There’s not a lot of surprise in the Miami election that ended Tuesday. Everybody knew we would have Mayor Francis “The Future”  Suarez in charge with some ridiculous support against two nobodies (86%) and that there would be a runoff in the race for District 3 to replace him between former Mayor Joe Carollo and someone else.
That someone else may turn out to be surprise dark horse Alfie Leon, the former policy advisor for termed out Commissioner Frank Carollo. He may be the one who will now face his former boss’s estranged brother in round 2 on Nov. 21.
Zoraida Barreiro, who flew sorta under the radar in an ugly race that focused on Carollo and Tommy Regalado, the namesake son of the current Mayor Tomas Regalado, came crazy close to going head to head with Crazy Joe. But in the end, Leon edged her out with 17 votes between them at nearly 20% each.
Provisional ballots counted in the next couple of days may change that. Barreiro may ask for a recount. It’s that close.
Read related story: Denise Galvez (Turros) fights for her full name — except when she’s DUI
But in the other race, we finally have Commissioner Manolo Reyes, who has waited almost 30 years to hear those words.
Reyes solidly Ralph Rosado, who was hoping for a runoff, and won outright with 57% percent of the vote to Rosado’s 36%. Latinas for Trump co-founder Denise Galvez (Turros) can now officially be called Denise “Single Digits” Galvez, with less than 8%, but you just know she is going to blame Ladra for exposing her old theft and DUI arrests.
Commissioner Reyes, let’s say it often, is a sweet win. He’s like everybody’s abuelo and won votes with his common sense and longtime activism in the city. People know him. They have to. He has walked the district six times already.
“This is fantastic. It’s a dream come true,” Reyes told Ladra as he walked into his victory party at Renaissance Banquet Hall on 32nd Avenue, where he was quickly surrounded by friends and supporters with hugs. “At last, I have the opportunity to serve my people.”
He said he was especially happy that voters so soundly rejected the negative campaigning by his main opponent. “It’s about time these campaigns stop and candidates respect the intelligence of the people,” Reyes said.
Rosado went so negative that he had hit piece palm cards at the polls — something Ladra has never seen before. They didn’t say to vote for Rosado. They didn’t have his punch number. They just said to reject Reyes based on a mailer that a non-profit sent on Reyes’ behalf with a bad photo of Ralph Rosado.
Read related story: Finally! Manolo Reyes looks real good in Miami commission race
That’s a hoot. Because Rosado is the one whose campaign went negative months ago, first with TV ads and mailers calling Reyes a career beaurocrat — though he has worked in both the public and private sector — and then suggesing that he was falling asleep at a debate with a photo of the candidate with his eyes closed.
Rosado’s campaign got so personal that Reyes got help from outgoing Mayor Regalado, who went on the radio with ads and recorded a robocall urging voters in his old commission district to support Reyes. He accused Rosado of waging “attacks and lies.”
But that was not the race with the most attacks and lies. No, that would belong to the District 3 race and the crown belongs to Carollo’s campaign, or the part of it designed by former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla. The attacks calling the Regalados communists and putting a caricature of Tommy Regalado in diapers, the allegations they took Chavista money — all of that may have backfired because Carollo was positioned to take more than 35%, according to all the polls.
Read related story: Crazy Joe Carollo adds twist to crazy Miami race
Instead, he got 30% and is now headed into a runoff against Alfie Leon, commissioner Frank Carollo‘s former policy advisor, who came in number two with just over 20% (unless Barreiro turns it around in provisionals).
But Tommy may have been hurt by some of the negative campaigning — there was a lot of it. One reason why it would have been better to have Barreiro in the second round is it would have been harder for Carollo (read: ADLP) to attack a woman. That could double backfire. But Ladra expects to hear pestes about Leon now.
Popular political theory says all the support behind Tommy and Barreiro and the other candidates for the other candidates, will now go Leon’s way. Will it be enough to keep Crazy Joe out of office?
That’s the question everyone is going to be asking themselves on Wednesday.

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A judge last week dismissed a motion by a Miami City Commission candidate who thought her name should be first on the ballot and wanted the election delayed so that new ballots could be printed.
The frivolous lawsuit isn’t the only time that Denise Galvez Turros has been in court. But it’s the only time she’s been in court with that name.
