A political action committee collecting signatures to get three referendums on the ballot in Coral Gables submitted the first batch of petitions Friday for two of the measures.
Gables City Clerk Billy Urquia said he received 2,078 signed petitions for a charter amendment to require a voter referendum approval before elected officials can raise their salaries and expense accounts. This is in direct response to the raises that the two new commissioners, Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez, and Kirk Menendez voted to give themselves last year.
Another 20 signed petitions were also submitted by Accountable Coral Gables PAC Chair Alex Bucelo for a charter amendment to require a four-fifths vote to dip into the city’s reserve funds, Urquia said. Bucelo, who has run unsuccessfully for commission twice and sits on the mayor’s advisory council, did not return calls and texts to his phone.
Read related: Vince Lago tries to sneak election date change into strategic plan via committee
Curiously, there were no petitions submitted for the proposed charter amendment to change the date of the city elections from April to November to coincide with state and national elections — which one can argue is the question that organizers (read: Mayor Vince Lago) want to put on the ballot the most.
Las malas lenguas say organizers have a lot of those petitions, too. Maybe even all of them. But they are waiting for the right timing to make a big splash — perhaps they’ll announce it at the next commission meeting.
The petition gatherers need to collect 10% of the number of registered voters in Coral Gables for any and each of the proposed charter amendments, Urquia said. At last count, that was about 33,000. So that means roughly 3,300 for each question. The Accountable PAC needs another 1,222 signatures for the amendment to require voter approval before commissioners can raise their salaries or expense accounts.
One of the other referendum question that the group wants to put on the ballot would stop a majority of three commissioners from dipping into the reserves to bridge any budget shortfalls, something that Fernandez suggested last September. The charter amendment would require a four-fifths vote to spend any reserves except those funds authorized to be spent for emergencies.
A third petition is being circulated to change the election from April in odd years to November in even years. The idea is that this would increase voter turnout. But critics say it would also lead to more partisan elections and it would be harder to elect independent, grassroots candidates like Castro and Fernandez, which are the reasons that Lago is pushing the change.
He lost control of the commission last April and he doesn’t want that to happen again.
Read related: Recall vs Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago is short by 117 petition signatures
Funding for these efforts, so far, according to the sole campaign finance report filed in April, have come from developer Sergio Pino ($10,000), developers Tom Caberizo and Ignazio Caltagirone ($5,000 each). former city commissioner Frank Quesada, who is Mayor Lago’s personal bank ($5,000), and MAM Title Consultants ($5,000). Ladra has a feeling they’ll see it through.
But if they’ve learned anything from the failed recall petition against Lago, the Accountable PAC should give themselves a nice, thick buffer of signatures in case some are invalid. Or in case the other side padded them with bogus signatures. Maybe get 1,500 more.
The recall PAC, End The Corruption, submitted 1,719 petitions. They only needed 5% in the first round, which was 1,650 — which gave them a buffer of less than 70. And it hurt them. The county’s review found duplicates and verified only 1,533 — which came almost 120 petitions short.
That hurts.
Coral Gables group submits petitions for referendum on electeds’ salaries added by Ladra on
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