(Continued from previous page)
He also ignores the will of the people when he refuses to fund the Pets’ Trust initiative that was approved by 65% of the voters the November prior. After first submitting a budget with a small increase to accommodate the massive spay and neuter program to bring the county to a real zero kill rate, Gimenez back pedals and shows his cowardice by taking the tiny increase off.
2014 — The Year of the Giveaways
Time for take two on the Dolphin stadium finance plan — we told you it was an obsession — which 
is a tax exemption for the billionaire owner, Stephen Ross. That’s right: Carlos Gimenez does not fight for our fair share of available federal funds to help constituents going through foreclosure but he does want to create a new tax exemption so a billionaire buddy and donor to his campaign can afford upgrades to his multi-billion property. This “better best deal ever” failed to get traction with county commissioners — probably because some of them had elections later that year.
Not one to give up when it comes to giving away millions of other people’s money, Gimenez came up with Plan C: Up to $5 million a year if the stadium attracts events that it was already motivated to go after. This “best possible best deal ever” won’t have the county start payments until 2025 — way after Gimenez is gone from the 29th floor — even though the stadium can earn credits toward that first payment already. The money will come from hotel bed tax funds, which were already strained from museum subsidies even before the Zika outbreak has its expected tourist fallout.
But one bad stadium deal is not enough for Gimenez. In 2014, he also brokered the renegotiated deal for the Miami Heat’s use of the American Airlines Arena — arguably a better deal for the Miami Heat than it is for the county (we could have gotten more).
Later that year, he dismantled the public corruption unit, the very same squad of specialized police officers who investigated absentee ballot fraud in his campaign. Oh, he will say he had nothing to do with it. But the whole reorganization was done for him, to accommodate his budget. Carlos Gimenez is the de facto sheriff of Miami-Dade, the only county in the state without an elected independent sheriff.
Not happy with just giveaways to the football and basketball teams, Gimenez later proposes to use a Port Miami parcel to build a soccer stadium for David Beckham’s Miami franchise. This, like many of his cockamaynie ideas, goes nowhere. He later backpedals and says it’s just a “viable” site.
That summer, as the legacy of his first year’s irresponsible tax cut continued, he began the budget process with a proposed pay cut of 10% across the board and laying off 700 employees — including, at first, 200 police officers – to bridge a $64 million deficit that was caused basically by his previous visionless and irresponsible tax cut in 2011, which we are still paying for. He ended up cutting far fewer positions and no police officers lost their jobs, further earning him the “Cry Wolf” name.
By December, he was giving money away again. 
This time, to developer Jeffrey Berkowitz, who had once been his top donor and campaign finance director. Gimenez got the commission to approve a $9 million grant to Berkowitz for his SkyRise Miami project on the waterfront. But because voters in Miami have to approve waterfront projects and they approved this one as a “privately funded project,” Berkowitz had to give the money back, thanks to a lawsuit filed by Miami-Dade School Board Member Raquel Regalado, who is running against Gimenez.
2015 — The Year of the Secret Deals
In February of 2015, it became public that the county had been working quietly with Donald Trump to turn over the Key Biscayne golf course. The mayor 
supported the idea, which was born when he and Trump played a round of golf one morning, but he recused himself from the negotiations because his son worked for the billionaire. Here is where his deputy mayors come in handy. The idea generated so much outrage that he not only pulled back, he was forced to return Trump’s $15,000 contribution to his campaign.
A month later, he had another secret plan to unveil. We learned in March 2015 that he had worked for months on a deal that would help developers build a mega mall in Northwest Miami-Dade as some sort of giant retail tourist attraction. He was instrumental in getting the state-owned land declared surplus so he could buy it at government rates and then sell it to the developer for a big savings over market property value. That’s not a perk that everyone gets.
In April, he proposed to privatize Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. We haven’t heard much more about that again but, trust Ladra, it is still in the works. There is a whole new non-profit entity in the Florida Division of Corporations and my sources say the management is paying for items like security and landscaping from that account rather than the public government account (more on that later). This will allow the mayor or whatever entity he has in place to give his sons, both the lobbyist and the construction project manager, millions of dollars worth of work without having to go through the public, transparent bid process.
