Nonpartisan? Who are we kidding? County races more partisan by day

Nonpartisan? Who are we kidding? County races more partisan by day

Voters will get to decide if the newly created elected Miami-Dade sheriff’s seat, tax collector and supervisor of elections will be partisan positions or not after the county commission voted last week to put the referendum on the 2020 ballot. The sheriff’s position was created last year by voters who also made the elections head […]

Ralph Cabrera outraises opponents in 4-way Gables commission race

Ralph Cabrera outraises opponents in 4-way Gables commission race

Former Coral Gables Commissioner Ralph Cabrera had his best two weeks of fundraising this cycle, with $46,275 collected over the last two weeks of February. According to the last campaign finance reports filed at City Hall this week, that accounts for more than half of Cabrera’s total of $83,545. With a fundraiser hosted next week by former Sen. Miguel Diaz […]

Group sues to stop Ultra festival, claims Virginia Key lease is illegal

Group sues to stop Ultra festival, claims Virginia Key lease is illegal

A group representing 35,000 Brickell area homeowners is suing to stop the Ultra Music Festival — which was kicked out of downtown Miami this year — from happening on Virginia Key at the end of this month. The emergency complaint filed Wednesday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court claims the city schemed to bypass the public bidding […]

First Coral Gables candidate face-off is ‘positive’ Chamber forum

First Coral Gables candidate face-off is ‘positive’ Chamber forum

The Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce will host the first candidate forum Thursday evening on the University of Miami campus. Four city commission candidates hoping to replace retiring Commissioner Frank Quesada will go first. They are: Ralph Cabrera, Jorge. L. Fors, Jackson “Rip” Holmes and Carmen Olazabal. They get a little more than an hour starting […]

Commission candidate Carmen Olazabal can’t rewrite ugly past

Commission candidate Carmen Olazabal can’t rewrite ugly past

Carmen Olazabal wants you to forget that she’s an unethical opportunist who put her career above the very safety and lives of Coral Gables residents. As Olazabal, a former interim city manager, runs for a city commission seat, she wants you to forget that she doctored documents and focus on her gender and her degrees […]

MCM files Chapter 11, but Carlos Gimenez pals have other firms

MCM files Chapter 11, but Carlos Gimenez pals have other firms

The collapse of the FIU pedestrian bridge and the lawsuits that followed seem to have pushed one-time Miami-Dade County darlings Munilla Construction Management to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But that doesn’t mean that Pedro Munilla, an insider and longtime member of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s friends and family plan, can’t do any more municipal business. […]

Alex DLP bolts out of Miami gate with a campaign cash advantage

Alex DLP bolts out of Miami gate with a campaign cash advantage

Don’t think that former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla is not a true threat in the Miami District 1 race this year. While some think this three-time loser is unelectable, it’s best not to underestimate The Dean. Especially when he is raising more campaign money than anybody else. Read related: After loss in Senate, […]

From Congress to cannabis: Carlos Curbelo will push pot in new job

From Congress to cannabis: Carlos Curbelo will push pot in new job

It isn’t enough for former Congressman Carlos Curbelo to be an NBC News political analyst and contributor. Now he wants to make it easier for us to smoke weed. Curbelo is now the new strategic adviser to the Cannabis Trade Federation, a group comprised of cannabis business interests who have come together to advocate for looser pot laws. […]

Coral Gables candidate Jorge Fors had illegal Homestead exemption

Coral Gables candidate Jorge Fors had illegal Homestead exemption

Records indicate that Coral Gables commission candidate and attorney Jorge L. Fors has committed Homestead exemption fraud for several years. Fors owns a condo in Little Havana, unit 205 at 1039 SW 5th Street, where he has paid taxes, claiming a Homestead exemption since at least 2010, the furthest that the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser’s office posts […]