The Coral Gables mayoral race this year already had an epic, Count of Monte Cristo vibe — what with the freshman, lone anti-development commissioner on the dais going up against a former mayor that was booted out 15 years ago for over-development, among other things, by said lone commissioner’s husband.

But now, it seems that former Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli has pulled the ethnic card, starting a whisper campaign that Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick is anti-Hispanic.

El pobre. His Cuban card is all he’s got going for him.

Read related story: Coral Gables mayoral race: Slesnick vs Valdes-Fauli, Vol. 2

“A lot of people say that its become an ethnic campaign because of the slate,” said Jorge de Cardenas, Valdes-Fauli’s campaign manager, who also ran the campaigns for Mayor Jim Cason. He is referring to the Riviera Neighborhood Association of homeowners who are royally pissed off at the Paseo project approval, and who apparently sought out two candidates for the commission positions. The group has morphed into a grassroots political group called Gables Neighbors United, which has endorsed Slesnick for mayor and longtime activist Marlin Ebbert and former Commissioner Wayne “Chip” Withers. They think they’ve got a cute little acronym for people to remember: SEW. Like, let’s SEW this up.

“Some of these people are going around saying ‘The Cubans are going to take over,’” de Cardenas said. “I guess we’re in Miami. That happens.”

Yes, we’re in Miami. So, sometimes, it’s just expedient to say it happens. This sounds like a campaign strategy to Ladra because (1) why would Slesnick be responsible for what some racist on South Alhambra (and they’re everywhere) has to say and (2) Guess what? The Hispanics have infiltrated the Riviera neighborhood already (they’re everywhere, too), so it would be sorta silly to say something like that — and/or dangerous.

And it’s not like there were a ton of Hispanic choices. Withers is running against another white anglo, Commissioner Pat Keon — pictured to the right in the most blonde on white, ethnic card-free race, lucky them — and while Ebbert is running in an open seat with two Hispanics, only one of them is actually viable (more on that later).

And why are we talking about this anyway? In 2017? Really? The only reason must be that it’s part of the RVF campaign narrative.

Valdes-Fauli did not return a call to his phone. But Slesnick told Ladra that she was going to stick to the issues. “I don’t know how to combat something like this. What do you do? What do you say?”

Maybe she’s right. What can you say? “I am not a racist.” Didn’t work for Richard Nixon with crook. Maybe she doesn’t need to say anything. Valdes-Fauli’s polls must show that he is trailing, with the election two weeks away on April 11th. People are already voting absentee. Time to panic. Which goes a long way to explain the Valdes-Fauli mailer where the successful residential real estate agent is tagged “Speedy Slesnick” and photo-shopped in a red race car. This is because she would rather hire more police officers to enforce the 30 MPH in residential neighborhoods than go down five MPH and still have nobody there when people blow by the required twice as many roadway signs going 50 MPH. The mailer — paid for by one of two Valdes-Fauli PACs — is so bad, it’s good. Someone, please, please save one for Ladra’s collection.

Let’s take a moment here to remind folks that this is likely Valdes-Fauli’s last chance to get back into the office he was tossed from in 2001 by Don Slesnick in a sea change election — two new commissioners were also elected — after he led the effort to close Biltmore Way to vehicular traffic and build a massive administrative annex next to historic City Hall. Ladra covered Coral Gables for the Miami Herald back then, and it seemed to me that he envisioned the building would eventually bear his name.

Valdes-Fauli has been kind of absent since that defeat, coming out of his self-imposed sore loser exile 14 years later, only to endorse Mayor Jim Cason two years ago. In hindsight, Ladra wonders if that was tit for tat since Cason, who immediately rewarded him with an appointment to the charter review committee — a classic step in making the man relevant again — has endorsed him back.

Read related story: Jim Cason runs again ’cause nobody else will

Why does Valdes-Fauli want to be mayor again now — a whole 16 years later? Might it have something to do with all the development that wants to apparently keep coming now in North Gables and along South Dixie Highway? Might he resurrect the City Hall annex idea?

