Winners and losers in special District 5 county race not just the obvious

Winners and losers in special District 5 county race not just the obvious

The obvious winners and losers in the special shotgun wedding District 5 county commission race, besides candidates Eileen Higgins (winner) and Zoraida Barreiro (loser), are the political parties: The Miami-Dade Democratic Party (winner) and the Republican Party of Miami-Dade (loser). We’ve said it all along and it’s no surprise so we’re not including them in […]

It’s Commissioner Eileen Higgins in Miami-Dade win vs Zoraida Barreiro

It’s Commissioner Eileen Higgins in Miami-Dade win vs Zoraida Barreiro

A partisan campaign likely made the difference Even though Zoraida Barreiro was ahead for a tiny little bit in the special shotgun wedding election to replace her husband on the Miami-Dade Commission, she was never winning. The tiny 45 vote lead she had after absentee ballots were counted wouldn’t hold. Democrats, who had made this […]

More people come out to vote in special Miami-Dade District 5 runoff

More people come out to vote in special Miami-Dade District 5 runoff

It’s not even over yet, and already more people have voted in the runoff for the special shotgun wedding election in Miami-Dade District 5 than in the first round when there were twice as many candidates. Early voting ends Sunday and already, through Saturday, there had been 2,055 ballots cast at the four early voting locations. […]

GOP’s Marili Cancio vs Dem Sen. Annette Taddeo in ‘year of the woman’

GOP’s Marili Cancio vs Dem Sen. Annette Taddeo in ‘year of the woman’

The Republicans know former State Sen. Frank Artiles wouldn’t stand a chance against newly-minted Sen. Annette Taddeo in a rematch so close to his fall from grace: Artiles was forced to resign his seat last year after he was caught in a drunken, racist and sexist tirade against fellow legislators in a Tallahassee watering hole, […]

Coral Gables city manager has taxpayer-paid ‘fixer’ for political headaches

Coral Gables city manager has taxpayer-paid ‘fixer’ for political headaches

Coral Gables taxpayers pay sweet property bills for sweet services like trash pick-up and crack code enforcement. For the last eight months at least, they’ve also been paying for the city manager’s political consultant. Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark has old timey Gables political consultant Stan Adkins — who also runs Commissioner Pat Keon‘s campaigns — officially helping her with […]

GOP finally enters partisanized Miami-Dade District 5 race after the Dems

GOP finally enters partisanized Miami-Dade District 5 race after the Dems

Are nonpartisan municipal races a thing of the past?   The Democrats made them do it. That’s what Nelson Diaz, chairman of the Miami-Dade Republican Party, said about an email they blasted Wednesday for Zoraida Barreiro, who is running in the special shotgun wedding election for the county commission district 5 seat vacated by her […]

Joe Carollo fires staffer who reported abuse of office to the State Attorney

Joe Carollo fires staffer who reported abuse of office to the State Attorney

The big news isn’t that Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo fired his one-time campaign manager, right hand man and District 3 Liasion Steven Miro. The big news is why. Sources tell Ladra that Miro made a complaint to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office recently about Carollo using city funds and city personnel to campaign for Alex Diaz […]

Eileen Higgins would upset the apple cart, and add checks and balances

Eileen Higgins would upset the apple cart, and add checks and balances

There’s a reason why both Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Commission Chairman Esteban Bovo — who hopes to be the next county mayor — have endorsed Zoraida Barreiro in the District 5 commission race: They want to stay in control. They like things the way they are. Barreiro would be a known entity, a Republican […]

Coral Gables manager spanked for interfering with background check

Coral Gables manager spanked for interfering with background check

Coral Gables City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark is not totally in the clear, yet. Swanson has dodged a series of professional bullets as her administration has waged an unpopular war with the police chief, lied to commissioners, got caught spying on at least one citizen activist and more. But if Swanson thought she was going to […]

Winners and losers in Miami-Dade’s special District 5 commission race

Winners and losers in Miami-Dade’s special District 5 commission race

Yes, we already know that former State Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla is the biggest loser in the special shotgun wedding election in Miami-Dade District 5, getting shut out of the runoff by Zoraida Barreiro and Eileen Higgins — his third loss in a hisif. Fifth, if you count his brothers’ defeats.  And, yes, Higgins […]