With less than a week to go, the race for No. 2 in 5 is on.
Most political observers in the 305 expect a runoff in the special shotgun wedding election for Miami-Dade commission District 5 to replace Bruno Barreiro, who resigned to run for congress. So the battle on Tuesday really becomes one for the No. 2 place finish.
And it looks like former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla is fighting newcomer activist Eileen Higgins for that spot.
Bruno’s babe, Zoraida Barreiro, is likely leading all the candidates’ internal polls. There are a few reasons for that: She’s the only Hispanic female Republican in a race centered in Little Havana and she already had a well-oiled machine warm from the Miami commission race she ran last year. Even though she lost, she likely had a good number of her core voters in the district already identified from Day One.
Read related: Special Miami-Dade Commission race has us entre un rock y un hard place
Oh, and then there’s the fact that a Barreiro hasn’t lost in this district in, well, 20 years.
That’s why you see ADLP — who has lost his last two elections (five if you count the ones he lost for his brothers) — consistently hitting Barreiro in mail pieces while Higgins is hitting ADLP, not Barreiro. Sure, she did that mail piece about rejecting dynasties, which can be applied to both. But she singled ADLP out.
“Zero achievements. High taxes. Typical politician,” it says, only in Spanish so it sounds worse. Doesn’t matter if it’s not entirely true. I mean,  ADLP did sponsor that law where everybody gets a landline phone dial tone, even if you didn’t pay your phone bill, to call 911 if you have to. Didn’t he? That’s achieving something.
The piece, with a red arrow pointing to a picture of ADLP, cites tax increases in the appropriations or worker’s compensation bills of 2008 and 2009, when ADLP was a state senator.
Read related: Another shady PAC attacks Zoraida Barreiro in county Commission race
Hector Roos, a political consultant not on anyone’s payroll in this race, says that it’s natural for Higgins to go after ADLP. Zory is going after the 50% plus one. ADLP is going after Zory. So Higgins goes after ADLP. Except Roos put it in text: “50+% > Zory > ADLP > Higgins. Think PacMan, each after their own goal.”
Supported by the Miami-Dade Democrats, which is going all out to get out the vote for the only Dem in the nonpartisan race, Higgins — who has yet to be attacked, at least publicly — could very well peel some votes from Diaz de la Portilla. The anti-Barreiro votes, anyway.
So does that mean ADLP is playing into Higgins’ hands with attacks like this one?

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Buses? Buses?!?!
The developer of the American Dream mega mall nightmare in Northwest Dade wants to give the county a few buses for all the trouble that the construction of the largest mall in the United States — a retail center-slash-theme park with a 16-story indoor ski slope, a 20-slide water park, an indoor lake with submarines, a 14-screen 3-D movie theater and a 2,000-room hotel — is going to cause us.
Buses!!!
They want to build a $4 billion, six million-square-foot project on 174 acres of land, for an estimated 14,000 employees and up to 30 million annual visitors via between 70,000 and 100,000 additional vehicle trips a day — and they want to give us a half a dozen new buses?
Buses?!?
Miami-Dade Commissioners have to tell developer Triple Five — the builder’s of Minnesota’s Mall of Americas — and their favorite local lobbyist Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, thanks but no thanks. Tell them to take their bus out of here — far, far away — and come back when they want to get serious. This first offer, which our county commissioners will review next week, is simply not good enough. Not by a long shot.
Buses?!?! That would be laughable if it weren’t so damn tragic.
Read related: Miami-Dade mega mall — a new, and shinier, insider deal
This community has had it up to here with talk about buses and more buses. That’s just more empty behemoths that we have to sit behind in gridlock. It’s almost a slap in the face. Why on Earth are Transit Director Alice Bravo and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez — who negotiated the agreement after helping the company get the land at state surplus prices — trying to ram buses down our throat? So they can later privatize th… wait a minute. Could that seriously be it?
Diaz de la Portilla told the planning advisory board that it was the transit department, not the developers, that came up with the idea to gift the buses in lieu of paying impact fees. That means instead of. He said the value is somewhere around $5.5 million.
