Category Archives: Coral Gables

Last Friday, just before leaving town for Spring Break, I had a phone conversation with Brad Rosenblatt, supplemented with his written statement yesterday, as quoted below.

Mr. Rosenblatt offers himself as someone who supports local business in everyone’s interest.  “What I bring that is a bit different is that I have been active downtown since 2003.”  It’s important, he argued, to “make sure downtown doesn’t underperform” because downtown’s performance affects everyone in the city.  “It has a very clear link to the financial success of the whole city since they pay over 50%” of local taxes.  “This affects the taxes that residents pay: when the downtown performs, it keeps resident taxes low, and services high.”  Specifically, the city needs to maintain the garage, the elevators, the greenery, the sidewalks. “If people go elsewhere, it impacts everyone in Coral Gables.”

I asked if he had an endorsement in the Mayor’s race.  “I know who I’m voting for. I’ll tell you April 12. I’m voting for someone has good experience to lead our city for the next two years.”

I asked Mr. Rosenblatt to reply to the allegations about him in the push-poll.  He talked faster than I can type, so he kindly emailed emailed me a statement.

Recall that the push poll said something to the effect of

1. He has a history of financial problems including an IRS lien for payroll taxes and filed for bankruptcy
2. He was arrested for embezzlement and grand larceny and pleaded no contest

Here’s the formal reply:

A decade ago I helped my father with some financial obligations. Shortly thereafter he became ill and his ability to keep up with his obligations was affected. I did my best to take care of him but the burden became too great. At the advice of my attorney, I filed for bankruptcy. In the midst of this, I chose poor business partners who in retaliation for a hostile breakup, made false accusations against me. I have NEVER been guilty of anything. We settled the dispute and I was able to clear my good name and preserve my reputation. Since that time I have built a successful international business and have served my community. It is shameful that some of my campaign opponents choose to distort my record to win an election. I’m confident the voters will support me because of my qualifications and desire to be a public servant for our city.

During our talk, I asked about the Channel 10 article.  Did Mr. Rosenblatt really think this wouldn’t come out in a campaign?  That quote, he said, is accurate, but is ripped from context.  He was 25 at the time.  (Rosenblatt is 35 now.)  He relied on his friend and business partner’s father, who was also an investor in the project and the project’s attorney.  He “represented his son and me”.  Then it started to go wrong.  “I sued them. They made false accusation against me.”  What Channel 10 left out, Mr. Rosenblatt said, is that the main witness against him ten years ago, the office manager, has since recanted.  “They pressured her to sign a statement. … She provided a sworn affidavit ten years later that she was pressured … and I never did anything wrong.”

Mr. Rosenblatt says there’s a second witness too: “There was an operations manager at the time…he also has gone on the record…all monies were accounted for…there was backup for everything…there was no wrongdoing on anyone’s part.

“Coral Gables voters will be disgusted that someone will try to use something [like this]…they don’t have a tolerance for dirty politics, for slander.”

I asked if Mr. Rosenblatt had any idea who paid for the survey, but he said he did not, other than it had to be one of the well-financed candidates.

I hope to speak to the other candidates after I get back next week. Then I may offer some thoughts of my own about the race.

The Miami Herald weighs in to the Coral Gables Commission Group 4 race with Past finances dog Gables commission candidate: “Coral Gables political circles are abuzz with talk of a candidate’s past financial woes. Turns out he isn’t the only one.”

So now we have two candidates — both Sanabria and Rosenblatt — arguing that their bankruptcies have made them better.  Here’s Sanabria’s version:

Sanabria said his bankruptcy was an embarrassing situation, but it taught him to be careful with partnerships and be debt free.

“It gave me the greatest lesson – I have become a multimillionaire,” Sanabria said.