Does anyone else get the impression that someone brought Valdes-Fauli out of retirement and it wasn’t really his own idea to run? Like whoever runs the empty suit that is Cason is going to run him, too?

And since he lost against a Slesnick once before, and he’s desperate, and it’s late, he has gone on the offensive. Ladra hopes Hispanic voters in the Gables see through this pandering and reject it. And I can’t help but wonder if the Cubans in North Gables with his yard signs — the same ones who supported Slesnick in 2015, then were told she was anti Hispanic — know that Valdes-Fauli went to the island and can’t stop talking about what a marvelous trip it was and praises the normalized relations with Cuba’s repressive regime. I bet nobody told them that.

But that’s not really important. The Cuba trip doesn’t make him a worse candidate. Ladra has been to Cuba several times and believes that family trips — not junkets disguised as “educational packages” — are beneficial to the parallel economy that makes the government increasingly irrelevant. It just makes him even more of a calculated sin verguenza for pulling the ethnic card.

Read related story: Jeannett Slesnick winning Gables mayoral money race

What makes Slesnick a better candidate is that she is honest in her campaign, which is mostly about her policy positions — not anybody’s ancestry — on transparency in government and over-development. Like she works super hard to sell single family homes — and everybody knows she is a workaholic — she has worked super hard in the last two years since she was elected, having multiple town hall meetings to gauge constituents’ needs and concerns and being extremely communicative. She is very accessible and is not afraid to go against the administration or the majority on the dais if its what the residents want. Slesnick truly understands that her job is about serving the people and representing their best interests and their hopes and dreams.

And that’s why she has voted four times, at least, against these big, massive developments that have a lot of people in Coral Gables on edge. She was the only no vote, in fact, on the Paseo de la Riviera project on U.S. 1 (rendition to the left), The Plaza on Ponce de Leon — which was Old Spanish Village and then became the Agave project and then Mediterranean Village before it was reborn with one word like Prince or Madonna — and 33 Alhambra. I believe the 16-story Gables Station by Grand Avenue may have been a 3-2 vote.

Funny enough, Valdes-Fauli is trying to get people to believe that she voted for one of those projects, when she simply voted for increased setbacks and lower density after the projects had already been approved. Any suggestion otherwise is disengenuous and further evidence of desperation.

That’s like trying to get them to believe that this house seller, who is an abuela to Hispanic grandchildren, is anti-Hispanic.

Will the real Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club please stand up?

After a short hiatus, the morning powwows will resume just in time for the election season. But we don’t know if they start up again this week, with former Mayor Matti Bower hosting a breakfast at Puerto Sagua Restaurant and commission candidate Joshua Levy speaking — or they if they resume April 11th with developer Russell Galbut speaking at the Bakehouse Brasserie.

Which one is the real TMBC?

Started by “Save Miami Beach” leader Charles Schwabb in 1996, the “club” — which has no real formal structure, members or fees — began as an informal chat between activists who were concerned about overdevelopment. Mike Burke, a onetime candidate for mayor, was the first moderator. When he moved to Broward, David Kelsey, president of the South Beach Hotel and Restaurant Association, volunteered to moderate. Activist Frank Del Vecchio, who was involved from the second or third meeting, continued to send out email notices.

Read related story: Miami Beach Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club could be toast

Last January, the notice announced the club would have its last meeting because the venue, Manolo’s Restaurant, was closing. Kelsey got a little send-off.

But several regulars apparently didn’t want it to end and they started shopping for a new home and a new moderator. Del Vecchio, a longtime activist and original Tuesday morning breafaster, was one of them.

“Matti Bower responded positively and called me,” DelVecchio told Ladra on Sunday. “She found a location, the Puerto Sagua restaurant, and arranged for a speaker, city commission candidate Joshua Levy, for the Tuesday, March 28 meeting. I agreed to send out notices.”

And so he did, on March 22. Three days later, Ladra got a second notice about the resumption of the meetings — on April 11th at a different location with a different speaker.

Del Vecchio and others are suspicious of what they call the “shadow” Breakfast Club.

