Category Archives: Coral Gables

The final results from the Coral Gables Commission runoff election for Group IV are in, and it’s a more-than-1000 vote margin for Melissa Castro over Ivette Arango O’Doski. Given the paltry turnout of 17.54% that is a very decisive result. Thank you neighbors!

In addition to being a personal win for Ms. Castro, this has to be seen as a significant defeat for Mayor Vince Lago, who organized a slate and large sums of money to support it in a losing effort for Groups IV and V.

It remains to be seen how much of this vote was against developers, how much was against Lago himself, how much was against the idea of candidates running on partisan slates, and how much was against the sleazy tactics funded by that money.  I’d imagine it’s some of each, but that a decent amount of the blow-back will land on Lago.  Where once he used to say he’d never even run for Mayor if only because his wife wouldn’t let him, the last few years have been consistent with eyes on higher office.  This won’t help one bit.

It’s not that Lago doesn’t have a good side — I like his endorsement of solar power, and the generally pro-environmental bent. But I can’t help but wonder if the City comes first in all these other policies that, conveniently, are the sort you might take if you wanted to build up ties to (monied) folk who might be supporters for a move to a bigger stage.  And the development, while some of it was needed, has gone overboard in method and substance.Then again, it might be selfless but given the results that is only a little better.

As someone thinks bureaucracy is necessary, and bureaucrats get an unfair rap, it pains me to say it but there are some troubling signs that the staff at the City has some issues with politicization, opacity, and corner-cutting for the right developers.   Castro and Group V Commissioner Ariel Fernandez will be two votes out of five on the Commission. That likely will make Rhonda Anderson the swing vote, or very occasionally Kirk Menendez. I don’t expect Mike Mena to start causing trouble, but I’m always happy to be proved wrong about that sort of thing.

(Still amazes me I can write that headline above…30+ years ago you could get firebombed for doing something like that around here.)

Local elections produce a lot of mailers, big colorful oversize cards with smiling candidates, often surrounded by family or carefully diverse constituents.

Most of them fit one of two templates: The first type are boringly generic about how The Candidate loves Coral Gables, has lived/worked/dreamed of the City for eons, and will fight to “preserve” it or “protect” it from crime and other unnamed horrors.  They’re for trees (parks) and against high property taxes and red tape–even thought that’s Coral Gables’ middle name, and indeed strong zoning and competent and honest enforcement of planning and construction rules is what drew many residents to buy here.  Pretty much 100% of these are substantially indistinguishable and amount to a waste of paper.  I’ve gotten a bunch of these from the O’Doski campaign. Yawn.

The other common template is a hit piece by some shadowy group that doesn’t file state paperwork so we can know their donors until after the election (the fines for late filing are laughable). These commonly have grainy scary pictures of the target, and accuse him or her of something heinous.  When the charges are not simply made up, they are almost always based on something ancient or something taken out of context.  For me and I suspect many other voters, the primary effect of these mailers is to raise the stature of the target: if the dark money wants to attack them, they must be doing something right.  There were some of these in first round, but I haven’t gotten any in the runoff, perhaps because they utterly failed to work the first time around.

But every so often, there’s a mailer that breaks the mold.  It acknowledges being from a campaign, not some pseudonymous cut-out, and it says something true and relevant.  I think this mailer from Melissa Castro does a a very effective job:

When I first looked at it, I thought it was one of the hit-job type of mailer–it took me a few seconds to get that, in this case, “zero” is good. And indeed, these three zeros are at the heart of why I recommend voting for Melissa Castro.

The election is this Tuesday.  If you have an absentee ballot you didn’t mail in, you can take it with you to your polling place and they will let you vote a regular ballot unless they have a dropbox, in which case you will be able to drop it off there. Don’t try to mail your ballot at this point, as it won’t count unless received by 7pm Tuesday. Postmarks don’t matter.

May I suggest a vote for Melissa Castro in the runoff election for the upcoming Coral Gables Commission election? The reasons haven’t changed from my earlier recommendation: although Ivette Arango O’Doski is the sort of youngish, smart, person it is good to see get involved in local politics, she’s running with, and bankrolled by, the wrong crowd–her supporters and backers are more pro-development than I feel comfortable with.  Plus, while the election in the first round of Ariel Fernandez to the seat in Group V is a blow to the attempt to create a pro-development Mayoral electoral and money machine, it would be good to finish the job.