She was just Denise Victoria Galvez when she was charged in 1994 with credit card theft of more than $300. But she probably wasn’t married yet. Another arrest — for driving under the influence and disorderly intoxication — is from December 2010 and under the name Danise Turros. No Galvez. And I guess she didn’t want to correct the officer who spelled her first name wrong (so it would be harder for anyone like me to find).
That’s probably why she’s smiling in the mugshot.
So, we guess she is only Turros when it’s convenient.
She doesn’t use it in her business. She doesn’t use it when she speaks on TV as cofounder of Latinas for Trump. She only uses it when she’s getting arrested. Or trying to get elected. Gotcha.
Galvez is in PR — she owns a boutique firm called GTMPR (which used to be Go To Marketing) — so she should know: If you want to make a stink about your name, make sure that stink doesn’t come back on you. If you have something to hide, don’t rock the boat. I hope she consults her clients better than this.
Read related story: Denise Galvez (Turros) sues for Miami ballot reprint — with her name first
The candidate made us curious when she sued last month to throw out the ballots and reprint new ones with her name in the coveted top space. Many political observers think this “pole position” gives the candidate an advantage among low information voters who might just check off the first name. Galvez — who didn’t know that she needed to hyphenate to get the G counted as her first last name letter — probably thinks that is her only chance against the other two candidates, Manuel “Manolo” Reyes and Ralph Rosado.
Well, maybe her only chance to get double digits.
But Ladra agrees with the principle: Her last name starts with a G. There are going to be more and more compound names sans hyphens and this community needs to have policies reflective of that. In the future. Ladra calls on Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White to do whatever it takes to make that change. That can be your legacy.
Galvez did not return several calls and text messages and one email to seek her comment or information about the circumstances of her arrests — or why Turros was good enough for the 2010 charge. She did, however, call my mom (she’s a friend of the family’s) 20 minutes after Ladra called her. But she didn’t answer when Mami called her back the next day. The candidate, who had already blocked me on Facebook, blocked me on Twitter last week after I started following her, which is a terrible sign for someone who wants to be a public servant.
What did she expect when she signed up for this? She already had to hope this didn’t come out. And then to file an injunction to stop the election two weeks before it’s over? After absentee ballots had already gone out? Boneheaded. You should only do that if you are okay calling attention to yourself and your name.
Another sign that Galvez is not ready for prime time.

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Thank you, Kristen Rosen Gonzalez. Thank you very much.
The Miami Beach Commissioner and congressional candidate made the right choice over the weekend when she risked her political future and accused Democrat activist Rafael Velasquez, a progressive commission candidate that she had supported, of sexually harassing her earlier this month.
She could have stayed quiet. She could have let Velasquez, who she had endorsed and helped raise money for, get elected next week. She would have had another “friendly” on a hostile dais where three mayoral puppets already vote against her on a regular basis.
But woulda coulda does not equal shoulda.
“I could not help him get elected. I could not raise more money for him,” Rosen Gonzalez told Ladra late Monday, after she had given news interviews to several television stations.
Read related story: Kristen Rosen Gonzalez to challenge Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Despite the fervor taking over the nation after the multiple accusations and fallout against Hollywood filmmaker Harvey Weinstein making it easier for women all over the country to make #metoo outcries of their own experiences, it was not an easy decision for Rosen Gonzalez, who is running for Congress in District 27 to replace the retiring U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (she announced before the veteran lawmaker announced her retirement).
She may have taken a political risk when she made the accusation about Velasquez public in a Politico story posted Sunday.
About two weeks ago, she said, Velasquez paid her a visit and said he was in the neighborhood canvassing for votes. She said she didn’t feel comfortable with him in her home that evening and suggested they go to a nearby restaurant, Café Avanti. There, she said, she had two glasses of wine and he had two mojitos.
“He began to say things that were delusional, that his next step would be governor of Florida,” she said. “He said over and over he loved me and I told him no, I’m helping you with your campaign.”
Velasquez scoffed at her recollection and said he made no such comments. “People say she’s crazy,” he said. “I really didn’t believe it until now.”
During the drive back to his car, she said, Velasquez grew more excited, exposed himself and tried to place her hand on his exposed crotch.