In May, he flew to Paris for the air show again. This time, with a bunch of county officials and lobbyists, including Ralph Garcia Toledo, his BFF, one time driver and campaign finance chair, who had started his $200 county job on his multi-million contract six months prior.
When he came back in June, Carlos Gimenez admitted that, under his administration, the county had been mismanaging the special taxing districts that some taxpayers pay for lighting or security or landscaping services. Gimenez admitted that some taxpayers had been over billed to compensate for the under-billing of others. If that’s not mismanagement, we don’t know what is.
In November, after he passed a budget where we still don’t have all our library hours restored, Carlos Gimenez proposed forgiving $2-$3 million in fines to Uber for operating illegally for months.
2016 — The Year of Opportunity
Gimenez starts off 2014 with a bang. After, once again, secret negotiations are uncovered, Gimenez publicly proposes 
to use the vacant port parcel at Port Miami for a Miami-Havana ferry — an idea he quickly withdraws after the expected fallout. He later says he doesn’t care if Cuba opens its consulate office here.
In April, since he has money to burn, Gimenez proposes and gets a $50 million bailout of the Frost Science Museum. Again, he finances it on our future, promising to pay these funds back from future CRA funds that would have gone to the museum in annual operation subsidies that we have to believe are suddenly not needed.
His emergency knee-jerk response to the Zika crisis has been characteristically too little too late and it has exposed another example of his mismanagement. Having decreased mosquito spending every year, moving the division under roads and bridges in Public Works, the county spends less for mosquito control than West Palm Beach. Nobody knows what happened to a helicopter we bought a decade ago for spraying because we have to outsource and 
pay a Sarasota pilot to do it. The crisis also exposed the fact that the county has a complaint based system, placing traps when residents call the 311 complaint line, which has left urban low-income areas under-served.
And while he has again refused to raise taxes, we are paying more because of increased property values. And we are getting less. Bus maintenance has been cut and on-time service is only expected less than 80 percent of the time. Who can take the bus if they’re only going to get to work on time 80 percent of the time? The new budget also includes a 5 to 9 percent increase in water and sewer rates, the first hike in annual increases that will total more than 30 percent at the end of five years. This while his best friend makes $18 million from a $139 million contract for what basically amounts to clerical work like going to meetings and filing documents.
Carlos Gimenez is not the man I voted for in 2011.
But we had very little choice, then, didn’t we? It was either this embattled commissioner who had been on the right side of the Marlins stadium deal or a former Hialeah mayor who was under investigation for tax evasion (later acquitted) connected to multiple questionable land deals.
This time, we have a good choice.
I didn’t start seeing Carlos Gimenez for the fraud he is after I joined the Raquel Regalado campaign. It was the other way around. I joined #TeamRegalado way after I learned that Carlos Gimenez is not the man I voted for in 2011.
Because she can do better. And because she sure can’t do any worse.
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I have been a life-long resident of the South florida for many decades, being born here. I have watched corruption take place in many of the cities in the County, with millions of dollars in outright thefts, nepotism, insider contracts, and payoffs. There are 35 municipalies in the County and every one of them have property tax rates three to five times what the County tax rate is, except for Aventura and Sunny Isles Beach. As a property owner of multple single family properties located in the County, my tenants and I appreciate the comapritively low tax rate that helps make rents affordable to those renting. The fact that he actually cut the millage rate during his term in office shows us that he is a fiscal conservative and we need that with the $4 billion dollar budget of the County. He has had numerous requests to expand departments and County services but has kept all expansions to a minimum, something lacking in most municipalities.
While Gimenez has had some questionable issues as commenters and yourself have mentioned, we could do a lot worse than him. Remember Carlos Alverez? Would you like to have him back? Sure Gimenez has done a certain amount of pandering to stay in office, but he also has stood up to the employee unions and gotten concessions from them; like getting the fire boat and fire trucks at the Port of Miami to be serviced by the same crew rather than three seperate 24/7 crews like the fire union wanted. This was a huge savings to the taxpayers.