Russel Galbut

“Russell Galbut is using his Bakehouse Restaurant as a ploy in his suit against the city,” said Del Vecchio, referring to Bakehouse lawsuit against the city’s regulations on live entertainment south of Fifth Street. The Bakehouse Brasserie at 808 First Street, which is owned by a Galbut relative, was cited for having a sax player when all that is allowed in that area is non-amplified piano and strings.

“He is trying to negate the city’s zoning power to regulate where entertainment is allowed,” Del Vecchio said. “His latest gambit is enlisting David Kelsey to set up a breakfast club at the site that is the center of his suit against the city.”

Kelsey did serve as a board member of Galbut’s now defunct Miami Beach Taxpayers Association.

Ladra says the more the merrier. There is plenty going on in Miami Beach and South Florida to sustain both meetings. Except one may have to change its name — maybe the Wednesday Morning Breakfast Club?

After all, we can’t be in two places at once on Tuesday.

The county mayor’s newest senior advisor, his longtime mouthpiece and spokesman Michael Hernandez, will speak Thursday to an evening gathering of the South Florida Black Journalists Association.

But he was not the original guest.

The organization initially advertised Deputy Mayor Russell Benford, who had twice confirmed, said Carolyn Guniss, president of the SFBJA and editor at Miami Times. “It was at the end of a day with a whole lot of meetings so he was going to end the day with us,” Guniss told Ladra.

Both Benford and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez were invited to the meeting to familiarize black journalists and black media with the county’s top office. She never heard back from the mayor’s office, Guniss said. But they were happy to have Benford, who is the black deputy mayor.

Suddenly, Benford would be “out of town” and would be replaced by Hernandez, who was recently promoted to the position of “senior advisor,” though anyone who knows anything about the 29dth floor knows that Mike has long been one of the mayor’s key advisors. At the time of the promotion, Gimenez told the media that he wanted the county to have “one voice.” That means his voice.

Basically, that means his deputy mayors are not free to speak. Ladra would be surprised if he really did have a surprise business trip come up on a Thursday when he already had meetings scheduled.

Hernandez “offered himself,” said Guniss, who had to tell members Tuesday that it would be Hernandez speaking and not Benford.

“I don’t expect many of my members to show up. I promised them a mayor,” she said.

But I wouldn’t be so sure. Especially since the conversation — at Venture Cafe, 1951 NW 7th Ave. — is on the record.

“So come with burning questions,” Guniss said.

We have another Miami-Dade County commission meeting this week. Between the committees, the Comprehensive Development Master Plan meetings, the MPO (which is now the TPO) and the full Miami-Dade commission meetings, it seems like there is something going on at County Hall every day. We mean out in public view.

But we have more than 30 other municipalities within Miami-Dade that also have their own government functions happening. So you can bet there is always something going on somewhere in the 305.

This week, that includes Palmetto Bay, Coral Gables, Doral and Miami Beach.

As always, please keep sending information about your government meetings, candidate forums and political powwows to edevalle@gmail.com and they’ll keep appearing in the Cortadito Calendar.We can’t include your shindig if we don’t know about it.

MONDAY — March 20

6 p.m. — Get to know former State Sen. Dan Gelber, who is running for Miami Beach mayor, at a meet and greet this evening at Murano at Portofino, 1000 South Pointe Dr. The campaign event is hosted by Lois and Eliot Hess and should last until about 7:30 p.m.

7 p.m. — The redevelopment of downtown Palmetto Bay seems to be moving along. There are five zoning items on the agenda for a special meeting at Village Hall tonight, all within the newly-zoned downtown “urban village” area. But Ladra has a feeling that they might not get to all of them — unless the meeting goes until 2 a.m. or so. Yes, we expect there to be a crowd that might object to some of the density and height that will be allowed in what is called the Urban Development Village. Among the items is a mixed use development, a residential development where the Raggedy Anne and Andy pre-school is and reducing the width of the right-of-way from 75 feet to 60 feet. The meeting starts at 7, but the Village Council will meet an hour early (at 6 p.m.) at Village Hall, 9705 East Hibiscus Street, to discuss the possible resignation of the Village Clerk after, las malas lenguas say, being verbally abused by some council members and residents (more on that later).

