Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson is running to keep the Group 2 seat on the Coral Gables Commission that she won in 2021 with 73% of the vote. Two candidates, Felix Pardo and Laureano Cancio, hope to supplant her.

All three candidates agree that tempers on the five-member panel need cooling. They’re also opposed to overdevelopment in the city, albeit to different degrees.

The Group 2 race and a pair of others for Mayor and the Commission’s Group 4 seat will realign power at City Hall after two years of turmoil there.

Anderson and ally Vince Lago, the incumbent, two-term Mayor, have frequently been on the losing side of controversial votes, including ones to hire and fire multiple City Managers and give hefty pay raises to Commission members.

Tuesday will mark the first time they’ve been on the ballot since 2021, since the Mayor’s term is two years and Commissioners serve four-year terms, and voters can either reaffirm their belief in the pair’s work or replace them.

Anderson, a 64-year-old lawyer, was active in the community long before she sought public office. She ran in 2021 vowing to fight development incongruous with the city’s character and has generally kept that promise, pushing to increase development setbacks, improve pedestrian safety provisions and expand green spaces.

She did vote with all four of her Commission peers last May to approve what will be one of the city’s tallest buildings, Regency Parc, but with a sizable reduction to the project’s proposed density to mitigate traffic impacts.

Anderson counts the city’s septic-to-sewer conversion program, undergrounding utility lines, increased tree canopy and expanded recreational provisions among her first-term accomplishments.

She raised $77,500 through her campaign account and had $42,000 left on March 21.

After losing a vote 3-2 that raised salaries for the Mayor, Vice Mayor and three other City Commission members, Anderson and Lago said they would donate their extra pay to charity. Neither provided proof of doing so when asked by the Miami Herald, which nevertheless endorsed her for re-election, as did Miami’s Community News.

Pardo, a 70-year-old architect, has a deep and broad history of community involvement. He’s been a member of the city’s Planning and Zoning Board, Board of Architects, Board of Adjustments, Culture Grants Board, Construction Regulation Board, Parks and Recreation Board, and Charter Review Board, among others.

He supported Anderson’s candidacy in 2021 but said he’s since lost faith in her, blaming “unbridled construction” across the city as proof she hasn’t followed through on her commitment to preserve the city.

Pardo raised $29,500 and spent close to $10,000 by March 21. He carries endorsements from the city’s police, fire and general employee unions and the anti-development Coral Gables Neighborhood Association, which backed Anderson four years ago.

Cancio, a 74-year-old lawyer who specializes in labor law, similarly wants to tamp down on development. He told the Herald he also intends to increase arts funding and ensure there are sufficient school options for resident children.

To do that, he proposes establishing a city-run school system separate from Miami-Dade County’s.

Between when he filed to run on Dec. 13 and March 21, the last day from which campaign finance data is available, Cancio raised and spent about $1,700, all of it from his or his wife’s bank accounts.

Anderson and Pardo are Democrats, while Cancio is a Republican. Coral Gables’ elections are technically nonpartisan.

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Since the 1940s, American farming productivity has nearly tripled, due largely to technological innovations and modern crop protection tools.

Products like herbicides and pesticides have made American agriculture more efficient. They allow U.S. farmers to meet the growing demand for food at home and worldwide while preserving the natural ecosystem in major agricultural states like Florida.

Sadly, this progress is now under threat.

Along with volatile market conditions and erratic weather, Florida’s farmers now face growing legal assaults brought on by activist lawyers that could make it more challenging to access essential American-made crop protection tools. Rather than relying on sound science, out-of-state trial lawyers are driving a multi-million-dollar campaign of misinformation and political pressure based on flawed reports by a subagency of the World Health Organization.

These frivolous lawsuits cost American manufacturers billions of dollars in settlements and could ultimately drive production out of business soon.

Florida’s Legislature is currently considering HB 129/SB 992, which closes a confusing loophole in state law fueling these lawsuits, and it is important that it passes this Session.

Florida produces over 300 commodities that face constant impacts from invasive pests and aggressive weeds. As a top five producer of crops from peanuts to green beans, this issue is vital to farmers and consumers in our state.

Without modern pesticides and herbicides, growers face higher input costs and reduced yields, which would cost farmers more than $2.8 billion annually in net farm income. These products also allow farmers to use more sustainable no-till farming methods that are better for the soil and require less land.

The impacts of meritless legal challenges would also be felt in grocery store lines. In fact, it could add up to $10 billion to the cost of food annually, which would be passed down to consumers and could cause food inflation to more than double for the average family.

Food security is a fundamental issue, and any policy decisions that weaken U.S. agricultural productivity will have lasting consequences — particularly amid high inflation and a national affordability crisis.

What’s more, the loss of modern crop protection tools could jeopardize U.S. food security. The lawsuits directly target American-made products, and driving them out of business will force the industry to either adopt less effective methods or rely on foreign suppliers, including adversarial nations.

