A short-lived campaign to recall Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago seemed to fizzle this week after Miami-Dade County’s Elections Department said the group had failed to get the required number of signatures to put it on a ballot.
It may not be dead. Both Maria Cruz, the longtime Gables activist who started the recall, and attorney David Winker, representing her political action committee End The Corruption, have said the petitions that were deemed ineligible may have been planted by Lago lackeys in an attempt to thwart the effort. Especially since there was more than one petition purportedly signed by Cruz, who only signed one petition.
So, were they duplicates from a sloppily followed process or the sabotage claimed? Winker says he’s going to get to the bottom of it.
But one thing is certain: They should have submitted more than 1,719 petitions, which only gave the recall PAC a buffer of about 70 before they reached the 1,650 minimum required number, representing 5% of the City Beautiful’s 33,000 registered voters. The county reviewed all of them and verified 1,533, said Elections Supervisor Christina White in her transmittal of the petitions back to Gables City Clerk Billy Urquia.
Read related: Coral Gables mayoral recall effort may fall short on petitions. Is it sabotage?
The PAC came 117 petitions short, which could indicate more resistance to ousting the mayor than Cruz and her allies thought they would find. Certainly, there are not 117 planted duplicates.
Lago immediately crowed victory — as if 1,533 voters in his city hadn’t still signed a piece of paper trying to get rid of him. That’s still a bitter pill to swallow. And, just as he has for the entire recall campaign, Lago keeps lying about it in a statement that again blames the effort on “out-of-town developers” who want to “upzone Miracle Mile” without providing any proof. The city’s planning director has already said at a public meeting that there are no applications for any development on Miracle Mile.
That hasn’t stopped him from shopping around a criminal investigation around and perhaps pressuring the state attorney’s office to initiate one because the canvassers were paid to collect signatures. While only recall petition canvassers are prohibited from getting paid, according to state law, that is exactly why the courts have already tossed that law in several lawsuits, Winker said.
The investigation seems retaliatory. Especially since Lago has used the same get-out-the-vote group, Ven Vamos, to canvass for his election.
Read related: Coral Gables mayoral recall PAC has dark money funding from web of PACs
While the recall PAC unfortunately was funded by unknown sources, professionally funneled through multiple other PACs, according to the latest campaign finance reports for the first quarter of the year, Winker has said that the reason was that people are afraid to publicly donate because Lago is known for his retaliation.
Ladra is not so sure. While it’s not likely development money, it very well could be funds from the police and/or fire unions, which are at odds with the mayor, or even the local or state Democratic Party, who may want to cut the rising Republican’s career short.
Still, those 1,533 people who definitely signed the petition may have reason to worry. Cuidado. Get your yard in shape, or you’ll be seeing a code enforcement violation notice in your mailbox.
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