At this rate, next thing you know, bankruptcies — once seen in England and the US as disqualifying you from polite society — will be seen as a prerequisite to elected office…

Elaine de Valle, AKA “Landra” works through the suspects in Political Cortadito: Gables poll pushes buttons. Was I too easy in dismissing Gonzalo Sanabria as a suspect? Here’s her take:

Can we eliminate Gonzalo Sanabria, a real estate executive who ran unsuccessfully against Maria Anderson in 2009, because of those questions? Not so fast. They could be throwaway questions intended to deflect suspicion, since that argument about the meetings was made in 2009, and can’t be compared to the personal nature of the questions about Rosenblatt.

The other suspects get some knocks too.

Eye on Miami. Gables coverage is erratic, and usually in the context of larger Miami-Dade issues.

Political Cortadito. Slanted and right wing, but entertaining.

Watchdog Report. Have to search for it, but it’s there.

That push poll I wrote about the other day suggested that Coral Gables Commission Group 4 candidate Brad Rosenblatt had a history of various financial problems. Of course, just because it’s in a push poll doesn’t mean it’s true.

A couple of days ago I emailed Mr. Rosenblatt at the email address on his campaign web site, and asked him to respond to the push poll. There was no reply. Meanwhile various commentators on this blog have been writing in to say they found things, including court records, suggesting there was smoke if not fire. Now Channel 10’s Todd Tongen steps in with Questions Raised About Commission Candidate’s Past. Rosenblatt Says Former Problems Made Him Better Candidate.

First fact: the Brad E. Rosenblatt who got sued about Channels International magazine, and who later declared bankruptcy is the same Brad Rosenblatt who is running for Coral Gables Commission.

Second fact: He says he was the victim in the affair.

The magazine failed, money was unaccounted for, and eventually Rosenblatt was arrested.

“Actually, I was arrested based on those false accusations, correct,” Rosenblatt said.

…

“I was the victim in this. That is correct,” Rosenblatt said. “There was no wrongdoing.”

[Former investor Richard Olsen, whose son was Rosenblatt’s partner in the venture] said Rosenblatt stole more than $88,000 meant to pay vendors and make payroll, resulting in more than 100 bounced checks.

“My name may be on the checks, but I was young at the time and I didn’t fill out the checks. I didn’t send out the checks,” Rosenblatt said.

“You signed blank checks?” Local 10’s Todd Tongen asked.

“That’s what I was asked to do by my business partner’s father,” Rosenblatt said.

Rosenblatt provided plenty of paperwork that he said shows it was all a misunderstanding. Eventually, adjudication was withheld and the records were sealed.

Rosenblatt was 22 25 [Edit 3/11: I have spoken with Rosenblatt and he says 25] at the time and blames it on youthful ignorance. He says he’s learned from it, and become “fiscally responsible.”

Final fact: Both Maria Anderson and Dorothy Thompson have endorsed Rosenblatt.

Gonzalo Sanabria unleashed his charm offensive yesterday.   It all began last Wednesday, when I posted about the Coral Gables Commission Group 4 election:  I Just Got Push Polled in the Coral Gables Election.  In it I noted that Mr. Sanabria was one of the two victims of the poll (along with Brad Rosenblatt), but I also said this:

I have no idea who I will vote for, although I know two candidates I will vote against: Gonzalo Sanabria, who seems to represent almost everything rotten about local politics (and thus must be presumed to be the favorite to win?) and Jackson Rip Holmes…

My take on Sanabria was based on a series of postings at Eye on Miami (e.g. this and this), the blog which I’ve found to be most reliable on local politics, especially since the demise of Stuck on the Palmetto.  Imagine my surprise when Mr. Sanabria called me up the next morning and – very politely – asked me to meet him.

We got together at a Starbucks yesterday morning, and the charm began.  He’s pretty good at it.

Much of the conversation was off the record, although I did get on-the-record statements regarding the push poll and the claims it made (see below).  I also got a taste of the Sanabria case for his election, some of which is on his web page, which I take to be a combination of three things:  1) Republican-style politics of cutting payments to workers and supporting development plus “no new taxes”; 2) a technocratic/entrepreneurial claim based on his early career as an economic analyst and later career in real estate; and 3) a dash of Cuban entitlement — pointing out that there’s only one Latin on the Coral Gables City Commission, and saying how about another one, maybe one whose father happens to have had strong anti-Castro credentials and who came to Miami as a refugee at age 12.  Needless to say, only the part about being an economist works especially well for me.   That said, one might expect the package to play well in the Gables — although it didn’t quite work out the first time Sanabria ran for office: he lost by 323 votes to incumbent Maria Anderson.

