Politics
Mayor’s job, 2 City Commission seats at stake in Coral Gables election
Coral Gables is holding its General Election in April and three City Commission seats, including Mayor’s, are up for grabs.
So far, seven candidates are vying for spots on the five-member dais.
Three are running for Mayor: incumbent Mayor Vince Lago, City Commissioner Kirk Menendez and Michael Abbott.
For the Group 2 seat, incumbent Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson faces a challenge from Laureano Cancio.
For Group 3, Richard Lara faces Thomas Wells.
More could file by the city’s Feb. 21 qualifying deadline.
The most-watched contest, naturally, is for the city’s preeminent post.
Lago, a 47-year-old construction executive, is seeking a third consecutive two-year term. He won the job by a comfortable margin in 2021, then retained it by default two years later after no one challenged him.
That’s not the case this time.
Menendez, 62, is a former Assistant Miami City Attorney-turned-public relations and real estate pro. He filed to run against Lago last month.
He’s a longtime Coral Gables resident, activist and volunteer who won office the same year as Lago, and he’s enjoyed a swing vote at City Hall since the 2023 election, when a pair of Lago critics — Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez — defeated Commission candidates the Mayor supported.
Lago and Menendez have often been at odds since.
Last April, he bashed the trio for voting to fire then-City Manager Peter Iglesias. Menendez cast the tie-breaking vote. Later that month, he accused them of assisting a failed citizen effort to recall him. Lago said the push was funded by “dark money.”
Two months later, current City Manager Amos Rojas Jr. — whose appointment Lago and Anderson opposed — filed a complaint against Lago alleging the Mayor assaulted him. A state law enforcement probe of the matter cleared Lago of wrongdoing in September. Rojas is resigning next month.
Those and other quarrels followed a 3-2 vote in September 2023, when Castro, Fernandez and Menendez voted to give themselves, Lago and Anderson big pay raises. Lago and Anderson voted against the move and vowed to refuse anything more than their existing, consumer price index-adjusted pay.
Abbott, an accountant, logistics entrepreneur and 23-year Coral Gables resident, was first to file a challenge against Lago. He has an open lawsuit against the city over a 2020 encounter with city police that resulted in his arrest.
According to Political Cortadito, Abbott was initially charged with assault and battery on a law enforcement officer, but the charges were later dismissed. A confiscated memory card containing video he recorded of the encounter disappeared.
Abbott, 60, argues that the city infringed on his First and Fourth Amendment rights. He is part of the Coral Gables Action Committee that has sought Lago’s resignation.
Lago has served in Coral Gables government since 2013, including as Vice Mayor, and has proven himself a strong fundraiser. In the leadup to the 2023 election, he amassed nearly $900,000 between his campaign account and political committee, Coral Gables First.
As of this past October, Lago had about $308,000 left to spend.
A political committee called Accountable Coral Gables supporting Lago’s campaign has raised and spent about $90,000 since it formed last February.
Menendez, who switched from running for re-election in the Group 3 seat to the Mayor’s race last month, raised just shy of $15,000 through October.
Abbott filed for the race in mid-September and has yet to report any financial activity.
Anderson, 64, won her City Commission seat in 2021 with a 73% share of the vote. This is her first attempt at re-election, as City Commissioners serve four-year terms while the Mayor’s job is up for grabs every two years.
Like the other candidates running this year, Anderson has deep local roots and was active in the community before seeking public office. She’s been a Coral Gables resident since 1987 and works as a lawyer in private practice.
She has reported raising about $11,500 since filing for re-election last February and had $10,000 left by New Year’s Eve.
Cancio, a 74-year-old Cuban-born lawyer, filed to run Dec. 13 and hasn’t reported any campaign finance activity.
He told Political Cortadito his campaign priorities include addressing traffic, curbing overdevelopment and establishing a city-run school system separate from Miami-Dade County’s public schools system.
Both Group 3 candidates are also lawyers.
