Another county insider on Dolphins Stadium team: Sosa’s boy

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Miami-Dade Commission Chairwoman Rebeca Sosa‘s longtime campaign manager, Roly Marante — standing to her right in this photo — has been hired to do the Hispanic part of the Dolphin stadium referendum campaign.

So the owners of the football team and the and the proponents of the public financing of that upgrade to their privately-owned stadium don’t just have a direct line — or, rather, several direct lines — to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

The mayor’s expanding rain dancer Brian Goldmeier (more on him later) and several of his buddies, including Ralph Garcia Toledo, former State Rep. and fellow mayoral candidate Marcelo Llorente, Brian May and, now, Gimenez supporter and campaign ally Jorge Arizureta are working on getting the stadium deal approved (read: fooling the public into thinking this is about a referendum when it’s really about an easy $90 million prize. Ka-ching). There is also a rampant rumor that former Miami Beach City Manager Jorge Gonzalez is on the team. How is he connected? Because there has to be a Gimenez connection, no?

Word is that Gimenez campaign wunderkid Jesse Manzano quit the team. Inquiring minds want to know why and Ladra has put a call in.

But now, the owner of the Dolphins has a direct connection to the chairwoman, too (well, besides Arizurieta): Marante has ran her campaigns for years. Arizurieta, a super Republican who was announced as co-chair (read: Hispanic token) with H.T. Smith (read: black token) of the Miami First Coalition, the He has also worked for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sosa supporter, former Hialeah Councilman and current Wizard of Oz Herman Echevarria, because he runs the City of Retrogress from behind a curtain called Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez.

Sosa voted in favor of both the deal and the referendum last Wednesday, telling the audience in commission chambers and Ladra afterwards that she wants to let the public decide. Wonder why she didn’t tell anyone that if the legislature gives this a green light — and they may do that based solely on the strongarm tactics of Gimenez and his commission — that the people will lose $90 million of their money, not the tourists’.

On Friday, las malas lenguas told Ladra that Marante had been hired shortly after that meeting.

But Marante told Ladra he has been working with the Dolphins team since the beginning of the month. He mentioned that he would have loved to hire Ladra, too, to help with that. But we’re on opposite sides this time so that’s not going to happen.

And he doesn’t see any conflict of interest.

“The campaign for Rebeca hasn’t even begun yet,” Marante said. “There are other people doing lobbying at the county and at the state level. Not me. I’m just doing the Hispanic messaging.”

But when I talked to Sosa, she had no idea he was on the campaign.

“I’ll have to ask him about that,” she said.