Carlos Gimenez is not the man I voted for in 2011.

The man we once considered an outsider on the dais, the voice of the people, has turned into the consummate inside deal broker, a man so entrenched in special interests and corrupt that his best friend and campaign finance chair has a $200-an-hour county contract worth $18 million over the next 12 years.

Gimenez went from being Ladra’s “Golden Boy” to a “Tainted Boy” — after he hooked up with the Hialeah hoodlums — and then “Cry Wolf Carlos,” after he kept threatening to lay everybody off, to “Mr. Giveaway,” when he started just giving millions away to millionaires.

It’s been a slippery slope. And as he faces the first real challenge to his dark and arrogant rule, it’s time to remind everyone why Carlos Gimenez should not be allowed to have another four years, what would be his last four years as mayor.

2011 — The Year of Setting Up

The descent started right after being elected in 2011. The new mayor asked the Commission on Ethics and Public Trust for an opinion on deals that were brought to the county by one of his two sons — the red light camera lobbyist or the project manager for a major construction firm. He was told to keep an arm’s distance. So he created an arm. Or, rather, five of them.

The deputy mayor system was created specifically to insulate Gimenez from his sons as well as his lobbyist friends and their special interest and still be able to wheel and deal at arm’s length. But it’s all a show. Because don’t think for a minute that dealing with Alina Hudak or Ed Marquez is any different than dealing with Carlos Gimenez. They will do what he wants them to do.

He also cut taxes by 12 percent, without really considering how that would impact the county in the following years. He did this 19 days after being sworn in July 1, 2011. And we’ve been paying the consequences ever since. Talk about inexperience and mismanagement. It was irresponsible. But, heck, it sounds good in robocalls and radio ads.

2012: The Year of the First Taste of Power 

In the summer of 2012, Mayor Gimenez got the commission to approve up to $5 million in funding to meet the county’s insurance deductible for damage done by heavy rains that year to the Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Arsht Performing Arts Center. Somewhere around 2,500 patrons had to be evacuated after water came gushing through the roof during a May performance of The Lion King. Though the $5 million comes from county coffers, the independent Performing Arts Center Trust was charged with hiring the contractors to make the repairs. Normally the PAC gets the county procurement department to request bids for its projects, but this was an emergency, county staffers told Ladra. And the job went to the company that hired the mayor’s son, Julio Gimenez.

In August that year, his campaign against a challenge from former Commissioner Joe Martinez gets caught up in an illegal absentee ballot operation. One of several people caught and arrested with dozens of absentee ballots was seen walking in and out of his Hialeah campaign office. He may not have known about it, but he certainly didn’t do enough about it after he found out. The man who told me personally in 2011 that he would reform absentee ballots to cut down on fraud was now looking the other way because it benefited him.

Nothing happens. Investigators later say they were stopped from going into Gimenez’s Hialeah campaign office because the State Attorney, whose campaign manager was also working for Gimenez, would not seek a subpoena. Nobody got jail time. And nobody followed up on the investigation, even though there was evidence that there were more people involved.

It’s never been spoken of again.

2013: The Year he “saved” Libraries

An obsession with sports stadiums started when early in 2013, Gimenez proposed a tourist bed tax increase to fund renovations and a roof at Dolphins Stadium, something he needed the state legislature to pass. He thought the idea was so revolutionary and fantastic — “best idea ever,” he called it — that he went so far as to having it put on fast track for a referendum and having the Miami Dolphins pay for it. The measure failed to get any support in Tallahasee and died.

Not to get too depressed about it, Gimenez flew to Paris for the air show and then later met his pal, lobbyist Jorge Luis Lopez, in Italy so they could get backstage passes to the Vatican.

When he came back, Gimenez proposed fire rescue cuts known as “brown outs” that would have some units at some stations out of service for several hours or days at a time. It would have severely impacted neighborhood service and response times. After firefighters had several street protests, the idea was dropped and money magically found (one of several times) to keep the fire rescue staffing levels.

But to fix the broken budget — which he had broken two years earlier, folks — Gimenez also proposed closing libraries and drastically cutting library programs and services. After much protest at County Hall and a number of budget town halls around the county, money was magically found again and the administration ended up only closing some branches on some weekdays and cutting staff.

