Coral Gables Commissioner Melissa Castro has had enough of the quiet quid pro quo culture that seems to linger like cologne after a ribbon cutting. So she’s bringing a little disinfectant to the dais.
Castro plans to introduce an ordinance that would make it crystal clear that no elected official in the City Beautiful can cash in on development projects they helped approve. Not while they’re in office. Not two years later. Not ever, if Castro had her way.
The proposal, which the commission will take up on Tuesday, would ban the mayor and commissioners from doing any business — consulting, contracting, or otherwise — with developers, contractors, or vendors whose projects went before them. The restriction would last through their time in office and for two years after they leave.
Because apparently, some folks think the statute of limitations on ethics is shorter than a building permit line.
“This would stop an elected official from voting on something and then getting a contract on the back end,” Castro told Political Cortadito. “Even if someone votes ‘no’ to something, they can get others to vote ‘yes,’ or whip up the votes.”
“I don’t want to say corruption, but it’s corruption,” she told Florida Politics.
In other words: If it walks like a bribe and quacks like a bribe, it’s not a tip.
Under Castro’s proposed rules, developers would have to swear under oath — via an “anti-kickback affidavit” — that they haven’t and won’t offer any payment, favor, or job to elected officials tied to a project in order to get any type of permit. If they lie, they risk losing their permits, canceling their contracts, and being blacklisted from city business for five years. How can it be enforced once the permit is issued? Because there will be a number of inspections before the project is done, Castro said.
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“Anytime you hire a contractor, you would need to disclose it until you have a certificate of occupancy,” she told Ladra.
And if any of the city’s current or future politicos think this is just window dressing, they might want to note that false statements would also go to the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust. And maybe even the state attorney.
It’s all part of Castro’s bid to close what she describes as a glaring it’s-not-a-bribe-if-it’s-later loophole in the city’s ethics code. And it would include her own permit expediting business. That’s what grownups call leading by example.
But let’s be honest: This seems aimed at Mayor Vince Lago more than anybody. Lago is the one who said at the Graziano’s grand opening that the was proud of the work his company did on the build-out. Then there is all the business with developer Rishi Kapoor, who was paying his best buddy, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, $170,000 as a consultant while he sought development approvals there.
Lago also got part of a $640,000 commission in the 2023 sale of a Ponce De Leon Boulevard lot where the real estate developer planned to build a luxury high-rise, for which he likely needed zoning variances. The payment went to a brokerage firm owned by former Hialeah Councilman Oscar De La Rosa which listed only five real estate agents hanging their licenses there, including Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo, lobbyist Bill Riley (who was arrested with former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla on public corruption charges in 2023), Lago and his former chief of staff at Coral Gables City Hall, Chelsea Granell, who has been promoted to director of legislative affairs.
Then, afterwards, Lago and some partners — including Baby X cousin Esteban Suarez — also rented a retail space, a former karate studio across the street from the Ponce development site, to Kapoor for about $12,500 a month, according to sources cited by the Miami Herald. Kapoor rented the space shortly after Lago and his partners bought it in order to open a sales office for the luxury condo he wanted to build at 1505 Ponce de Leon and paid more than $152,000. But the space sat empty all the while.
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But as the owner of a MED Expediters, Castro’s legislation could also easily apply to herself. After she was elected in 2023, Castro asked the Ethics Commission if her firm could continue working in Coral Gables. They said yes, but barely. It came with warnings. So, she stopped doing business in the city altogether. That was just easier. But that hasn’t stopped Lago from hitting her with false accusations and intimations that she has a conflict of interests.
In fact, his political action committee, Coral Gables First, launched a whole new website to discredit Castro last Wednesday, which questions why she ran for commission. It was a day after Castro explained the legislation she was bringing to the commission to a group of people at a town hall meting for the Gables Good Government. Even though he wasn’t invited, Lago showed up and sat in the front row, to intimidate her probably. He wasn’t able to, and actually got riled himself instead when Castro started talking about the anti-kickback ordinance. The next day, his PAC launched the attack site — a pathetic attempt to smear her and slow her roll at City Hall.
But it’s going to be hard for Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and Commissioner Richard Lara to oppose Castro, for once. Both ran on transparency and reform. Voting “no” on this would be like running on “clean government” and then asking developers to Venmo you later.
The timing of this move is delicious. Mayor Lago — who never misses a chance to spar with Castro and her frequent ally Ariel Fernandez — just asked Miami-Dade County to take action against the Commission on Ethics, complaining about their investigator in his “matter under initial review” (which is technospeak for investigation) into whether or not he lied when he signed an affidavit swearing nobody in his family had any financial interests in the annexation of Little Gables (when his brother was a lobbyist for the owner of the trailer park there).
So, while the mayor’s over there on a vendetta trying to discredit the watchdogs, Castro’s proposing to actually strengthen the leash.
The ordinance also comes as Miami-Dade’s political landscape is littered with recent examples of pay-for-play gone wrong — from the dropped bribery case against ex-Miami Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla, to the conviction of former County Commissioner Joe Martinez, who got caught pocketing payments from a supermarket owner.
But at least in Coral Gables, someone’s finally trying to close a loophole. Because even if the payoff comes after a vote, it doesn’t mean it’s not a bribe.
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