Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Joe Martinez may have learned something from his last two campaigns: how to go negative.

Martinez refused to attack Carlos Gimenez, who he was running for mayor against, with the absentee ballot fraud committed by the Gimenez campaign in 2012. He refused to go negative against any of his primary Republican opponents in his congressional bid in 2014.

But it looks like Martinez got over his distaste for the political attack just in time for this commission race.  His first emailed “press release” — titled “Are The Residents of District 11 Really Being Represented?” — looks like a preview of the campaign, which will predictably hit Zapata on his alleged mistake he made when he billed the county for his Harvard education (he later reimbursed the costs) and on rumors that he wants to incorporate West Kendall.

Read related story: Joe Martinez mulls county challenge to Juan Zapata

And he uses Zap’s middle name like an admonishing parent.

County Commissioner Juan Carlos Zapata sure likes to talk a lot about serving his district, but if you look closely at his attendance record to his commission and committee meetings, you have to question his commitment to the job he was elected to do,” the email says.

It goes on to report that Zap has been late (what? no Cuban time allowance for the Colombian?) or absent to 40% of the county commission meetings and 50% of the Metropolitan Services committee meetings since January of 2015.

“Imagine showing up to work at all or on time only 50% to 59% of the time, would you still have your job,” the email asks, then goes into the Harvard controversy.

“What could Commissioner Zapata be doing that’s kept him away from so many meetings? Other than trying to get taxpayers to pick up the tab on his studies at Harvard the truth is not much, which is similar to his less than stellar career as a State Representative for eight years.  What he has been pushing hard for is incorporating an area of Kendall as the City of West End, which will ultimately raise taxes for the residents of that area. It more than likely will also create another political position for Zapata to jump to.

When hard working residents deposit their vote and confidence in a person to represent them as their commissioner, the last thing a commissioner should do is raise their taxes and barely show up for work. The last four years have not been good to District 11 because we have had a disconnected and unresponsive commissioner.

Martinez told Ladra weeks ago that he decided to run for his old seat because constituents cannot get access to Zapata and are frustrated with the commissioner’s efforts to brand the district as the West End. Another candidate, Felix Lorenzo, told us months ago he was running because he was against incorporation and felt that Zapata was going in that direction.

But the Martinez email is the first salvo in this race, which we can now expect to get ugly.

Zapata didn’t return a call for comment but Martinez said, in a text message, that everything in the email was true.

“A public attendance record is negative?” He asked it like a question.

Sure, Chairman Joe. Just ask Marco Rubio.

Apparently, he is serious.

Former Congressman David Rivera, old “King Nine Lives” himself, is really running for the seat in State House district 118, vacated by Rep. Frank Artiles‘ dash to a Senate race (more on that later). On Monday, Rivera turned in signatures to qualify by petition. The Florida Division of Elections allows candidates to qualify by petition rather than pay the $1,781 fee. Rivera needed to have 1% of the 90,371 registered voters — or 904 signatures. The Elections Division verified he had 955 Monday.

Qualifying for state legislative seats is not until June 20 through the 24th. But, by law, the Florida Division of Elections can accept and hold qualifying papers beginning Jnne 6. Rivera turned the signatures in on the very first day he could.

“Qualifying by petition is a strong sign of voter support,” Rivera told Ladra on Tuesday. “Plus, it shows that no one will outwork me in this election.”

Read related story: David Rivera collects signatures for 2016 House run

Some malas lenguas believed Rivera was faking the petition drive he started in 2014 — to shake off investigators who can’t seem to indict or arrest him on any charges. Well, maybe. Because I think he had to go back to those people or get new Hancocks after he filed his campaign account information in March.

The newly drawn district overlaps quite a bit with his former congressional district, now held by U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, and maybe a little with the district Rivera last served in the Florida House from 2003 to 2011.

It also overlaps with parts of the county commission district that former Miami-Dade Commissioner Lynda Bell represented at the county and also as Homestead mayor. Bell, who was the first incumbent to be beaten in decades when Daniella Levine-Cava whooped her in 2014 — has also filed account documents to run for House District 118. But she has not turned in any petition signatures.

Read related story: Levine-Cava gets to work while Lynda Bell finishes term

There are two other Republicans crowding that primary. Anthony Rodriguez seems to be Artiles’ handpicked successor — if it weren’t for Rivera — and Steven Anthony Rojas Tallon, whose anglo-Hispanic name is too long for the ballot, I am sure. Both have been campaigning since at least February, but Rodriguez has raised $17,000 compared to Rojas $2,450.

Still, most campaign observers say this will be a two-person race between the two recycled politicos, each with their own baggage. Bell has her battles with labor, her right-to-life badge of honor and her attempts to help her family’s chain link fencing company through county legislation. And ol’ Nine Lives gets his name because he keeps dodging investigations into his campaign financing and tactics, which include the alleged financing of a 2012 Democratic ringer. Nothing ever sticks, and you want to believe it’s a government conspiracy.

Maybe it’s a devil-you-know thing, but they are the two everyone is watching.

Bell raised almost $15,000 in her first month, at least a third of which came from her political sugar daddy, developer Wayne Rosen.

Rivera raised almost five times that, with $71,000 collected in donations in March and April. The Division of Elections did not have his May report online.

But why am I not surprised?

Not all Hispanics are offended by billionaire Donald Trump’s comments about Mexicans and stance on immigration. In fact, some Latinas just love him.

And they will show their love at a Latinas For Trump event in Brickell Tuesday.

Organized by Denise Galvez of Go To Marketing, the event is not a Trump campaign paid event. He is not a client. It was organized by volunteers.

“It’s not because I hate Hillary or love Trump. I’m just sick of politicians,” Galvez said. “I think he needs to surround himself with good, intelligent people who together can actually put the interests of our country first. I am sick of all the extremes as well.

