It has been rumored for weeks but it became official on Friday: Democratic Party gadfly and social services activist Daniella Levine will be running against Miami-Dade Commissioner Lynda Bell. Levine, who founded the Human Services Coalition of Dade County in 1996, filed the paperwork Friday. Well, Danielle Levine Cava did. Whoever that is. She added Cava to […]
Freshmen State Reps. Jose Javier Rodriguez and Manny Diaz, Jr., might breathe a sigh of relief because, while they still may get challenged this year — and we know that Rodriguez will face Republican Daniel Diaz Leyva — they won’t have to wage ugly, harsh rematches with the Diaz de la Portilla brothers. That’s because […]
Another slow week for electeds as we celebrated New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day and the prolonged vacation people take the days before and after. Very few selfies were posted. But Ladra always finds some. And, this time, the general theme was family. Miami Springs Mayor Zavier Garcia skipped the parties and rang in […]
Both former Mayors Steve “Shhhhh” Bateman of Homestead and Michael “Muscles” Pizzi of Miami Lakes — who were arrested in August on separate public corruption charges — sent holiday greetings via email to their friends and supporters. Pizzi, who has used Gmail to communicate with his peeps before, sent his note Dec. 31, and it […]
Happy New Year everyone. Yes, 2014 promises to be pretty exciting, politically speaking. Maybe not as exciting as 2012, but certainly more fun than 2013. We have the slew of state races in November, including the governor’s race, the Congressional contest in District 26 that will be watched throughout the nation, and six Miami-Dade county […]
The Miami Herald appropriate calls it the year of the bust. That’s because 2013 was particularly packed with political corruption — or at least the kind we found out about, anyway. But it was also the year of disgust as electeds promoted corporate welfare for the millionaire owner of the Miami Dolphins, another millionaire bought […]
Norweigan Cruise Line is not the only private company to get millions of taxpayer dollars in “marketing incentives” from a Miami-Dade government that is allegedly “tightening its belt.” In addition to the $3 million commissioners approved (in consent agenda, no less) for the cruise company earlier this month, dozens of airlines have received at least $4.3 […]
The days between Christmas and New Year’s typically make for a slow week in politics and government. So, there were fewer public events and photo ops than usual, so our new “Political pics of the week” segment — where we take a look at what our electeds did via visual images — is short, but […]
As New Year’s Eve approaches, everyone looks anxiously to the state and local elections in 2014. But in one of Ladra’s favorite cities, the heat is already turning up for elections that won’t come ’til 2015. And, when you start to peel the political onion, it’s really about the elections in 2017. Make no mistake […]
They did it again. All the Miami-Dade County Commissioners, except for Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, used their county emails and the county email list to send the 25,000 or so employees who have email another holiday greeting for Christmas. Guess Ladra’s barking about that during Thanksgiving and how it reeked of abuse of their public position […]