Here we are a county that has no money for the SMART plan, with Chairman Esteban Bovo saying they can’t find the funds for any real rapid transit solutions, and someone in the department suggests that the developer of the largest mall in the U.S., a $4 billion project that will impact our community for decades, pay $5.5 million for some buses?!? Wouldn’t the same amount — and Ladra suggests that the impact fees should be higher — be better paid to the county so it can go toward real mass transit solutions, like a Northwest light rail connector?
Triple Five already got preliminary approval for the mall last year when the commission voted to change the comprehensive development plan to accommodate the entertainment district land use designation for the mega theme park mall. The development agreement that comes before county commissioners on May 17 irons out more of the details — or conditions and requirements — under which the massive complex can be built.
It calls for the developer to build a bus depot — which arguably would have been included in the plans anyway — and buy some new buses to extend existing routes within Miami-Dade’s ever changing transit map. Triple Five also agrees to mitigate storm water runoff, so nearby areas won’t be flooded (wouldn’t that be, again, something they would have to do anyway?) and pay for some roadway infrastructure to mitigate impacts up to 2040, Diaz de la Portilla said.
“You’re adding more lanes to roads and more right turn signals and left turn signals, etc.,” said Roberto Ruano, the sole dissenting vote on the 12-1 recommendation for approval. “I don’t see how we can justify this,” he said. Someone quickly elect him to office.
Read related: Mega mall gets its public land on rushed timeline
Diaz de la Portilla, who could sell you a lighter in hell, said that Triple Five (aka International Atlantic) should not have to pay for the poor planning that preceded the mega mall, or the traffic issues caused by nearby malls that have opposed the American Dream Nightmare. Those competing malls  have suggested the developer be required to forgo any and all public subsidies — which, obviously, they don’t want to do.
“They didn’t even pay impact fees,” Diaz de la Portilla said, looking around like he was ready to fight someone. “You know, in a way, we’re subsidizing them.”
Um, no, not really.
The mega mall seems also tied to the Graham Company development that keeps going through the pipeline, each step at the same time, and getting the same approval. The Graham development — a mixed use complex of 3 million square foot office park, one million square feet of retail space and and 2,000 residential units — is just south of the mega mall site, making for one future busy area.
In lieu of their impact fees, the Graham Company developers propose giving us 8.5 miles of additional paved roads and/or lanes, 6-10 new or improved intersections, an 8.6-acre park and half an acre — a whole half acre! — for a fire station.
What? No buses?!?

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Absentee voters in the special, shotgun wedding election for Miami-Dade Commission District 5 started getting ballots last week — and returning them, with 2,535 mailed back as of Monday. So, naturally, they’re also already getting campaign mailers in their mailbox. Every day. Sometimes three and four a day.
Naturally, there are attack missiles against the two front runners, Zoraida Barreiro and Alex Diaz de la Portilla.
At least three mailers that make huge stretches to tie Barreiro  — in a very Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon way — to Odebrecht corruption in South America and the Nicolas Maduro Venezuelan regime have landed in mailboxes in the past week, paid for by Proven Leadership for Miami Dade County. Problem is, there is no political action committee under that name. There is no non-profit registered in the state of Florida with that name either.
So, we have no way of knowing who is paying for these attack ads.
But you can bet your ballot it’s all coming from or on behalf of former Sen. Diaz de la Portilla. ADLP and Mrs. B are the two big names in the race against radio show host Carlos Gorin and Democrat activist Eileen Higgins. Nevermind the money. Gorin, who is irrelevant, and Higgins, who could be a surprise dark horse (cross your fingers), don’t have the brains or maldad for this kind of sneaky PAC attack. Which leaves ADLP who has both in spades.
The Dean’s name is not just all over it figuratively, it’s actually on one of the mailers literally.
“Maximo Alvarez, one of the maximum distributors of Citgo Venezuelan gas through his company, Sunshine Gasoline Distributors, is financing the dirty and defamatory campaign against Alex Diaz de la Portilla to help Zoraida Barreiro because he fears an independent voice like Diaz de la Portilla’s,” it says in Spanish.
Which may be partially right, since Sunshine Gas gave $50,000 in March to Leadership for Florida’s Future, which paid for this hit piece on ADLP that reminds voters of his reputation as a bad boy, which he relishes, by the way, and his temper and his penchant for stubborn self righteousness.
