Attacks on military service ratchet up testy Miami Beach Commission runoff race
Out of office for nearly three years, Kristen Rosen Gonzalez is on the verge of regaining her spot on the Miami Beach City Commission after emerging from the Nov. 2 election as the front runner to win the city’s Group I commission race on Tuesday.
But she still considers herself the underdog. And since advancing to the Nov. 16 runoff against secondplace finisher Raquel Pacheco, Rosen Gonzalez has been on the attack.
Day after day, in email blasts, social-media posts and public exchanges, Rosen Gonzalez has lobbed bombs at her opponent, who has responded and seen her own supporters rally around her.
Rosen Gonzalez questioned whether Pacheco should be campaigning as a “decorated veteran” after Pacheco served six years in the Connecticut National Guard — a tactic that Pacheco, who received a Soldier of the Year Award, calls a “new low.” The ex-commissioner also circulated a police report that quotes Pacheco calling a neighbor a vulgarity for reporting her pit bull to Animal Services. And her supporters posted a photo that they claimed showed Pacheco signing a petition to expand gambling, though she says she never put her name to paper.
Rosen Gonzalez, who has committed gaffes and fought ethics complaints since she was first elected in 2015, said she wanted to distinguish herself from Pacheco amid the criticism that she has faced in her second comeback bid. She said she feels like she’s up against the political machine of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, whose leaders rebuked her in September when she falsely claimed to be Hispanic.
“I think I need to draw a clear distinction between my qualifications and my opponent because of publications by the Miami Herald and political attacks that have created a false narrative surrounding who I really am and what I bring,” Rosen Gonzalez said in an interview, referring to the Herald Editorial Board’s endorsement of Pacheco.
Pacheco said Rosen Gonzalez crossed a line when she went after her military service.
“For her to do this is not just insulting, it’s un-American. For a woman who has never served in that capacity in her life it’s completely out of line,” she told the Herald. “I take serious offense to that.”
WHAT MAKES A VETERAN?
Rosen Gonzalez in recent days circulated endorsements by former Surfside Mayor Marvin Weinstein and Miami Beach community activist Frank Del Vecchio, both of whom identified themselves as veterans. They accused Pacheco of falsely claiming to be a veteran and pointed to the legal definition from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, which says a National Guard member is not considered a veteran until they serve 180 days in a federal active duty or 20 years total.
“She’s not a veteran, she doesn’t qualify under any of the requirements,” Del Vecchio, who said he is a Navy veteran, said at a campaign event Tuesday. “She’s not decorated because she got a PR award.”
Pacheco, who served 20 years ago, said she believes she was assigned to activeduty work at some point but does not recall when or for how long. National Guard members with six or more years of service are eligible for home loans from the Department of Veteran Affairs, but Pacheco said she has never applied for veteran benefits.
Pacheco said Rosen Gonzalez’s attempt to scrutinize her military record goes beyond typical attacks.
“We’re talking about a woman who lies about her ethnicity,” Pacheco said. “She has zero regard for cultural sensitivity.”
Rosen Gonzalez this week distanced herself from the claims that she distributed with her political email account and said she did not ask her supporters to write them. She did say Pacheco “maybe oversold herself.”
“Her saying she was a decorated veteran upset both of them. She put that on her campaign literature. Maybe she should explain it,” Rosen Gonzalez told the Herald. “I admire her service to our nation and she served in the military and I think she has the right to say that she served in the military, but I think that our decorated war heroes are people who really went into battle and risked their lives.”
A GAMING PETITION AND A VULGARITY
The Group I race is not the only runoff happening
Tuesday. Group III candidates Alex Fernandez and Stephen Cohen are also in a runoff. But the campaign between Rosen Gonzalez and Pacheco has been far more contentious since Nov. 2.
Rosen Gonzalez, a Miami Dade College professor who served on the Miami Beach Commission from 20152018, has held herself out as “an independent voice for Miami Beach” with no allegiances to “establishment” politicians or developer interests. On the campaign trail, she has promised to protect city-owned land from being sold and — after opposing a 2 a.m. rollback on alcohol sales — vowed to “shut the party down in South Beach.”
Pacheco, who owns a translation business and served as president of community group Miami Beach United, has also made public safety a key pillar of her campaign. She said she supports doubling the number of police officers walking the beat in South Beach’s entertainment district, ramping up the enforcement of existing laws and planning familyfriendly events to set a new tone in South Beach.
But policy disagreements have mostly taken a back seat to political attacks. Since Election Day, Pacheco has responded to attacks from Rosen Gonzalez or her supporters, starting with an accusation from Rosen Gonzalez’s supporters that Pacheco signed a petition to expand gambling in Florida.
A photo of Pacheco near City Hall on Election Day appearing to sign a petition was quickly circulated by Rosen Gonzalez’s supporters and one of her campaign
advisers. The petition appeared to be related to a proposed constitutional amendment to allow casino operators to relocate within the same county — a push that Miami Beach leaders have vociferously opposed.
Pacheco said she did not sign the petition, although she said she did begin to fill it out before stopping. The woman circulating the petition, she said, misled her by saying the petition would require casinos to divert funding to social services. Rosen Gonzalez, who does not appear to have previously commented on the incident, told the Herald she could not verify what happened.
The Miami-Dade Elections Office said it has no record of Pacheco signing either of the gambling petitions that are circulating in Florida. Pacheco responded to the controversy by announcing an endorsement from billionaire businessman and anti-gaming activist Norman Braman.
“There’s no story here,” Pacheco said.
Rosen Gonzalez has also highlighted Pacheco’s past financial troubles, including bankruptcies in 1998 and 2017, telling supporters in a recent email that the bankruptcies should “disqualify” Pacheco. In her 2017 bankruptcy, Pacheco listed $145,000 in debt, including a $100,000 federal loan from the Small Business Administration and
$27,500 in taxes and other expenses.
“If you believe that hard work and paying your bills
is important, then I am your candidate,” Rosen Gonzalez wrote.
Pacheco said she has had financial trouble in the past but has recovered and loaned her campaign $19,000 for this election. She called Rosen Gonzalez’s argument “desperate.”
Rosen Gonzalez and her supporters have also circulated a 2014 police report involving a disagreement between Pacheco and a resident at her South Beach condo building,
Rebecca Long and two other unit owners sued Pacheco, who was president of the condominium association at the time, and other building representatives for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud involving building upkeep, an overdue 40-year re-certification and financial mismanagement, according to court records. The parties settled the lawsuit.
The incident report says Long called Animal Services about Pacheco having a pit bull, prompting Pacheco to call Long a vulgar word used to describe female genitalia and say she was going to “destroy” her.
Pacheco has called the lawsuit frivolous and said she became upset when Long tried to have her dog euthanized.
“That woman tried to kill my dog and of course I got upset and said some awful things,” she said.