Human trafficking as a zoning strategy: Vince Lago takes his act to Miami

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Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago likes to talk about political theater, but his recent guest appearance in a supporting role at a Miami Commission meeting deserves its own program insert.

Lago showed up to the city commission’s December meeting to support a resolution that would help declare several aging hotels along SW 8th Street in Little Gables as blight and public nuisances. His stated reason? Human trafficking, drugs, prostitution — the usual greatest hits. According to Lago, labeling these properties nuisances could “help interested parties” buy them up and redevelop them, thereby “solving” the problem.

Ladra will pause here for laughter.

Because if there’s one thing Miami’s long history has taught us, it’s that real estate speculation has never been about saving vulnerable people. It’s about land, density, and who gets to cash in.

And Lago, a recently unemployed real estate agent with development ties, knows this better than most. So, let’s talk about what this is really about.

Read related: Hourly hotel attorney to Coral Gables: Stop defaming us or else

Under Florida’s Live Local Act, developers can bypass local zoning restrictions and build significantly more density — including height and unit bonuses — if a project includes a required (yet small) percentage of affordable housing. “Affordable,” shall we say, because it really isn’t that much. The law is tailor-made for large assemblages, not mom-and-pop properties.

Those aging hotels along SW 8th Street? They sit on land that becomes extremely attractive once it’s declared “blighted” or a “nuisance” and spurs talk of eminent domain. Someone can bundle the parcels. Clear the path. Invoke Live Local. Build big.

It’s not like Ladra is just pulling this out of the air. In 2019, the owners of the Jamaica Motel, at 4601 Southwest 8th Street across from the Gables, Jorge and Julio Del Rey Jr. presented plans to build an 8-story multi-family building with 96 apartments in its place.

It hasn’t happened — yet — and you can still rent a room there for cheap: $125 for 12 hours.

But that’s the idea. That’s why he’s been so hot for annexing Little Gables, where some of those hotels are. So plan B is going through the city of Miami.

And human trafficking, in this scenario, isn’t the problem being solved. It’s the justification. Ladra has been around long enough to recognize a rezoning strategy dressed up as a moral crusade.

Lago came to Miami City Hall Dec. 11 armed with rhetoric, not receipts. No police reports. No arrest statistics tied to specific properties. No confirmed trafficking cases linked to the hotels he was condemning. Instead, he leaned hard into emotionally loaded language, invoking trafficking victims as justification for aggressive government action against private property.

The Gables mayor said he had the privilege of riding along with the chief and assistant chief of police.

“What I have witnessed in those 12, a little over a dozen overnight raids, would keep you up at night,” he said, sounding very alarmed. “And as the father of two young girls, I witnessed human trafficking. I witnessed prostitution. I witnessed drug dealing. I’ve witnessed things that do not belong in my city and do not belong in your city.

“Allocating these funds to purchase these hotels will transform our community,” he added.

Oh, yeah, Ladra forgot: The establishment of the Housing Underserved Groups Safely (HUGS) program — sponsored by Commissioner Ralph Rosado and then Mayor Francis Suarez, Lago’s BFF — sets aside $4.3 million “from legally available funding sources.” No details on those sources.

And it is quite possible the whole back story is another one of Lyin’ Lago’s blatant fish tales. Because Ladra contacted several people at the city, including two in the police department who are in charge of records and releasing information to the public. After more than a month’s time to search, they haven’t been able to find one single time that Lago rode along with the Miami cops. And there is a lot of paperwork that goes with that. Anybody who wants to ride along knows they have to sign their life away. Did Lago just not fill any of it out? Not for any of the dozen or so ride alongs he says he has been on?

Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago no longer works at BDI Construction

Also, if he was a witness to human trafficking — and he doesn’t know the difference between prostitution and human trafficking if it bit him on the nose — did he testify in court? There’s no record of that, either.

Ladra was unable to reach the police chief or the assistant chief that Lago said he rode with. Repeated requests to the Police Department for access to these people has been met with delay and subterfuge.

Let’s be very clear: Human trafficking victims are not a talking point. They are not a prop. They are not a political shield. And using their suffering to grease the skids for redevelopment is not advocacy. It’s exploitation.

He then posted a promotional video of himself at the meeting on his social channels. “I had the opportunity to speak in support of establishing the HUGS program (Housing Underserved Groups Safely) to address and clean up blighted areas in District 4, which borders Coral Gables along 8th Street,” Lago wrote on Facebook and Instagram reminding people that in 2016 he passed a resolution barring the city’s sole hourly hotel to charge by the hour.

“This is part of a broader effort I have been focused on to change the character of the area, improve public safety and reduce criminal activity on 8th Street from LeJeune Road to the Palmetto Expressway,” Lago said. Translation: He’s trying to bring mixed use development.

Here’s the part Lago left out — perhaps because it complicates the storyline.

Miami-Dade County’s Homeless Trust normally uses hotels and motels as part of its emergency housing system when shelters are full, particularly for families with minor children, survivors of domestic violence, and human trafficking victims themselves. That’s not rumor. It’s written policy, complete with intake verification, case management, and service coordination. So these hotels are literally housing underserved groups who need safety.

So when Lago paints all these motels as dens of vice and criminality, he’s not just fear-mongering — he’s stigmatizing vulnerable people the county itself has placed there.

Families. Kids. Victims.

That’s not just reckless. It’s dangerous.

Read related: Vince Lago has conflict of interest with High Pines, Little Gables annexations

Miami-Dade Commissioner Natalie Milian Orbis, appointed to represent District 6, was also at the December meeting. And she really needs someone to give her better advice. This is a mess she does not want to wade into before her first campaign this August, her first real political test. District 6 does not need imported theatrics, fear-based policymaking, or a redevelopment plan packaged as a moral fix.

It needs evidence. It needs independence. It needs leadership that doesn’t outsource its conscience to a mayor from another city with developer friends and zoning dreams.

Miami should not clap for this performance. This deserves scrutiny — not applause.

An ethics review should examine:

• Whether unverified claims about trafficking were used to influence Miami policy
• Whether Miami resources were leveraged to advance an outside mayor’s agenda
• Whether nuisance abatement is being used as a development tool, not a safety measure
• Whether vulnerable populations were recklessly invoked — and harmed — in the process

Ladra is pretty sure that a wannabe influencer who surreptitiously recorded young ladies walking up and down the street and posted them on social media with no concern for their safety did so at Lago’s request — and maybe even was paid for it.

Using victims as political cover is not compassion. Using fear to move property is not public safety. And using Miami as a stage for someone else’s redevelopment agenda is not ethical governance.

You can help get more independent, watchdog government reporting of our local government and political campaigns with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. Ladra thanks you for your support.

  development, Live Local Act, Vince Lago