It’s good to have palanca. Just ask Jesse Manzano-Plaza. The political consultant and strategist, who ran the campaign of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez (at least until the mayor was forced into a runoff when others were brought in), got a break Tuesday when the members of the Bayfront Park Management Trust Board voted to keep him […]
Former State Sen. Dan Gelber will file for the Miami Beach mayoral seat in February. Oh, he hasn’t committed. But after a short chat with Gelber Tuesday night, Ladra is predicting that he will, indeed, file for the seat very soon. My guess is he’s just waiting for the beginning of the month so he […]
Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Grieco, who is running for mayor this year, may not have an opponent yet. But he’s already the target of negative attacks trying to link him to a new shady PAC collecting big donations from people or companies with interests in the city. Whoever sent the email Tuesday that makes Grieco […]
Coral Gables Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick is going to ask her colleagues Tuesday to put the future of a controversial sculpture of flowers on Segovia Street in the hands of voters, with a referendum on the April ballot to relocate the $1 million work of art to almost any place else. But it’s an uphill battle. […]
It’s the last week of the first month of the new year — and there’s lots going on. From the megamall discussion at the Miami-Dade Commission to an upzone request in Doral to a town hall “brainstorming session” (read: campaign event) in Coral Gables — this is where and when we watch our government and […]
Municipal and state candidates wait in the wings If anyone ever made an argument for term limits, it was Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban Bovo just last week when he was sworn in as the new chairman of the board and talked about actually making decisions in the next two years because, after all, this is his last term and […]
Reports would include data on no-bid contracts Three days after he was sworn in earlier this month, new Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Esteban Bovo sent a couple of memos to all the commissioners and several staffers telling them this is his show now and we’re doing things a little differently. Not because he flagrantly doled out […]
Gathering photos of our electeds from social media sites to share with you, dear readers, is time consuming and laborious and not all that personally fulfilling, which is why Ladra stopped doing it months ago. But this week marks a special ocassion. We had a few South Florida politicos in D.C. for the inauguration festivities […]
Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Esteban Bovo has named his new committee members, chairs and vice chairs and there are definitely signs that some of his colleagues are buds and some are, well, not. It’s natural to give chairmanships to those commissioners who voted for you as chairman of the board. That’s a longtime tradition and no […]
During his re-election campaign last year, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez could not distance himself fast or far enough from then Republican candidate for POTUS Donald J. Trump. Our Republican Cuban-American mayor even urged Trump to drop out of the race and endorsed Hillary Clinton late in the race — in a blatant grab for black and […]