The city of Coral Gables will host a candidate forum Wednesday with the four people running for 
Miami-Dade School Board in District 6, which includes The City Beautiful.
Ladra hopes that Carlos “CJ” Gimenez, the mayor’s quick-tempered son, won’t be there just to scare off the candidates who are not his aunt, Maria Teresa Rojas.
CJ Gimenez, an attorney/lobbyist who lives in the Gables, already called other candidates after qualifying to try to get them to drop out of the race to replace Raquel Regalado, who resigned from the school board because she is running for Miami-Dade mayor against his dad. The Miami Herald reported last month that at least three candidates said they got calls from CJ and/or his colleague, Luis Mata, who also works at Balsera Communications with the mayor’s son and who has political aspirations of his own, just wait and see (more on that later).
The candidates said they were urged with a “really strong tone” to withdraw. “It did sound like bullying to me,” Modesto “Mo” Abety told the Herald about his conversation with Mata. “Sort of like, ‘It would be better for you if you drop out.’
“I don’t know what to make of it or if it’s standard operating procedure,” Abety was quoted as saying. “Especially when the person is the son of the mayor.”
Ya think?
Although it sounded an awful lot like an offer he couldn’t refuse, Abety did, indeed, refuse. So did Gus Machado, whose name rec is any campaign consultant’s wet dream thanks to the Ford dealership he doesn’t own or have anything to do with.
Only college professor Richard Tapia ended up dropping out, though he said he was going to do it anyway. But he didn’t officially withdraw. Instead, he cancelled his check, which disqualified him. And one has to wonder if the county is going to go after him to collect the check as it does with other cancelled checks, or if there was some kind of agreement made. Because Tapia did meet with CJ Gimenez at a restaurant to talk about the race.
The other two stuck it in. And they are the ones most likely to give Rojas a run for her money.
Machado, a corporate travel salesman, doesn’t have to raise a lot of money because everyone in Little Havana wants to vote for Gus Machado, even though this one has no relation to the auto mogul. He has two special needs children and is running because he is afraid that, without Regalado, the gains made in special needs education will wane.
Abety, former president and chief executive of the Children’s Trust, has been old-school campaigning this with fundraisers and meet-and-greets and door-knocking.
Maria Teresa Rojas is a longtime educator and former principal at several schools who is now working as School Board Member Susie Castillo‘s aide and just happens to be Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s sister-in-law.
Someone named Pedro Mora is also running, but he is like the Farid Khavari of this school board race. He didn’t even warrant a menacing call from CJ.
Dicen las malas lenguas that the mayor didn’t even want his sister-in-law to run. This was allegedly all his son’s idea — probably so the family can get their hands elbow-deep in another pot of public money, since Papi’s reign of terror is coming to an end. Otherwise one has to wonder what on Earth Donald Trump, one of CJ’s clients, might want with our public schools?
Ladra doesn’t think there will be a winner Tuesday. More likely there’s going to be a runoff between Rojas and Machado. Or Rojas and Abety. Or, if there is a God, between Abety and Machado.
But chances are Rojas will come in the top two. After all she had already spent, as of Aug. 12, about $98,000 — which is more than twice her opponents have raised combined. She has Steve Marin working on her $70,000 worth of materials, like mailers, and a phone bank. She has Freddy Balsera work on a “special production” for $3,000. And Dario Moreno, her brother-in-law’s own pollster, getting $8,000 to provide direction.
And she has at least $38,000 left from the total $136K raised so far. A lot of it is in $100 or $150 contributions from teachers and school administrators. But quite a bit of it is from the same people who give to Gimenez — $7,000 
from Armando Codina, at least $5,000 from the Pedro Munilla family of builders, $4,000 from Demetrio Perez , $3,000 from the Zulueta family (charter schools), $3,000 from Felipe Vals (Versailles/La Carreta) and $2,000 a piece from Marcelo Llorente, Ralph Garcia-Toledo, Herman Echevarria and Al Maloof.
We know that the Gimenez absentee ballot machine is helping his wife’s sister. And so is CJ and Mr. Mata and the whole Balsera operation, which is not as great as it promotes itself to be. But even if it’s half of its former self, it’s something Machado and Abety don’t have.
It’s going to take educated voters to send the message that we don’t want puppets who will be answerable to lobbyists and special interests. So gatherings like this, where voters can hear directly from the candidates, are crucial.
The Coral Gables forum starts at 6 p.m. at the War Memorial Youth Center, 405 University Drive. Have a question you want to ask one of the candidates? Email it to nlevi@coralgables.com.
And watch out for CJ. He might be lurking in the bushes.
Beware of Carlos Gimenez Jr at Gables school board forum added by Ladra on
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