“Get to know the real Alex Diaz de la Portilla,” it says. “Breaking Florida Election Law… a reckless  lifestyle… accused of abusing his former wife… our next Commissioner?” The busy back has a laundry list of headlines from the Dean’s not-so-good days.
But the problem with that is: This ain’t the Barreiros. The Barreiros just don’t do those kind of negative hit pieces. If they held back against Joe Carollo and his domestic violence issues in last year’s city commission race, why would they go here now? Barreiro did mail a soft negative against The Dean with their own PAC, in a piece that really said what everybody else was thinking anyway: Just how many Scooby Doo edibles had the Miami Herald editorial board already eaten when they decided to endorse ADLP? Seriously, have you seen Facebook? The Herald nearly broke it with this endorsement. Even his die hard supporters did a double take. Ladra thought it might be a sign of the apocalypse. (And we’re still hoarding food and batteries, por si las moscas.) That mail piece was warranted.
But Florida’s Future, the one funded with Sunshine Gas money, isn’t the Barreiros. It’s the same PAC that went against ADLP during the state Senate primary in District 40. It’s probably people who are still pissed off that Diaz de la Portilla hurt former State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz so much that, in their minds, it ended up handing the general to Annette Taddeo, of all people.
Or maybe it’s someone else. The last contribution reported to Florida’s Future was actually not from Sunshine. It was a $100K donation from Grossman, Roth, Yaffa, Cohen, a Coral Gables lawfirm that, let’s be honest, could be a pass through for a client. It really could be anyone. Because the list of people who don’t want to see Alex Diaz de la Portilla in office again is long. And deep. And wide. It would be easier to list the people who do want to see him in office ’cause it’s so short: Joe Carollo, Marc Sarnoff, CJ Gimenez, the mayor’s son, and one of his two brothers (you guess which ’cause I ain’t sayin’). Ladra isn’t sure Mayor Carlos Gimenez wants Alex on that dais so much because Alex is not controllable. Ladra thinks Gimenez has buyer’s remorse already.
Anyway, we do know that the Proven Leadership PAC is him. That’s what Nancy Brown, the accountant, said anyway. Ladra dropped by the return address on the mailers, an office on the fourth floor of the Greenery Mall, Tuesday afternoon to see if it was for real. It was. Brown said there was a delay with getting the paperwork online but that it had been submitted. She said other questions would have to be answered by the attorney, but then couldn’t tell Ladra who that was. “Alex was working with someone,” she said.
So this is Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s PAC? “I believe so,” Brown said.
We knew it! It was just so much his style. The dark pictures of Maduro and Max Alvarez. Sure reminded Ladra of mailers sent for Joe Carollo against Tommy Regalado just last year that painted Tommy as a commie. Is that coming, Alex? Is a Zoraida la comunista piece in the works? Maybe it will be another piece on Odebrecht, where he attacks her simply for having their lobbyist Jorge Luis Lopez raising funds for her. Didn’t Alex happily spend the funds that Lopez raised for Gimenez once?
But that’s only for the older voters. Millenials are getting positive ADLP pieces about him lowering taxes or holding the line on taxes or whatever, but it’s about taxes.
Since early voting begins Saturday, you can bet there will be more mailers raining down every day through the weekend. I wonder if the documents and campaign report that Brown said were submitted — but were still not online Tuesday afternoon — will be posted online before early voting begins. Already, more than 2,535 voters have cast their absentee ballots without knowing who is funding this campaign against Barreiro.
Diaz de la Portilla hung up on Ladra after I identified myself when he picked up the phone Monday afternoon. He did not pick up the phone again, or return subsequent calls or text messages Monday and Tuesday explaining that I was writing about the mailers in this race.
So, maybe he will answer someone else. I urge the Miami Herald’s Doug Hanks to ask him about the mailers and the PAC and this convenient delay in reporting. In fact, where is Nick Nehamas when you need him? Maybe he can get the state attorney’s office to ask questions.
I mean, what good are campaign finance laws if political operatives and candidates can thwart them so easily? How is this fair to those who do abide by the rules?
Kathy Fernandez Rundle already allowed a shady PAC that still hasn’t reported any contributions or expenses to rip into newly-elected State Rep. Javier Fernandez for months without lifting a finger to stop it. Will she do the same now with this Proven Leadership PAC? Because basically she will be giving a green light to every Republican fighting the blue wave this November.