There’s more. Please press this “continue reading” button to “turn the page.”

Three times in one week, Miami-Dade Carlos Gimenez‘s secret non-profit has paid for robocalls to tens of thousands of voters saying that Raquel Regalado committed fraud.

It’s a lie.

So is the robocall saying she’s had to pay some elections violation fine. So is the mailer saying the Miami-Dade School Board member has been absent at many meetings.

All lies. Deliberate, malicious lies meant to smear her name and damage her chances.

But these repeated dishonest digs, false as they are, show how desperate Carlos Gimenez has become in his effort to keep the seat that serves as a gravy train to his family and friends. And how far he will go to protect his control of billions of dollars in county spending over the course of the next four years.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez’s links to lobbyists lead straight to his staff

Make no mistake: Carlos Gimenez knows these are lies. The property appraiser cleared Regalado of any wrongdoing. An investigator said that there was no intent to commit fraud and that Regalado did not benefit from the Homestead exemption status that mistakenly remained on her home after the bank took possession. So there is no fraud. Gimenez knows that. Ladra dares say he always knew there was no fraud. Just like he knows there is no elections law violation. An inquiry into a bogus elections complaint — its become commonplace, part of regularly scheduled campaign work to file a complaint about something — is not even completed, so there is no fine. At least not yet.

And Regalado has never missed a school board meeting. Not one. She just doesn’t go for all the proclamations in the first hour or so. Who has time for that?

The mayor’s campaign mouthpiece, Jesse Manzano, dared say that the people who are getting the employee of the month award or the school getting the day named after them for their recycling efforts or whatever deserve her attendance. I would say that the people who go to speak at commission meetings about the Pets’ Trust betrayal or the mismanagement of the special taxing districts or other instances in which Gimenez has simply gotten up and walked away would deserve his ear even more.

Manzano is just defending their lies. Because these lies are crucial to the Gimenez campaign. They have nothing else for him to get re-elected on. The Gimenez track record of broken promises, mismanagement and no-bid contracts to family and friends is well documented. So the entire re-election effort is centered around lies that they themselves planted. The story about the property issue was fed to a blogger by them. The blogger was the one that created the issue. The bogus campaign finance complaint that was supposed to stay confidential and was made public days before the election, what a coincidence (not!), is made by them. All of this was planned a long time ago as the crux of their campaign. Since Gimenz can’t defend his own terrible track record as mayor and because he knows that Regalado poses a real threat to his reign of power, he has to turn to the lies and absurd attacks.

Like the mailer that arrived in mailboxes Friday with Regalado’s face morphed into Donald Trump’s. It calls her the “mini Donald Trump Miami-Dade doesn’t need.”

Mini? Wow. Is that another jab because she is a woman?

Ironically, Trump is a client of the mayor’s son. CJ Gimenez has done lobbying for Trump in Doral, where he is still registered as a lobbyist. His boss Freddy Balsera was so happy to represent Trump and the Miss Universe contest last year that he tweeted about it.

The truth is the only mayoral candidate with ties to Donald Trump is Carlos Gimenez.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez’s next mancrush giveaway to Donald Trump

That was the second mailer making comparisons between Regalado and Trump. This morphed Trump face mailer is funded by an anti immigrant PAC called Leadership for Florida’s future, that also donated more than $180,000 this month to another PAC called Stop Benefits to Illegals Now. 

The group also got $184,000 from Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy and $105,000 from the Main Street Leadership Council. It’s like one of those PACs that look like they are laundering money through other PACs and you can never trace it back to its original donation.

What’s an anti-immigration PAC doing helping Gimenez?

The other negative mailer likening Regalado to Trump, sent a few days ago, was funded by a mystery corporation created just two months ago and calling itself Committee for Integrity. As if. Florida Division of Corporation records don’t have any names listed behind the nonprofit, just a registered agent service in Tampa. So we don’t know who is paying for the mailers and the dishonest robocalls. Integrity? That’s a joke.

