A Tale of Two Cities

A Brief Look at The Last Two Years of Divisive Gables Politics

In April 2023, Coral Gables Commissioners Ariel Fernandez and Melissa Castro were elected, coming aboard a City Commission that had, by and large, been fairly aligned in its thinking. That quickly changed. The Commission has since split into factions, with Mayor Vince Lago and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson on one side, and Commissioners Fernandez, Castro, and Kirk Menendez on the other. The two sides have opposed each other on everything from the date of an unveiling ceremony for a clock to the cost of an ADA-accessible ramp for the Miracle Theatre.

This year, both Anderson and Lago are up for re-election and Menendez is now running against Lago for mayor, with his seat set to be taken by either the mayor/vice mayor-backed Richard Lara or either Claudia Miró or Tom Wells, both seemingly in the other commissioners’ camp. More candidates have flooded in (see page 52 of the March 2025 issue for Q&As with all) for the April 8 elections, but what follows here is our attempt to encapsulate the last two years’ most controversial moments.

THE KIRK CONUNDRUM

When Ariel Fernandez initially announced his campaign for the Group V Commission seat, Kirk Menendez approached this writer at the Coral Gables Magazine’s annual anniversary party. Drawn aside on the outskirts of the Coral Gables Museum’s outdoor plaza, Menendez told me, “We can’t let Ariel win.” He requested that the magazine write an editorial lambasting Fernandez and supporting his opponent, Alex Bucelo. Even better, Menendez said, he knew what the winning factor would be: we would focus on Fernandez’s attacks on Police Chief Ed Hudak Jr., a much beloved figure in the community. On April 1, 2023, we published just that, a note at the front of the issue entitled “Just Don’t Attack Chief Hudak!” As that editorial stated, in the five years the magazine had then been in existence, it had never endorsed a candidate. That was the first time it had ever done so, at the behest of Commissioner Menendez.

Just a few months later, though, we watched as, with the swearing in of Commissioners Fernandez and Castro, Commissioner Menendez’s stance seemed to change. When Fernandez tried to fire then-city manager Peter Iglesias for the first time, Menendez voted against. Nine months later, he was a “yes” vote. When Vice Mayor Anderson tried to move the city’s local elections to coincide with federal ones, he also initially voted in favor – and then later helped shoot the issue down. And when a small line item regarding a 101 percent raise for all five Commission members was slipped into the budget, Menendez voted for it alongside Castro and Fernandez, despite much resident angst. Slowly, Menendez came to be seen as very much in the Fernandez-Castro camp, so much so that the trio has been dubbed “KFC” (Kirk, Fernandez, Castro) by some residents. For this article, we will refer to them as “the trio.”

While one can only speculate on why this transformation happened, reports of Menendez’s financial situation have sparked rumors that he might have gone so far as to “sell” his vote. A 2021 article published by Political Cortadito when Menendez was first running for commissioner states that he had recently taken out three mortgages totaling $900,000 on three homes he owned (or part-owned) on Malaga Avenue. Though he allegedly told “everyone” he had no plans to sell, he did, in fact, do just that in June 2022. Two of his properties at 323 and 325 Malaga were sold for $1,857,500 each to developer Trammel Crow, which is now building a mixeduse development at the site that includes several other plots of land from the sales of Menendez’s neighbors’ homes. That block was rezoned from 40-feet to 77-feet. Multiple sources have told Coral Gables Magazine that Menendez was peddling this property around town to other developers as well, claiming he could not only get his neighbors to sell but could also get the area rezoned in exchange for cash and other properties. Former city manager Iglesias claims that two city employees came to him to discuss a meeting with Menendez after he was elected in which he had allegedly pressured them to help him with the rezoning. One of the employees, who no longer works for the city but requested to remain anonymous, told Coral Gables Magazine that Menendez “wanted us to make sure a certain project got approved. [He said,] ‘Don’t let anybody stand in the way.’”

As of February 19, 2025, Menendez’s latest financial report did not list any properties under the section detailing “land [or] buildings owned,” though a Form 6 he filed in June of 2024 detailing his financial interests listed his net worth as of December 31, 2023, as $1,183,046.89, including investments totaling just under $913,000 and three bank accounts. His liabilities included a combined $82,000 in debt to Mercedes Benz, presumably for at least one vehicle he purchased with his new city vehicle allowance. (See “Raisegate” below.)

RAISEGATE

The first draft of the City of Coral Gables’ 2024 budget was 478 pages, published online and devoid of any mention of raises for the City Commission. And yet, a last-minute item was added – a process that takes the approval of at least three members of the Commission – to increase the salaries and benefits of the Commission. Menendez, Castro, and Fernandez, who voted 3-2 in favor of the raises, initially came to Iglesias with “different numbers” that “kept on escalating up and up,” the former city manager says. In the end, the option adopted gave the three commissioners – the vice mayor and mayor declined the raise – a 101.14 percent overall increase in salary, including $9,600 in expense allowances (no receipts required) and $8,446 in car allowances. Castro presumably used hers to purchase a new Maserati. On her latest financial disclosure, she lists four vehicles, including a lease for a 2023 Maserati Grecale. Fernandez, meanwhile, took a lease for a 2024 Cadillac XT6.

