Miami Comissioner Joe Carollo on Thursday lost yet another attempt to stop his recall. This time, none other than the Florida Supreme Court told 
him and the city of Miami they have no case.
The city of Miami was sued by the political action committee behind the recall in March after City Clerk Todd Hannon refused to pass the petitions along to the county elections department — probably at the direction of City Attorney Victoria Mendez. The recall group won right away when Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Alan Fine ruled that Hannon had no authority to declare the recall petitions insufficient or late. He simply has a ministerial duty to pass the petitions along to the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections and ordered him to do so immediately. The city appealed and appealed again and again.
This Supreme Court ruling Thursday rejecting the case should put a stop to that.
Read related: Miami Commissioner Crazy Joe Carollo tries again to derail his recall in court
This is the fifth or sixth court loss — it’s hard to keep count — for Carollo, who has been fighting the 
recall since it was announced. That’s right, even before the 1,900+ signatures were turned in, the city of Miami’s legal office, under Tricky Vicky Mendez’s direction, was conspiring to delay, stop or challenge the recall one way or another. Remember the “cheat sheet” they created where they revised the timeline interpretation and researched ways for Carollo to get his attorneys’ fees paid by the city?
In other words, they were never going to just comply with the legal process. So why stop now?
The city’s appeals may have come to a dead end, but Carollo filed an independent lawsuit last month to 
stop the recall based on the same reason — that they were turned in late — as well as three or four other reasons por si las moscas. Carollo’s attorney, the infamous Ben Kuehne (pictured here sitting next to the city attorney at the first hearing), has a plan B, C and D. If the petitions are not late, then they state the wrong reason for a recall. If it’s a valid reason, then it wasn’t in multiple languages. If that’s not necessary, the recall group also paid petition gatherers.
It’s obvious they are grasping at as many straws as they can.
The attorneys for Take Back Our City, the recall PAC formed by Roads resident Robert Piper, are confident their winning streak will continue in the new case. “We will win that one as well as it will be evident that the city was, again, breaking the law to protect Carollo,” said JC Planas, the former state rep turned niche election lawyer.
Read related: Miami’s Joe Carollo loses again; city must send recall petitions to county
“I have lost track as to how many rounds we have won,” Planas told Ladra Thursday. “I stated in the beginning that the city acted inappropriately, but what I have seen from the city of Miami against my 
dear friend and co-counsel, David Winker, the depravity of Joe Carollo and the city of Miami has no rock bottom.”
Planas is talking about the 96-page dossier on David Winker that was sent “anonymously” to city commissioners and others last week. The one with a deep dive into Winker’s life — driving record, credit, social media “assaults,” and permit history, among other things. The one that looks like “opposition research” prepared by an attorney and investigator for a practiced politician. The Twitter posts mocking Carollo and posting stories about the commissioner’s abuses and failures wouldn’t be called “assaults” by an anonymous single parent. It sounds personal.
And the dossier has had the intended effect already, using city inspectors to post a notice of violation on his home Friday with bogus code violations, including having a home office, detailed in the dossier. Ladra has a feeling we haven’t heard the last of it.
“It has been quite a week,” Winker told Ladra Thursday, “with the city slapping me with code violations for working from home during the pandemic, after a 96-page dossier on me was disseminated to the city, to beating Carollo once again at the Florida Supreme Court. But being called a ‘scumbag’ by wife beater Commissioner Carollo was the highlight.
“That is a badge of honor,” he said.
What Winker needs more than a badge is eyes in the back of his head. And a security team. And a bodycam.
Miami’s Crazy Joe Carollo loses yet another court round against recall effort added by Ladra on
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