The elections in Miami are interesting all over. Not just in the mayor’s race.
We have three commission seats in play. One crowded field to replace Commissioner Francis Suarez, who is challenging the mayor. Two incumbents are fighting to stay in place. And one of those, Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones — who was suspended for 19 months while she fought felony corruption charges — has been ruled ineligible to run, based on term limits and has sued to try to stay in the game. (More on that later).
It’s going to be hard for Commissioner Frank Carollo and his challenger, Alex Dominguez, to compete with that kind of drama.
But this is still a great race to watch.
On the one hand, you have a commissioner who is best known for being the baby brother to former Mayor Joe Carollo — which is a good and a bad thing– who reported a $140,000 warchest earlier this month. On the other hand, you have an unknown pharmaceutical company executive who got 43 percent of the vote for state rep in the Democratic primary last year with less than the $16,000 he’s collected so far for this race.
So maybe that is why Dominguez didn’t seem too worried Saturday night at a fundraiser at Tutto’s Mare on 3rd Avenue between the Roads and Brickell. His goal is to raise $60,000 and he says that is all he will need to knock out someone as unpopular as Carollo. After all, he has been knocking on doors for almost a year now, if you include the time he spent stumping for the House seat.
While only about 30 or 35 percent of House District 112 — which eventually went to the other Dem in that race, State Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez — is in Miami’s District 3 (Brickell/Roads/Little Havana) race, it still gives Dominguez a little bit more name recognition than he would have had going in if he hadn’t run last year.
And he may need every little bit of a head start he can get.
Financial reports submitted earlier this month show that Carollo has raised more than six times as much as Dominguez, in about a third of the time. Naturally, he’s an incumbent getting incumbent money.
Carollo’s $138,000 treasure chest has several bundled bunches, which includes at least around $6,000 from the Morrison, Brown, Argiz & Farra CPA firm in between several different Brickell Avenue attorneys. He also got $6,000 in 12 maximum $500 checks in companies tied to real estate investors Ed Garcia and Rolando Delgado and $5,000 each from developers Jeffrey Berkowitz and Pedro Nelson Rodriguez, $4,000 from developer Jeffery Hoyos and companies, but only $2,000, so far, anyway, from developer Jorge Munilla.
Carollo also got at least $1,500 each from lobbyist Ron Book, auto magnate Norman Braman and his one-time protege, Mario Murgado, owner of Brickell Motors.
He also has $1,000 from political strategist Al Lorenzo and $500 from Francois Illas, his partner, which is a sign that Lorenzo — who was snared in the absentee ballot fraud investigation last year that got him fired by Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez — could be working on that campaign. Another G-Man who gave: Jesse Manzano, who was involved in that tainted second Gimenez campaign, forked over $500.
We also see many of the same names — Brian May ($1,000), Berkowitz, Book, former Miami-Dade Democratic Committee Chair Richard Lydecker ($1,000)– repeated that we saw in the mayoral race campaign report submitted by Baby X. I thought rainmaker Brian Goldmeier — who made his fame with the Gimenez campaign and is helping Suarez drum up donations — was working with Carollo also, picking up two checks at once. But Goldmeier told Ladra Sunday that he was not. He is too busy with bigger things than a commission race.
Meanwhile, Dominguez is getting more smaller checks and told Ladra he would not accept money from lobbyists or people with a financial interest. In fact, he says this sign that was outside his campaign kick-off Saturday night — where more than two dozen supporters showed up in the rain (click here to see photo album) — will be placed outside his commission office if he is elected.
“I know every single person who has contributed to my campaign,” he said, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing since it’s not something I’ve ever heard anyone say before.
Of course, he knows one person very well: Dominguez has loaned himself $4,500 for this bid.
Most of his other contributions are in smaller checks — $250, $100 and even $50 or $25, which you don’t find in Carollo’s list — and he only has nine $500 maximum donations, mostly from his contacts in the medical field.
“It just makes me want to keep working as hard as I have been,” Dominguez told Ladra about the disparity in the two accounts. “Our campaign is used to squeezing lemonade out of a few lemons.”
Dominguez, who has been aggressive voicing his position on issues to the media — like his opposition to the Dolphins stadium public financing deal — and knocking on doors, wants to be underestimated (look what happened when former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla did that with Rodriguez in the 112 race).
If he knocks on enough doors, he could be a threat. Not only because he has no baggage, like Carollo, who has allegations of domestic abuse and a probable cause from the Miami-Dade Ethics Commission about abuse of power when he called the police chief after he was pulled over for a traffic stop in Coconut Grove last year. Fellow blogger Al Crespo has written all about it.
Not only because he arguable cae mejor than Carollo and is the only candidate to vow to abolish the Community Redevelopment Agencies, which Ladra thinks are all a scam anyway.
But also because he is presenting himself as a checks and balances on that dais. Someone who will ask the right questions about city spending. Someone who will question city employees spending time at quasi-campaign events. Someone who will ask whether or not Suarez should recuse himself from any votes having to do with Scotty’s Landing, since the restaurant and he share political consultants.
“I’m not running to make friends. If I win, everybody over there is going to hate me,” Dominguez told me, referring to City Hall.
That’s worth voting for right there.
Miami’s Frank Carollo climbs a familiar campaign money tree added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
