The Return of Civility

It was a special session in more ways than one. On May 6, the newly re-elected mayor of Coral Gables, Vince Lago, called a special meeting of the City Commission. In a disciplined and cordial 2.5 hours, two years’ worth of political mayhem came to an end. A series of policies that proved highly unpopular with residents were reversed, with eight ordinances passed on first reading.

All eight ordinances were sponsored by Mayor Lago, and all passed with the united votes of Lago, newly re-elected Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, and newly elected Commissioner Richard Lara. “Today we move forward,” Lago said as the first ordinance came up for a vote, later adding, “The residents want their city back.”

Notably absent from the dais was Commissioner Melissa Castro, who had a scheduled surgical procedure and requested that the meeting be cancelled. Lago would have none of it. For the past two years, Castro has voted in tandem with Commissioner Ariel Fernandez, who helped get her elected in 2023, joining him and former Commissioner Kirk Menendez in a 3-2 majority which dismantled the civility of city hall and pushed forward an agenda that voters, in the end, rejected.

The policies which the Fernandez-Castro-Menendez troika pushed forward included: doubling commissioner salaries without voter input; blocking the attempt to move local elections to coincide with national elections in November; refusing to lower the city’s tax rates; stripping the mayor of his power to run City Commission meetings; attempting to use the city’s emergency reserves to fund pet projects; and the hiring of a new city manager with no experience and whose only qualification was allegiance to Fernandez, Castro, and Menendez.

While not all the misguided policies of the past two years could be rectified in one commissioner meeting, Lago’s agenda addressed some of the most egregious. These included:

A 3-1 vote to move city elections to November, opposed only by Commissioner Fernandez. The move to November will not only save the city $200,000 in expenses, but will also increase voter participation by an estimated four-fold. “You should never be afraid to go before more voters,” said Lago. Proponents of the move argued that the low turnout in the city’s traditional April elections allowed candidates with limited support to win commission seats.

A 3-1 vote, opposed by Commissioner Fernandez, to allow the mayor to run city meetings by limiting the time allowed for public commentary, and by limiting that commentary to the issues being voted on. Over the past two years, the Fernandez-Castro-Menendez majority made a mockery of orderly Commission meetings, overruling the mayor and allowing critics to talk – and attack – with no constraints.

A 4-0 vote to return commissioner salaries to their previous levels, prior to the Fernandez-Castro-Menendez vote that doubled their compensation, including an $703 monthly car allowance used by the trio to lease luxury cars. 

A 3-1 vote, opposed by Commissioner Fernandez, to require a “super majority” vote (at least four out of five commission members in favor) for the city to spend any of its reserves. These reserves are kept for emergencies, such as recovery from a hurricane. Keeping this $50 million fund in place is one reason the city has been able to maintain AAA bond ratings; the threat to drain these reserves (along with the pay raises and refusal to move the election date) was one of the fiscally irresponsible actions that led the Florida legislature to deny multi-million dollar grants to the city in the last two years.

A 4-0 vote to return the city charter reviews to their traditional 10-year cycles. The Fernandez-Castro-Menendez troika had accelerated the last review by two years, presumably in an attempt to remake the city charter in a way that favored their policies.

A 4-0 vote to give voters the option to hire an inspector general to investigate allegations of corruption in the city. As eloquently noted by Commissioner Lara, this was needed to counter the “baseless” claim by former Commissioner Kirk Menendez that the city was awash in “a sea of corruption,” a statement that tarnished the city’s reputation. Despite that claim, the trio blocked the mayor and vice mayor’s attempts to clarify matters by hiring an inspector general.

A 3-1 vote to add two more members to the Charter Review committee, opposed by Commissioner Fernandez. These two members – one appointed by the city attorney and one by the city manager – had been cut from the review committee by the troika, presumably so that their three appointees could control the vote for a revised city charter.

A 4-0 vote to return commissioners’ expense accounts to their previous $5,000 per year, from the $10,000 voted in by the troika. Among other things, these expenses were used by Commissioner Castro to pay for a guide to the city (such guides are already provided at the city’s visitor center) and a tax-payer funded political campaign ad. Menendez had used his expense allowance to pay for free movies at the Art Cinema, which he used as a platform to encourage viewers to vote for him.

At the end of the session, Commissioner Lara lauded the shift in the city’s direction, heralded by record voter turnout. “People didn’t come out in droves because they wanted more of the same,” he said. Mayor Lago, visibly pleased by the city’s new direction, ended with one final note – that the City Commission would once again be meeting at City Hall. Despite reports by several engineers that City Hall was structurally sound, Commissioner Fernandez had loudly accused the mayor and previous city manager Peter Iglesias of endangering the community by disregarding repairs to the building. The Fernandez-Castro-Menendez troika then voted to move commission meetings to the city’s Public Safety Building. Now, the mayor has the final say. “City Hall is safe,” he said. “It has always been safe.”