It’s not like the forces who want to recall Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez needed another reason to add to their long laundry list of arrogant miscues and misdeeds, 
disregard for public safety, crony connections and ties to lobbyists and the underbelly of 305 politics.
But they got one anyway: Gimenez flip flopped on Wednesday and said he would support a referendum to raise $393 million in new taxes, not for improved services like more police officers or enhance park and library programs, but to build a new, state-of-the-art Miami-Dade Circuit courthouse to replace the decaying Cielito Lindo built 90 years ago.
Read related story: Layoff Mayor Gimenez signs pop up before recall
All indications on Tuesday evening, heading into his last budget town hall meeting in Miami Gardens, was that the mayor was going to present the language written as directed by the commission at the suggestion of Commissioner Juan “El Zorro” Zapata, but he was looking at other possible streams of revenue to pay for it and did not think that a general obligation bond passed on to the voters was the way to go.
He was expected to say so.
But Wednesday, when Commissioner Dennis Moss asked Gimenez what he would recommend, the mayor advocated for the referendum.
“Let them vote it up or down, because we need a new courthouse,” Gimenez said.
That is a complete turnaround from what he was saying through his spokesman, Michael Hernandez, the night before and one has to wonder what happened? Did he mayor have a nightmare about Cielito Lindo crumbling on top of Chief Justice Bertila Soto and a couple hundred lawyers? Or was it pressure from some of the people who are pushing for it, including lobbyist and BFF Jorge Luis Lopez?
Whatever the reason it is one more example of how Gimenez refuses to lead. Instead of saying that the money can be found elsewhere — because we all know that it can and, eventually, will — he is taking the easy way out and putting it in a referendum so that the people give him the green light to tax them further. That or he saw that he was going to be on the losing side of an 11-2 vote and he is sick of being on the losing side so he shrugged his shoulders and went with Plan B.
Read related story: Miami Dade — ‘Trust us with $400 million for new courthouse’
Either way, he’s a coward.
Because what he should have done was stand his ground and say that there is money to be found in other sources and that this year — since we won’t 
have layoffs and other things to worry about thanks to the “five-year sustainable budget” — the priority would be to identify those funds while putting out an RFQ and looking for a location and spending $25 million of the $78 million already banked for this kind of thing, as we learned Wednesday, on the immediate repairs that are so direly needed. That’s what a leader would do.
Is that too much to ask?
But surely that would not have fueled the cottage industry that now could spend up to a million on a “vote yes” campaign and the mini construction boom that follows an approval.
Gimenez likes to say that he’s “the most fiscally conservative” pol you know. Don’t believe it for a second. Because while he keeps ad valorem taxes artificially low, he raises transportation fees and water and sewer fees and permit fees and has now been in office while the voters got whacked with two new general obligation bonds countywide, already, that were really sorta rammed down their throats. This would be a third.
And the 17th reason or so to recall him.
Recall reason #17: Mayor Gimenez flip flops on courthouse tax added by Ladra on
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ELIMINATE THE STRONG MAYOR OF THIS COUNTY.
RECALL HIM ANYWAY BECAUSE WE WILL BE IN DEBT IN THIS COUNTY, TIME TO GO.
So at tonight’s budget meeting, Commissioners challenge Mr. Mayor about the rush for police cameras. His explanation just didn’t ring true. Supposedly, he’s been thinking about them for two years and Ferguson spurred this as an immediate requirement. Well, it just feels like there’s something else going on – and the push back from the dais solidified that gaps in information remain.
Another interesting issue, the Mayor mentioned that lots of county lawsuits are settled, ln fact he had just signed off on a $160K off one earlier in the day. Compare the salaries of all of the county attorneys against the pay out in “settlements.”
Is this cabal of lawyers earning their keep?
All agree that the building is a safety hazard. So, what’s the point in this vote? And if we vote no? What happens then? The building continues in use for another 40 years?
I’d like to see the projected future cost of his decisions effecting the taxpayers during the coming 2020 decade versus the $8 million we will need to spend to oust him – the $4 million cost of the recall election and the $4 million cost to replace him.
For example, “As part of a complicated swap with Miami Beach, Gimenez wants to delay paying $18 million in property taxes to the resort city this year and another $14 million in 2016.
In exchange, Miami-Dade would add about 20 years to the life of a special taxing district around the Lincoln Road area — which is forecast to cost Miami-Dade about $800 million in diverted property taxes during the extension through 2045.”
And
“Over the course of two years, the Gimenez administration drained about $50 million in hotel-tax reserves earmarked for future debt payments on Marlins Park. It then used the hotel funds to replace property-tax money that ordinarily subsidizes Zoo Miami and other county parks, allowing Gimenez to spread the saved local dollars throughout the bureaucracy”
So $850 million in money that was going to pay for our 2020 decade….spent. This is a nasty shell game that’s undermining our future.
That the Mayor won’t be able to use his campaign war chest to defend himself in a recall effort versus allowing him to campaign in 2016 is icing on the cake.
Unfortunely for the community his time is up, he has no more times to get the trust he has so carelessly thrown away. Our bonds rating is at it’s lowest, which means that we (tax payers ) pay a higher fee for them. A TAX by any other name is still a TAX, granted it is a cowardly way of making the tax payers pay and still act as he is the best thing since slice cheese the county has ever had. Frankly he needs to go ( his pocket is well lined and the family is taken care off) SO PLEASE GO!!!
I am not sure that a recall is necessary , but Mayor Gimenez needs to reevaluate his team of Deputy Mayor’s. He still has time to build a lasting legacy as Mayor of a Miami-Dade County.
Our home address is in Coral Gables- Zip Code 33133 However we just looekd at a District Map and it seems to us that we are located within District 5 of Miami Dade Do we qualify to go and sign for the petition to recall this commissioner and also Major Alvarez ? Please let us know at your earliest convenience our taxes went up by exactly 10% and our Social Security checks remain at 2008 level Voting these people out of office would be a fair answer to their despicable decision to raise our Real Estate Tax this year