New activists' group wants to recall the Three Amigos, like dominos falling

Why stop at Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo?

A group of longtime active citizens wants to oust all three of the Miami city commissioners that form the new majority and that, they say, have thrown the city into chaos and controversy. Ladra affectionately calls them the Three Amigos, and this group of activists would have them all recalled and replaced with “people who don’t bicker as much.”

Calling themselves the Concerned Committee of Citizens of Miami, this group is comprised of longtime activists in Brickell and Coconut Grove, in Commissioner Ken Russell‘s district. And he is not in their sites. They support the Carollo recall, but say it can’t stop there.

Ladra doubts they’ll go after Commissioner Keon Hardemon, either. If they want to hurt him, they can focus on the county race because he’s termed out in November anyway and running for Miami-Dade commissioner. But Carollo, Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla and Manolo Reyes “have no political life left — ever,” as far as Ernesto Cuesta, president of the Brickell Homeowners Association and one of the group leaders, is concerned.

On 2020 con Tomas Regalado, a Sunday night local news show, Cuesta and Chelin Cremata Duran, president of the Point View condo homeowners association in Brickell, announced that they had opened a political action committee to mirror what Take Back Our City is doing with Carollo. They call it the “domino effect.”

“There is no respect here, nor is there democracy. It is an usurpation of our democracy,” Cuesta said in an radio interview with Tomas Regalado. It sounds better in Spanish.

“These individuals have taken the work of the city hostage. The city is not functioning. This is the way they operate — creating chaos, offending people, defaming them. That is why this movement has grown. Because we the people are tired that our taxes are not invested for the wellbeing of the city that we want to progress,” Cuesta said.

“We are getting together and saying enough already. We don’t want this kind of elemento in our city,” he said. Using the word elemento in Cuban is like saying riffraff. “What we want is to see our taxes invested in the quality of life of our neighborhoods.

“With the disorder of the administration, the disorder of the politics, the city’s needs are not being covered,” Cuesta said. “The city employees morale is on the floor. Everyone is offended. People are tired of this already. You call public works and for them to pick up a branch it is monumental. Weeks pass. There is a hydrant without a cover on Biscayne that could cause an accident. It’s been like that for five months.”

Duran was once a big ADLP fan. Ladra remembers her from his failed 2012 bid to go back to the state House. Not anymore.

“I don’t know what he is coming to do in Brickell because he lives in Allapattah,” she said, but actually, he only pretends to live there. She and others in Russell’s district are upset that Diaz de la Portilla took the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency for himself — because he is not accountable to her and the residents of that district. Russell is her commissioner and she watched as ADLP ripped him a new one at a recent meeting.

“Our commissioner, Ken Russell, started to talk about Brickell and Mr. Diaz de la Portilla turns on him and says, ‘You supported my opponent, so your opinion doesn’t count here. We are in charge.’ It’s not personal. It is that he is voting against our quality of life.”

She said that residents of the condominium come to her for help. There is flooding in some streets, other streets are dark, monstrous trash heaps take weeks to be picked up. “And we are asking about the status of the sea wall. What happened to the sea wall they promised? We don’t know.”

These are ‘get out the vote people,’ people. These are longtime and respected super voters who politicians normally try to keep on their good side because when come election time, they can be valuable surrogates. Because voters trust them. They should be able to handle a recall even better than the ragtag group of misfit frenemies working to recall Joe, who already turned in the required number of petitions plus a comfy cushion over the weekend.

Duran said residents show up to commission meetings to present their issue and leave frustrated and unheard. “The three commissioners spend their time on bobería,” she said, using the Cuban word for silliness (read: bullshit). “Like who gives the key to the city to who and why the mayor has to give the key.”

She said a woman she knows recently went to speak about a park that Carollo wants to put next to her house (note to Ladra: look into who owned all those properties Carollo is buying to put parks in the middle of residential streets) but left without being able to say a word. It might have been that infamous meeting in January that was adjourned before it really even started.

“We are not lobbyists nor are we candidates for commission,” Duran said. “We don’t want anything from the city except what they ought to give, as commissioners and mayor, which is service to our community.”

So not even Mayor Francis Suarez, who is weaker than ever — but trying desperately to build a new alliance with ADLP — is safe?

Duran said she’s never met Reyes but that he shouldn’t have voted on a particular development after getting donations from developers and being told by staff that the change in allowable height was not recommended by the staff.

Carollo, she said, “fights with everyone. He doesn’t let people speak.”

Joining the “recall them all” call: Miami Neighborhoods United President Grace Solares, who saw ADLP shutting people up at commission meetings also. She said that he shut down a woman who wanted to speak during the debate about the Puerto Rican flag mural on La Placitas restaurant. “She tried to talk and kept getting interrupted by Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla. He was very aggressive with her.”

ADLP was also aggressive last week against Solares, who ran against Russell once upon a time, when she dared speak against his anti recall ordinance, which would limit recalls to once a year per elected and gives them the cover to produce sham recalls and immunize themselves every year. She went to tell them that if they wanted that change, they would need to make a charter amendment and leave it to the voters. And she asked him to speak more slowly so she could understand.

“I’m sorry but that’s the way I speak. Maybe it’s the coffee,” he said, also calling her a sore loser and insinuating that she only defended the recall rules because she might want to recall Russell, who she lost to.

Maybe he forgot how to treat people. But it’s part of a concerning pattern to silence and intimidate any dissent.

“He was trying to hurt me. How ridiculous,” she told Ladra later.

Last week, Solares, president of Miami Neighborhoods United, also went on Regalado’s show to say that people have been approaching her about what is happening at City Hall and that the desire to start fresh is growing.

Now that the first recall Joe Carollo group, Take Back Our City, has submitted the first round of signatures, the momentum will grow even more.

Why stop at Joe Carollo?

Alex Diaz de la Portilla, Brickell, Joe Carollo, Joe Carollo recall, Manolo Reyes, Miami politics, recall

New activists’ group wants to recall the Three Amigos, like dominos falling added by Ladra on March 1, 2020
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