Coral Gables Magazine Annual Dog Issue 2024
Editor’s Note: Who Let the Dogs Out?
It’s our annual Dog Issue, for which this editor’s note usually extolls the virtues of canines; their love, loyalty, etc. This note, however, must be used to call out the outrageous behavior in City Hall. What had once been a domain of decorum is now a painful embarrassment. The incessant attacks on Mayor Vince Lago by Commissioner Ariel Fernandez have reached a level of painful absurdity. With Commissioners Melissa Castro and Kirk Menendez voting in tandem on every issue, Fernandez has been deliberating stripping the mayor of even the power to run Commission meetings. No matter what the mayor suggests – be it lowering the millage rate or accepting the donation of a luxury French clock – he is lambasted and voted against.
Most recently, the mayor was accused of not adequately preparing for needed repairs of the City Hall building – despite the reality that the Commission has carefully planned for restoration for years, first by completing the adjacent Development Services Building so that employees could work there during reconstruction. The latest of Fernandez’s lunatic attacks came during the last two Commission sessions, when he declared that the meeting had to be moved elsewhere because the building was in imminent danger of collapse – despite a detailed report by a structural engineer asserting that the building was structurally sound. Even the assistant city manager found himself exasperated by Fernandez’s insistent claims and leading questions.
Before that, Fernandez led a 3-2 vote to strip the mayor of his staff, and to back the new city manager (hired by a 3-2 vote with no prior search or vetting) in prohibiting the mayor from talking to city workers.
It has reached the point where, if the mayor wants to limit someone from the public attacking him for 10 minutes (the allotted time for public comment is three minutes), the Fernandez/Castro/Menendez troika will override him and let the speaker go on .All of this might be just bad poker, so to speak, if it were not for what’s coming next.
Rather than adjust the current budget to accommodate City Hall repairs, Commissioner Fernandez is pushing to borrow the money. This fiscally irresponsible act is the first step to losing the city’s triple A bond rating. It is still just over six months to the next election, in which the 3-2 dictatorship can be unhinged by voting the complicit Kirk Menendez out of office. Until then, it’s just a matter of riding out a very bad storm. I urge you to watch the City Commission meetings, either live or previous ones which are recorded and available on the city’s web site. You will be appalled.