Because the real story is that Carlos Gimenez is the fraud, hiding behind multiple secret nonprofit PACs that smear his opponent while he says on live TV that he won’t say anything mean to a girl. Pfffftt. He is not the man we voted into office in 2011. He has become the crooked politician he used to rail against. Power corrupts, ladies and gentlemen.

Or maybe he was always a fraud, a liar who intended to fleece us the whole time.

Because Gimenez has been lying to the people for years while his son’s construction company gets a $4 million no-bid contract to fix the roof of the performing arts center and, now, his BFF and campaign finance chair has a contract that pays him $200 an hour and could give him $18 million over the course of 12 years. That’s a mil and a half a year for mostly clerical work like filing documents and going to meetings. Soon, you’ll find out that another family member coincidentally got a job (wink, wink, nod) at another subcontractor that got the “public outreach” portion of that same $139-million water and sewer contract that pays his buddy $200 an hour.

All that, folks — unlike the BS spun from the other side — is true.

Raquel Regalado doesn’t have to lie about Carlos Gimenez to get elected. The truth about him is bad enough.

The latest turn in the Zika politics trend is a trinket: A citronella repellent wristband that will be distributed at select polls Tuesday by State House 115 Democrat candidate Ross Hancock.

“Because who couldn’t foresee long ago that Miami-Dade voters would be exposed to mosquitoes,” Hancock asked.

Um, everybody else.

Even Mayor Carlos Gimenez, whose actions on the Zika crisis have been too little, too late (more on that later). In fact, what the mayor’s done as he faces a tough re-election is get photo ops with the governor and congress members as he pretends to tackle the issue with press statements every other day about the latest after-the-fact, come-to-the-rescue aerial spraying, as if he had a choice not to.

A lot of other candidates have turned the Zika crisis into campaign fodder. Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla sent a mailer with “Zika awareness tips” and urged voters to put it on their refrigerators. Scott Fuhrman, the Democrat most likely to face Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in November, sent a mailer with a photo of him and his pregnant wife — the virus is known to cause birth defects and the CDC has warned expecting mothers to stay away from Miami-Dade — in which he tells voters that his family lives close to Wynwood, where the first locally-transmitted cases were reported. The message: We are with you on the front lines! Democrats, like former Congressman Joe Garcia, have used the Zika crisis to bash their Republican counterparts, because they refused to increase spending to combat it. 

Alfred Santamaria, a no-chance mayoral candidate, was in Wynwood Tuesday passing out medical “neutralizer” treatments (read: snake oil) for Zika — only after he tipped off reporters and got the TV cameras rolling first. But Wednesday, he had to backpedal and say the balm he distributed to already freaked-out people did not neutralize the virus, simply alleviate the itching. Sounds like a true politician!

Santamaria may be in trouble since the “donation” to his campaign from a medical company — with the same address as the video production company that donated $90,000 in-kind to the campaign — could be a violation of state election laws because the medication has a value and it could be considered buying votes. Former State Rep turned attorney to the pols J.C. Planas said he would file a complaint against Santamaria. 

Read related story: In 115 primary, Ross Hancock is best bet against Bileca

Hancock said the yellow wristbands, which have a little mosquito on them as well as his name, fall well within the rules for campaign trinkets — like hats and pens and balloons — that don’t require a disclaimer as long as they cost a few dollars or less. He said they cost 74 cents a piece.

And this Zika campaign gimmick might be the first to actually benefit voters directly. What a concept!

And, even though the word Democrat is on the wristband, the benefits are bipartisan.

Said Hancock: “Zika doesn’t care if you are Democrat, Republican, or other.”

One of the main criticisms on Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez is that he is too comfy close with lobbyists.

It’s not just Ladra. A June 2013 poll showed that 55% of the people think he’s too beholden to lobbyists and special interests, and is being led by them rather than by the best interests of the county and taxpayers in his multiple, multi-million-dollar deal negotiations.

Little did they know, however, that he is soooo linked arm-in-arm with lobbyists that he has the sons of two cabilderos in the executive circle on his staff. Why not? After all, his own son is a lobbyist. Maybe he sees a little of his boy in these employees.

