Coral Gables Chamber debate hardly worth the effort

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It’s a real shame that the last debate — if one can even call it that — of the commission and mayoral candidates in Coral Gables was so lame.

With two weeks to go before the April 14 election, the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce event Tuesday night was a missed opportunity for the candidates to clearly demonstrate their stark differences, like they did at the debate earlier this month at the Coral Gables Congregational Church. That the Chamber, such a reputable organization, put on such a silly political rally in comparison is really almost criminal. Tsk, tsk. You know they could have done better.

But maybe they didn’t want to.

Because the debate also seemed a little lopsided toward the incumbents.

Read related story: Coral Gables’ Jim Cason declines mayoral debates

In both the Group IV race between Enrique Lopez and Commissioner Frank Quesada and the mayoral race between former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera and Mayor Jim Cason, the incumbents were given the opportunity to rebut their challengers answers each and every time. Questions, which certainly seemed like they were friendly to the incumbents, were always posed to the challengers first. Every single one. Isn’t it customary to alternate? And while incumbents could respond to what the challengers said, the challengers could never come back and rebut the incumbents’ claims.

How is that fair? Seems more like Chamber President Mark Trowbridge was protecting his pals with questions that were fed to them like grapes and a process that favored the incumbents.

Quesada, who is likely very comfortably ahead of Lopez in the polls and didn’t seem too worried — in fact, seemed a little asleep — took the high road and simply spoke about his self-inflated track record and everything he thinks the city is doing right. But Cason — who is sweating this re-election somewhat and has declined all other (read: fair) debate invitations — took advantage of the clear advantage the flawed Chamber process gave him to attack Cabrera with lies and exaggerate his own achievements, which again included the attending of 5,100 events in four years.

That comes out to 3.5 events a day, including weekends and holidays. Really? Does Jim Cason strike you as someone with that kind of stamina? Or is he secretly stashing Red Bull in his office fridge?

The Chamber’s [perhaps intentionally] flawed process gave Cason the opportunity to again quote Commissioner Cabrera out of context from a 2007 meeting discussion on pension reform, when Cabrera was obviously being very sarcastic and trying to actually get his colleagues to do something. Cason is making it look like Cabrera said something different — which is disingenuous, but it’s all he’s got.

It also gave him the opportunity to tout his new 10-point crime fighting plan, which he came up with after Cabrera published his five-point plan and is an obvious and pathetic attempt to one-up him.

“We have five extra,” Cason said, reminding Ladra of one of her favorite lines from a movie — Spinal Tap and “ours goes to eleven.”

The funny thing is, they are all extra because Cason, five minutes ago, didn’t think there’s any crime to address in the first place. Now he suddenly has a 10-point plan against it that they are already implementing? Extra! Extra! This guy contradicts himself almost in the same sentence.

Read related story: Coral Gables mayoral forum shows stark differences

“Crime is down. And police have all the resources they’ve requested to implement our ten point plan,” Cason said, adding that all of Ralph’s initiatives are already in the works. Really? Really?

I guess he forgot that they have 18 budgeted positions in the police department that are vacant, many of which have been vacant for years (that’s one way to beef up your reserves) and that part of Cabrera’s plan — which is obviously not being implemented — is making recruitment a priority.

Cabrera could have told the 100 or so people in the audience this. He could have also noted how Cason so summarily dismissed the 44 percent of auto burglaries that victimize non residents as not important. Somehow, we shouldn’t count those. Because, you know, Ladra guesses Cason doesn’t want me and my friends from Kendall eating in his downtown. We are somehow less important victims than the residents. I suppose that also includes the tens of thousands of people who work downtown and get their vehicles broken into during the day.

Ralph could have also provided the correct figures — because in his crime statistics, Cason doesn’t count thefts from the yard or outside buildings, like patio furniture, or from vehicles whether they are locked or unlocked, in residential driveways. He doesn’t count, for example, the rims of that Porsche that robbers took more than 20 minutes to steal.

Cabrera could have also told the audience that he did, in fact, make significant changes to the pension when he was a commissioner. Changes to how the overtime was calculated and to multipliers that inflated employee salary averages. He also opted out of the city pension and into the Florida state retirement system because it’s what they want employees to do. Has Cason done that?

But Cabrera never got the chance to say any of those things. Because it was on to the next question.

Nonetheless, and while he didn’t outright kick Cason’s caboose like he did the last time, Cabrera’s answers were more substantive, detailed and reality-based than Cason’s loose and lofty generalizations. And I’m not just saying that because I am proud to be on Ralph’s team and think he should be the next mayor of Coral Gables.

Rather, I am on Ralph’s team and think he should be the next mayor of Coral Gables precisely because his answers were more substantive, detailed and reality-based. They always are.

In fact, it’s rather telling that Cabrera could score so well even on such an uneven playing field.

  Jim Cason, Ralph Cabrera