TUESDAY — March 21

9:30 a.m. — It’s probably too soon for the Miami-Dade Commission to take any action on Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s deal with AirBnB for resort taxes, although they may certainly talk about it. Any consideration of ratification may have to wait, however, until the item has been properly advertised. But there is plenty on the budget to keep them busy, including a discussion about mosquito control efforts — which hopefully will give us more information on the mayor’s plan to drop millions of mutant mosquitoes somewhere over West Dade — and about using county properties to generate solar energy. They will also talk about a $1.7 million summer jobs program proposed by Commissioner Xavier Suarez and a charter review task force that Commissioners Esteban Bovo and Daniella Levine-Cava want to implement. Commissioners may also hand out $13.4 million to community grants under, Ladra believes, new guidelines and approve new boundaries for the town of Medley.

6 p.m. — Sen. Gwen Margolis and Miami Beach Commissioner John Aleman are the headliners of a women’s fundraiser for Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Grieco‘s campaign for mayor Tuesday at the Miami Beach Woman’s Club, 2401 Pinetree Dr.  There are more than 50 women listed as hosts, including former commission candidates Betsy Perez and Elsa Urquiza. But, curiously, none of the other three female commissioners on the dais. Perhaps Commissioners Joy Malakoff, Kristen Rosen Gonzalez and Micky Steinberg want to sit this one out. Or perhaps they’ll support someone else. Awkward! Especially since the election is all the way in November.

7 p.m. — Local Democrats are still not over it. The South Dade Democrats Club is having a get togehter called Vent * Vino (it used to be called Whine & Wine but “Dems aren’t whiners,” the invitation says. Um, yeah, they are. That’s why they are getting together Tuesday with no speaker, just to “join like minded people in an informal meeting where we can discuss current topics and come up with some projects and solutions.” The group promises to have some “politically knowledgeable people there to answer questions’” as well as wine, soda and “light snacks.” This is supposed to keep them entertained for two hours at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami
7701 S.W. 76th Ave.

7:30 p.m. — The first of two candidate forums and likely the last debates before the April 11 Coral Gables election begins at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Coral Gables Congregational Church, 3010 DeSoto Blvd. The entire two hours Tuesday will go to the largest group running, four candidates in Group 5: Marlin Ebbert, Randy Hoff, Mike Mena and Serafin Sousa. If history repeats, this is a very well attended event. Doors open at 6:30 but Ladra suggests you get there even earlier.

WEDNESDAY — March 22

4 p.m. The Miami Beach Commission meets at 4 p.m. rather than in the morning, perhaps because of a time certain (5:01 p.m.) consideration of an ordinance that would set the limits and locations for marijuana dispensaries and certain tpes of businesses. The commission will also consider awarding two congtracts to Ric-Man Construction — one for $13.1 million and another for $30.2 million — for the Phase II improvements to West Avenue (north of 14th Street). Commissioner Micky Steinberg also wants a discussion on planned public works and capital improvement projects in the city in the next five years.

6 p.m. — The Doral City Council meets Wednesday to consider, among other things, the final plat approval for Lennar’s Landmark at Doral Central and Landmark at Doral South  and a separate change in the comprehensive plan’s future land use map from business to high-density residential for 10 acres north of 41st Street between 107th and 109th Avenue. The council also meets an hour earlier at 5 p.m. as the local planning agency to consider an eight-month moratorium on any application to build workforce housing (duh) in the city and a land use amendment on parking requirements. Both meetings are at City Hall, 8401 NW 53rd Terr.

THURSDAY — March 23

2 p.m. The newly-named Miami-Dade Transportation Planning Organization will have two guest speakers on Thursday: Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Jose M. Rivera, executive director of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council. The 21-member board will also hear a special presentation by Keiran Bowers, of Swire Properties, regarding the transit-oriented Brickell City Centre. James Christian, division administrator from the Federal Highway Administration will update the TPO on fedeal highway funds in Florida and Jim Wolfe from the Federal Department of Transportation will provide a report on major projects. There will also be an update on the Stratetic Miami Area Rapid Transit (SMART) Plan. Commissioner Barbara Jordan also wants to urge the federal government to pay for some of the Metrorail cars and other transortation expenses. The meeting begins at 2 p.m. at the Brickell City Centre East Miami Hotel, on the 39th floor, 788 Brickell Plaza.

