UPDATED: Miami-Dade School Board Member Carlos “One Term” Curbelo, who 
was elected to Congress two weeks ago, isn’t expected to resign from his current seat until January. He has said that the December meeting will be his last.
But there are several people either jostling or being jostled for the position before Gov. Rick Scott, who will appoint someone to serve out the rest of Curbelo’s term on the school board — which is three whole years.
Leading the list is none other than former Miami-Dade Commissioner Lynda Bell, only the second incumbent who has lost a county commission seat in about 20 years. Ladra doesn’t know how Bell is the name on the shortlist of multiple sources. Some even 
told me she met with Curbelo about the matter.
Other names that have come up repeatedly from different sources at the state, the county and the school board: Former School Board Member Renier Diaz de la Portilla; Lubby Navarro, the School Board’s executive director of governmental affairs (read: chief lobbyist), lobbyist Daniel Diaz-Leyva, who just lost his $500,000 bid for state House and school teacher Carolina Blanco, once named Teacher of the Year at Coral Reef Elementary. And now we have the name of the charter school person on the shortlist: Judith Marty, principal at iMater Academy.
Can we say “duh”? Because this is a no brainer.
Let’s discard the obvious political favors and stinky or stale offerings and do this by process of elimination.
Bell and Diaz Leyva are the biggest insults to our intelligence. They shouldn’t even be considered. Not because they don’t live in the district, because they can move in after, though that is bad enough. And didn’t Lynda Bell attack Miami-Dade Commissioner Elect Daniella Levine Cava by calling her carpet bagger? And now she wants to do the same thing? What do they call that? Oh, yeah, hypocrisy.
No, they simply don’t belong on the list because both were rejected by voters in their last and very recent elections.
What is this seat? A consolation prize?
Does the GOP feel so badly for Danny Boy that they feel they have to offer him this? Or is it to try to save face after they raised and spent almost half a million trying to get him elected?
As for Lubby Navarro, who has bounced from one government office to another: She is one of the closest confidants of Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and his top administrators 
and there will be a perception that she is going to do whatever it takes to protect them. ‘Nuff said. But she is also a former Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committeewoman who almost ran for State House in 2010 and a Community Councilwoman who got that seat through appointment, also (via Miami-Dade Commissioner Dennis Moss).
And Ladra loves Baby DLP. She has to. He is like family. And he lives in the district, unlike most of the wannabes. But he was also recently rejected by voters countywide on a judicial race and it could be seen as a step into the past rather than a step into the future. And, anyway, didn’t he once say he was done with the school board and moving on to bigger and better things?
Marty, the charter school principal, is being pushed by none other than senior State Rep. Erik Fresen, whose own family owns Academica, one of the biggest charter school companies in the country. Mater Academy is an Academica school so, in a sense, she is his employee. That’s another bad idea because, like Navarro might be looking out for the Sup and his top staff, Marty will likely be looking out for the charter school industry and her boss’s bottom line.
And because they do not have to adhere to the same rules as the public schools they compete for public dollars with, that can be a conflict. The School Board has consistently lobbied for parity with charter schools — who don’t have to follow the same rules as public schools but compete for the same public dollars. A member who feels differently could vote against the board’s legislative agenda and even lobby on his or her own in Tallahassee, causing the perception that the board is not united on a particular issue (charter schools).
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