South Miami is the City of Pleasant Living. Until election time.
This week, voters got an attack mailer that targets three of the five candidates: Horace Feliu, Mark Lago and Lina Sierra. Is it just a coincidence that all three are Hispanic? They don’t think so. Was it a veiled message to keep Hispanics out of City Hall?
“Absolutely,” said Sierra. “If there had been an anglo candidate on 
there, I would not think that.”
There are two “anglo” candidates in the Feb. 11 election. One is Sally Philips, who is endorsed by — and many believe is a stand-in for — Mayor Phillip Stoddard. And the other one said it wasn’t him. Loudly. On Facebook.
“If you received this in the mail regarding the 2020 South Miami Mayor’s election please know that it originates from the Sally Philips campaign, not mine,” said Bruce Baldwin in the post. “Disgusting!”
He told Ladra that he was afraid people might blame him. “I was left off for plausible deniability,” Baldwin said. “Everyone would think it was either me or Sally.”
Read related: Horace Feliu and 4 more vie for open mayor’s post in Feb race
That’s why he posted it on Facebook after he saw Philips basically take responsibility on the Next Door social media app for neighborhoods, where she basically admitted to another poster that it was her camp, but out of her control. Still, she defended it:
“I’m sorry that you see that flyer as ‘trashing.’ Although I was not consulted about its content at all, I do not see any misrepresentations about anyone.
While I think it is not an attractive item — the color yellow is (I think) ugly in this context — the wording seems respectful enough even though it suggests that none of those three candidates would be a good mayor.
“I grant you that there is some visual echoing of the pictures accompanying the disparaging articles that the Community News published about Mayor Stoddard. However, I don’t see any statement that seems to distort facts. Do you?
“Thank you for taking an interest in this mayoral campaign. — Sally
So she takes issue with the color? Hmmmm. And not the content? Some of the content really takes things out of context.
It says, for example, that Feliu was arrested for taking an illegal campaign contribution outside City Hall, but did not mention that 
he was acquitted of the politically motivated charges by a jury of his peers. Philips might be telling people that the charges were dropped because there was not enough evidence — “A judge in Tampa didn’t want to bother with it,” she told Ladra — but that’s just another lie. The State Attorney offered Feliu a deal. He wouldn’t take it. And it took a jury about 10 minutes to come back with a not guilty verdict.
“I would like to think its because I’m the front runner,” Feliu told Ladra about the false attacks, adding that he tried, when mayor, to make elections in November and not in February “so more Hispanics could participate. Hispanics tend to vote in November.” The council did not support him. “They were afraid they would lose control.”
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Sierra said that about one third of the city was Hispanic now.
“I feel that we would represent our city,” she told Ladra.
Lago, the third Latino running, said he was committed to running a clean campaign and that he saw a trend in the mailer. “There is definitely a common denominator,” he said, adding that he is more concerned with the mayor’s extreme involvement.
“If the voters want you, the outgoing mayor wouldn’t need to campaign for you,” said Lago, who ran in 2018 for commissioner
In fact, several candidates and some voters said that Philips seems like a puppet for Stoddard to continue his control and his pro development agenda. And the current mayor does seem balls to the wall for Philips, his longtime campaign treasurer.
Stoddard messaged Ladra last week to get her to cover the race. The language closely mirrors that of the mailer:
“Elaine, we have a great woman candidate for Mayor, endorsed by Ruth’s List, SAVE and the PBA — Sally Philips. Four opponents include a charter school executive helped by Marin, a couple of newbies (1 guy with serious traction), and old Horace Feliu for his 11th run. One has never voted in South Miami, two only once. Election 11 Feb, VBMs already dropped. Phil”
He’s been out knocking on doors almost every day. He was at the forum at St. John’s Tuesday night, sitting in the audience, mostly looking at his phone.
The disclaimer on the Hispanic hit piece said it was paid for by South Miami Residents for Quality of Life, which is Stoddard’s political committee. It was probably produced by Randy Hilliard, who was Stoddard’s campaign guy and is running Philip’s campaign and has a particular knack for voter suppression (the ad aims to keep supporters of the three from voting).
The PAC, however, has not filed any campaign finance reports since 2018 so we don’t know who funded this attack. “Mark Herron manages the ECO’s finances. I’m sure he will file – he always does,” Stoddard answered Ladra in an email. We kept missing each other.
Read related: Former South Miami Mayor Horace Feliu wants old job back
He also said Baldwin would have been included — but they ran out of space.
“My campaign graphics person was adamant that including him as a third candidate on that side of the flyer would have made it 
too crowded (I asked him),” Stoddard wrote, admitting that he was involved in creating the mailer. “To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Baldwin has never voted in a South Miami municipal election or even attended a commission meeting. I have yet to meet a voter during my canvassing efforts who says she or he supports Mr. Baldwin for mayor.”
Of course, during those canvassing efforts, Stoddard is shoving his flyer in voters’ hands, or leaving them in the doorway, in which he trashes each candidate and only supports Philips and not the others, as well as incumbent Commissioner Josh Liebman, who has two challengers, and Commissioner “Bicycle Bob” Welsch, who is unopposed and is spending his time campaigning for Philips, as well.
Stoddard signs the flyer as the mayor of South Miami, which may be a violation of Florida Statute 104.3, which states that officers or employees of municipalities may not use their “official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election.” He might have been fine had he not written, twice, that he was the mayor of South Miami, but like this? It’s questionable.
Philips admitted to Ladra that Stoddard asked her to run. But she said she made the decision “because I didn’t see anyone I felt I could vote for that had the experience, the ethics and the commitment that I have, nobody that has worked for the city like I have for the past eight years,” said Philips, a member of the city’s planning and zoning and the police retirement boards.
She says she relies heavily on Stoddard’s campaigning because “I’m running another very large project that I agreed to run before I agreed to run for mayor,” and that she never targeted any of her opponents because of their ethnicity.
“It’s not something I approved, wrote or even knew about until it got into my mailbox,” she said, and in the next breath took ownership just the same.
“All I am saying is people who have no experience should not be mayor.”
Said Baldwin: “Someone who can’t control her own campaign should not be mayor.”
Hear from all the candidates themselves Thursday night at a forum sponsored by South Miami Neighbors and The Elks at the South Miami Elks, 6:30 pm. It is open to the public. The plan is to also have the forum on fb live. https://www.facebook.com/events/989322744786563/
South Miami mayoral race gets ugly with ethnically-tainted hit piece added by Ladra on
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