Read related story: Poll: Mayor Carlos Gimenez is too comfy close to lobbyists

Alex Ferro, the mayor’s chief of staff, is the son of lobbyist Simon Ferro. He’s been with Gimenez since the 2011 campaign, jumping from the Marcelo Llorente camp after the former State Rep. came in third in the recall replacement race. Llorente, also a lobbyist, is his cousin.

Ferro started as director of external affairs, a position that no longer exists (maybe because it was custom created) but became chief of staff in August 2014 after Lisa Martinez up and left for no apparent reason. Ferro got an 83% percent raise and makes $145,000 a year now. That’s more than Deputy Mayor Russell Benford (the black one). And he’s gotten to travel far and wide with Gimenez — to Denver, the White House (second from right in the photo here), even Paris.

His dad, Simon Ferro, has lobbied on land use issues, on zoning changes, a South Dade landfill and development of a Port Miami parcel. He’s represented Larkin Hospital, developers like Adrian Homes, shopping plazas and schools. Last year, he secured $400,000 in Building Better Communities bond monies for a Section 8 apartment building in Miami Beach. This year, he registered to lobby for two clients: Biscayne Housing, to argue for a tax exemption for a housing developer, and Bindor Somi, on issues related to a transit owned parcel in South Miami.

Michael Weiss is a mayor’s aide and the son of Richard Weiss, senior partner at Weiss, Serota Helfman, one of the main lobbying firms in Miami-Dade. Mike Weiss, who calls himself a policy and legislative analyst on his LinkedIn profile, was hired last year for an annual salary of $52,300.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez new chief of staff gets 83% raise

His dad is registered this year but has not listed any clients so far. Last year, Richard Weiss lobbied for the city of Miami Gardens in their fight with the county over control of zoning and permitting of then SunLife, now Hard Rock Stadium. In 2013, he represented the Miami Heat organization in its negotiations for an extended agreement at the American Airlines Arena — which came out very favorable for them.

It’s hard not to wonder if Weiss’ position had other applicants and if it was competitive. Was it even advertised? There are 12 mayor’s aides. One of the other ones is Dotty Vazquez, the known boletera who worked on Gimenez”s 2012 campaign and got paid $10,000 for consulting (code word for absentee ballot collection).

Could there be 13? Maybe 14? Or more. I mean, how many lobbyist kids are graduating?  Are Jorge Luis Lopez‘s sons old enough yet to be looking for a job? Does Brian May have any kids? Maybe a daughter for a change?

Gimenez has long been criticized for being too close to lobbyists and one has to wonder if this is not one of those ways they scratch each others’ backs.

Read related story: Boleteras alive and well — and working in the mayor’s office

The poll in June 2014 by Bendixen Amandi for The Miami Herald, showed that 55 percent of the 400 people asked thought that Gimenez was too close to lobbyists. Only 27% believe he is negotiating in our best interest.

Among Hispanics, where Gimenez showed the most support in that poll, 52% thought he was too close to lobbyists and acting on behlf of special interests. But the number skyrocketed to 65% among black voters and 60% among white Anglo voters. Among Democrats, 59% saying these special interests exert too much influence over Gimenez.

“These are the disturbing figures,” Fernand Amandi, one of the pollsters — who since then has developed a mid morning political talk show on 610 WIOD — told Ladra two years ago.

But imagine how much more disturbing the figures would be if people knew that Gimenez had the sons of two lobbyists working in his office as some of his closest advisers.

The city of Coral Gables will host a candidate forum Wednesday with the four people running for Miami-Dade School Board in District 6, which includes The City Beautiful.

Ladra hopes that Carlos “CJ” Gimenez, the mayor’s quick-tempered son, won’t be there just to scare off the candidates who are not his aunt, Maria Teresa Rojas.

CJ Gimenez, an attorney/lobbyist who lives in the Gables, already called other candidates after qualifying to try to get them to drop out of the race to replace Raquel Regalado, who resigned from the school board because she is running for Miami-Dade mayor against his dad. The Miami Herald reported last month that at least three candidates said they got calls from CJ and/or his colleague, Luis Mata, who also works at Balsera Communications with the mayor’s son and who has political aspirations of his own, just wait and see (more on that later).

