In Coral Gables, Jim Cason trades smooth sidewalks for votes

As they go door to door, asking voters to re-elect Mayor Jim Cason, the incumbent’s volunteers are also promising voters that they’ll fix the sidewalks and potholes reported to them.

Isn’t that a blatant and unethical abuse of his power?

“As part of our voluntary work for the re-election of Jim Cason, we have to report all holes in the ROW [right of way] and busted sidewalks to Mrs. Cason,” posted Julio Ignacio de Castro on his Facebook page. “That is how PW [public works] knows where to send the repair crews, we provide that public service per Mr. Mayor’s request to his volunteers since day one.”

Really? That is how public works knows where to send repair crews? It’s not through, oh, I don’t know, an administrative process and on a first-come-first-serve basis as determined by the public works director with the city manager, on the vision of the commission as a whole? Do the mayor’s complaints get to the head of the line?

Got a pothole? Call Carmen Cason! She and the mayor will get public works right on it!

And the missus? So, is Mrs. Cason drive them directly to public works or go through her hubby’s assistant? Ladra has made a public records inquiry Friday for all requests from the mayor’s office (and/or his wife) to public works or the city manager’s office and will let you know what I find.

Hopefully, we’ll get the answer before the election Tuesday. Meanwhile, we can always turn to the very words used by De Castro and by the mayor in Monique Madan’s Sunday Miami Herald story, where both pretty much confess to some haphazard scheme in which votes are bought with city-funded sidewalk repairs.

De Castro reported that the mayor provided him with a clipboard and addresses to knock on doors and ask residents if they have any complaints. How much you want to be those are walk lists of voters only, not all residents?

De Castro also told the Herald that he and campaign volunteers took photos and filled out an actual complaint form — there were at least 13 reported on Facebook — before they “send it to Carmen.”

“I got my sidewalk fixed two weeks ago,’’ he was quoted as saying. “For 20 years I’ve been asking, and nothing has happened. When Cason took over, my sidewalk was fixed.’’

No, actually, a few weeks before Cason could be voted out, his sidewalk was fixed. That’s because the city suddenly and miraculously found $2 million to invest in long-needed and neglected sidewalk repairs right before the mayor’s contested election. These funds had been sought in previous years but the administration never budgeted it before. Oh, and just as an added coincidence, the work is concentrated in North Gables — where the voters also happen to be concentrated.

Now, before I go on, let me disclose, yet again for the upteemth time, that I do work with the Team Cabrera campaign, providing communication and messaging direction and strategy for the former commissioner. He doesn’t have to take all my advice, but I do provide it for him only because Ralph is the right person for this job. Punto y aparte. As he was in 2013, he is simply a better choice against Jim Cason to be mayor of Coral Gables.

But that doesn’t take away the fact that Cason is acting like he owns the Gables.

And I almost feel like I’ve been proven right with this situation Ladra will call sidwalkgate. Because this is precisely the kind of thing that shows why Jim Cason should not be given another two years to abuse his position.

This is exactly the kind of thing the ambassador doesn’t understand about municipal government. It’s not your little fiefdom anymore. You can’t just do whatever you want.

The city charter puts reports to and requests from the public works department in the purview of the city manager and his or her designee. Electeds are not supposed to go around the city manager and request expedited building permits or plans be approved or, even, sidewalks be repaired. It’s in Section 23, titled “Lines of authority between manager and the commission.”

“The Commission, by resolution duly adopted, may direct or require appointments, suspensions, or discharges of city officers or employees by the City Manager. But none of the commissioners may otherwise direct or request the appointment of any person to or his removal from, the service of the city by the City Manager or any of his subordinates. Except for the purpose of inquiry, the Commission and its members shall otherwise deal with that portion of the administrative service for which the Manager is responsible solely through the Manager, and neither the Commission except in open session, nor any member thereof, shall give orders to any subordinate of the Manager. Any violation of the provisions of this section by a member of the Commission shall work a forfeiture of the office of such member.”

Cason could be removed from office if he violated this section — and that is seemingly what he did, at least according to his own statements to the Herald: Cason told Madan he sends campaign volunteers to the neighborhoods to get “a sense of how people are doing,” and confirmed that the complaints are sent to his wife, who “calls them into Public Works and they get fixed.’’

“When asked about city money being used to further his campaign, Cason said Cabrera’s campaign was overstating the issue. Said Cason: ‘It would be negligent if we didn’t fix them’ [the sidewalks and potholes],” Madan wrote. But what’s wrong here is not that the sidewalks are finally being fixed — it is when and how they are being fixed.

And who goes first? Like Mr. De Castro, maybe?

“Please do not step on my new sidewalk…thank you Re-Elect Jim Cason for Coral Gables Mayor,” he posted on Facebook with this photograph to the right. He posted it March 23 — a day before absentee ballots dropped.

Was his sidewalk fixed to get his vote? Or maybe to volunteer and post Facebook cheers like this one: “Lets vote for him for Mayor again. I asked him last week and show him our busted sidewalk, he told me he will take care. He did.”

And now De Castro is taking that message to his neighbors door to door. Wearing a Jim Cason shirt and baseball cap, he knocks on their doors with a clipboard to ask if you have any complaint or need any public works repairs on your block. “Oh, by the way, vote for Jim Cason.”

Wink, wink. Nod, nod.

Former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera, running in his second bid for mayor, has filed a complaint with the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust.

“Staffers from Mayor Cason’s political campaign are holding themselves out to be agents of the city and are actively identifying constituent complaints and then using the mayor’s public office to generate official action by the Coral Gables Public Works department in an effort to garner votes,” Cabrera wrote in an email to Ethics Commission Director Joe Centorino, He says De Castro’s Facebook post is clear.

“Campaign workers are using Mr. and Mrs. Cason’s influence to expedite repairs by circumventing the city’s official process and directing public works repairs crews to prioritize cases that stand to benefit their campaign and them politically,” Cabrera wrote. “In other words, ‘I will fix your sidewalk if you vote for me.'”

These people are political operatives, not city employees, and they are giving the public the impression that the campaign — not the city — can fix their streets and sidewalks.

All Centorino has to do to see how blatant this is, is read the Miami Herald story from Sunday.

It’s no wonder Cason keeps talking about the sidewalks he’s fixed all on his own. It’s part of his campaign strategy.

“To me, it is completely unacceptable to use your public position to garner votes,” Cabrera told me.

Ladra believes voters will find it unacceptable, too. Hopefully, they realize it before it’s too late.

Jim Cason, Ralph Cabrera

In Coral Gables, Jim Cason trades smooth sidewalks for votes added by Ladra on April 12, 2015
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