Category Archives: Miami

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.

We’re having an unusually contested election in Coral Gables this April 12th, and the glossy fliers for the Mayor’s race have been streaming into the house. I’ve been meaning to post something about how frustratingly vacuous these mailers are, making the candidates almost indistinguishable on policy. At least they don’t have identical biographies.

But that’s for another day perhaps. Just now I got a call from a supposed survey that devolved into a push poll. After some standard questions about who I was supporting in the Mayor’s race (even though I’m somewhat OK with the incumbent Mayor, I’m undecided because I could be more OK and I don’t know enough about the candidates), and who I supported in the District 4 City Council race, the fun began.

The candidates are Rene Alvarez, Jackson Rip Holmes, Richard Martin, Frank Quesada, Brad Rosenblatt and Gonzalo Sanabria.  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, whom the Miami Herald described as follows:

On Jan. 15, 1988, Holmes was convicted of threatening Jeb Bush, who was under the protection of the U.S. Secret Service when his father, George H.W. Bush, was vice president. He served three years in federal prison and was released on Sept. 16, 1991, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Holmes said his civil rights were restored in Connecticut in 1994.

But back to the slimy “poll”.  After the basic question about whether I support any of the candidates, I got another standard-seeming question about what I think the top issue facing the city is (I’m paraphrasing the choices below because I don’t type as fast as the guy talked):

My choices were:

• City infrastructure
• Controlling growth
• Crime
• Cutting city services to save money
• Ethics in government
• Improving the economy and jobs
• Reviving parks and green spaces
• Solving traffic congestion
• Reducing taxes
• Cutting wasteful spending
• Cutting excessive payments to unionized workers
• Improving education

By now I’m not happy with the list. But I picked the last one.

There were then a few questions about the Biltmore Hotel (which owes the city massive back payments). (Again, a paraphrase follows.)

• How strongly do I feel that the Biltmore should pay back the money it owes?
• Do I agree that because the Biltmore is so important to the local economy, and because the ‘managers’ of the Biltmore have done such a great job restoring and improving it, and because they’ve only fallen behind on payments because the economy is so bad, that the City should do everything it can to cut them a break.

[Although I agree that forcing the Biltmore to close would be bad for Coral Gables, I don’t agree that the City should enter into negotiations with them in a supine position.  So I tell the guy that I don’t agree with the second question.]

Then it gets better: If I learned any of the following things about a candidate, would it make me more or less likely to vote for the candidate:

• Candidate is openly gay and living with gay partner [I said this was a plus]
• [I think I missed one – maybe something about not voting in local elections?]
• Candidate was endorsed by former Vice Mayor Dorothy Thompson

But wait! Now it gets even pushier:

If I learned that any of the following statements about Gonzalo Sanabria were true, would it make me more or less likely to vote for him (again, these are paraphrased):

• As member of the Coral Gables Historical Preservation Board, he missed more than 25% of the meetings
• He spent over 100K of his own money running unsuccessfully in what observers called “the nastiest local election ever”
• In 12 years as a resident he only voted once in a city election
• As member of the Miami-Dade Planning Advisory Board he voted at least five times to move the UDB farther west into the Everglades

[I actually suspect these are all true, by the way.  Certainly the last one alone is not only likely true, but plenty of reason to vote against Gonzalo Sanabria.]

Then, on to the grand finale — If I learned that any of these statements about Brad Rosenblatt were true, would it make me more or less likely to vote for him:

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

After that I got asked again who I would vote for, but I was still undecided.

Here’s what I’d like to know

1. Who paid for this survey (the worker drone reading the questions professed to have no idea)?
2. Am I right in suspecting that the questions about Brad Rosenblatt are just fictions designed to smear him?  If so, should he get my vote out of sympathy for this smear job?
3. Is this going to be the dirtiest campaign in Coral Gables history?

Meanwhile, I have to decide how to vote in the County recall election, which is in less than two weeks, and in which I have to vote early because I’ll be out of town on election day.  I was all set to vote not to recall Mayor Carlos Alvarez (alas, I don’t get to recall the very recallable Natacha Seijas).  But then I saw the story about the Mayor using county bus drivers to campaign for him — while on the county payroll.    (The Herald followup story has the Mayor running from the issue as fast as possible.)  So now I’m on the fence about that too.

UPDATE (3/8/11): See my coffee/interview with Gonzalo Sanabria.