“He took it out. I tried not to look. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. And I can’t forget it. And that’s the worst part,” she said. “I have felt guilty and horrible and ashamed about this and I wasn’t the one who did anything wrong. He put me in a situation, and it’s like what do I do?”
Velasquez said her story doesn’t add up because, just this Friday, she was still talking to him about the campaign and his opponent.
“Are you feeling good,” she asked him in a text message reply to him.
“Yes. We got this!” he replied, adding an emoji of a clenched fist.
“Nobody is voting,” she told him hours later, noting that only 600 people had returned absentee ballots.
“She was my friend until Friday. I really don’t know what happened,” he said.
Rosen Gonzalez said she understood it sounded strange, but it took her time to consider what happened. And, in the end, she realized she needed to speak up.
“I was going to stay quiet, but if he whips out his willy with a strong middle-aged woman like me, I am worried about what he will do to younger girls when he is a man of influence and power,” she said. “I do not think he should be elected to any office, and this is a man I believed was an authentic soul.”
Immediately, before a second victim came forward with her own Rafael “Wild Willy” Velasquez story, Rosen Gonzalez was questioned and scrutinized. Someone on Facebook implied she deserved it for being a single woman who dates. Someone suggested she was slutty. It was reminiscent of the way some people say rape victims ask for it with the clothes they wear. People questioned why it took her so long to report it. As if 10 days should be characterized as “so long” in this type of abuse. Because that’s what it is. Abuse.
And that is why it often takes women a long time, often years and sometimes decades, to report these sexual assaults, as evidenced by the delay in outcries from other victims against Bill Cosby, Bill O’Reilly and Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump. It is evidenced in the thousands of #metoo stories that have flooded the internet after one woman, thank you, accused Weinstein.
Often one woman’s outcry leads to another. And then another. Frances Alban is the second woman to accuse Velasquez. The publicist came out Monday with her own “Wild Willy” experience: He groped her in a group photo last June and sent lewd texts afterward. She, too, kept the text messages and showed them — complete with a little purple devil emoji — to the Miami Herald.
Seems the soon-to-be divorced Velasquez has a penchant for emojis.
Thank you, too, Ms. Alban, for your courage. Otherwise, people might not have believed Commissioner Rosen Gonzalez. And that is another reason why we should be grateful. Because every time a woman fingers her sexual harasser, another woman is emboldened to do the same.
Velasquez has said that the commissioner is crazy and that he never pulled it out in her car. Is he going to say that he never grabbed Alban’s ass either?
Where is Rafael Velasquez’s right hand? Is Sen. Annette Taddeo one of his victims?
How much you wanna bet Velasquez has more victims by the end of the week? Because this type of behavior is usually serial and if he’s so bold as to whip it out unsolicited in the passenger seat or grab a lady’s ass in a public photo op, then he’s likely committed other abuses also. Which is another reason why it was important for Rosen Gonzalez to speak.
“This was very hard for me to do,” Rosen Gonzalez told Ladra. “I’m embarassed about the whole thing. People are saying it took me 10 days to report. But even right after he did it, it took me time to process. We didn’t speak for three days until I just asked him, almost automatically, ‘Are you knocking?’”
She meant knocking on voters’ doors. She had been helping him and advising him on his campaign for months. She had real hopes that he would win. Rosen Gonzalez is often voted down on the commission and now that former Commissioner Michael Gongora is set to win his commission race and former Sen. Dan Gelber would be the mayor, she hoped to have more allies, including Velasquez.
“I had invested a lot of political capital in this guy. I raised money for him. I had his sign in front of my house. I introduced him to people,” she said. “But then I thought, ‘Do I get him elected so he can support me or do I stop future victims from being abused.’ I just couldn’t empower this guy,” said Rosen Gonzalez, shown here with Velasquez in this photo.
That made the decision easier. And she has been pleasantly uplifted by the amount of support she has gotten, even from high ranking members of the Democratic Party who have abandoned Velasquez’s campaign and called for him to withdraw from the race.
“The fact that he’s lying about it now is the worst part,” Rosen Gonzalez said.
