He made a mistake.
As many people (and voters) now know, Coral Gables Vice Mayor Vince Lago signed a letter from parents and alumni at the Carollton School of the Sacred Heart way back in September that opposed increased education about racism and black history in the wake of the George Floyd murder and ensuing protests for justice and police reform.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And wrong. The letter’s position is misguided.
Lago didn’t write that letter, but Ladra assumes he read it before signing his name to it and agrees with it.
“This was about my children’s Catholic education. I don’t want teachers politicizing that,” Lago said Friday. He said it was not just about critical race theory but also about changes to education about abortion and euthanasia.
“We were getting off track. There’s a way, under Catholic auspices, to teach this material,” he said.
The fallout has been huge. Outsized. Even though almost 4,000 people had voted by the time the news of the letter came out last weekend, and even though this is not an issue among his base and the people who are livid were already voting for Pat Keon, it is going to hurt him. He has had two endorsements withdrawn, including a drawn-out cancellation in the Miami Herald that could move the needle.
Not because anyone who would vote for Lago is suddenly going to vote for Keon. That’s not going to happen. She is condescending and disrespectful to residents at public meetings, she defended the former city manager and tried to get rid of the police chief. So, she’s got a low ceiling.
Read related: Miracle Mile reboot on hold as Vice Mayor Vince Lago seeks more input
But this late scandal, breaking a couple of weeks before Election Day, could mean some people who were going to vote for Lago over the weekend or on Tuesday won’t bother to make the effort. And because of a third candidate with no chance, this might force the mayoral race into a runoff.
Remember, this is a city where the current mayor won by 123 votes two years ago and 180-some votes two years before that.
Does Lago deserve some pao pau for the stupid signature? Yes. Does he deserve to lose the mayoral race because of this? No.
Not because he has helped the Black Gables more than any single commissioner in Gables history. Not because he helped get the trolley extended to their neighborhood. Not because he voted for a black city manager when they were looking for someone after Pat Salerno left.
Not just because he is not racist or anti-Semitic.
Lago is the hardest working public servant you could find in Miami-Dade. He has regular open-door hours, like a professor, and is accessible every day via email and cell phone. He calls back. He responds. Even to his critics. He has written and passed tons of legislation. Keon has done three, and that includes a cut-and-paste urging legislation about anti-semitism — at the behest of a pushy resident, not because it was her own idea.
Keon has all the above mentioned baggage, plus she has benefitted from multiple attack mailers that are funded by dark money through shady political action committees.
She’s loving this. In fact, las malas lenguas say that Stephen Bittel — the former Democratic Party chairman who wants to build an 8-story hotel on Miracle Mile — is among those in the community who lobbied Miami Herald editorial board members to completely withdraw the endorsement that they had only tempered a few days earlier. The Democratic Party, which is very engaged in this race, has also been pushing for a reversal.
Read related: Desperate Pat Keon attacks Vince Lago with more dark money in Coral Gables
“We don’t operate that way,” editorial board member Nancy Ancrum told Ladra. “We really, really don’t.”
First, Ancrum said that the board just decided to do a “deeper dive” on the letter after tempering their support of Lago. “We re-re-thought it,” she said.
But then she admitted that some of the other editorial board members were lobbied by people in the community, including twitter political influencer Billy Corben. Not her, though.
“No one mentioned it to me. I’m really surprised,” she said Friday.
Still, it stinks of a backroom deal.
Lago said he was not provided an opportunity the second time to discuss his position with the editorial board. Maybe they didn’t want him to talk them out of it. SAVE didn’t even give him a chance at all to explain. That withdrawn endorsement hurts him more.
“My voting record and commitment to this community speaks for itself,” he said.
Ladra hopes the voters are listening.
Despite one stupid, preachy letter, Vince Lago deserves to be Coral Gables mayor added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