Whenever PBA President John Rivera is endorsing somebody, you should ALWAYS vote for the opponent of who he is endorsing as whoever is receiving his endorsement has made an under the table deal with him to pay him back for his support, at the Miami-Dade County taxpayers expense. In this case, since he is endorsing Regalado, I voted for Gimenez.
[…] her? What Lladra said: Why Carlos Gimenez should not have four more years. […]
Mosquito Control is with Solid Waste and helicopter was sold. Just make a records request. I agree with Got A Point, re-advertise all Non-competively selected senior management positions and let’s see who gets hired based on merit. Regelado is another crony queen, that’s her culture and family upbringing, so she would no better. Either way, she has no chance but that name recognition sure could help for the City of Miami #realisticgoal, #realgoal, #allRegaladosAreTheSame.
Ladra,
Similar to you regarding the Presidential election I don’t like my choices regarding the Mayoral race. If you really would like for me to reconsider my vote -no seriously- then I would need to hear the following from Raquelita.
That she will fire all supervisors, managers, assistant directors, and directors that have allowed politics or played politics while performing their jobs. If she does commit to firing people like Alica Bravo, Jennifer Moon, Ed Marquez, Lester Solas, Miriam Singer, etc. and has no desire to try to remove Carlos Migoya from being the CEO, then I much rather stick to the same old bullshit we have with Carlos Gimenez.
The reason being that Alice Bravo and Carlos Migoya were at one point in time hires of Mayor Regalado at the City of Miami. One might say that the Mayor of Miami per charter is prohibited from making personnel decision. WE ALL KNOW BETTER!
I need to feel that it won’t be the same old crap wth a different name. Regardless whether it is Carlos Alvarez, Carlos Gimenez or even Raquel Regalado, the one constant thing has been the Administration. If they are simply around catering to the politicians and not doing their jobs, I want them out. Separation of powers must be guaranteed.
While we have had no conversation about who would stay and who would go, I can say with 100% certainty, based on other conversations, that at least some of the people you named will be retiring early or resigning for other reasons once Raquel is elected. And probably some others that you have not named.
That said, I believe that the employees are following orders and example. You cut off the head of the monster and the monster dies.
So now you can go and vote for Raquel. Yay! Pardon me if I don’t hold my breath.
Love, Ladra
LETS MAKE THIS FAST AND THRUTHFULL “GIMENEZ AND HIS BUNCH OF RENOWNED ARE LIARS, CROOKS AND ARROGANT UNDESIRABLES” LETS GET RID OF THEM NOW!
My second reply: I just had a frustrating experience with Miami-Dade County. I am convinced that the mayor’s budget cuts contributed to my waste of time and bad experience. I tried calling the number listed on a zoning notice to get more information on the application. The first time I dialed the number it rang and rang. A few hours later, I dialed again. This time I got a menu that went round and round. I would push the button on the menu that applied to my inquiry and instead of getting anyone or anything, I would get another round of the same menu. I then called 911 which rang a whole bunch of times. When I explained to the operator who finally answered what the problem was, I waited and waited for her to come back. Finally, a robot answered and said, I kid you not, “City of Miami zoning department.”
This is so unbelievable. I am retired and have time to be given the run-around, but how would a working person, who probably isn’t allowed to make personal calls during the day, ever have a chance to get an answer to a county question?
As President Truman said, “The buck stops here.” It lands right at the feet of our totally incompetent and dishonest Mayor. When you refuse to raise taxes and instead cut taxes, you get what you pay for
Excellent writing Ladra and excellent explanation. I now know even more about Mr. Gimenez and I hope the county constituents do too.
The problem is not whether Gimenez deserves another term – he clearly doesn’t.
The problem is whether Regalado is (a) competent/numerate/careful enough to run the County, and (b) whether, even if she is–and especially if she isn’t–she’ll sweep in her dad’s cronies, who let us say do not have a sterling record of either honesty or competence. “Team Regaldo” has not made the case that they are a safe set of hands, more’s the pity.
When your best defense against allegations of misbehavior is “I didn’t know” or “It was just a careless error in complex circumstances” it doesn’t tend to make a strong case. And it’s hard to beat an incumbent without one.
I understand, Michael. But I disagree and also need to clarify something.