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Nothing to see here, people. Move along now.
This is what Coral Gabes City Manager Cathy Swanson Rivenbark was saying in her head at the last commission meeting when she rescinded her reprimand of the veteran, beloved police chief who was cleared of any wrongdoing when he stopped by an all female officer pool party last summer.
Most likely to thwart the justified criticism for a documented spanking that was misguided and unnecessary at best, intentionally toxic at worst, Swanson announced, just as the meeting began, that she had rescinded the reprimand issued to Police Chief Ed Hudak two weeks earlier.
I take it back. There. No harm done.
Except harm has been done. Not only has the reprimand already been distributed widely to the press — even the New York Post had a story — but it has become fodder for cocktail parties and a potential professional albatross for Hudak and, more importantly, the 14 female officers at that party, whose photo has been widely distributed and whose careers could be tied to this news story for the rest of their lives. (Ladra smells lawsuits.)
Swanson wouldn’t know that. Because she hasn’t talked to any of the officers. Maybe she is too embarrassed because she knows deep down inside that she caused this. At best she allowed a ludicrous complaint that should have been investigated from day 1 to smear a city employee with whom she has a difficult relationship. At worst she made it up herself.
Suuuuure, it was an “anonymous complaint” that came to City Hall, which by the way has been swimming in “anonymous commplaints” since Swanson came back to the city in 2014.
Evidence shows, however, that either Swanson or Fernandez knew about the photo and the party days before the “anonymous complaint” arrived. That’s because someone at a City Hall office accessed the LEOAffairs law enforcement blog site with posts about the cameo appearance at the party three days before they allegedly got the “anonymous complaint.” The dated print out was part of the materials delivered to the investigator. The time stamp of the printout shows someone at City Hall accessed LEOAffairs four hours after the comments about the party were posted.
Read related: Coral Gables: Manager’s petty reprimand on chief backfires on her
It’s almost like someone (read Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez) was flagged to it. Unless he posted it himself. No, wait, that’s not fair; he could have tripped over it while searching something else on the gossipy forum or posting something else on the site.
Either way, this “anonymous complaint” must be investigated so that one of those scenarios can be ruled out. You would think that an investigation was started immediately. Especially since none of the 14 women corroborated the original complaint — meaning that someone else made up the fake outrage — and that some of the officers demanded an investigation. But it’s not. At least it wasn’t part of the Internal Affairs investigation that was limited, for whatever reason, to the Instagram post and LEOAffairs forum posts about the party.
Ladra was told that the “anonymous complaint” is now being looked into. Like an afterthought? By who?
This investigation should be handled by an outside investigator or, better yet, an outside agency like the FDLE or the FBI. That is the only way we will know for sure that it is a thorough investigation that went wherever it had to go, including City Hall if need be. The new head of IA is Bobby Navarro, who was hired by Fernandez after Hudak indicated he wanted someone else. This is not who should be heading up this investigation that could, possibly, implicate Fernandez.
Read related: Coral Gables cover-up on police ‘spy’ protects managers
Especially since Swanson has interfered with an investigation before. Or, rather, tried to manipulate it to get the results she wants.
In May of 2015, six months after she was hired to replace former manager Pat Salerno, Swanson wrote to the International Association of Chiefs of Police asking them to completely ignore any information from the Broward PBA or its onetime president Jeff Marano when they were vetting her yes boy Fernandez for his job as public safety director — even though the documented friction between Fernandez and the top police administration in Hollywood, where Swanson also got into a bit of trouble, certainly seems relevant.
In an email, obtained by Ladra, with the subject line “Gables City Manager instructing no interview with Broward PBA,” she wrote:
“I am the city manager for the City of Coral Gables who has contracted with IACP to conduct a background check for Frank G. Fernandez. I have the ultimate decision making authority on hiring decisions. As the client and the sole decision making authority for hiring, I am specifically instructing you and IACP to neither seek nor include any information from Broward PBA or Jeff Marano individually as it will hold no credibility nor value in my decision making. I have included Sun Sentinel Editorial Board’s recent editorial on the significant and Herculean accomplishments of Chief Fernandez despite the disruptive and unethical tactics used by Jeff Marano to thwart and derail positive changes in Hollywood.”