No, Commissioner, the worst part is that he could still be elected. The momentum is there and early voting has already started. Unless voters strongly reject Velasquez, Rosen Gonzalez may find herself in the position of serving on the dais next to her abuser. That’s far worse than serving next to Samuelian, who she’s campaigned against and is aligned with her enemies,.
But, hey, at least he hasn’t whipped it out on her.
So, we should all thank the commissioner. Because she really gains nothing political from this except a lot of grief for the next year one way or another. She did this because it was the right thing to do.
Courage is contagious. Pass it on.

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Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine has been pushing for the Ocean Drive ban on alcohol sales past 2 a.m. since Memorial Day weekend, saying that this is the only way to curb the crime in that area.
But the cops seem to disagree. Last week, the Miami Beach Police union joined other groups and business leaders by endorsing a no vote against a referendum on Tuesday’s ballot that would end alcohol sales at outdoor bars on Ocean Drive at 2 a.m. instead of 5 a.m. They know these are not the problem hours for their officers. They know this change will not curb crime in a 15-block area that has become an envied icon in the travel and tourism industry. They know the mayor has no study to show otherwise.
So why is Levine really doing it? What’s his real motivation? It ain’t public safety. So could it be the oldest answer in the book? Could it be money?
Close to $1 million has been raised by his political action committee, including $200K from the business partner of Hollywood filmmaker Harvey Weinstein —  an ultrawealthy oligarch with business ties to a Russian tycoon involved in the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation — since Levine got the alcohol sales ban on the November ballot.
Read related story: Miami Beach is late with study on impact of alcohol ban referendum
Yeah, yeah. We know the mayor is a millionaire who pretty much self-funded his first run for office in 2013. We know that he’s already given at least $2.5 million to his political action committee, All About Florida. But he’s running for governor now — and insiders expect an announcement soon, maybe this week — so that’s a much more expensive race. He’s going to need outside money.
And Levine has experience walking the fine line in legal fundraising and dark money. Remember the Relentless for Progress political action committee? He and then Commissioner Jonah Wolfson were forced to shut the shady PAC down after people joked that the initials stood for “requests for proposals” because they solicited funds from developers and vendors doing or wanting to do business in the city. So he’s not shy about making the asks.
This new shady PAC, All About Florida, only raised $4,000 from March to May. Then Levine secured the vote on June 7 from the city commission to put the alcohol sales ban on the ballot. And the money started pouring in — with $125,000 coming that very day from auto mogul Alan Potamkin, Royal Caribbean Cruises CEO Richard Fain and retired real estae developer Gerald Robbins, who is related to Levine’s business partner, Scott Robins, who himself gave another $100,000.
Since June 7, the PAC has received about $882,000 in donations from property owners and business interests that could arguably benefit from this 2 a.m. Ocean Drive liquor sales ban. These donors either own properties and venues that get to stay open until 5 a.m. in other parts of the city and in Wynwood — which has become another nightlife hub competing with South Beach — or they may want property values in the area to suffer, as indicated by an economic impact study commissioned by a business group, so they can swoop in and scoop them up cheap.
Read related story: Miami Beach — Levine and Wolfson on defense for shady PAC
That’s the same amount given by Russian billionaire Leonard Blavatnik, who is heavily invested in the Faena district in Mid-Beach. Blavatnik, whose company Access Industries, who normally donates to GOP capaigns and is involved in everything from chemicals to music management and the film industry. Blavatnik has partnered with Harvey Weinstein, who has been disgraced recently as a serial sexual assailant, and Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Vladimir Putin currently tied to the investigation of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Brother Alex Blavatnik, who has his own project in North Beach, gave $25,000. Alex Blavatnik helped Levine’s mayoral campaign — and got some pretty useful zoning variances the year after.
Many other real estate investors and developers gave him $25,000 or $10,000 checks.
So is he doing it for them?
Or is he doing it for his own business interests? Levine himself owns 29 properties that could benefit from this, like his Sunset Harbor property benefited from the first pump stations, sitting high and dry while the rest of South Beach flooded. Eleven of those are purchases he made recently in Wynwood, which has been increasingly competing with South Beach for nightlife clientele, and where people can drink until 5 a.m.
One thing is pretty certain: He ain’t doing it for the safety of Miami Beach residents.