7 p.m. — The members of the Miami Pine Rocklands Coalition will be electing new officers and reorganizing Thursday night at Doc Thomas House, 5530 Sunset Dr., where they will also plan how to better save the last 1.5% of our critically endangered local Pine Rocklands.

7:30 p.m. — The second of two Coral Gables candidate forums and likely the last official debates before the April 11 election begins at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Coral Gables Congregational Church, 3010 DeSoto Blvd. The first hour will go to the two candidates running for commission in Group 3, incumbent Pat Keon and former Commissioner Wayne Withers. The second hour will be for the mayoral debate between Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick and former Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli (incumbent Mayor Jim Cason has decided not to run again, for real this time). Again, if past debates at this church are any indication, you should arrive before the doors open at 6:30 if you want a seat.

And the lucky residents of Kendall may be the winners

Zika may be out of the daily headlines and daily heads — for now. Because experts have already said that the virus could, and very likely will come back as mosquito season returns to South Florida this summer.

And, of course, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez — who had cut mosquito control funding in previous years and was caught unprepared for the 2016 crisis — has a plan this time: He wants to drop thousands, perhaps millions of genetically modified mosquitos to mate with the female Aedes aegypti species that spreads Zika — as well as Dengue, yellow fever and chikungunya — and eventually kill them off, producing offspring that die before they reproduce.

That’s right. Gimenez, the former firefighters, wants to fight fire with fire. He met with Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine about it earlier this month and pitched the proposal. Also there: Miami-Dade Deputy Mayor Alina Hudak, Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales, Dr. Lilian Rivera, the head of the Miami-Dade Department of Health, and a few other municipal staffers. The topic: What everyone is doing to prepare for mosquito season.

Miami-Dade was scarred by the Zika bite last year that seemingly ate into our tourist dollars after Wynwood became ground zero, the home to the first locally-transmitted case and, eventually, dozens bite victims, although the disease is generally undetected and is feared to cause encephelitis in the unborn children of pregnant women.  Wynwood was declared a Zika zone by Gov. Rick Scott and put on a travel advisory by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Later, Miami Beach became a secondary zone with 19 cases. 

This is where Gimenez asked Miami and Miami Beach to host the mutant mosquitoes.

It isn’t so far-fetched. The technology of GMO mosquitoes, as they are called, has been used in Panama, the Cayman Islands and Brazil, where they have reportedly reduced the population of Aedes aegypti mosquitos by 90 percent. The World Health Organization has concluded that GE mosquitoes, as they are also called, “warrant time-limited pilot deployment, accompanied by rigorous monitoring and evaluation.”

Key words: rigours monitoring and evaluation.

Because these are still mosquitos, after all. They may not bite, because only females bite, but they still buzz. They still fly around your face and bug you. We don’t know what other diseases they may carry and pass on to the females, who do bite. Or to dogs and cats. We don’t know how strong they can get. We don’t know how resistant they are and how they may further mutate or how they may affect other populations, like birds or reptiles or other bugs. Could we be creating a super-resistant mosquito species? There’s been relatively little research or study.

And Gimenez wants to do the trials here.

While he says they will all be male mutant mosquitos, it’s kinda difficult to differentiate between males and females when you are sorting millions of them, and trials in Costa Rica and elsewhere have shown that about .03 % of the mutant mosquitos that are released are female.

Read related story: Zika politics — State House candidate has repellant wristbands

That might sound like a small number. But if 3 million mutant mosquitos are released, that means 900 of them could be female. And what happens when a female mosquito with altered DNA bites a human? 

Do you know how they genetically alter these mosquitos to carry a “genetic kill switch,” so the offspring (hopefully?) inherits the lethal gene and cannot survive? Why, they insert “protein fragments” from the herpes virus, E. coli bacteria, coral and cabbage into the insects. Did we mention E. coli?

