Crazy Joe Carollo adds twist to crazy Miami commission race

So I guess Pedro Diaz is going to have to do another online poll.

No sooner had Ladra hit publish on the screen to post the story about the growing possibilities in the District 3 Miami Commission race — and the new threat of Alex Diaz de la Portilla spoiling it for everybody else — El Nuevo Herald breaks the news that there is yet another family dynasty member looking at the seat.

No, not Tommy Regalado, son of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado. We had him. No, not Zoraida Barreiro, wife of Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro. We had her.

Add to this bowl of fruit loops one Crazy Joe Carollo, former city manager in Doral under former Mayor Luigi Boria, who fired him publicly and loudly during a city council meeting. Joe Carollo was also once the mayor and a commissioner in the city and, in fact, in the very seat his brother, Commissioner Frank Carollo, is vacating due to term limits.

“After so much time out of office, I have decided that I will aspire as commissioner of Miami, in the seat where I started, which includes Little Havana, and that was where the community initially elected me,” Carollo was quoted as saying in Spanish, speaking to El Nuevo Herald. “I would like to be able to return to that seat to return to Miami the opportunity it gave me to serve the community and make sure it continues on the path to adequate growth and protect its neighborhoods.”

Carollo said he was not using the commission seat as a stepping stone to the mayor’s office and said he has more experience by far of any other declared candidate. His key issue will be public safety, referencing the many youth gun fatalities that have plagued Miami’s neighborhoods for the last few years.

Does this mean Frank is not gonna run for mayor? After all, people are not going to elect two Carollo brothers to the same body of government? Or would they?

Or is this Crazy Joe’s way of trying to derail his brother’s dreams? Dicen las malas lenguas that there’s bad blood there.

In either case, it is an interesting twist in an already fascinating race that promises to get even more exciting. I mean, if Dean DLP was only flirting with the idea before, he’s going to be downright giddy with the challenge now. This would be an epic battle more worth his time. Also, he feels a responsibility to the people of Little Havana, his core constituents (those that got his Christmas card over the holiday). He has to run to protect them from Crazy Joe.

But Ladra thinks Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro will urge his wife to withdraw from the race in order to avoid the attacks that would no doubt come.

Because Crazy Joe has no boundaries.

This is a guy who got into a fistfight with a fellow elected — at the dais. This is a guy who fired his police chief after the latter neglected to tell him that federal agents were swooping in on Elian Gonzalez’s family. This is a guy who threw a tea cup at his wife and hit her in the head — and got arrested for it.

During his time in Doral, then Councilwoman Sandra Ruiz called the police on him after, she said, he harassed her and her intern. After he was fired in a meeting where he shot insults back at the mayor, Carollo wouldn’t shut up about alleged bribery and other conspiracies and corruption going on in Doral — but he offered little proof.

At times his drive and advocacy are admirable: Ladra loved it when he came out against maquinitas and absentee ballot fraud. Other times, he is kinda creepy: Always speaking in that low, booming monotone, without much inflection ever, he seldom smiles (this photo, left, is a rarity), probably because he is constantly worried about communist and Chavista conspiracies against him and our community.

Most recently, Carollo got paid $144,000 by the Common Sense Now PAC to work on the re-election campaign for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez. It’s an obscene amount by any standards. He was paid $6,000 a month for 166 months starting in March of 2015, then $8,000 a month in July and August and then $36,000 in the month of October — in four payments in 17 days. The only reason ever stated is “consulting.”

Please notice that the months that payments exceeded $6,000 is the time when the absentee ballots went out.

But nobody has any idea what Carollo did for Gimenez. And Carollo, apparently, ain’t keen on answering the question.

Let’s see how that plays now in his own campaign. And Ladra can’t help but wonder who his other clients are.

Stay tuned, folks. This is going to be an interesting race.

Alex Diaz de la Portilla, Joe Carollo, Miami elections

Crazy Joe Carollo adds twist to crazy Miami commission race added by Ladra on January 5, 2017
View all posts by Ladra →