 

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Less than five months ago, Miami Commissioner Frank Carollo got fellow board members of the Biscayne Park Management Trust — which oversees all activities at Bayfront and Museum parks — to approve a no-bid $2 million contract for a playground that would be paid for with funds from the Omni CRA.
Tuesday, he will ask the same board to forgive many more millions in future fees they would have collected from the same community redevelopment agency.
But could this be more than a typical bait and switch? Is this just one more step in the commissioner setting himself up for a cushy job?
First, Carollo pushed out the longtime director, Timothy Schmand — who had been managing events at both parks or writing grants for the trust for 25 years — after the two became involved in a debate about the Rolling Loud music festival, which Carollo tried to get cancelled. Schmand has said he was long considering a move, but everyone believes that Carollo pressured him. And the timing sure was convenient.
Then, he convinced the board, which voted 4-5, to buy a $2 million playground for Museum Park with no competitive process and bill the Omni CRA for the cost.
Around the same time or soon after, Carollo pushed for a significant pay increase for the executive director — a position that is still vacant — from $135,000 to $148,000, and a 25% increase in retirement benefits. for the position, presumably to attract a more and better applicants.
Read related story: Miami’s Frank Carollo climbs a familiar campaign money tree
And, most recently, he proposed an increase in ticket surcharge for all events at Bayfront Park and the commission passed it two weeks ago.  The more expensive the ticket, the higher the surcharge — and the more money collected by the parks management trust for the executive director, whoever she or he is, to spend.
Carollo, who loses chairmanship of the trust when he leaves office next month, has no place to land. He was supposed to run for mayor against Commissioner Francis Suarez, but that fizzled when his brother, Crazy Joe Carollo, filed to run for commission. Nobody was going to vote for two Carollos. Still, he waited until the last possible moment to let Suarez off the hook, until almost the qualifying deadline that he was not going to run. The next best thing is county commission, which some say Carollo, a public accountant, has had his eye on all along, but Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro doesn’t have to resign to run for Congress. And, in the meantime, executive director of the Biscayne Parks Management Trust is not a bad gig. Especially now that he’s made it so much better.
And if he doesn’t want the job, why won’t he say so? At the last trust meeting in August, board member Ralph Duharte asked point blank if Carollo was angling for the executive director’s position — and Carollo refused to answer. “I think that question is off-base and I’ll be honest with you, I won’t even dignify that question with an answer,” Carollo said. A Miami Herald story said that Duharte later noted that the exchange was curiously deleted from the minutes of the meeting.
And Carollo has been cagy and cryptic with his answers to others who have askedthe same question, never fully putting it to rest. A former trust board member said “there is no doubt that Mr. Carollo has been and is now maneuvering to give himself the job as executive director of the trust.”
It sure looks that way. And it wouldn’t be the first time he uses his palanca as commissioner. In 2012, after he was stopped by a Miami police officer in his vehicle, Carollo told him to “call the chief” and got out of the ticket. An ethics investigation ensued and he pleaded no contest, paying more than $2,000 in fines.
Read related story: Frank Carollo pleads no contest to ‘call the chief’ ethics charge
A sitting board member, however, cannot be hired by the trust for two years after he or she leaves the board. But that rule can be waived by a unanimous vote of the city commission. Enter the Omni CRA thing.
The speculation is that Carollo cut a deal with the head of the Omni CRA to “remove all current and future obligations with respect to the Omni CRA’s monetary contribution for capital improvements at Museum Park, as contained in the Inter-local Agreement” in exchange for supporting his bid for the trust director’s job. The endorsement is not the only thing that would give him an edge with the commission. Political observers expect Carollo to say the incease in the tickeet surcharge will make up for the lost CRA funds — which could be somewhere between $20 and $30 million — that the CRA can then use for affordable housing.
Key words: Affordable housing. Because that is how he’s trying to sell it to the commission. Everybody loves affordable housing and more money for it.
Maybe Frank makes for a great executive director. But he’s already awarded one no-bid contract with the playground. And he’s abused his position before. And the fact that he’s making this power play behind the scenes and being so cryptic about it is enough warning to give commissioners pause.
They should let Carollo run for Congress like everybody else.

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