Change could give Mayor Vince Lago an additional 20 months in office
To increase participation and reduce costs, the Coral Gables Commission may move the city’s biannual elections from April to November. But the question is, will they start in 2024 or 2026?
The earlier option, moving the April 2025 election to November 2024, means that the mayor and commissioners Rhonda Anderson and Kirk Menendez will have their terms cut short by five months. The later option means that they will get an extra 20 months in office.
This will be a topic of discussion at Tuesday’s commission meeting. Anderson has asked that it be taken up at time certain 2 p.m.
Mayor Vince Lago didn’t return calls and texts from Political Cortadito. But sources close to City Hall say Lago, who was just re-elected without any opposition, wants to go with the 2026 implementation of this change. That would give him almost an extra term that he wouldn’t have to run for.
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Pero por supuesto this is the move Lago is going to support. Because he knows that getting re-elected will be more difficult if not impossible after all the shenanigans he’s pulled lately — particularly his brother’s connection to the trailer park in Little Gables and his financial gain from developer Rishi Kapoor‘s purchase of 1505 Ponce de Leon Blvd.
Commissioners Rhonda Anderson and Kirk Menendez could shorten their terms by 5 months or grow them by 20
Vice Mayor Anderson, on the other hand, says she is willing to give up almost 1/8th of her term to get more voter turnout — Coral Gables gets close to 80% in November — and save about $120,000.
“We should shorten our terms by five months, otherwise we’re taking away the people’s right to vote,” Anderson told Ladra. “It’s a lot of months,” she said about the 2026 option. “It’s two years, basically, which makes a two-year term a four-year term.
“I don’t think it’s ethical to take away a person’s right to vote.”
She also says that the new November date will mean voters don’t get annoyed over and over again. “When I went to knock on doors after the November election, they were like ‘Again? Ugh.’ People were just tired of politics. I don’t blame them.”
South Miami made the change from February elections to November after voters approved it in 2020. Last November was the first election held with the rest of the world and the turnout doubled from the participation the February two years earlier.
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There are some community concerns that the change could make the nonpartisan city elections even more partisan and that a candidate with a big bankroll will be able to drown the others’ messages with their own. But we’ve had at least two elections in the Gables that show that the one with the most money doesn’t always win in the City Beautiful.
Commissioner Fernandez, who beat a better funded candidate, has been talking about moving the elections for years — but he favors August to November. That would make the choice between cutting the terms by 7 months or making them 18 months longer.
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