Fernandez, who previously ran the Gables Insider blog prior to taking office, once criticized an executive benefits package given to senior level employees in the city in a blog post he titled “Raises, Executive Benefits, & More: Senior Staff Compensation Rises at Taxpayer Expense.” In that post, he writes, “When an individual chooses to work for government, they do it knowing that the compensation may well be inferior to a similar position in the private sector.”

Vice Mayor Anderson sponsored an item for the Sept. 26, 2023, Commission meeting to reduce the proposed increases, which was shot down by the trio in a 3-2 vote. “My point is the process was not done right,” she said. “It wasn’t in a draft budget. It wasn’t done by ordinance. There was no discussion item on it.”

All three commissioners later voted to force Lago and Anderson to accept the raises, effectively forcing them to donate their earnings back to the city and ensuring the money is double-taxed – and therefore diminished. No reasoning for this was given.

Seemingly incensed, Lago took to the media to expound upon his colleagues’ apparent deficiencies. In a Spanish-language radio interview, he called the three Commissioners “unprepared to do the job,” accused Fernandez and Menendez of “living off their wives,” and claimed all three “put their hands down the pockets of residents.” In response, Menendez formally censured the mayor during the Oct. 10 meeting.

MANAGER MISMANAGED

When former city manager Peter Iglesias was fired, the news was shocking – though not completely surprising. One of Commissioner Fernandez’s campaign priorities had always been to oust Iglesias, who he has described as “incompetent,” “insubordinate,” and “part of the establishment.” Even recently, he blamed Iglesias – now a year removed from the city – for structural concerns at City Hall that some believe are being overblown.

In May 2023, immediately after Fernandez took office, he placed an item on the Commission’s agenda to fire Iglesias. That vote failed 2-3, with Menendez joining Lago and Anderson in favor of retaining the city manager. But then Menendez changed his mind. In February 2024, he voted alongside Castro and Fernandez to terminate Iglesias effective immediately.

Iglesias served as assistant city manager prior to his appointment as city manager in 2018 and has more than 35 years of experience in both the public and private sector. As city manager, he oversaw the makeover of Miracle Mile and Giralda Plaza, as well as the construction of the Public Safety Building and a citywide budget of over $200 million. He was supported during both firing attempts by myriad residents and former elected officials, including former mayor Dorothy Thomson and several former commissioners. His detractors say he was too focused on the building of a now-scrapped plan for a Mobility Hub and that he neglected repairs for the historic City Hall building. Iglesias vehemently denies this and has publicly stated the details for a plan he apparently had in place to handle the latter issue, a statement backed by former city employees.

During the same meeting in which Iglesias was fired, Assistant City Manager Alberto Parjus was nominated as acting city manager, while Menendez put forth his own candidate: Miami International Airport Director Ralph Cutié. According to Lago, he received a phone call from County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who was less than thrilled by the nomination that would effectively poach her employee. Cutié hastily retracted his interest in the position.

At the next Commission meeting, a new candidate was proposed by Fernandez and immediately voted in: retired U.S. Marshal Amos Rojas Jr. Though both Lago and Anderson wanted a national search for candidates, the trio moved forward with hiring Rojas, who had already received information on the interim city manager’s contract from Fernandez. His final contract compensated him for $365,000 per year.

Menendez and Castro, apparently unaware of Rojas’ candidacy before the meeting, voted to appoint him despite apparently having little to no knowledge of his background. Sitting on the dais, Castro pulled up Rojas’ LinkedIn page as an aid for her decision-making. Fernandez, meanwhile, claimed that Rojas’ background made him uniquely qualified to investigate claims of corruption in the city. Over the last year, no such allegations have been verified by either Rojas or anyone else.

In January of this year, less than a year after his appointment, Rojas formally announced he would be stepping down. His year as city manager was marked by much controversy, with some residents calling for his resignation amid rumors that he would often leave the office hours early. Lago’s relationship with him deteriorated so much that Rojas refused to hold meetings with him, and, on one memorable afternoon, the city manager even filed a police report against the mayor, claiming he had threatened him with physical violence. This was dismissed after an eyewitness statement from then-deputy city manager Alberto Parjus said there was no threat.

As far as city staff is concerned, said one former employee, “The general consensus on Rojas is that he’s not a bad guy… he was just really unprepared for the position.” Asked about Rojas’ strengths, one current employee mentioned that Rojas was good at delegating tasks to those with more experience. Before accepting the position, Rojas had no experience running a city government or city departments, no experience managing a municipal budget, and no experience overseeing construction projects.

With Rojas stepping down, Parjus was again up for the job. Though the mayor and vice mayor again advocated for a nationwide or even local search, they were shot down by the trio’s 3-2 vote once more. Commissioner Castro cited the cost, time, and potential uneffectivesness of a nationwide search as her reasons for voting in favor of Parjus’ immediate promotion. The trio also voted to appoint Menendez as the negotiator for Parjus’ salary and benefits package, a role that has historically been the mayor’s.

