer, has said that Triple Five planned on requesting county subsidies for the project.
But even if they don’t request county funds, they could request state subsidies — which are still our public dollars. In 2016, there was a late amendment to a state bill that would have allowed counties to form special tax districts for funding infrastructure work around economic-development projects. It was sponsored by none other than Miguel DLP and would have benefited the mega mall tremendously.
Read related: Miami-Dade mega mall: A new, and shinier, insider deal
It is also interesting to note that in New Jersey, the American Dream Meadowlands mega mall developer got $1.2 billion of tax-exempt municipal bonds for that project plus another $390 million in state grant over several years if they reach sales-tax targets. You think they’re going to skip trying to get that here? Sometimes, Ladra thinks the whole point of these projects is to get the public funding.
Either Commission Chairman Esteban Bovo is ignorant to all that or he was being somewhat disingenuous Wednesday when he tweeted “A misinformation campaign is in full swing regarding #megamall I received this text message that gives the impression that the @MiamiDadeBCC is contemplating giving tax dollars to the developer. I said on more than one occasion that NO tax subside is or will be considered.”
He posted a photo of the text message, which urged him to call Commissioner Bovo and “tell him to prohibit our tax dollars from going to billionaire developers” and linked to the South Florida Taxpayers Alliance page, which seems like an opposition page funded by the other malls.
But misinformation comes in all forms, Commissioner.
The developer has time and time again refused to make a promise that they will not take public funding. It should be easy enough to agree to — but only if you don’t already intend on taking state subsidies. If you do, then it’s hard to say good bye to millions of dollars that aren’t yours and that you can get for free for your project.
Also, if the developers really believe that this American Dream Miami mega mall will be so successful, then it should be easy for them to not only agree to forfeit any public tax dollars but also to pay real impact fees and contribute heavily to the transit solutions that will help offset the damage such a project will have on the area and help get people to the mega mall.
Of course, that would be acting in the best interest of the community, not in the best interest of their pockets. That’s not the developer’s job. It is, however, the commission’s job to act in the best interest of the community.
They have this one opportunity Thursday to make such criteria — no public funds used in the project and real impact dollars towards transit solutions — a requirement of the development agreement.
Let’s pray they listen to the people.

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If ever there was a race where absentee ballots was going to make the deciding factor, it is the special shotgun wedding election in Miami-Dade’s County District 5.
Four candidates are vying to replace Bruno Barreiro, who resigned last month so he could run for Congress: His wife, Zoraida Barreiro, former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, radio show host and former Telenovela star Carlos Gorin and Democrat activist and dark horse contender Eileen Higgins.
Election Day is on Tuesday, but it’s possible that the winner has already been decided.
As of Wednesday, there had been 6,703 ABs returned to the elections office, which is almost 30% of the 22,388 that went out. By the end of the day Friday, it will likely have surpassed the 7,088 that were returned during the last big contest in that district: 2012’s challenge to Barreiro by former State Rep. Luis Garcia. It’s only 385 ABs short. On Wednesday alone, 382 came in.
Read related: Miami-Dade special District 5 election is really a race for No. 2 on Tuesday
Sure, the Garcia vs Barreiro bout was a presidential primary and this is a shotgun wedding special election in a non presidential year that some people still don’t know is happening. But it’s the closest thing we could find to compare. There were two other nobodies running in that race, too, forcing the runoff after Barreiro failed to get 50%, even though he led ABs by about 1,500, a margin he was able to keep in the general, when it did make the difference in a 52-48 split.
In that first round in 2012, Barreiro got 3,784 absentee votes. Those are the ones that his wife — who only captured 676 ABs in the city District 3 election last year — is going after.
That same August in 2012, Alex DLP beat Zory’s brother-in-law, former State Rep. Gus Barreiro, in the Republican primary for State House 114 with 59% of the vote. In that first round, ADLP got 2,145 ABs.
You do the math.
Every campaign is going after those ABs hard. Barreiro told Ladra that voters have called her to report that people had already tried some shenanigans in Section 8 housing — hotbeds of absentee ballots, like fishing in a barrel.
Hopefully, the authorities are looking at these numbers, too, and have people in place to catch any fraud or intimidation.
 

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