Read related story: Some say ‘Bye Marco, Hello Hillary’ because #NeverTrump

“There’s a lot of hate being spewed and accusations of racism just because people support him. It’s awful. Most people who are supporting him are independent and just want someone who puts our country first,” she said.

“We are not crazy racists like the media loves to depict. Many as a matter of fact are business owners and quite accomplished. We care more about the economy and jobs,” she said.

Latinos/Hispanics for Donald Trump has 20,000 friends on Facebook and 20,000 followers on Twitter. CBS News reported on some Hispanics who live along the Texas border campaigning for Trump or supporting him. While a majority of Hispanics are disapproving of Trump in almost all the polls, some surveys have him doing better among Latinos than Mitt Romney did in 2012 (but that should be easy). And yeah, while I definitely believe Hillary is getting more Hispanics than The Donald, there is no argument that Trump has higher Hispanic support than one would have expected.

An effort to officially name the neighborhood known as Little Haiti has drawn a bit of controversy as it goes before the Miami city commission on Thursday.

Again.

Haitian leaders have been wanting this recognition for years. They say the area deserves to have its cultural and historical impact acknowledged. But some residents and activists are against the naming — a fight they already waged about three years ago.

See? That part of town is also known as Lemon City, which has a rich little history of its own. Developed by African American and Bahamian pioneers — many of whom built downtown, Coconut Grove and Coral Gables and the Flagler railroad — and named for the trees that grew wild in the area, Lemon City was home to one of the county’s oldest schools, the Lemon City School, and its first library. It is the birthplace of Winn-Dixie, after the grocery giant’s first store opened there in a neighborhood market.

Lemon City’s history goes back to 1850. It’s population in 1895, a year before the incorporation of Miami, was 300 — bustling for that era. There was a hotel, a post office, three general stores, a barbershop, a real estate office, a bakery, a sponge warehouse, two or more saloons, a restaurant, a blacksmith, a livery stable, a sawmill and a photo studio. There were 13 ships moored on Biscayne Bay and the area became a commercial trading center.

“Miami owes a great debt to the African Americans and Bahamians who are really the pioneers of our city,” said Peter Ehrlich, who owns property in the area and will speak at the commission meeting today against the renaming.

“It was a mix of people. There’s no reason to single out one nationality or another,” Ehrlich said. “We beat it back three years ago. And that was a very contentious hearing.”

It likely will be again. Ehrlich will be joined by several other community activists, including Enid Pinkney, a preservationist and community activist who wants it to remain Lemon City.

So we can expect it to get as ugly as it got when this very same thing was proposed by then Commissioner Michelle Spence Jones? After hours of heated and divisive debate, the matter died. A big difference this time is that this resolution is sponsored by Commission Chairman Keon Hardemon, who did not return several calls from Ladra over the course of three days. I talked to Kiara Garland, his media liaison, twice but not to him. He’s very busy, she told me.

According to a Miami New Times story, however, the fear is that rich white people will buy property and gentrify Little Haiti into a trendy, artsy, upscale and out of reach neighborhood and change its character in the process, a la Wynwood and South Beach before that.

Of course, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t still do that. Unless Little Haiti is not as attractive a name as Lemon City — or Little River or Buena Vista. Of course, there’s no talk of gentrification on the resolution Miami city commissioners will consider today. It says that the name change should happen because the Haitian community is so vital to our cultural diversity and to the relationship between Haiti and the U.S. — and because the Greater Miami Visitors and Convention Bureau markets the neighborhood in its tourism promotions.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still Lemon City, does it?

Deputy City Attorney Bernaby Min says both names can coexist.

“This just recognizes the area,” he told Ladra. “We’re not publishing maps.”

The Miami City Commission meets at City Hall, 3500 Pan American Drive, beginning at 9 a.m.

Riding high off recent poll results that show him the clear frontrunner, former Congressman Joe Garcia — who wants his job back and is running against his former friend Annette Taddeo in the Democratic primary — will open his campaign headquarters in Palmetto Bay Saturday, where the village’s old town hall used to be.

This is the first campaign office, in the same place he’s had an office for two campaign years. But he plans on opening two, one in the Kendall area, probably closer to FIU. 

It does not mean Garcia has Palmetto Bay Mayor Eugene Flinn‘s nod. “I haven’t even thought about it yet,” said Flinn, who beat Taddeo for the #2 runoff slot against Lynda Bell in the 2010 commission race. 

He said he would likely make an endorsement, but not for a few weeks.

Palmetto Bay was chosen because a lot of the 2014 volunteers lived in or near that area and, one staffer said, because Garcia needs to hit the ground game ball rolling since he sorta jumped into the race last minute (per usual).

“This is really Perrine, or across the street, and the target area is West Perrine and Kendall,” said Kevin Chambliss, a campaign staffer. “We get a lot of volunteers from there.”

Chambliss admitted that Team Joe was feeling high still from the results of a poll earlier this month that gave Garcia a giant 25-point lead over Taddeo.

But, he added, they are working hard to make it prophetic instead of ironic.

“We know we have to prove those polls,” he said. “It’s almost like one of those things where its too good to be true, so we are going to think it is too good to be true and we are going to keep working hard.”

Read related story: FL26 — Joe Garcia goes from zero to hero in 60 seconds

It’s not so good to be true if you think about Taddeo’s streak. She is a three-time loser with a commission seat, a congressional seat (a different one) and the LG position in the “defeated” column. It stands to reason that people would be drawn to an alternative.

Garcia, who wants and will likely get his rematch against freshman U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, will speak to volunteers and supporters at the grand opening of the new HQ, which starts at 1 p.m. at 9845 E Fern Street (just off of U.S. 1 and 175th Street).