Miami Commissioner Crazy Joe Carollo, accused of using the Bayfront Park Management Trust as his own personal piggy bank, has gone nuclear with his proposed solution: Abolish the agency altogether.

Sued last month for abusing his power and getting kickbacks in shady deals as chairman of the Bayfront Trust, Carollo put an item on the agenda for next week’s commission meeting would just get rid of the Trust and replace it with a new “Division of Bayfront Park and Maurice Ferre Park” within the Department of Parks and Recreation.

This wouldn’t protect the parks, of course. Everybody knows that Carollo is capable of weaponizing a city department against the citizens. He’s done it with the code enforcement and legal department. The parks department is a piece of cake.

It’s just a reaction to a discussion item that was placed on the agenda earlier by Commissioner Miguel Gabela about the chairmanship of the Bayfront Trust. Sources say he wants to be the chair. Sources also say he has the votes. Even Commissioner Damian Pardo would support Gabela becoming the char.

“He listens to people,” Pardo told Political Cortadito on Wednesday. “I think he’d do a good job, listening to downtowners. That’s all I want.”

Pardo has never taken issue with Commissioner Manolo Reyes begin chairman of the Downtown Development Authority, which is also in his district. “Why would I? He’s doing a great job.

“There’s enough work to go around,” Pardo said.

Gabela did not return calls and texts from Ladra. But in an interview with The Miami Herald’s Tess Riski, he called his item a “vote of no confidence” in Carollo, who he said should “relinquish” his post because of the “controversy.”

Commissioner Miguel Gabela at a meeting in December

The controversy is a whistleblower complaint filed last month by two former employees — Jose Suarez, who lasted less than a year as executive director of the Trust, and Jose Canto, who lasted less than that as the new finance director — who say they were forced to resign after they uncovered irregularities in the accounting. Irregularities is being kind.

Carollo and Trustee Javier Baños, who is Carollo’s personal and campaign accountant and probably knows a bunch about his finances, are both named in the civil complaint, which has detailed accounts about the “lack of proper accounting practices and procedures that enabled Carollo to (a) use the Trust’s funds to pay for Carollo’s own political ventures; (b) use the Trust’s funds to support Carollo’s District 3 Political Office (c) use the Trust’s funds to pay and overpay Carollo’s political allies; (d) use the Trust’s funds to overpay Carollo’s District 3 Social Media provider, (e) waste the Trust’s funds on a 2007 Vet mobile that was never used and that had a suspicious and seemingly untraceable past; and e) seek to use the Trust funds to pay for Carollo’s Holiday Party.

“Together, these wrongful expenditures totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars of misused and wasted Trust funds in less than one year, and Carollo has Chaired the Trust for the past eight years without any legitimate oversight,” the complaint states.

The allegations in the lawsuit should have led to multiple criminal investigations already. It should definitely be the nail in the coffin for Carollo’s rule at the Trust.

“And if Carollo wants to go to battle with me because of that, we’ll go to battle,” Gabela is quoted as saying in the Herald article.

Fun. There’s going to be a battle at the commission meeting Thursday.

This would be at least the second time Gabela raises the issue, after talking about changing the chairmanship last June (it was deferred). Back then, Carollo said he would step down in January. This past January. There was also a petition from downtown residents and others last year, asking for his resignation as the chair.

“All of us are elected for a certain time. That’s why we have term limits, so new fresh ideas can come in,” Carollo said, reminding everyone that he had about 17 months left in his term and suggesting that the commission make the change six months later. He probably had more graft to make sure of.

“I think there should be a new chairman when we bring this up again in the first meeting in January,” Carollo said at the June 18 commission meeting, and you can hear and see it yourself in this video clip. “It is good government that whoever has the institutional knowledge stays on for those last 11 months so that whoever comes into the new position can have the ability or possibility, if they need it or want it, to go back to that institutional knowledge that the colleague had before.”

Without violating the Sunshine Law, of course.

So, what happened? January came and went and Carollo now wants to abolish the institution he once made look súper important. This is a regional park, after all, with events that impact and benefit the whole community, right?

He’s being a petulant child, again. If he can’t have the Bayfront Trust for his own personal use, then nobody can. If he can’t play, he’s going to break the toy.

Luckily, Carollo won’t get away with it this time. It’s just too much already. Observers expect at least three votes in favor of making Gabela chair. Commission Chairwoman Christine King should join them and make it 4-1.

In fact, it is time to bring back Pardo’s idea from last year of overhauling the Trust and making the commissioners trustees, much like the community redevelopment agencies, with two additional members appointed from the downtown area. Gabela can still be chairman.

But Carollo should recuse himself, at least until the civil lawsuit and/or any completely appropriate criminal investigation is resolved.

Bayfront Park, Joe Carollo

Joe Carollo wants to abolish Miami’s Bayfront Park Management Trust added by Ladra on February 6, 2025
View all posts by Ladra →