Absentee ballots have dropped. If you are planning to vote by mail, I’d send yours back right away given the state of the mails. Far better, though, I think to vote early, or drop off your ballot in person at the early voting site.  The early voting and early drop-off opportunities are at the War Memorial Youth Center,  405 University Drive.  Early voting and dropoff will be next weekend only: Saturday, April 22, and Sunday, April 23 from 7a.m. to 7p.m.  I’m very happy to report that instead of hiding the drop box on the back side of the building as they had done a year ago, for the first round of voting this year at least it was right on the front side, just a bit East of the main entrance, on University Drive. Much easier to find!

If you plan to vote in person on election day April 25, 2023, here is the Coral Gables General Biennial Runoff Election Polling Place List.

Turnout in the main election was an uninspiring 20.92%.  Normally turnout drops significantly in run-offs. That means that if you do vote, your ballot counts that much more than usual.

All the votes are in!  Registered Voters: 33,002; Ballots Counted: 6,903; Voter Turnout: 20.92%
Congratulations to Ariel Fernandez who is elected Commissioner in Group IV for a four-year term.  Let the fireworks begin?

Ivette O’Doski led the pack in Group IV, but with 47.26% that is not quite enough to prevent a run-off election against Melissa Castro who–despite having a much smaller campaign budget–managed to get 39.43% of the vote (that’s just under 8% less than O’Doski).  There will be a runoff between the two on Tuesday, April 25, 2023.  So either way, there will be a second woman on the five-person Commission.

Here’s the voting info from the City’s web page.

• Coral Gables General Biennial Runoff Election Polling Place List
• Voter Registration Due (Runoff Election Only): Monday, March 27 (Register online) [Yes, it does seem weird to have the deadline fall before we knew we’d need a runoff.]
• Request for Vote-By-Mail Ballot Due (Runoff Election Only): Saturday, April 15 (Request a VMB ballot online) [That’s in 4 days, folks!]
• Runoff Election (Early Voting/Mail-in Ballot Dropoff): Saturday, April 22, and Sunday, April 23 | 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. | War Memorial Youth Center, 405 University Drive

Notably, in Group IV, Jackson Rip Holmes was leading Sean McGrover by a vote just before the last tranche of vote-by-mail ballots got counted.  That would have been something.

Overall, I think these results are something of a rebuke for the idea of a developer-financed slate as organized by Mayor Lago–and for the politically ambitious Mayor himself. Although if O’Doski wins the runoff, I guess it will be fairer to call it a partial rebuke?

TL/DR: I’m voting for Melissa Castro in Group 4, and Ariel Fernandez in Group 5, in the upcoming Coral Gables Commission election. Please don’t forget to vote.

Absentee ballots have dropped for the Coral Gables Commission election that is due to take place on Tuesday, April 11, 2023: Residents can vote early or drop off mail-in ballots at the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center, 405 University Drive, on April 1, April 2 and April 8 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. — or in person on Election Day at your assigned precinct.

Three seats on the five-person commission are up this year, but one of the seats won’t be on the ballot as Mayor Vince Lago ran unopposed, so he is automatically re-elected to another two-year term. (Ordinary Commissioners get four-year terms.)

I think that the most important issue this year is the candidates’ stand on (over)development. And, not unrelatedly, the defining feature of the two contested races is a break with the gentility that used to mark Commission elections, in that Mayor Lago’s electoral machine and the state Republican party have set up a slate of candidates, and poured money—much of it from out of town and/or developers—into the coffers of their favored pro-overdevelopment candidates. That’s two strikes against those candidates right there.

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Well, it wasn’t a debate.  For one thing, two candidates didn’t turn up.  In Group 2, Jose Valdes-Fauli was a last-minute no-show due to a medical emergency.  In Group 3, Kirk Menendez was a no-show … saying that he had an obligation with his son, which he was not able to get out of, although the moderators didn’t share this with us until right near the end; apparently they don’t check their email very often….

So the event was rebranded as an ‘informational session’ for an hour with each of the two remaining candidates (and the 120+ viewers).

