Gables candidate Jorge Fors has history of traffic tickets, arrests

Maybe nobody had heard of him in Coral Gables before Jorge Fors, Jr., decided to run for city commission. But they may have heard of him at the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

The city commission candidate has gotten 31 traffic tickets in 18 years.

A 2008 photo from Jorge Fors’ Facebook page shows the open container charge in 2005 was not an isolated incident.

He was also arrested three times in his indiscriminate youth, although he may have been allowed to sign his “promise to appear.” One was for underage drinking in 2003 in Gainesville, another was for open container in 2005 — probably at a UF game — and a third for unauthorized possession of a driver’s license in 2003, which sounds like he probably had a fake ID found on him when Florida Highway Patrol stopped him for speeding in St. Lucie County on the same date. He got pre-trial diversion for the first two charges but nolle pros on the third.

Fors is running for the open seat vacated by a retiring Commissioner Frank Quesada against three other, better known candidates: Former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera, onetime city manager Carmen Olazabal, and downtown property owner Jackson “Rip” Holmes. It’s certainly not going to help Fors for more Gables voters to know that he has amassed 31 traffic tickets since 2000. And while, sure, many of them were in his more indiscriminate youth — eight are in 2002 when he was 19 — he had his license suspended in 2015. We know because he got a ticket for knowingly driving with his license suspended.

The most recent ticket is for running a red light in 2016.

Of course, Fors says that wasn’t him. That was his father, who has the same name. And, we supposed, Papi was driving his car, too? In any case, these came up under his name and date of birth, not his dad’s.

In fact, Fors (pictured on a motorcycle here from a vacation photo posted on Facebook) has an excuse for everything. This is the same guy who told Ladra that he had a right to claim Homestead exemption on a condo in Little Havana for at least eight years while he lived with his parents in Coral Gables. He said this after he already paid $14,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties for having claimed that exemption fraudulently. So he knew he had no right and still tried to excuse himself.

There are also three tickets for running red lights, three more for blowing through stop signs, three for speeding — one looks like speeding in a school zone — and at least one careless driving ticket. He had no excuses for those.

He also had no excuse for parking in a space for handicapped drivers — twice.

And for someone who drives like he does, he takes too many chances: Fors was also cited three times for not wearing his seat belt.

Fors would not return several calls and texts to his cellphone inquiring about the arrests. He ignored more than one text specifically asking about the arrests. This is his emailed defense, in its entirety, for his traffic history:

“As a young driver, I was cited for avoidable things like failing to have proof of insurance or registration, as well as some citations resulting from inexperience but, as a 35-year old father, I can promise you that I am a safe and responsible driver.

But have you analyzed the details of these citations? I’ve only ever been found ‘guilty’ of three citations my entire life.

With regard to ‘speeding,’ I’ve only been stopped for ‘speeding’ three (3) times in my entire life and I was only found guilty of actually speeding in the case of one ticket. One being dismissed, and the other being withheld. Keep in mind, the most recent one was almost 12 years ago, and before that 15 years ago. I don’t think it’s fair to say that I have an issue with speeding.

With respect to red lights, it’s a similar situation. There is only one (1) red light camera ticket in 2014 for which I was found guilty. I never received any notice in the mail about this one so I don’t know much about it. I learned of it long after they entered the fine and the time to pay it expired — I tried to complain but eventually gave up and just paid it. The 2013 and 2016 tickets were also red light cameras. The 2016 one was not me, it was my father (same name). The one in 2013 was dismissed (I believe I showed that I was simply making a right turn on red), and one in 2010, over 8 years ago, was not a red light camera, and it was withheld.

Anyplace else, voters might shrug their shoulders. But this is Coral Gables, where some residential streets recently got 25MPH zone signs to slow traffic down. Two years ago, former Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick — who voted against the reduced speed limit because she said police just needed to enforce the 30MPH limit — lost the mayoral race by just 187 votes after Raul Valdes-Fauli painted her as a racecar-driving speed demon in attack mailers that may have worked.