Mucho mailers mean to mislead in Coral Gables election

With little more than a week to go before the Coral Gables election, voters are getting a mailbboxful of promises and endorsements and attacks. The mailers in Coral Gables are almost always something to talk about — and this year is no exception.

From the endorsement of a former governor to the image of a university that had to be pulled to the giant, trifold of Herald stories from the city’s ugly past that landed in mailboxes Saturday — the Gables has been deluged in postal politics for a couple of weeks now.

The most prolific mailing candidate in this election has to be Mike Mena, who is running for commission in Group 3. Nobody in that race has come close and, in fact, Ladra is not certain that Serafin Sousa, the non candidate, has sent any mailers at all. Marlin Ebbert and Randy Hoff will have each sent two or three by election day. Hers focus on her standing with the anti-development residents and says that she will listen to and speak for them. His focus on his service of almost 30 years as a police officer and include two separate endorsements from former Chief James Butler and former Assistant Chief Ana Baixauli, which should have been one piece with both of them combined. Hoff could have sent another message on the second piece.

Meanwhile, Mena has sent so many mailers that voters are coming to expect a new one when they get home from work. They were getting one every day the week that absentee ballots dropped. But are they memorable? Nah. They’re pretty much cookie cutter. Take his picture out and plug in another young, ambitious lawyer from Miami or Miami Lakes or Miami Beach or wherever and you have the same thing. He uses phrases like “common sense” and “commitment to security.” Yawn.

That was the same reaction Ladra had with former Commissioner Wayne “Chip” Withers‘ endorsement from former FIU President Modesto “Mitch” Maidique, who coincidentally had picked up an election package and who, Ladra suspects, has an itch to run for office (this endorsement could be a tit for tat). I’m sure it was intended to connect with the hundreds or thousands of FIU students and alumni in the City Beautiful, but it was eh for the rest of us who didn’t go there and there are just as many of non FIU students in the city. Withers, a proud graduate of the University of Florida, would have been better served to use the University of Miami logo.

Then FIU and former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera complained and Withers had to take the image of the smiling Maidique in front of an FIU buillding — letters blazing in neon at the top — off his social media.

“The Withers campaign and you should be aware that neither the campaign nor you are authorized to use the FIU logo or imagery without the express approval and licensing of FIU,” wrote FIU General Counsel Carlos Castillo in a cease and desist letter last week.

Cabrera, who actually did go to FIU (Withers didn’t) and actually led the alumni association at one point, filed a complaint with the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust. After all, Withers is a Gator! A bull Gator at that, who actually had a skybox in Gainseville at one time and has flown up to see the games.

“He should have known better. To mislead and say you have done it before without repercussions is completely wrong,” ,” Cabrera told me after Withers was quoted in the Miami Herald saying he had done it before. “I can’t recall him using a university logo before,” added Cabrera, who worked on three of Withers’ past campaigns.

The complaint says Withers intentionally misled voters into thinking that he got the FIU endorsement vis-a-vis Maidique because it implied that he was still the voice of the university.

“The mail piece sent by Withers specifically attempts to confuse voters into believing that Modesto ‘Mitch’ Maidique is still part of FIU and endorses Withers in his oficial capacity. While the piece states that Maidique is the ‘former’ President of FIU, it lists him as a current professor and thus provides the endorsement as part of Maidique’s oficial capacity, an illegal act,” wrote attorney JC Planas in the complaint, because a state university cannot endorse anybody.

“Perhaps the most blatant violation in the piece is the use of the FIU logo in the picture. Had the campaign simply used a picture of Dr. Maidique actually taken in front of that building, it still would likely have been a technical violation. However, super imposing his picture on a larger than ordinary picture of the building with the logo, was a deliberate attempt by Withers to deceive voters into thinking the endorsement was something other than that of an ordinary public citizen with no current leadership role at the University.”

Yeah, maybe. But what Ralph and JC really did was make a blah mailer and make it newsworthy and infinitely more interesting. Now, Ladra wants one for her collection.

Not as much, however, as I want that mailer with commissioner Jeannett Slesnick in a hot rod. In it, she is nicknamed “Speedy Slesnick” for her lack of support for a 5 MPH reduction that does nothing if there are no police officers to enforce it. “Stupid,” is what most voters reacted when they got it. The piece is so bad, it’s good. I want to frame it and hang it on a wall.

Ladra also wants the mailer sent by Raul Valdes-Fauli‘s political action committee over the weekend (more on that later), which could be the largest political mailer any voter anywhere has ever gotten. It’s practically a postal billboard. But I only want it because it features me prominently — in several Herald articles from when I covered Coral Gables for the daily newspaper in 2008 and 2009… which means it’s an attack of former Mayor Don Slesnick, who beat Valdes Fauli in 2001. Talk about sour grapes! But guess what? Don Slesnick, who inherited a lot of those problems as well as a recession, is not running now. And, frankly, Jeannett Slesnick — who should, and Ladra suspects will, be judged on her own merits — will make a better mayor than her husband did.

Still, this piece is worthy of applause. It highlights the bad headlines in yellow and makes the stories look like they’re on microfiche with a back background and reverse type on the dates they were published. It’s brilliant campaigning, if somewhat disingenuous. I remember those stories. In fact, I remember Mayor Slesnick complained to the Herald editors about me and asked to have me reassigned. He said I had a “hidden agenda” (don’t they always when they don’t like what I write?). But I wasn’t reassigned because there was no agenda. And when I confronted Slesnick about his complaint, I delivered a print out of all the positive stories about the city, which far outnumbered the bad ones.

Of course, voters are not going to get a mailer on those. Because, like I said, Don isn’t running to get his seat back, unlike some people. And Jeannett Slesnick is running on her own record, not anyone else’s.

Valdes-Fauli must be a bit nervous because he has been the one mostly on the attack. Sure, there have been a few mailers about his endorsements, which include Gov. Jeb Bush, whose low energy cost him the presidential nomination last year, and current empty suit and Mayor Jim Cason and commissioners Vince Lago and Frank Quesada. The message is: If you want things to stay pretty much the same and the development to continue, vote for Raul. Again, Ladra gets the feeling that whoever is running Cason would run Valdes-Fauli, too.

Meanwhile, Slesnick’s mailers have stuck to the endorsements and the issues and the reasons why she is the best candidate for the job, not why Valdes-Fauli ain’t. Voters will get a bi-fold this week with several Gables residents and leaders — including former Florida Gov. and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham (a Democrat) and former State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla (a Republican). The mailer ran as an ad in Sunday’s Herald’s Neighbors section. Ladra likes that one if only because it has so many people in it.

She also sent a 20-page magazine about the development — her signature issue and the one thing that can help push her over the top. It details her vote on the different projects and shows that she is not against all development, only what she calls “unacceptable development that strays quite a bit from our master code.”

Perhaps she felt the need to set the record straight. Valdes-Fauli — whose had several attack mailers that intend to mislead the voters — had already sent one out that said she actually voted for the Paseo project. That’s just a lie. A lie nobody believes.

The record clearly shows she voted against it, the sole commissioner in a 4-1 vote. She did vote subsequently on votes benefit the city and to lessen the impact to residents. That’s her job. She’s not going to vote against things that are going to make an already approved project better.

Coral Gables, Jeannett Slesnick, Mike Mena, Randy Hoff, Raul Valdes-Fauli, Wayne Withers

Mucho mailers mean to mislead in Coral Gables election added by Ladra on April 5, 2017
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