On the record, I asked him about the push poll. Sanabria started by strongly denying any involvement, and I believe him: indeed who would even suspect a person of paying to push poll against themselves?

I asked him who he thought did it. Other than suggesting it must be one of his opponents, all he would say is, “I find it to be quite disgusting and out of place.”

Would it be OK to attack someone for being gay? A moment’s hesitation, then a firm “No.”

I asked if he had a favorite in the Mayor’s race. But there was no endorsement: “There’s three people and I can work with any of them.”

The push last week poll made four suggestions about the Sanabria record, and I offered Mr. Sanabria a chance to respond to each one.

As member of the Coral Gables Historical Preservation Board, he missed more than 25% of the meetings

“My kid Eric, my son, was a senior in high school and I never missed a game that he played basketball at. So I missed two out of ten meetings that he played basketball at. For me family always comes first.”

I neglected to ask if any of the kids still play sports.

He spent over 100K of his own money running unsuccessfully in what observers called “the nastiest local election ever”.

“I don’t know what ‘the nastiest local election means’. I got attacked viciously, I used my money, my $100,000 so I wasn’t beholden to any influence group. And we still gathered an additional $60,000 in contributions from city residents, taxpayers. This time around I’m not using any of my money.

“….I’m beholden to guy who gives the $25 , $50 check, and they’re mostly residents of the city.

“…[losing] by 323 votes against an incumbent. I wouldn’t call that ‘unsuccessfully’ — I would call that a pretty close race.”

As for donations in the current campaign Sanabria says the “80% of the contributions are from individuals” and “I won’t accept any money from contractual vendors.”

(In my opinion, however, that’s a little misleading since individuals usually give smaller contributions. The interesting question would be who the largest contributors are and how much they gave. Also, what % of the total is from gifts of $50 or less.)

In 12 years as a resident he only voted once in a city election

“I regret it. I regret it tremendously. If I had known then what I know now, I should have paid attention to the community. I was busy raising my family….I apologize for not voting.”

As member of the Miami-Dade Planning Advisory Board he voted at least five times to move the UDB farther west into the Everglades.

“That’s not true. But I did vote and championed the incorporation of eight new cities (Key Biscayne, Pinecrest, Doral, Palmetto Bay, Old Cutler Bay, Miami Gardens, Miami Lakes, Aventura, Sunny Islands).” Mr. Sanabria did say he voted to move the UDB twice, but insisted that in both cases there were very good reasons and in at least one of the cases the land was heavily polluted and would have been no environmental loss, rather a gain as it would have been cleaned up.

And here we get to the heart of the matter. I have no idea what the record on actual votes to move the UDB may be. And Mr. Sanabria insisted several times in our coffee that he has no desire to move the UDB south. But there’s no question that he’s a strongly pro-development figure. People like me who are neither happy with NIMBYism nor happy with unregulated sprawl anywhere, nor unplanned growth in residential areas will not want people on either extreme.

The question is particularly acute in Coral Gables which I think has benefited strongly from tough building codes and tough inspectors. Our buildings generally withstood Hurricane Andrew because we didn’t cut corners or leave out needed nails in roofs. Like many people in the Gables, I have had my issues with Code Enforcement and permitting. It can be a pain. But the overall effect has been to our benefit aesthetically, structurally, and in terms of property values. I think the truly conservative approach here is not to undermine Building and Zoning — a system that, even granting it has the occasional really annoying excess, has usually served us well.

So I still don’t think I’ll be voting for Gonzalo Sanabria. But he can be quite charming.

I missed the first candidate’s forum. I’ll try to make it to the next one — if I can find out where and when it is. These things are NOT well publicized.