Victoria “Tricky Vicky” Mendez wants more pension from Miami taxpayers

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Because apparently nearly $188,000 a year isn’t enough

Just when you thought “Tricky Vicky” had left City Hall behind, she’s back.

And she’s got her hand out.

Former Miami City Attorney Victoria Méndez, who was unceremoniously shown the door by the City Commission in 2024 after commissioners cited a loss of confidence in her leadership, has now sued the City of Miami and its civilian pension system, arguing she’s entitled to an even bigger retirement check.

Because apparently $187,680.96 a year just doesn’t quite cut it.

According to a lawsuit first reported by the Coconut Grove Spotlight, Méndez argues that a pension cap adopted during Miami’s financial crisis in 2010 effectively became unenforceable after the Florida Supreme Court struck down much of the city’s emergency labor package years later.

Her argument isn’t exactly frivolous. In fact, it appears the administrators of the city’s General Employees’ and Sanitation Employees’ Retirement Trust — GESE for short — largely agree that the pension cap itself may no longer be valid.

The problem, according to the lawsuit, is that the city hasn’t been fully funding the retirement system for those additional benefits.

So now it’s up to a judge to make them.

Read related: Miami hits pause on Joe Carollo’s $770K pension settlement post legal challenge

Méndez spent more than a decade serving as the city’s top lawyer. She defended City Hall. She advised commissioners. She interpreted the law.

Now she’s on the other side of the “v.” Yesterday’s city attorney has become today’s plaintiff against the city she used to represent.

Here’s the part that’s difficult to ignore: According to city payroll records cited by the Spotlight, Méndez already receives approximately $15,640 every month, or $187,680 a year, in retirement benefits. That would make her the highest-paid retiree in Miami’s civilian pension system.

Not a police officer. Not a firefighter. The former city attorney.

Yet the lawsuit says she’s still not receiving everything she’s earned.

Maybe she’s right. That’s what courts are for.

But don’t expect taxpayers reading those numbers to reach for the Kleenex.

Read related: Lies on public comments just tip of slips for Miami Attorney Victoria Mendez

Longtime Political Cortadito readers know why the nickname Tricky Vicky stuck. It was because, after time and again, City Hall seemed to find itself twisting into legal pretzels under her watch. She wrote a “cheat sheet” — actually called it that — on her efforts to derail a citizen recall of former Commissioner Joe Carollo, who she seemed to particularly defend with much fervor. She went out of her way and enlisted her entire office to research and formulate arguments against the recall, focusing on the timing. And it worked.

She was also sued in 2020 for having silenced a bunch of residents who provided recorded comments, as they were told they could, on an amendment to beef up the noise ordinance. She’s been accused of holding back public records from a number of citizens, helping a developer spilt a single property into five lots and suggesting a commissioner use Spring for his cellphone service, because they erase text messages faster than other providers.

And then there was the little matter of her husband’s real estate business. An elderly homeowner once sued Méndez and husband Carlos Morales after, he alleged, the city attorney referred him to Morales for help with $271,500 in city code fines. Morales supposedly told him fixing the violations would be too complicated and expensive — and then his company bought the man’s home for $205,000.

Funny thing: After Morales owned it, those impossibly complicated fines somehow got reduced to zero. He remodeled the house and sold it for $370,000, a $165,000 difference. The homeowner sued, alleging he had been duped into selling under false pretenses and that Morales benefited from political connections at City Hall. Complicated for whom, exactly?

After leaving office, Mendez was made a partner at Shutts & Bowen, the law firm where former Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff hangs his hat — and which the city of Miami paid hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) as part of the $2 million in defense Carollo’s outside attorneys in the First Amendment case brought by two Little Havana businessmen that Carollo ended up losing to the tune of $63.5 million. She’s a member of the “land use practice group.” That is code for she’s a lobbyist for developers.

But she isn’t quite finished doing business with the City of Miami.

Read related: Lawsuit: Miami city attorney, husband ‘conspired,’ used city to flip property

Some readers may have forgotten why the pension cap existed in the first place. Ladra did. So we looked it up.

Back in 2010, Miami declared a financial emergency. The city imposed painful concessions on employees, including pension changes, in an effort to stabilize its finances. Years later, much of that emergency package was struck down because the city had failed to bargain properly with unions.

Méndez’s lawsuit argues the pension cap should have fallen along with those other provisions.

The retirement system apparently agrees.

The City, however, hasn’t written the check.

Hence the lawsuit.

And here’s why taxpayers should pay attention: This case isn’t really about one retiree. If a judge ultimately agrees that the pension cap is unenforceable and the city owes additional funding to the retirement system, other retirees affected by the cap could also benefit.

How many? Nobody seems prepared to say just yet.

How much? Also unknown.

But with Miami already carrying billions in long-term pension obligations, it won’t be nickels and dimes.

Read related: Fired Miami City Attorney Victoria Mendez gets new gig at big firm, award

Victoria Méndez spent years advising commissioners on legal risk. Now, she’s creating some. She once defended City Hall’s financial decisions. Now, she’s challenging one. She once represented the taxpayers. Now, taxpayers may end up paying her even more.

Again, maybe the law is on her side. We’ll let the judge decide that.

But politically, the optics are about as elegant as a pothole on Brickell Avenue. At least we know she’s not running for office.

Some public servants retire quietly. Some write memoirs. Some take up gardening. Some might start lobbying.

Tricky Vicky sued for a bigger pension.

This kind of independent, government watchdog reporting is crucial to transparency and democracy. And more so every day. Help shine a light on the darker corners of our community with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. Ladra thanks you for your support.