Effective Jan. 28, Parjus took over as city manager. During the meeting, Anderson addressed her colleagues, saying, “Just because you have the right to do things a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. We have a process that we should follow to have the best results for our residents… but when you bypass that system, it calls into doubt the qualifications of the person appointed.” She also suggested that any appointment should wait until after the upcoming elections, when three-fifths of the Commission may be replaced.

CIVILITY, MORALE, AND CORRUPTION

As the lack of decorum on the City Commission’s dais has raised questions by residents over the effectiveness of their own elected officials, so have those inside City Hall been concerned. “There’s no motivation to do anything,” one former city employee told Coral Gables Magazine. “[The staff is] very scared.” And while Commissioner Menendez was the one who claimed that “the City of Coral Gables is adrift in a cesspool of public corruption” back in February 2024, he, alongside Fernandez and Castro, voted to shoot down several proposals to hire an inspector general to investigate those allegations. The three maintain that the only proper way to do so is via the city charter – a process that, nearly a year later, has still not yet been completed. Fernandez seemed to believe that the so-called corruption at least partly entailed employees using city funds to make inappropriate purchases, though an audit found no wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Castro was herself the subject of a Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust opinion released in June 2024. Castro herself requested the opinion to determine whether she could continue to do business as the owner of her permit expediting firm, M.E.D. Expeditors, while also serving as an elected official. Though the opinion states that “an official and [their] private company employees may represent clients engaging with the official’s city,” that contact should be “limited to ministerial matters or simple informational requests.” Simply put, M.E.D. Expeditors is not allowed to advocate on part of its clients to the City of Coral Gables or any of its staff. Several examples of prohibited actions were given to Castro, including some of which are directly listed on the M.E.D. website under “services.” For example, seeking to reinstate an expired permit is prohibited – yet “expired permits” is still listed as a service on the company’s site, which also showed a picture of Castro as a city commissioner until the opinion was issued.

Just a few months later in September 2024, an LLC filed as “M.E.D. Expeditors of Coral Gables” was created, according to Florida’s Division of Corporations. The registered agent is listed as Madeline Perez, M.E.D. Expeditor’s executive office director, according to its website. The original M.E.D. Expeditors was seemingly dissolved. Meanwhile, emails from September 2024 between M.E.D. and the City of Coral Gables indicate the firm is assisting with permitting for the Alexan Crafts project by Trammel Crow – the same mixed-use development built on the lots Menendez sold in 2022.

ELECTION CHANGES… OR NOT

In 2023, just over 20 percent of Coral Gables voters turned out to the polls – less than 7,000 out of 33,000. It was a low turnout, even by Coral Gables standards. To put it into perspective, in the November 2022 presidential elections, 22,262 Gableites cast votes, as compared to the 6,905 for the local elections only a year later. So, why don’t Gableites vote in their local elections? The answer might be as simple as the date of the election, or who’s on the ballot.

Two years ago, Mayor Lago was up for reelection, as he is again this year. In Coral Gables, mayoral terms last only two years while commissioners get four. Initially, the mayor faced an opponent in Rip Holmes, a stalwart and opinionated resident known for his frequent public comments at Commission meetings. But, according to Holmes, he was convinced by Fernandez, then running against a Lago-backed candidate for the Group V Commission seat, to drop out of the mayoral race and instead run for commissioner in Group IV. Lago therefore ran without opposition, and was automatically declared the winner. Without the mayor on the ballot, the voter turnout was lower than expected (one reason why the mayor’s position is voted on in every election). In 2021, for example, in the battle between Lago and Pat Keon, 28.89 percent of registered voters turned out, compared to 2023’s 20.92 percent.

Holmes later filed a police report against Fernandez, claiming the commissioner “defrauded” him in the election. “Basically, [he] said, ‘Rip, switch races so I can win,’” Holmes said, based on the notion that Fernandez needed a low voter turnout to win his race with a small but loud minority vote. Fernandez denies the allegations.

Fernandez, along with Castro and Menendez, has also opposed moving the Coral Gables elections to November to coincide with federal elections. The move would increase voter turnout by an estimated 60 percent and save the city some $100,000 per election. But, after much heated discussion, the trio voted against the change (Lago and Anderson were strongly in favor), halting the process with a majority vote. In a third-party newsletter in September 2023, Castro (who had never herself voted in any election, local or national, besides her own) wrote, “… the proposed election date changes were not made to encourage your participation; they were designed to drown out your voice.” In fact, according to the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government, “special interest groups are disproportionally influential in local elections when turnout is low” and “voters in synced local elections are more representative of the electorate overall” while “candidates… are more likely to hold preferences that are aligned with their constituents.”

WHAT WE KNOW

There are many more issues and interactions between sitting Commissioners that have been the source of much speculation – and sometimes outright disdain – between residents; much too many, unfortunately (or fortunately), to list here. Coral Gables Magazine wishes to leave you with one simple call to action: VOTE! Whoever your preferred candidates may be, we hope to see you at the polls on April 8.