Lara, 56, is the Executive Vice President and General Counsel for the Spanish Broadcasting System. He filed to run against Menendez in February 2024 and raised nearly $62,000 over the next seven months.
That includes $100 from Lago, $1,000 from his brother Carlos, and $250 from former Mayor Raúl Valdés-Fauli, whom Lago served under as Vice Mayor.
He told Coral Gables Magazine in May that if elected, he would fight for “transparency, integrity, accountability, and professionalism” while working to bring more consensus to City Hall.
Wells, 62, is a business and family planning lawyer in private practice with his wife, Diane. He filed to run last month and has thus far reported no outside contributions. He did, however, spend $2,900 from his private bank account on signage, business cards, door hangers and a campaign website.
Wells is the current Vice Chair of the Coral Gables Charter Review Committee and a regular speaker at City Commission meetings. If elected, he plans to streamline government meetings and make them more civilized and expand residential amenities, including the construction of permanent pickleball courts at the Biltmore Tennis Center.
His website notes that he supported keeping Coral Gables’ elections in April rather than moving them to November and backed Iglesias’ termination “for failing to follow Commission direction and violating the City Code.”
He also opposed a proposed 2% tax reduction that “would have cut the (city) budget by $2.65 million and been a windfall to property owners who do not reside in Coral Gables but only … a very small benefit to residents.”
Coral Gables’ General Election is on April 8.
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Chuck Millar is a longtime Palm Beach Gardens resident. Over the past four decades, he’s become well-known in the community for his activism and involvement in local government, including a current unelected Chair post on the city’s Planning and Zoning Board.
Now, he’s seeking a seat on the City Commission. It’s his first run at public office.
Elections attract scrutiny. A look into Millar’s legal history shows that seven years ago, he faced accusations of cyberstalking and harassment. An ex-girlfriend sought a temporary restraining order against him, and she included in the request screenshots of messages he sent her.
The woman, whom we’ll call Kathy, filed a petition seeking protection against him for stalking, Palm Beach County Clerk records show. It included a request that Millar stay at least 500 feet from her and four people, including her two daughters, and the Jupiter-based K-12 private school they attended.
She provided proof that between March 4, 2018, when she broke up with him, and March 15, 2018, when she took legal action, Millar sent dozens of texts and emails to which she did not respond.
Some of the messages were sexually demeaning. In others, Millar implied that he was tracking her online dating accounts and referenced a domestic battery case from her past.
Millar is 65. He was 58 at the time he sent the messages. In an email to Millar’s sister seeking help, Kathy said they’d only dated a month, during which she’d broken up with him twice “due to his extreme and violent temper and outbursts that made no sense to me.”
Millar told Florida Politics they dated for a little more than a month. He regretted his actions and the whole ordeal, which ended on March 29, 2018, when Judge Karen Miller of the 15th Judicial Circuit instructed him to stop contacting Kathy before dismissing the case.
“I followed the court’s direction verbatim,” Millar said Thursday, adding that he’d since undergone counseling and treatment. “It made me a better person.”
Millar sent Kathy a lengthy text on March 4, 2018, after she cut things off with him, referencing “issues” and his “character flaws.”
“(I) take full responsibility for my faults. My heart is broken, but you tore my heart to pieces as I prayed each night you’d finally say you loved me, too. Those words are so powerful to me. You’re my true love, and I know it could work. I would have taken a bullet for you,” he wrote.
Later that day, seemingly in response to Kathy telling him her decision was final, Millar’s amorous tenor turned vitriolic.
“I’m fucking done with you too. Go fuck yourself. Get out and stay the hell out of my life. You have serious mental health issues,” he wrote. “You can have your fucking underware (sic) back. Enjoy the pink vibrator. You’ll need it. Bitch!”
Millar sent another text at 3:25 a.m. on March 5.
“Guaranteed the next time you have sex, you’ll think of me. Enjoy that train wreck,” he wrote. “And by the way, I read your entire file on your domestic battery case. It’s public record.”
