Candidate stumps for job, not seat

Looks like Gabrielle Redfern is giving up on the race for the Miami-Dade mayor’s seat and is going after a county job instead. In transit, what else? The Miami Beach single mom doesn’t want to be mayor anymore. She wants to fix the public transit system she says works badly for too few at too […]

Baby X stumps for Papa

Forget Norman Braman and his considerably anticlimactic endorsement (though maybe not his money). Former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez has another big advantage in his bid to become the next county commissioner in District 7: His son, Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez. The son is allegedly helping raise money for his father, whose giant warchest of $117,000 […]

Who’s real development darling?

There’s this great saying in Cuban — “como los pajaros tirandole a la escopeta,” which translates, really pitifully, into “that’s like the birds shooting at the rifles” but more literally into “the kettle calling the teapot black” (us Cubans have no teapots and the birds quote is more colorful). That’s how Ladra characterizes most of […]

The Brito Bounce burns Robaina

Looks like another candidate has borne the brunt of the Brito Bounce, which is what Ladra calls it when PAC chair and political operative Vanessa Brito shows her traitor opportunistic stripes and betrays another one. Burned this time: Former State Rep. Julio Robaina, running in the District 7 commission race to replace mayoral candidate Carlos […]

Robaina: "Ricky was robbed."

Attorney Ricardo Corona, denied entry into the race for commissioner in District 7, has at least one ally in his quest to delay the race so he can get on the ballot: Former State Rep. Julio Robaina, who did technically qualify. “What they did to Ricky is a travesty,” Robaina told Ladra Tuesday night in […]

Chivalry and guts shine at forum

She may be small in size, but Gabrielle Redfern — the only woman on the 11-member county mayoral wannabe contest — has big you-know-whats. Repeatedly uninvited to candidate forums and debates, Redfern is likely the one responsible for getting all the B-list candidates into The Miami Foundation’s debate on the UM campus Tuesday. The next […]

New poll: Robaina drops, Luke #3

Unconfirmed results of an unseen mayoral candidate poll — and this time Ladra only got the same information from two people, not the three we like to have — are not surprising in the sense that Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina may have dropped from two-months-ago numbers. Robaina still leads, but he lost a whopping 10 […]

Robaina gets scorcher of a ruling

Ouch! Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina — now running for the county mayor’s post — might have felt a little burn Friday when the city was ordered to rehire 16 veteran firefighters he summarily dismissed right before a union vote expected to reject $4.4 million in concessions. And right before Christmas. I bet there’s smoke coming […]

Cancio slams LBA nod to Julio

Imagine how Jose “Pepe” Cancio felt after the Latin Builders’ Association, in which he has been a member for more than 20 years, first snubbed him at the forum for county mayor and then endorsed Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina — without even hearing him out. Cancio goes so far as to call the endorsement a […]

Different $$ "bundles" for Robaina

Well, it’s not exactly news, but Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina — a cash magnet whether he is getting large wads in unmarked envelopes delivered to a friend’s home or multiple campaign checks — was officially endorsed by the Latin Builders Association, as if the group needed an official press release so everyone would know. Bernie […]