Coral Gables Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli got up on the wrong side of the bed again. Valdes-Fauli , whose arrogance and discourtesy drips in acrimony, was particularly rude and ungracious Tuesday at the Coral Gables meeting to discuss the zoning code update (read: rewrite). More so than usual. It all started when someone reminded him how […]
It happened so fast. So quietly. So sneakily. There’s going to be a Wawa gas station and convenience store with six pumps built in front of GW Carver Elementary School in a historic district of Coral Gables instead of the restaurant promised 10 years ago or the affordable housing promised 10 years before that. Parents, […]
City officials in Coral Gables may be violating their own zoning code to accelerate the green light for demolition of an old home on Asturia Avenue that the city itself tried to designate historic earlier this year. Even Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli has lobbied on behalf of the politically-connected family that bought the property two years ago. Valdes-Fauli […]
In another close race mirroring the 2017 contest, Coral Gables Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli was barely able to hold on to his seat against former Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick. Now, we can’t say Valdes-Fauli won by a scant 187 votes anymore. Now, it’s a flimsy 123! Not really a mandate, is it? The margin is even narrower than […]
Even before 7 a.m. Tuesday, 4,287 voters had cast absentee ballots in the Coral Gables election. That’s almost 55% of the 7,835 ABs that were sent out. That’s the highest number of mail-in ballots returned in the City Beautiful in at least 10 years, maybe all of history. And more may arrive Tuesday. But while […]
Whoop! There it is! The latest campaign reports are in — the last ones before the Coral Gables election on Tuesday — and, just as expected, Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli got a windfall from real estate developers and the construction industry. More than $80,000 in seven days! That must have set some kind of campaign record in […]
The mayoral race in Coral Gables is a rematch between Raul Valdes-Fauli and former Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick. But some people really see it as a do-over of 2017, a second chance to make things right. “Let’s not make the same mistake again,” is not just the headline of an email sent by the Gables Neighbors United group […]
Former Coral Gables Commissioner Jeannett Slesnick — in a bitter mayoral rematch race against Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli — got a big endorsement Wednesday when former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who served 1987 to 2005, gave her his support. Graham — who was also Florida’s 38th governor from 1979 to 1987 — and his wife Adele were among […]
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 […]
With the qualifying deadline upon us and the Coral Gables Election only 46 days away, candidates continue to raise funds for their campaigns — and spend it, at an alarming rate in some cases. Sometimes what’s more important isn’t how much a candidate has raised but how quickly it gets spent and how much is […]