‘Dirty politics in a wonderful town’: Miami connections pepper Coral Gables election
A dozen candidates running for three open seats in Coral Gables’ April election come from different backgrounds and careers, and range widely in age and experience. But nearly half share a common thread: deep ties to the city of Miami’s political scene.
With a deadline to qualify about one week away, it looks like the April 13 ballot will feature two candidates who are former Miami commission aides, two candidates involved in some of Miami’s messiest political fights, and a mayoral hopeful whose relationship with Miami’s own mayor goes back to childhood. Meanwhile, senior city staff members have recently come to Coral Gables from Miami City Hall, known for its unique brand of instability.
With so much overlap, the two cities are beginning to share more than boundaries as Miami’s political drama seeps into the Coral Gables election.
“The last thing I want to see is the city of Coral Gables becoming the city of Miami. It’s dirty politics in a wonderful town,” said former Miami City Manager Joe Arriola, who lives just outside Coral Gables but has involved himself in two campaigns. “The last thing I want to see in Coral Gables is anything that resembles that.”
Candidates’ connections to Miami are evident in the race for mayor and the city’s open Groups Two and Three seats. Notably, each commission race features a candidate who has done campaign-related work for Miami Commissioner and former Mayor Joe Carollo, who has a decades-long history of involvement in political turmoil at Miami City Hall.
Group Three candidate Javier Baños, a CPA, has been the treasurer of Carollo’s campaign accounts and political action committee, and was Carollo’s appointee on the Bayfront Park Management Trust. Baños’ mother-in-law is also Carollo’s cousin.
Arriola, who is backing one of Baños’ opponents, Alex Bucelo, said he is doing so in an effort to thwart a candidate who is “associated with what I believe to be a criminal,” he said, referring to Carollo.
In an interview, Baños said he knows Carollo is “controversial.” But he said that his affiliation with the commissioner is a “non-issue.” Baños also took a shot at political blogger Elaine de Valle, who highlighted some of the Miami connections in the Gables election in a recent blog post, including a section about Baños.
“I am going to run on my record and what I have done,” he said. “The only people injecting Miami politics in Coral Gables is [political blogger] Elaine de Valle and my opponents.”
Carollo told the Miami Herald Wednesday that he doesn’t know why his name is being brought up, and said that he has no plans to get involved in any of the commission races.
“These scumbags like Arriola want to bring up my name because I hired an accountant?” he said. “I wish Mr. Baños a lot of luck in his race, but whether he wins or not is no concern of mine.”
Baños isn’t the only candidate with links to Carollo. In the Group Two race, which features seven candidates, attorney Tania Cruz-Gimenez was paid just under $200,000 by Carollo’s political committee and campaign during his 2017 Miami campaign and after, when she defended Carollo in a lawsuit that accused the commissioner of not living in his district long enough to qualify for the election.
Cruz-Gimenez, though, had a falling-out with Carollo, and is now part of an effort to recall the Miami commissioner. Arriola is primarily funding the recall campaign.
Cruz-Gimenez, the daughter-in-law of Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez — also a former Miami fire chief and Miami city manager — said she will be a commissioner who would push back on antics she has seen play out on Dinner Key.
“I don’t want to see the corruption, the lack of respect, the inability to move city government and business forward,” she said. “It’s the mistreatment of employees, mistreatment of residents and business owners, abuse of power and the selling out of the city piece by piece to the highest bidder. I don’t want to see it.”
A consultant on the Carollo recall, Emiliano Antunez of Dark Horse Strategies, is working on Cruz-Gimenez’s campaign. She also received maxedout $1,000 checks from one of the owners of Ball & Chain and his wife. The Little Havana bar is locked in a contentious and litigious feud with Carollo.
Other candidates have Miami ties, too. Group
Two candidate Claudia Miro was a staffer years ago to then-Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, and Group Three candidate Kirk Menendez was formerly Miami Commissioner Ken Russell’s chief of staff and an assistant city attorney.
Menendez said his time in Miami was formative, and that he’ll bring his experience with legislation and securing funding to city hall through the lens of a “lifelong Coral Gables resident.”
Miro, who currently works in the county’s marketing department, said her experience working closely with the city manager’s office in Miami makes her qualified to “hit the ground running” in Coral Gables.
Perhaps the most highprofile link between Miami and Gables politicians is the close friendship between Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Vince Lago, a Gables commissioner making a long-anticipated run for mayor. Their friendship goes back to days on the basketball court as children. They’ve supported each other’s campaigns for years, and this year’s campaigns show the ties remain strong. Suarez’s father, former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez, gave Lago $500 through a political committee. One of Suarez’s former top City Hall staffers, Giovanni Castro, gave Lago $300.
Lago said his connections have helped him not only learn how to better govern Coral Gables, but also introduce collaborative joint legislation with the City of Miami and other neighboring municipalities. He disputes the idea that his relationships in Dinner Key would translate to bringing Miami’s problems into Coral Gables.
“We are a city that has thrived on collegiality and respect,” Lago said. “We take a lot of pride in our ethics.”
His opponent, current Coral Gables Commissioner Patricia Keon, says she doesn’t take issue with Lago’s friendship with
Suarez. But she described the political culture in the city of Miami as “divisive” and “polarizing,” and said she hopes those practices don’t come to Coral Gables.
The Miami connections to Coral Gables go deeper than the candidates or the political contributions.
City Manager Peter Iglesias, formerly the senior director of Building, Planning and Zoning, Historical and IT Integration at the city of Miami, has welcomed Miami staffers to the city over the last few years. Assistant City Manager Eduardo Santamaria is Miami’s former director of Public Works. Miami’s former zoning administrator, Devin Cejas, now works for the Gables as a zoning director.
José Valdés-Fauli, the brother of Coral Gables Mayor Raúl Valdés-Fauli and a Group Two candidate for the commission, said he’d rather see Coral Gables operate without “the influence” of Miami politics. He declined to name whose ‘influence” he was referring to.
“We just need to have a cohesive commission that works together,” he said.
Candidates Rhonda Anne Anderson, Alexander Luis Haq, Jackson Rip Holmes and Mayra Joli are also seeking the Group Two seat.
Sue Kawalerski, Coral Gables resident and president of the Coral Gables Neighbors Association, said she’s noticed the Miami connections and staffing changes in the last few years, and doesn’t know yet if she should be worried.
“All I can say is Coral Gables is not the city of Miami,” she said. “The city of Coral Gables has always had a unique character. I would hate to see that go in the direction we have seen in the past in the city of Miami.”