Next month, just as county employees hunker down to prepare and/or brace for next year’s budget, 
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Mr. Giveaway” Gimenez, his chief of staff, at least five other county employees and a few of his lobbyist pals will travel to France for the Paris Air Show and a side trip to Marseille.
Ah, gay Paris. It’s a beautiful place to spend a few days in June. Especially when you don’t have to pay for it yourself.
No wonder the delegation for this “business trip” is massive. Everyone wants to go.
Gimenez will travel June 12th with Aviation Director Emilio Gonzalez, Port Director Juan Kuryla, Internal Services Director Lestor Sola, Intergovernmental Affairs Director Jose Rasco, and the mayor’s COS Alex Ferro — as well as Ferro’s cousin, former State Rep.-turned-lobbyist Marcelo Llorente, his partner Alex Heckler and former driver turned lobbyist Ralph Garcia-Toledo. Commission Chairman Jean Monestime and Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz will also be going on the junket, er, I mean economic development trip.
Two other county employees are on the preliminary list of those going to Paris: Manuel Gonzalez and Maria Dreyfus-Ulvert, the chief and special projects coordinator, respectively, of the Regulatory and Economic Services Department. They are going under their hats in the Economic Development and International Trade unit.
The whole delegation is 21 people, so far, including William Talbert, president and CEO of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, Donna Abood and Larry Williams of the Beacon Council, and attorneys David Willig and Ahpaly Coradin.
But the 
lobbyists are the more interesting travelers, right? Of course, they get to go because they put in “sponsorship” money. LSN Partners (Llorente and Heckler) are “platinum” sponsors with $7,500 contributed to the trip. Maria Molina, of Nova Consulting, paid $5,000 for a gold sponsorship. Some of the delegates are paying passengers.
Read related story: Poll: Mayor Carlos Gimenez is too comfy close to lobbyists
But what they really are buying is access, intimacy — a certain camaraderie built on spending special times together. A lobbyist would pay good money to share a glass of wine on the Champs-Élysées with the man controlling billions of public dollars. They’re also trolling for new clients. But why would any of these business leaders need a lobbyist after meeting Gimenez himself?
Willig paid the executive level sponsorship of $1,500, as did Sifa USA and CMA CGM. The projected budget as of Thursday had none of Garcia-Toledo’s company’s listed.
The county went to the Paris Air Show two years ago and while lobbyist Jorge Luis Lopez did not go on the trip, he met with Gimenez in Italy and the two couples took a little side jaunt to the Vatican to meet The Pope. His exclusion from this year’s European trip may be a further sign of the rumored cooling off of that relationship.
By the way, Ladra can’t remember or even picture former mayors Carlos Alvarez going to Europe but I remember Alex Penelas preferred Spain. These trips are not new. In fact, they are getting kinda old.
The county’s invitation to what is officially a Beacon Council trade mission says that the purpose is to promote Miami-Dade’s unique assets and location as an international trade hub. Specifically, the county has talked about revisiting the idea of bringing an international aviation expo to Miami, vis-a-vis the Everglades Jetport, a single runway so remote and far west that most of it is actually in Collier County.
Ladra can’t help but wonder how many Collier County government officials are going.
And nobody really believes some tiny little airstrip surrounded by alligators and owned by mosquitos in the middle of nowhere is going to be used for
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