So what happens if one of the 900 females bites one of us? Can they pass their mutant DNA into our bloodstream?

It’s a controversial solution because there are still so many unknowns. Residents in the Florida Keys collected 160,000 signatures against releasing the mosquitoes in Monroe County, even though voters approved the deployment — as a Zika fighting tactic — in a referendum vote last November. Curiously enough, the Keys hasn’t had a single case of Zika reported. And they haven’t had a Dengue fever report since 2010. Ladra doesn’t know what voters were thinking. 

But at least they were given the choice in Monroe County. Gimenez won’t do that here. Because this pilot program likely comes with some federal or state grant and its his way of funding mosquito control this year, instead of adding inspectors and staff to code enforcement to cite people who keep dirty, infested pools as breeding grounds. In fact, Oxitec has provided the mutant mosquitoes to some cities for free so they get to do their trials. So maybe he’ll use the grant money someplace else. This science may be unproven and there could be unknown risks, but Gimenez doesn’t want to increase funding for code enforcement or add mosquito control inspectors when, you know, that doesn’t help his contributors or the people on his friends and family plan. And this will make it sound like he is doing something substantial, rather than just taking a stab in the dark.

Or a bite.

The mutant mosquitoes also still swarm in dark, ominous clouds — and that is not an attractive postcard picture for tourists. That’s the main reason Miami Mayor Regalado said nananina when Gimenez offered to try a pilot program in the Wynwood area that was first hit with last year’s outbreak.

“After what happened in Wynwood last year, if we start soltando mosquitos ahi, those people will suffer again. They’ve had enough,” Regalado told Ladra. The clouds of mosquitos and the mere perception that an infestation — even of mutant mosquitos — could have on tourism is not worth it, the Miami mayor said.

“We had the experience that Wynwood was crucified publicly,” Regalado said, referring to the effect the multiple cases reported in that Miami neighborhood had. “If they suddenly release all of these mosquitos that are genetically altered, it will cause a doubt for people who want to go to the Wynwood area.

“It will have a chilling effect to see a cloud of millions of mosquitos buzzing around.”

Regalado doesn’t think it’s a good idea anywhere. “It will create more anxiety in the county. The perception will be that we have more mosquitos,” he said. “They should be looking at ways to spray without using toxins like Naled. We need to focus on code enforcement and eliminate the receptacles and dirty pools that breed mosquitos.”

In Miami, the city has placed 200 electric traps in Wynwood, Little Haiti, Little Havana, Liberty City and the Design District, Regaldo said. They were donated from a company in Texas and “they have been working to reduce the population of mosquitos.”

After Regalado said no thanks to the mutant mosquito army, Gimenez apparently turned to the Beach, wanting to dump the little buggers there. 

Read related story: Joe Garcia and Carlos Curbelo agree on Zika

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” said City Manager Jimmy Morales, correcting Ladra, but also likely repeating what he said at the meeting with Gimenez. “What he said was that the EPA is willing to authorize a test and that the place that makes the most sense is in Miami Beach.” 

Morales, who is very diplomatic, said he didn’t think it would be welcomed in Miami Beach, however, where residents complained loudly about the Naled that was sprayed to contain the small Zika outbreak there. “The same group that didn’t like the Naled, don’t like the [genetically modified] mosquitos.

“If there was any decision to do anything, we would have to bring it before the commission at a public hearing,” Morales told Ladra. And, he said between the lines, that’s not gonna happen.

“I don’t see that as a likely decision at all. Neither does the mayor.”

Gimenez spokesman and, now, senior advisor Michael Hernandez did not return several phone calls and text messages from Ladra asking for clarification. But both Regalado and Morales, a former county commissioner who once ran for mayor, confirmed the meeting took place and that both cities were offered the “pilot program.”

After Gimenez was rejected a second time, Regalado said, the Miami-Dade mayor announced that the county would dump the mutant mosquitos somewhere far away from the two cities — probably from any cities, so he doesn’t get the same kind of resistance.

“The only option is South,” Regalado said.

Are you listening Commissioner Joe Martinez? Because Ladra thinks this means your people. Far away and with no cities? That sounds like West Kendall to me.