CJ Gimenez

The candidates said they were urged with a “really strong tone” to withdraw. “It did sound like bullying to me,” Modesto “Mo” Abety told the Herald about his conversation with Mata. “Sort of like, ‘It would be better for you if you drop out.’

“I don’t know what to make of it or if it’s standard operating procedure,” Abety was quoted as saying. “Especially when the person is the son of the mayor.”

Ya think?

Although it sounded an awful lot like an offer he couldn’t refuse, Abety did, indeed, refuse. So did Gus Machado, whose name rec is any campaign consultant’s wet dream thanks to the Ford dealership he doesn’t own or have anything to do with.

Only college professor Richard Tapia ended up dropping out, though he said he was going to do it anyway. But he didn’t officially withdraw. Instead, he cancelled his check, which disqualified him. And one has to wonder if the county is going to go after him to collect the check as it does with other cancelled checks, or if there was some kind of agreement made. Because Tapia did meet with CJ Gimenez at a restaurant to talk about the race.

The other two stuck it in. And they are the ones most likely to give Rojas a run for her money.

Machado, a corporate travel salesman, doesn’t have to raise a lot of money because everyone in Little Havana wants to vote for Gus Machado, even though this one has no relation to the auto mogul. He has two special needs children and is running because he is afraid that, without Regalado, the gains made in special needs education will wane.

Clockwise from top left: Modesto Abety, Maria Teresa Rojas, Gus Machado and Pedro Mora

Abety, former president and chief executive of the Children’s Trust, has been old-school campaigning this with fundraisers and meet-and-greets and door-knocking.

Maria Teresa Rojas is a longtime educator and former principal at several schools who is now working as School Board Member Susie Castillo‘s aide and just happens to be Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s sister-in-law.

Someone named Pedro Mora is also running, but he is like the Farid Khavari of this school board race. He didn’t even warrant a menacing call from CJ.

Dicen las malas lenguas that the mayor didn’t even want his sister-in-law to run. This was allegedly all his son’s idea — probably so the family can get their hands elbow-deep in another pot of public money, since Papi’s reign of terror is coming to an end. Otherwise one has to wonder what on Earth Donald Trump, one of CJ’s clients, might want with our public schools?

Ladra doesn’t think there will be a winner Tuesday. More likely there’s going to be a runoff between Rojas and Machado. Or Rojas and Abety. Or, if there is a God, between Abety and Machado.

But chances are Rojas will come in the top two. After all she had already spent, as of Aug. 12, about $98,000 — which is more than twice her opponents have raised combined. She has Steve Marin working on her $70,000 worth of materials, like mailers, and a phone bank. She has Freddy Balsera work on a “special production” for $3,000. And Dario Moreno, her brother-in-law’s own pollster, getting $8,000 to provide direction.

And she has at least $38,000 left from the total $136K raised so far. A lot of it is in $100 or $150 contributions from teachers and school administrators. But quite a bit of it is from the same people who give to Gimenez — $7,000 from Armando Codina, at least $5,000 from the Pedro Munilla family of builders, $4,000 from Demetrio Perez , $3,000 from the Zulueta family (charter schools), $3,000 from Felipe Vals (Versailles/La Carreta) and $2,000 a piece from Marcelo Llorente, Ralph Garcia-Toledo, Herman Echevarria and Al Maloof.

We know that the Gimenez absentee ballot machine is helping his wife’s sister. And so is CJ and Mr. Mata and the whole Balsera operation, which is not as great as it promotes itself to be. But even if it’s half of its former self, it’s something Machado and Abety don’t have.

It’s going to take educated voters to send the message that we don’t want puppets who will be answerable to lobbyists and special interests. So gatherings like this, where voters can hear directly from the candidates, are crucial.

The Coral Gables forum starts at 6 p.m. at the War Memorial Youth Center, 405 University Drive. Have a question you want to ask one of the candidates? Email it to nlevi@coralgables.com.

And watch out for CJ. He might be lurking in the bushes.