Mayor’s BFF is back for another county contract payola

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Ralph’s back for more public money.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s best friend and campaign finance chair is up for another piece of a multi-million dollar county contract.

Oh, he’s not the one bidding. They’re smarter than to do it like that.

Ralph Garcia Toledo‘s company is one of the subcontractors listed for one of the bids that will be considered and likely awarded by the county commission in March. It goes before the Commission Chairman’s Policy Council at their first meeting Thursday.

The resolution is a contract award for $11 million for engineering services to Parsons Brinckerhoff to help the Department of Transportation and Public Works execute projects in its capital improvements plan and implement the all-powerful Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit (SMART) Plan, including the study and implementation of future technology, such as driverless vehicles.

Garcia Toledo’s bite is tucked inside the contract, where his firm, GT Construction, is listed among the 18 subcontractors. We don’t know what his piece of the pie is, but it can’t be as big as the one he’s already feasting on in the water and sewer department. Ralph is already getting $200 an hour mostly, and self-admittedly, for clerical work — to go to meetings and file documents. He stands to make $18 million over the next 12 years just on that contract.

Now, he’s just getting greedy.

Read related story: Mayor’s pal Garcia-Toledo eats lobster with county staffers

And he’ll get it, too. Chairman Esteban Bovo, who wants to run for mayor in 2020, will want Ralph to help him raise funds. And Garcia Toledo took Commissioner Sally Heyman‘s staff to lunch one day –– at Joe’s Stone Crabs.

This new contract is one of three separate $11 million contracts that are being considered Thursday for the same thing: professional engineering services for the Department of Transportation and Public Works for their capital improvements and the SMART plan. And there are a dozen subcontractors on the other two — one for Parsons Transportation and one for Aecom Technical Services, which is the same company that messed up the reverse osmosis plant in Hialeah but the county still keeps contracting nonetheless.

That makes for 42 subcontractors — or 41, really, since Manuel Vera is on two contracts — who are feeding from this $33-million buffet.

What it looks like, since this has been divided up into three contracts and 41 subcontractors, is that Gimenez is beginning to make good on the campaign IOUs he collected during the last mayoral election, where he took close to $8 million or more in contributions, many from companies and developers doing business with the county.

Or, if not, Ladra bets they’re doing business with the county now.

Ralph can’t be the only lucky duck.

  Carlos Gimenez, Ralph Garcia-Toledo