That shift would weaken U.S. agricultural independence, increase vulnerability to supply chain disruptions, and undermine the Trump administration’s efforts to bring manufacturing back home.

The reality is that pesticides and herbicides have undergone decades of rigorous studies by experts and are approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). HB 129/SB 992 would address these lawsuits by clarifying that the product labels mandated by the EPA are the law and prevent companies from being penalized for following EPA rules. This bill is narrowly focused on the label and still allows consumers to hold companies accountable for negligent behavior.

If we want to keep American farms competitive, sustainable, and independent, we need science-based policies — not fearmongering or legal loopholes from out-of-state special interests. Removing access to necessary crop protection tools will weaken the very industry that feeds this country and supports millions of jobs.

I strongly urge Florida’s leaders in Tallahassee to work to protect farmers’ access to modern crop management tools by passing HB 129/SB 992 this Session. The food we depend on every day impacts all Floridians, and we all deserve a voice on this critical issue.

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Adam Basford is the vice president of Governmental Affairs, Associated Industries of Florida. Before joining AIF, Basford served as the director of Legislative Affairs for the Florida Farm Bureau Federation.

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The Health Care Facilities & Systems Subcommittee has advanced a measure that seeks to establish specific standards and operational requirements for facilities providing memory care services in Florida.

Miami Republican Rep. Mike Redondo presented the bill (HB 493). He said it intends to provide minimal standards for the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) to ensure that patients who are receiving memory care services actually receive them.

“I was surprised to learn that AHCA does not have the regulatory authority to regulate facilities that advertise themselves as providing memory care services in the state of Florida,” Redondo said.

“What this bill’s intended to do is to provide some fairly minimal standards frankly, but minimum standards I think are necessary to ensure that patients who are receiving memory care services and family members contracting for memory care services are actually receiving appropriate care and will protect the citizens of Florida in these facilities.”

Memory care facilities would be required to implement policies and offer activities specifically designed for memory care. The facilities would be required to have at least one member of staff working at all times who is trained in CPR and first aid and awake during their shift.

Facilities who advertise memory care would be required to provide clear disclosures about services they offer and maintain copies of these for license renewal.

Jason Hand, from Florida Senior Living Association (FSLA), opposed the bill and said that while the bill is commendable, it needs additional refinement.

“There are aspects of the bill that FSLA supports,” Hand said.

“For example, we support the requirement that a memory care provider have at least one staff member present and to be CPR and first aid certified. We also support the need to provide transparency for ALS (facilities) that claim to provide memory care services, but the resident contract does not appropriately reflect such. While the goals are commendable, we believe it requires additional refinement, therefore we respectfully oppose the bill at this time.”

Hand noted that some of the language could blur the lines between different issues.

“For example, the shift from Alzheimer’s disease or related disorders to Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, or other memory disorders, expands the scope too far.” Hand said. “This could pull in (up to) 18,000 additional residents, including those with mild cognitive issues not requiring specialized care. It also risks blurring the line between residents with dementia and those in limited mental health.”

Hand urged further clarification be added into the legislation.

“Additionally, there are undefined terms that risk confusing seniors, their families and providers. Without clarity, ALS offers optional activities to sharpen mental acuity, not true memory care,” Hand said.

AHCA Deputy Secretary Kim Spoke, said the legislation would bolster protections for seniors in assisted living facilities.

“The civil tsunami that Florida expected to see, you know, why not a better time than this point to put a little more parameters and guardrails around our assisted living facilities as they relate to memory care?” Spoke said.

“These are very minimal standards that we put in place and worked with our bill sponsor on adding, again, just some additional guardrails to ensure there’s protections of our residents, our seniors in our assisted living facilities.”

Spoke said over the past few years, concerns have been raised around services being provided in these facilities, and the lack of memory care-focused facilities.

“We have about 3,000 assisted living facilities in this state, and we have about 26 or 30% of those assisted living facilities that claim to provide memory care,” Spoke said. “Over the past several years, we have had significant, very concerning or egregious findings related to services in our assisted living facilities providing care to residents who are memory care.”

Spoke added that those advertising as memory care facilities need to provide the services they’re advertising.

“So again, these are very minimal requirements that we feel are necessary to protect our seniors in our assisted living facilities,” Spoke said. “But if you’re advertising that you’re providing memory care, you add some additional language into the contract to say you’re providing that of what you’re going to be providing.”

In closing, Redondo said the legislation would ensure some of the deficiencies that have been discovered are fixed.

“This is a very particular area, to me at least, my grandfather had Alzheimer’s growing up,” Redondo said.

“These are some of our most vulnerable Floridians in some of these facilities. Some of these requirements are very basic and simple. There’s about four times as many non-memory care facilities in the state as there are memory care facilities, but going back to about 2020, AHCA determined that there were even more findings, more deficiencies with memory care facilities than all other facilities. Again, there is a concern here.”

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