Former Mayor Alex Penelas has collected more than $3 million between his campaign account and his political action committee and his publicists think it’s such a good thing they sent out a press release (that they can bill for, of course).
It’s not so great once everyone learns where the money is coming from.
“Miami-Dade Mayoral candidate Alex Penelas announced today that his campaign and political committee, Bold Vision, have
raised over $3.1 million in donations from supporters. Since opening his political committee in April 2019, Penelas has consistently outpaced all other candidates in financial support. He is the first in the field to surpass the three-million-dollar mark.
Penelas stated, ‘It is not easy to raise money when you have been out of politics for over 15 years and it makes our continued success much more special because our support is authentic. All of my major opponents are leveraging their positions on the County Commission to collect money from special interests coming before them for votes. In my case, people are buying into my vision for a better Miami-Dade with no strings attached. That makes me profoundly grateful.’
By major opponents, he means Commissioner Xavier Suarez — who an internal poll he has used to raise the funds has him almost head to head with — and who had the single best month in January with $360,250 collected between his campaign 
account ($51,600) and his Imagine Miami PAC ($309,250) compared to Penelas’ $288,000 for Bold Vision PAC and $51,245 for his campaign account. He also means commissioners Esteban “Stevie” Bovo, Daniella Levine Cava and Jean Monestime — all of whom reportedly came in with single digits on that poll — so those who talk about these things think its going to shape up to be a battle between Penelas, the creator of the half-penny sales tax to dedicate to mass transit expansion, and Suarez, the first and loudest proponent of having the misused dollars from that fund returned for their original purpose. (There’s an X through former county commissioner Juan Zapata because he was the first to drop out of the race already).
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Levine Cava, who is supposed to be doing a lot better for the amount of advertising she has done, probably lost some of her numbers to Monestime. But also almost nobody knows who either of them are in Aventura and Westchester, so there’s that.
The latest campaign reports also show that DLC’s PAC, Our Democracy, collected another $92,200 for a total of about $1.57 
million, which, when added to her $588,266 raised in total in her campaign account that brings it to just over $2.1 million.
Stevie Bovo doesn’t look like he has much more than the $251,467 in his campaign report, especially since he’s cashed out his state PAC, Transportation Solutions for Miami Dade tapping out at $1.38 million. But if you look closer, you can see that more than $1 million has been transferred since November into a new PAC called A Better Miami Dade. He’s also not the chairman anymore, like he was on the Transportation PAC. It is someone named Alex Martinez.
Ladra doesn’t know if Jean Monestime has a political committee, but he’s only raised $37,810 for his campaign account and only $3,200 in the last two months. Again, like Ladra said, it doesn’t seem his heart is in it. He could be a plant to take votes from DLC, but will he qualify and risk losing two more years on the commission for what is a certain, guaranteed loss. It’s too bad because he’s actually seems to be a really good guy. Isn’t that just how it happens?
Anyway, the Penelas people — who now include Freddy Balsera and his staff — were touting the $3 mil haul as if it were a sign that Penelas has the grass roots support to win this election. But much of that money is special interest.
Read related: Esteban Bovo’s 2020 mayoral dreams doomed via Alex Penelas
Ladra has already reported about the $200,000 from healthcare magnate Mike Fernandez and his family and businesses as well as another $100,000 
tied to former Hialeah Mayor and loanshark Julio Robaina. Those are investments, not charitable contributions. The latest campaign finance reports through January filed Monday show Penelas’ PAC got another $50,000 from a Robaina company and $50,000 more from Hialeah for Progress, which is the political action committee run by Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez, another loan shark who is also known to abuse his office and his police department against his political enemies. Not a good ally for Penelas, but we’ve known for months that Hernandez would support Penelas over Bovo.
There’s also $90,000 from vending company interests, including $60K from the same entity and another $15,000 from lobbyist Rodney Barreto, who made millions from Penelas first mayoral terms and became his chief fundraiser.
So more than two thirds of the new money netted in January is from questionable sources or interests. How is that something to trumpet?
Alex Penelas leads mayoral pack with $3 mil, but Xavier Suarez had best January added by Ladra on
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