A political action committee collecting signatures to get three referendums on the ballot in Coral Gables submitted the first batch of petitions Friday for two of the measures.
Gables City Clerk Billy Urquia said he received 2,078 signed petitions for a charter amendment to require a voter referendum approval before elected officials can raise their salaries and expense accounts. This is in direct response to the raises that the two new commissioners, Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez, and Kirk Menendez voted to give themselves last year.
Another 20 signed petitions were also submitted by Accountable Coral Gables PAC Chair Alex Bucelo for a charter amendment to require a four-fifths vote to dip into the city’s reserve funds, Urquia said. Bucelo, who has run unsuccessfully for commission twice and sits on the mayor’s advisory council, did not return calls and texts to his phone.
Read related: Vince Lago tries to sneak election date change into strategic plan via committee
Curiously, there were no petitions submitted for the proposed charter amendment to change the date of the city elections from April to November to coincide with state and national elections — which one can argue is the question that organizers (read: Mayor Vince Lago) want to put on the ballot the most.
Las malas lenguas say organizers have a lot of those petitions, too. Maybe even all of them. But they are waiting for the right timing to make a big splash — perhaps they’ll announce it at the next commission meeting.
The petition gatherers need to collect 10% of the number of registered voters in Coral Gables for any and each of the proposed charter amendments, Urquia said. At last count, that was about 33,000. So the Accountable PAC needs another 1,222 signatures for the amendment to require voter approval before commissioners can raise their salaries or expense accounts.
Read related: Recall vs Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago is short by 117 petition signatures
Funding for these efforts, so far, according to the sole campaign finance report filed in April, have come from developer Sergio Pino ($10,000), developers Tom Caberizo and Ignazio Caltagirone ($5,000 each) and former city commissioner Frank Quesada, who is Mayor Lago’s personal bank ($5,000). Ladra has a feeling they’ll see it through.
But if they’ve learned anything from the failed recall petition against Lago, the Accountable PAC should give themselves a nice, thick buffer of signatures in case some are invalid. Maybe get 1,500 more.
The recall PAC, End The Corruption, submitted 1,719 petitions. They only needed 5% in the first round, which was 1,650 — which gave them a buffer of less than 70. And it hurt them. The county’s review found duplicates and verified only 1,533 — which came almost 120 petitions short.
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