A copy of the email was also sent to Elsa Jaramillo-Velez, who was the Gables’ HR director back then. Later that same day, Kim Kohlhepp of IACP wrote back to Elsa:
“I just received a copy of the email below from our investigator. I also understand that Ms. Swanson-Rivenbark called our investigator directly.
First, in all matters concerning the conduct of this investigation, please contact me, not our investigator.
Second, we will not comply with Ms. Swanson-Rivenbark’s request in any way. For the background investigation to have merit, we will not restrict the investigation in any way or limit access to sources.
If this is not acceptable, please let me know immediately and we will terminate the investigation ad bill you for work conducted up to this point.”
Two days later, Jaramillo-Velez told them to go ahead with the investigation anyway. But one has to wonder how many other times Swanson-Rivenbark has done this. It kind of kills her credibility, right?
And if she is bold enough to tell an outside investigator where not to go looking, why wouldn’t she do this with someone who works directly for her? Or directly for her through Fernandez?
I am specifically instructing you to neither seek nor include any information that leads you to the City Manager’s office.
Please tell me that the electeds on the Coral Gables commission — at least three of them (and yes, Ladra is talking to you Mike Mena) — can hear the little voice inside Cathy’s head as clearly as the rest of us can. And please let them call for an outside investigation to finally clear everything up.
There may be nothing to see here. But maybe there is. And Gables residents deserve a real good look before moving along.

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Is the fix in for the next town manager of Miami Lakes? Lots of people apparently think so.
Town Manager Alex Rey isn’t leaving until next March, and a selection committee that is supposed to keep the process super transparent and clean hasn’t even met once yet (it will next week) because Town Attorney Raul Gastesi hasn’t shortlisted the 55 — or 58 or 57 or 59, “in high 50-s and not 60,” but he doesn’t remember exactly (really?!?) — candidates that had applied as of the April 20 deadline.
But at Tuesday’s council meeting, a move by Councilman Tim Daubert to speed up the process was seen as evidence that the rampant rumors about an in-house “preferred” candidate (read: Assistant Town Manager Andrea Agha) were true. Daubert withdrew his agenda item after a number of residents complained that it was inappropriate and smacked of cronyism.
“I don’t want an heir apparent and that is what seems to be occurring,” said Abel Fernandez, a retired firefighter and town activist. “What is the hurry? It is inappropriate, it is a travesty that we circumvent the power of a committee.”
Longtime activist Maria Kramer, a member of the selection committee, said she had heard the rumors about the fix from two veteran municipal administrators, a manager and an assistant manager, who had told her for years that the minute the position opened in Miami Lakes, they would jump on it. When they didn’t, she asked them why.
“They said, ‘Why would I apply? It’s fixed. It’s going in house. Why should I upset my council members?’ This pisses me off beyond belief,” Kramer said. “And whoever has been putting that rumor out, this council and this mayor needs to extend this process and go on record and say that this is an open process. If not, you are cheating yourselves and you are cheating us.
“You are going against the will of the voters of Miami Lakes,” she said. “This process was set up by the voters, by a huge number of voters.”
Robert Ruiz agreed with her about opening up the process again. “I am getting calls from city managers that are 10 and 15 years working in this community who decided not to apply because they thought this was a done deal prior to the selection process,” Ruiz said. “There are good names we want to consider.”
Kramer and Fernandez noted that there was plenty of time to vet all the candidates and go through a thorough selection process, which the charter had recently changed to be a citizen driven process. They have until December at the earliest.
“We deserve a process that is fair. We deserve the very best possible administrator in all of South Florida to apply. We need to take Miami Lakes to the next level,” Kramer said. “Please don’t make a mockery of the process. If someone takes another job [in the meantime] they weren’t meant to be our manager.”
In fact, all the residents concerned about the process asked the council to extend the application period, rather than speed up the selection process. The council unanimously set a new deadline for any applicants that stayed away the first time: June 15. Kramer said the town should do the same as Key Biscayne, which kept its selection process open through the end, but some of the council members weren’t willing to leave it open that long.
Gastesi seemed to try very hard to get the council to leave the application deadline closed.
