Maria Cruz has had it.
Coral Gables’ most active and famous gadfly is done with Mayor Vince Lago, who used to be her dear friend and ally. One would have thought she was crushing on him. Now, Cruz has formed a political action committee to push an effort to recall Lago.
The first text message blast went out Wednesday afternoon, hours after the city clerk stamped the papers she filed to open the PAC.
“Vince Lago says he’s just a ‘part-time mayor,’ but it’s his full-time work that’s leaving a stain on our City Beautiful,” it starts. “His real estate firm made over $640,000 for selling a piece of real estate on Ponce De Leon Boulevard to a corrupt Coral Gables developer under FBI investigation. Lago then became the corrupt developer’s landlord, the developer paying Lago & his partners hundreds of thousands in rent for an empty space that was never even occupied.
“We don’t need a Mayor whose full-time job is shady deals with corrupt developers under FBI investigation,” it reads, with a phone number to call for a recall petition (305-988-1317) and a new website, lagomustgo.com, with the same messages.
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago has business with accused money launderer
Lago was one of the real estate agents involved in the $35.5 million sale in December 2022 of 1505 Ponce de Leon Boulevard to Location Ventures CEO Rishi Kapoor, getting a piece of the $640,000 commission. Kapoor is under investigation for, in part, paying Miami Mayor Francis Suarez — Lago’s best buddy and friend crush — $10,000 a month for 17 months for “consulting” at the same time he was seeking permits from the city for his projects. Lago recused himself from multiple city commission votes on Kapoor’s projects because he rented a retail space to Kapoor across from the 1505 building.
Problem is that the space was never occupied, making the rent payments look like a different kind of payoff.
That’s just one of Lago’s questionable side gigs. He has others.
The paperwork for the PAC was filed with the city clerk’s office on Wednesday afternoon, the stamp shows, just hours before the mass text went out. So it has money already. We have to wait until April 10 or 11 to find out how much and where it came from.
Cruz did not return calls and texts to her cellphone. But she told Roberto Rodriguez Tejera and Juan Camilo Gomez on Actualidad Radio Thursday that she just wants her city back.
“I want Coral Gables to be what it was,” she said, adding that Lago’s really bad behavior started at last year’s election, when he went door-to-door “insulting seniors” and demanding that they remove yard signs for the candidates Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez, who ended up getting elected.
L’Ego has been on a crazy downward spiral since — stopping at a table where a Miami Herald reporter was working and laying into him for their government coverage, suing a radio station, calling people on the phone and threatening them when he thinks they spoke to Ladra. It’s a strange transformation from a once-promising, well-spoken, environmentally-conscious, business savvy Republican.
“Vince Lago isn’t who he was. Vince Lago doesn’t want the best for Coral Gables. Vince Lago wants the best for himself,” Cruz said.
She will need to collect 1,600 signatures in the first 30 days and then many more within 60 days from then in order to get the recall on the ballot.
Read related: Political retaliation in Coral Gables as Mayor Vince Lago loses his cool again
And that isn’t easy. Or cheap. So there will have to be some financial backing. Maybe the firefighters union, which has been at war with the mayor for a while, will help fund the effort. Maybe the people of Little Gables who don’t want to be annexed into the City Beautiful will support it, too. And Coral Gables United. And the guy who owns that sports bar on Giralda.
So many people would give to that, like it was a charitable cause.
But there is no way that Cruz is bought. She can’t be bought. She’s retired and she owns her home and she loves the city. Lago might say so, but he’s lying — again. It’s become a nasty habit with him (more on that later).
Attorney and government’s worst nightmare David Winker is the registered agent and deputy treasurer for the recall PAC. Winker has represented several people in the city, including a former assistant director of public works in a dispute over her termination.
Winker also helped on the recall effort against Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo in 2020.
Read MorePolitical Cortadito
