Residents in the Allapattah neighborhood of Miami know Commissioner Willy Gort. who is termed out after serving since 2011, and also from 1993 to 2000. But, with the exclusion of former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, many voters don’t really know the clusterbunch of wannabes in line to replace Gort.
So the Allapattah YMCA Family Center is having the first forum for the 
District 1 Miami commission candidates at Comstock Elementary Thursday night so people can get to know them.
All seven hopefuls have confirmed their attendance, said Michelle Moyer, executive director of the YMCA, which serves 2,000 families.
“There are new candidates since Commissioner Willy Gort is not running for his position,” Moyer said. “A lot of residents were asking us who these candidates were because they were not familiar with them.
“We’ve never done this before,” she added.
Read related: Alex DLP keeps bunching bundles of special interest campaign money
District 1 is not just Allapattah. It includes Grapeland Heights, parts of Little 
Havana, Flagami, Blue Lagoon and the area around Jackson Memorial Hospital. But the Allapattah vote, arguably, is going to be the key to winning.
That’s why the Allapattah Y had a meet and greet earlier this month for residents to mingle with the candidates. “That was a more informal event to introduce them and have them talk to residents,” Moyer said. “This is more formal.”
Diaz de la Portilla is the most known and the most notorious of the seven candidates in the running. He pretended to move into an apartment leased by his brother, former School Board Member Renier Diaz de la Portilla (the real Fredo) on the Miami River. He has the most cash, topping out at $282,380 (with the help of lots of special interest bundles), according to the latest campaign reports, and is considered by many the front runner.
But he has lost his last four races and has been stained with a couple of 
scandals, in addition to losing his longtime house given to him by his parents to foreclosure. Like that time Boston police were called to his hotel room because he and Tania Cruz, the daughter-in-law of the county mayor, wouldn’t stop smoking and being belligerent. That was while (and probably why) he was losing the state rep race to Jose Javier Rodriguez in 2012.
Read related: Alex Diaz DLP tops $200K mark in Miami campaign despite AB fraud
Most recently, his 2018 campaign for county commission was marred by the 
leaking of a WhatsApp group chat that indicated organized absentee ballot fraud and is likely (better be) being investigated by some law enforcement agency or assistant state attorney or someone. Ladra has heard that there is already an investigation into Paella Gate, on whether or not The Dean’s buddy, City Commissioner Joe Carollo, used city funds and staff for a DLP campaign event at the public housing units near Marlins Park.
Also running are:
- Horacio Aguirre, chairman of the Miami River Commission and member of the Civic Investigative Panel. He is the son of the founder of the Diario Las Americas Spanish-language daily newspaper, earned an MBA from the University of Miami and has owned his own real estate investment firm since 1990. He has raised $115,255.
- Miguel Angel Gabela was a member of the City of Miami’s Planning and Zoning Advisory Board from 2001 to 2009. He is a real estate investor and owns an auto parts business. He has raised $69,805 but has also loaned himself $100,000 so he has the second biggest bank after DLP. And he must have some name recognition, after campaigning twice in the District. Gabela lost to Gort both times. First in 2010’s special election to replace then-Commissioner Angel Gonzalez — who was forced to resign in 2009 as part of a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of abusing his position to get his daughter a job — and again in 2015.
- Eleazar Melendez, the former aide and chief of staff to City Commissioner Ken Russell also had short stints (seven months) as political director at the Miami Dade Democratic Party and as outreach director of the Florida Democratic Party. He has worked on campaigns before, helping former Mayor Philip Levine and former Sen. Bill Nelson with their gubernatorial and congressional races, respectively. He has raised a respectable $71,435 after getting in late. He also happens to live right next door to where Diaz de la Portilla “lives.”
- Verania “Betty” Hermida, the only mom in the bunch, is a longtime activist and a potential dark horse with lots of time invested in the community. She was once a legislative aide to Republican State Rep. Luis Rojas (1988-2000) and has served on both the city code enforcement and nuisance abatement board. A board member of the Allapattah Neighborhood Association, she also started her own non-profit in February called United for Allapattah. She has also been president of the Hialeah-Miami Springs NW Dade Chamber of Commerce and office manager, day care director and program director at the Allapattah YMCA that is hosting the event. She has raised $24,085 in mostly smaller checks and no bundles except family.
- Yanny Hidalgo is a corporate attorney and registered Republican. His twitter feed indicates he is a fan of Sen. Marco Rubio and involved with the Miami Bayside Foundation. According to his LinkedIn profile, he got his Bachelor’s at Florida International University and his law degree at St. Thomas.
- Francisco Pichel is an ex Miami cop who was fired in 2000 after he helped cover up the beating death of a handcuffed man. Later, after some moron let him be the sergeant-at-arms in city hall (read: bouncer), Pichel was arrested for selling steroids and Cialis illegally on the side. He is completely unelectable but somehow has still managed to raise nearly $20,000, including $400 from former Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito, who was fired in 2011 in a cloud of controversy, but not before the force under his watch shot and killed seven black men in eight months.
It’s almost like the Democratic primary, so many candidates, and the forum might be a little bit like the debates.
Each candidate will get a chance to introduce themselves before two moderators — the Miami Herald’s Joey Flechas and NBC6 investigative reporter Dan Krauth — ask them questions about issues relevant to the community.
Then the audience will get a chance.
The forum begins at 6 p.m. and is in the cafeteria at Comstock Elementary, 2420 NW 18th Ave. There is free parking at the Y next door.
First forum for seven wannabes in Miami’s commission District 1 race added by Ladra on
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