The moderators, Leon Kellner & Sue Kawalerski managed to put combative questions to the candidates present, first Rhona Anderson and then Javier Baños.  The moderators clearly have their axes to grind, which meant the heat/light ratio wasn’t everything one might have hoped for.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the event was the deep resentment and hostility that the heads of the various community groups who asked questions expressed about the way they had been treated by Coral Gables staff, and their desire to have some heads roll. I have to admit that as they grew their bill of particulars against the city’s lawyers — agreeing to various zoning changes, signing off on various aspects of the Wawa gas station deal, failing to include penalty clauses that might have prevented the cutting of trees outside the site despite a promise not to, I began to wonder if they might not have a point.

As regards the candidates, there was not much effort at neutrality: I got the strong feeling that the organizers of the event support the two candidates who spoke, and really don’t want Menendez, about whom they couldn’t wait to share what they termed breaking news, but was actually a three-day-old blog post on Political Cortadito.  It accused Menendez of profiteering (the crafts homes rezoning), being sued for allegedly being tens of thousands of dollars behind on his credit card (how can we trust you with city money if you can’t manage your own?), and letting his law license lapse.

That last complaint seems odd or at least dated because when I looked it up during the non-debate, the only Kirk Menendez I could find on the Florida Bar website, was a Kirk Reagan Menendez who graduated from St. Thomas Law in 1992 — sounds like the right one, no? The Florida bar web site reports Kirk Reagan Menendez  is a “member in good standing” and “eligible to practice law”.  A smear gone wrong? Arrears suddenly paid up? I have no idea, nor exactly why I should care unless there’s some suggestion he was practicing law illegally while a candidate.

Underlining how even-handed they weren’t being,  the moderators asked Baños about a lawsuit just filed against him. with Leon Kellner emphasizing in a very bombastic fashion that allegations are not proof (no such disclaimer for the Menemdez “news” they shared, however, including the part about … a lawsuit).  Having then seen neither this explanation nor this one, I — and I suspect many other listeners — had no idea what lawsuit against Baños they were referring to. And I didn’t get to find out much from the discussion because the questioners dropped the issue as soon as Baños professed ignorance of the case and said he hadn’t been served.  Sure was a tough grilling there — on par with the audience planted softball asking how Baños’s background as a CPA would help him as a Commissioner.  (Per Baños, it would be very helpful.)

Not that I especially want Menendez, but I then I don’t especially like the Baños package either: smooth, quite well informed, and missing almost no opportunity to stick a shiv into his absent opponent by accusing him of being pro every type of development and at one point, if I followed the convoluted talk, gratuitously suggesting that Menendez had been repeatedly fired by his city employer.  (Eh?)

Indeed, Menendez has yet to offer me any reason to vote for him other than just not being the other guy. Given the blithe nature of the Menendez platform, it’s hard to know what his views actually are on development, and indeed they might be awful. But as the general tenor of the Menendez campaign is a Chip-Withers-worthy ‘keep things the same’ vibe (and, no, that is not a compliment), I don’t see the support for the Crafts development — a part of town which in my opinion was no landmark — as telling me much about his attitudes to growth in the rest of the city.  And at least the Menendez campaign, unlike the Baños campaign, hasn’t resorted to attack mailers signed by some fake political group. Although, as I may have mentioned once or twice, they have spammed me and spam-texted me which is Not Nice.

Anderson acquitted herself very well.  She had practical ideas for how to improve notice about coming development projects, and how to make staff more careful in how they testify to the Commission, but she didn’t take the bait on having a referendum on every big project, noting accurately that turnout was low and not very informed for Commission races, and would likely be worse if we had regular votes on zoning issues.  Baños, to his discredit, was more willing to pander on this one.  The moderators were pushing the idea, but it’s ridiculous.  As Anderson said, some zoning plans are 1000 pages long: they need to be broken down and discussed piece by piece in citizens’ meetings, not sent to an electorate which will never read it.

Both candidates got asked if they’d support renaming our part of South Dixie Highway for Harriet Tubman (Coral Gables, alarmingly, is the only jurisdiction here to have opposed it).  Anderson said forthrightly she was for the change.  Baños first tap danced around, saying something mushy and hard to follow about having a resident’s poll or a referendum–although if I understood him he concluded by saying that he thought it would be just, and “she should be honored.”  But from the sound of it, that was couched just as a personal view, and in no way a promise to reverse the vote of the Coral Gables Commission opposing the renaming.

Anyway, two more hours of my life I won’t get back, and other than making me feel even better about voting for Anderson, I don’t think it taught me much.

I do hope Valdes-Fauli proves to be OK.