Coral Gables: Raul Valdes-Fauli plans comeback as mayor

After a 15-year hiatus, former Coral Gables Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli is planning a comeback to City Hall — as the handpicked successor to Mayor Jim Cason, who has said he won’t run again (though we’ve heard that before).

The rumors have been escalating for weeks as Valdes-Fauli, who was tossed out by voters in 2001 after eight years, more at public events. Last week, he went on TV on Michael Putney‘s This Week In South Florida on WPLG Local 10 and advocating for engagement with the murderous Castro brothers in Cuba.

Hard to believe that’s going to be a good campaign message in Cuban Gables.

“The definition of insanity is to expect things to change when you keep doing the same thing. And we have had the embargo for 55 years and nothing has changed,” said Valdes-Fauli, who fled the regime in 1960 when he was 17 years old.

The mayor of The City Beautiful from 1993 to 2001 is one of the 80 some business and community leaders who signed an open letter to President Obama earlier this year, before the December announcement, encouraging a new policy toward the island government.

Valdes-Fauli said that a trip his father took with his children in 2000 helped change his mind on the Cuba issue. His father was in his 80s and decided to take his grandchildren to Cuba “to show them what he was about, what Cuba was about. These kids had been born in Boston and Miami and New York.

“It was a very emotional trip. It convinced my father and us — I didn’t go, I was in politics at the time — that we are Cubans at heart and we are part of the Cuban nation and why should we give it up? After 55 years, I don’t want to give up my nation, my soul, my heart,” said Valdes-Fauli, who strikes an eerily strong resemblance to Gru, the villain from “Despicable Me” and “The Minions” movies.

Valdes Fauli, who has traveled to Cuba since, also said that he did not want the U.S. government or any other outside entity to have control over Cuba’s future.

“Cubans should resolve the Cuban issue,” Valdes-Fauli said, reminding people that there are no human rights in Cuba. “It’s been six months [since the drive to normalize], so let’s give it a chance. And if it doesn’t work, we go back to not having human rights so there is no down side to this.”

Well, except you’ve lost a little dignity and integrity. That’s a down side. And the corrupt and repressive Cuban government gains some credibility and bank credit to fund the continued beating, jailing and harassment of dissidents. That’s a down side,no?

There are rumors that Commissioner Pat Keon is also considering a run for mayor — but she was a coward who didn’t speak up during the last mayoral election and, hopefully, voters will remember that.

Some say former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera could give it another try, third time being the charm and all. Ladra couldn’t reach him for comment. He said he wouldn’t run again fresh after the loss in April. But he said that in 2013, too. And he might be encouraged, seeing as how he gained about 15 points in those two years.

What about Commissioner Vince Lago? He is the one who has most acted like the city’s mayor in the years he’s been in office.

Lago told Ladra Monday that he was officially announcing his re-election bid for commissioner on Tuesday. He said that as the father of two young children and his business, he simply does not have time for the consuming job of the city’s figurehead.

“I am producing as much policy if not more than all my elected colleagues, without the responsibility of having to go to vents and cut ribbons on a daily basis,” Lago said.

Among the things he’s proud of is revamping the sustainability department, the launch of the city’s first phone app, the trolley stop in MacFarlane Homestead district, getting $600,000 from the county to restore historic homes in MacFarlane Homestead — also known as Black Gables — and the delivery of a design, architect and contractor on the long-awaited Miracle Mile streetscape redo.

He also pushed for the charter review committee to reconvene and is getting ready to push for more changes — including one that would require city departments to buy American-made products whenever possible.

Maybe he’ll run in 2019.

In the meantime, he said he expects more names to jump into the hat for the election that is almost two years away.

Perhaps Commissioner Frank Quesada thinks he can take it. Or maybe former Mayor Don Slesnick wants to come back, too. Man, it’d be nice too see somebody new.

Qualifying isn’t until 2017 so we won’t know who is running until way after we find out who our next U.S. president is.

Coral Gables, Jim Cason, Pat Keon, Vince Lago

Coral Gables: Raul Valdes-Fauli plans comeback as mayor added by Ladra on August 17, 2015
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