What a sore loser!
Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, who is still butt hurt about his two pocket candidates losing in April, is all of a sudden pushing for a change to a November election.
In an oped piece today in The Miami Herald — which last week the mayor said was propaganda — Lago said the city’s elections should move to coincide with national and state elections to increase turnout, save $100,000 and empower voters.
He was right. It is propaganda.
Lago is being disingenuous. The real reason he wants to change elections to November is to make it easier for incumbents, harder for candidates with low funds and much more difficult for organizations like Gables Neighbors United to have a real impact on the results. Let’s all be honest: This is because Commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez beat the Lago-backed candidates this past April.
Need proof? Residents have been emailing the commissioners to protest the change. It seems they like having the election in April. One resident got a reply from Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, who originally proposed the change (because she’s carrying Lago’s water).
“If the residents are happy with their performance as incumbents, Ariel and Melissa should have no problem being re-elected,” Anderson tells the resident.
Fernandez told Ladra he was most disappointed with the “constant attacks and jabs” from the mayor and vice mayor toward residents who oppose the plan. “Their bullying tactics are a mockery of a free society,” he said.
“They are upset about the results of this past election and would love nothing more than to crop Commissioner Castro and I out of the commission,” Fernandez said. “But voters elected us in April to serve as their voices on the city commission as has been done for nearly a century. Residents elected us because they agree with our vision for the city, a vision that will be lost in the partisanship of a November election.”
These non-partisan municipal races are turning partisan anyway, but critics of the November election date fear it will be worse with the change.
Read related: Coral Gables commission considers moving elections to November
There are slightly more Republicans (11,784) registered to vote in Coral Gables than Democrats (10,351), according to the Miami-Dade Elections Department. But there are also 9,990 NPAs, or no party affiliation voters, and they tend to lean blue.
“Residents deserve an election focused on the issues affecting the city and not commingled with a federal, state and county election,” he said. “We don’t want to be talking about immigration.”
Fernandez was originally for an August election. But the feedback from residents changed his position.
“Over the last two weeks the message from residents has overwhelmingly been against changing the date,” he said. “As commissioners, it is our responsibility to listen to residents and place their interests above our own.”
By having April elections, the turnout could be lower, of course. This past election it was 20%. But these voters are highly engaged in city politics. They know everyone’s track records and they understand the issues. By having November elections, the turnout will be higher, of course. But those will be people who are mostly interested in voting for top of ballot races — the president, the governor, congress members, Florida legislature, county commissioners.
Many might not know a thing about the Gables candidates. They’d be like the judges: People will vote for the name they heard the most. Which means for the person who spent the most.
Beneath the surface, it seems like a move to let the developers and dark money interests control the city’s elections. That is why Tridente Strategies, run by consultant Jesse Manzano, tweeted the editorial out, promoting the mayor’s November change.
It’s also somewhat curious that former Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli would send an email to the commissioners supporting the change when he opposed it before. “As chairman of the latest charter review committee which recommended an election date in April, and as a six-time mayor, I have reconsidered my position and now I fully support a November election date concurrent with the national and state elections,” he wrote, stating that higher turnout was the main reason he changed his mind.
Read related: Shake-up, power grab at Coral Gables P&Z board as Claudia Miro is ‘fired’
But higher turnout was always a plus and was one of the arguments in favor of moving when Valdes-Fauli served on the review board. So that’s not what made him change his mind.
If lower voter turnout is “a serious roadblock to true democracy,” as Lago states in the editorial, then his election was a sham, too. And every time Valdes-Fauli was elected — all six times — it was not true democracy.
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