He said the process that resulted in more than 55 — but less than 60, he’s not sure exactly (seriously?!) — applicants was “open, public, recorded, advertised. It can’t be any more transparent as to what we were looking for. We discussed every aspect of what were the minimum qualifications, the educational requirements, size of their management experience, private vs public.”
He dismissed the rumors. “If you didn’t apply, you made that decision on your own. We’re adults and whoever decided not to apply, maybe the reason they didn’t apply is they didn’t want to create friction from where they are. It’s kind of an affront to everybody sitting up on this dais. It’s an affront to everybody on the committee, that somehow they have made that decision.”
Gastesi disclosed that he and the human resources director are going through the resumes to decide whether or not the applicant meets the requirements before passing them along to the final selection committee, which will then make a recommendation to the council, any one of whom, by the way, can bring in their own recommendation. If Gastesi has a doubt about anyone, he will submit them to the committee, he said. He was visibly and audibly upset by the accusations that the position had already been promised or decided for someone (read: Agha).
“I don’t know how else we can make it more transparent,” Gastesi said. “If someone decided not to apply, that’s on them… If there’s a rumor out there as to who’s in the bag or who’s going to get this, it’s not appropriate.”
Councilman Frank Mingo, who is running for the seat in House District 103 — where Manny Diaz Jr. is jumping off to run for the Senate seat vacated by Rene Garcia (more on that later) — agreed with Gastesi.
“It’s sad to hear some people didn’t apply because they made assumptions or heard rumors,” he said. “Nobody controls that committee and nobody controls this council. There is nothing set in stone. that I’ve learned.”
Well, maybe not stone.
But Gastesi tried again, really hard it seems, to talk the council out of re-opening the window of opportunity.
“We have a deadline to apply to get the recommendation to the committee,” Gastesi explained. “The committee process that we set up is the committee process that we set up. We worked long. We worked hard. People worked long and hard to get their applications in under the deadline and comply with the rules and procedures. There are 50-some people who did that.”
Remember, he can’t remember the exact number. Around 57. Or 58 maybe. Or 55. Something like that. No, that doesn’t sound sketchy at all.
Then Gastesi went on and on and on about how opening up the application window again would interfere with “a bunch of work to get to where we are” in the process.
“The fact is that this committee has done a lot of work, met, discussed parameters, input, emails back and forth to us inquiring of certain issues,” Gastesi said. “We’ve gotten public records requests from members of the committee. So we’ve done a lot of work so far.”
Councilman Nelson Rodriguez asked the right question when he asked what committee? What work? The committee, remember, will meet for the first time May 8.
Um, er, Gastesi stammered. “The only work that’s been done… the committee itself has not met. We’ve called meetings… by May 8, I will have reviewed all the resumes, discussed what piles they are going to go into and then turn them over to them and then they can decide what steps to take next.”
So in other words, the committee — whose own members asked for the window to be opened again — hasn’t done any work yet. Not “a bunch” of work. Not any.
Rodriguez was the one who pushed the issue. Daubert expected it to go away when he withdrew the item from he agenda, but Rodriguez wanted to talk about it and was assured that it would come up in the attorney’s report.
“The name of Miami Lakes is being smeared and I dislike it a lot,” he said, adding that he, too, had heard “it’s a done deal” was in the rumor mill. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to discuss this. I wanted to make it clear that nothing is a done deal. Nobody is going to control my vote and tell me how to vote.”
Councilman Ceasar Mestre said the council should “stick by our procedure” and not change the process midstream. He said this could also set a precedent for more changes which is contrary to what the committee was about.
“We are trying to be transparent and now we are coming out with a little way to get around it,” Mestre said “That kind of bypasses everything and if we do get a resume that did not apply on time and for some reason that person gets picked… if there’s rumors now can you imagine what it’s going to be like?”
Which does raise the question that maybe this is being done for a particular applicant.
Said Gastesi: “There is not a process in the country without a rumor mill.”
Councilwoman Marilyn Ruano said that her opinion was guided by the committee members who wanted to open the window again. “We’ve been abundantly transparent. That’s been the idea. And it has backfired.
“There were several committee members here tonight and it was their desire to reopen the process. It’s an abundance of caution at this point,” Ruano said. “We want to make it clear that this didn’t happen…I don’t want the perception to remain that we’re closing it off because that is what we wanted to do from the beginning.”

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