Kathy said in her petition that she blocked Millar’s number after that.
He then sent her emails. One on March 8 was a variation of the prior message. “Your comment about never dating again is just total crap,” he wrote. “You know it, and I know it. But trust me, the next time you have sex with whomever or whatever, you’ll think of me.”
On March 10, Millar sent another email intimating Kathy had “a new man” and that the three of them should meet up at a baseball game. Two days later, he sent her an email titled “Weekend Fun” and asked about dates he believed Kathy had arranged on Match.com.
He wrote again on March 13, telling her, “Enjoy that vacation with your ex, no drama, mama. LOL.”
Later that day, Kathy — who said she and the ex to whom Millar referred never vacationed together — emailed Millar’s sister with screenshots of his communications. Kathy described Millar’s actions as “creepy” and “very frightening” and noted that she’d instructed a security guard at her gated community to call the police if he showed up.
Millar’s sister called her brother’s messages “completely unhinged” and said she’d talk to her husband about developing a plan of action to deal with him. The sister told Kathy in a follow-up email that after conferring with her spouse, they’d decided to stay out of it but advised Kathy to “take whatever steps (are) necessary to ensure” her and her children’s safety, including filing a temporary injunction or calling the police.
In the days that followed, Millar continued with his emails. One included a message Kathy sent him about a continuous neighborhood issue she’d had with her homeowner’s association. In another, Millar said he’d spoken with one of the association’s board members with whom Kathy had an issue.
“I see this as a threat from Chuck that he will continue to contact (the board member) and get in my neighborhood that way. Empty threat because I have taken necessary action and alerted our Board and the Security company of his actions,” Kathy told Millar’s sister. “I’m terrified of your brother. He’s a loose canon (sic). Right now, I want to move as far away from him as I can, but I can’t.”
A log of texts sent to Kathy’s cellphone show he messaged her 25 separate times in nine days.
Florida Politics contacted Kathy by text and email for comment but received none by press time.
Millar told Florida Politics he was “very remorseful” about his behavior, which he attributed to issues he’s since addressed in therapy. He said it was the first time he’d been broken up with by text.
“My emotions overcame my intelligence. That doesn’t usually happen,” he said. “My past has made me what I am today, which is a better ex-husband, father, brother and employee, and the best and most qualified candidate.”
He said that if he thought he still had emotional issues that needed addressing, he wouldn’t be running for office.
“It was an unfortunate thing, but it was a learning tool that I use today to be a better person, to understand empathy and sympathy,” he said. “I have the utmost respect for women, and most of my campaign team is made up of amazing ladies.”
A land use, zoning, planning, and real estate research professional, Millar switched his voter registration from Democrat to Republican in 2016, according to state records. He faces 47-year-old Republican firefighter John Kemp for the City Council’s Group 4 seat.
The Palm Beach Gardens election is on March 11. In the race, incumbent Commissioner Marcie Tinsley and her lone challenger, John “Scott” Gilow, will also be on the ballot.
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Last Call – A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida politics.
First Shot
Florida Republicans’ intraparty battle continued Thursday, with the Legislature telling the Governor that it was their way or the highway, not the other way around. Ron DeSantis returned the favor by threatening defiant lawmakers with primary challengers.
Reminiscent of a call by DeSantis earlier this month, House Speaker Daniel Perez held a town hall with state GOP leaders, pushing the Legislature’s narrative on the immigration bill scuffle packaged alongside criticism of the Governor’s plan.
According to those on the call, Perez said the Legislature’s bill was more conservative than the one pushed by DeSantis, which he claimed was a thinly veiled play to give the Governor a “mini version of ICE” that would duplicate the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown efforts rather than augment them.
“He (DeSantis) is not going to work with ICE. He wants a little mini version of ICE. He wants his own state guard, with his own bureaucrat, picking up the illegal aliens and shipping them off to another portion of the world, wherever it is that they originate from. That’s not working (in) conjunction with President Trump.”