She didn’t say it was a mistake, or oooops. She did not get the notices for those two years because the bank had already gotten possession of the property. THE BANK WAS THE ONE that paid the taxes both those years. She did not. She had stopped paying the mortgage payments, why on Earth would she pay the taxes. The BANK paid the taxes. The bank failed to tell her or her husband that the Homestead Exemption status was still there. Maybe they looked the other way on purpose (to pay less) or maybe the bank staffer was overworked. But it was not Raquel’s mistake. What you are saying is that she should have KNOWN that it was still there after she turned the house over to her husband and he turned it over to the bank. But should have known is subjective. This could happen to anybody. It was taken care of the MOMENT that she found out about it. And the property appraiser’s office has said there was no fraud. She did not benefit from the Homestead exemption status. She did not rent her home. She did not claim Homestead exemption in a new place. She simply abandoned her home and thought that was that. It actually makes her a better mayor because she can now work with the property appraiser so that cases like these do not fall through the cracks.
I don’t know anything about her dad’s cronies but I sure know Carlos Gimenez has a bunch of them living off the public trough. I’ve been hanging around Raquel now for the better part of eight months and I never see any of her dad’s people… I mean, I wouldn’t know who they are but the people who I do see around her are certainly not his cronies. She is definitely her own person, not a copy of her father. Why wouldn’t you let her prove that to you? Give her the benefit of the doubt.
Because here is the biggest issue of all: How much worse can she be? Was it competent to strike a deal with the Frost Museum that they couldn’t live up to so the county had to bail them out? Was it competent to mess up the special taxing districts so that some people were overbilled to cover the under billing of others?
Look, there are whole departments and staff people to deal with these things. Raquel is not going to be balancing the county checkbook. That’s Jennifer Moon’s job (no, seriously). What Raquel is going to be doing is ensuring transparency and accountability, getting us more state and federal dollars, create live/work/play hubs all over, not just in Brickell, and invest in our community so that our quality of life improves.
There is NO CHOICE. Because four more years of Carlos Gimenez are awful enough but the NEXT four years… when whoever is elected mayor doles out BILLIONS in transit and water and sewer infrastructure… would be criminal. Talk about cronies… did you read the stories about Ralph Garcia Toledo making $200-an-hour for clerical work on a contract worth $18 million over 12 years. This is part of a $139-million water and sewer contract? How much of the rest of those $121 million are being thrown at the Gimenez friends and family plan?
I could go on and on and I did, in the post…
And we’ve never had a female county mayor. I, for one, want to give it a try. I think she is the right person for the right time.
Love, Ladra
Ladra,
Some of things you cited in thi article is similar to what Hillary has done with the Clinton Foundation. So why the double standard? Why are you anti-Gimenez and not anti-Hillary Clinton?
I know you will not post my comment. But I will continue to post so you can read it directly. You are a hipocrite. You should run for office. Because most politicians are disposable waste and so are you.
Just this once, Got-A-Point, because your attack is on me and it’s not that bad. Mostly because it is ridiculous. EVERYONE who knows me knows I am anti-Hillary. Just because I do not like Trump does not mean I like her. In fact, I’ve told everyone that I am voting for Gary Johnson because I can’t vote for either of the party candidates.
So, as usual, you know absolutely nothing of which you speak. Now, back to banishment. Either stop making outlandish and false statements that are offensive or stop posting already. It’s an exercise in futility.
Woof!
I see you have your regular haters, too, some of whom are as equally uninformed as mine. Oh, well. Goes with the territory, I guess.
Thanks for the great info on this race. Gimenez turned out to be a huge disappointment. I hope Regalado wins!
I don’t see anywhere in the article of his Cozy relationship with Uber and how that has destroyed an industry and ultimately will do harm to the public
WOW! I knew Carlos was a bad mayor, but now I know more about his terrible record. I think you left out his cutting of the Parks budget. That resulted in our neighborhood Kendale Park left with grass so high that the kids couldn’t play. We complained and the mowing was increased. Gimenez is a fraud and should be replaced. No wonder we see more ads and today’s stickers on our Miami Herald with his fake smile on page 1. I hope that enough voters turn out for Regalado. Talk about needing change! Good job, Ladra.