The Governor, meanwhile, amped up his rhetoric — he has gone from casting the Legislature’s bill as “weak, weak, weak” to a “very grotesque piece of legislation.” He’s also directing more frustration at Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, whom he accused of instigating this saga by supposedly leveraging his influence as a former Senate President.
As it stands, the Legislature is still winning the numbers game, with just one GOP lawmaker — Rep. Mike Caruso — publicly breaking ranks to side with the Governor.
Evening Reads
—“Donald Trump blames predecessors, diversity programs for fatal air collision” via Isaac Arnsdorf of The Washington Post
—“The 25 most eye-popping lines from Trump’s off-the-rails remarks on the D.C. plane crash” via Chris Cillizza of So What
—“The plane crash that ripped through the world of elite figure skating” via Louise Radnofsky, Allison Pohle and Jennifer Levitz of The Wall Street Journal
—“Trump kicks Congress to the curb, with little protest from Republicans” via Carl Hulse of The New York Times
—“What it’s like to go to school in the shadow of ICE” via Anna North of Vox
—“Trump is just watching this crisis unfold” via David A. Graham of The Atlantic
—”As GOP rift widens, Ron DeSantis pledges money to elect ‘strong conservative’ successor” via Skyler Swisher of the Orlando Sentinel
—”Joel Rudman said he felt unwelcome in a House ‘itching for a fight’ with DeSantis” via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics
—”‘Powerless and angry’: Venezuelans react to roll-back of deportation protections” via Verónica Egui Brito and Syra Ortiz Blanes of the Miami Herald
—”Mercenaries for Millionaires: Inside the private army that protects L.A.’s rich and famous” via Jason McGahan of The Hollywood Reporter
Quote of the Day
“This was an argument waiting for an excuse. If not for immigration, they would have fought over new hours for the cafeteria.”
— Former Rep. Joel Rudman, on the Legislature v. Ron DeSantis bout.
Put it on the Tab
Look to your left, then look to your right. If you see one of these people at your happy hour haunt, flag down the bartender and put one of these on your tab. Recipes included, just in case the Cocktail Codex fell into the well.
Rudman’s campaign for Florida’s 1st Congressional District may’ve gone bust, but Doc Rock deserves a “Peace Out” for heading for the exit before the gloves came off.
Separate from his war with the Legislature, DeSantis is catching flak from Tucker Carlson, who called him a “donors’ puppet.” Since the strings aren’t showing up on camera, however, we’re recommending he be served a Muppet.
With all the drama, we imagine rank-and-file staffers are itching for politics-free happy hour. A Paris Between the Wars should help them forget work for a few minutes.
Breakthrough Insights
Tune In
Gators face Vols in key rematch
For the second time this month, the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers meet when the teams tip off on Saturday in Knoxville (noon ET, ESPN).
On Jan. 7, Florida shocked then-top-ranked Tennessee 73-43 in Gainesville. The win was among the Gators’ most notable regular-season victories in program history. Ince beating Tennessee, Florida (18-2, 5-2 SEC) has won four of five games, only losing to Missouri on Jan. 14.
The game is the first since the school cleared Florida head coach Todd Golden following a four-month investigation into sexual misconduct allegations.
Both teams enter the game ranked in the top 10 of the Associated Press poll. Florida is ranked #5, while Tennessee (17-4, 4-4) is ranked eighth. The game is also the first of four straight for the Gators against ranked teams. Between now and Feb. 11, Florida will face Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Auburn, and Mississippi State.
The Gators are coming off an 89-59 win over Georgia on Saturday. Five Gators scored in double figures in the game, including Walter Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martin, who each scored 17 points. Both rank in the top 10 in scoring average in the SEC. Clayton is tied for sixth (17.8 points per game), while Martin is tied for 10th (16.1).
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Last Call is published by Peter Schorsch, assembled and edited by Phil Ammann and Drew Wilson, with contributions from the staff of Florida Politics.
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