As the election gets closer, Carlos Gimenez and those friends and family who benefit from his 
elected office have gotten more desperate in their attempt to hang on to power and the goose that lays the golden egg.
First, they say that she was against police body cameras. False. Regalado simply said that there needed to be a policy and standard operating procedures in place first. She testified to this in Tallahassee, as a leader should, urging for a uniform policy to guide departments. This month, she was vindicated when a study by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights raised concerns about departments that rush to use body cameras without any policies or standard operating procedures.
Then, they say that she has been late or missed a bunch of school board meetings. Wrong again. She doesn’t always go to the proclamations and awards given out for the first hour or so, but Raqu
el Regalado has probably introduced more legislation than any other school board member in the history of the school board. You don’t do that by missing meetings. And anybody who knows her knows that she is an absolute workaholic.
The next allegation is an even bolder lie, just as absentee ballots began to arrive: They say she committed fraud, claiming a Homestead Exemption on a home she did not reside in.
Last week, a blogger with malicious intent wrote about this false allegation that the Gimenez campaign had fed him. How do I know they fed him? Because three different reporters have admitted to me that they were provided with the same information. That’s standard for campaigns and not a surprise. We, too, have provided reporters with information given to us. Or did you think the Miami Herald’s Doug Hanks found out about Ralph Garcia Toledo and his $200-an-hour job at Water and Sewer all by himself?
Read related story: Raising money for the mayor; making money from his administration
The difference is, the information we provide to the media is true. I say “we” because I am officially on Team Raquel in a media and communications role. That means that when I get information or tips that I normally would write about on this blog, I instead try to get others to write about it in the mainstream media. Because I know the TV stations and the daily paper have a bigger audience. And that is part of my job on the campaign. Not writing about the campaign here, like some of the Gimenez apologists will charge. Recently, I have been forced to publish the information here because the election is getting closer and voters deserve to know. But everything I write and everything I forward to other reporters is true.
Like the fact that a well known boletera who helped Gimenez in 2012 — an election in which his campaign was tainted with absentee ballot fraud — is now working in the mayor’s office as a $36,000-a-year aide doing public outreach in the senior centers,no less. Or that the mayor — who gave millions away in federal housing grants to the wrong people (wink, wink) — has proposed to pay the demanded refund to the U.S. Housing department by promising portions of future federal grants for several years. You know, after he’s no longer mayor we’ll get less federal housing money. And the concern that his cuts of domestic violence funding and police units could be rooted in a personal attitude toward women and relationships because of his own 2004 charge and his son’s charges of domestic violence.
Meanwhile, the information provided by the Gimenez campaign is false. Raquel Regalado is at every meeting or almost every meeting (maybe she missed one or two of them in six years, I don’t want to overstate). She is all for body cameras — done the right way. And she never committed any fraud. And that’s why none of the mainstream or legitimate media jumped on the story when they first got the property information, which was public.
In fact, it took the blogger several visits to the property appraiser to make this story happen. That’s right. It wasn’t a story, there was nothing there, until the blogger took comments made by Regalado out of context, cobbled together a story ignoring any facts that didn’t support his theory, and then got the appraiser to go after her three weeks before the election. When he was told that she didn’t have a property for them to lien, this blogger took it upon himself to inform the appraiser about a family home she got 10 percent of after her mother died, so they had something to move on. Maybe the media should start reporting on how this blogger set this whole thing in motion. What motivated him to cobble together this story out of comments taken out of context and bent to his hypothesis?
Read related story: Boleteras alive and well — and working in the mayor’s office
Once Raquel provides the complete documents, this will all be over.
Because it is ludicrous to believe that, as a sitting Miami-Dade School Board member, 
Raquel Regalado would intentionally cheat her own constituency for what? For a measly $2,000 or $2,500? Because the rest of it is interest and penalties. It is even more ridiculous to imagine that even if she had been evil enough to take advantage of the situation, she wouldn’t have taken care of it when she decided to run for mayor. What’s $2,500 to millionaire Norman Braman, her main donor?
It wasn’t taken care of because she didn’t even know about it. Fraud, ladies and gentlemen, needs intent. It is defined as the “intentional use of deceit, a trick or some dishonest means to deprive.” Key word: Intentional.
Yes, she moved out of her house and into a rented home. She was in the midst of a contentious divorce and her ex-husband had a claim on the house they had once shared. Meanwhile, the bank was foreclosing because she could not afford, as a newly-single mother, both the mortgage payments and her daughter’s autism therapy. It was not a difficult decision for her to make and any parent can understand. She abandoned the house so that her ex-husband would take up residence and possession of the home he had some rights to, as per the divorce settlement. He had every intention of moving into the home. When he didn’t, the foreclosure moved forward.
She never rented the house to anybody, as is the case with real Homestead exemption fraud cases. Nor did she claim another Homestead exemption on the new home, as other people committing fraud do. She didn’t stay and live in the house for free during the foreclosure. And, in fact, since she wasn’t paying the mortgage, she didn’t continue to pay the taxes on it. Property Appraiser Pedro Garcia said the property taxes for both years that Regalado didn’t live in the house were paid for by the mortgage company that took possession of the home. Foreclosure proceedings take time. Her name was still listed on the property but the home was no longer Raquel’s. The bills were paid by the bank.
So the oversight isn’t even hers! The mortgage company got the tax bill and paid it, failing to make the changes to indicate there was nobody living in the home anymore and that it was in the process of foreclosure.
See? There’s no there there. But you can’t fit all that on a robo call.
Curiously, before Raquel could clear things up, the Gimenez campaign 
already had their own robo call out to voters using the word fraud three times. It went out immediately after the story — like it had already been written and edited and approved and produced. Paid for by some Committee for Integrity — yeah, right — that is unlisted as a PAC or ECO, probably a non-profit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors. Astute political observers might surmise that the robo call — and the whole story and complaint to begin with — are part of the long planned political strategy mapped out by the Gimenez team against the only real challenge they’ve had in five years.
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Regalado wants to debate issues; Gimenez? To create issues added by Ladra on
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[…] Her opponents site her alleged absenteeism or lateness to meetings, which looks high on paper, but her defenders say looks less bad when one considers that (1) she had a live radio show to do(people have to eat); (2) the portions of the meetings she […]
Doesn’t anyone find it unethical that WPLG Channel 10 ran four of Carlos Gimenez’s campaign ads during this hour long debate? Yes I know some folks will say he had the right to pay for those commercial time slots to air his campaign ads. But I still believe that if WPLG wanted to show they were truly impartial they would have refused to play Gimenez’s campaign ads.
Oh, and Michael Chutney: If you’re reading this, it’s seriously time to call it done. You’re not much good anymore. Jim DeFede’s kicking ass with HIS show. You and Glenna ought to stay home on Sunday mornings and watch HIM. Example: Last Sunday’s DWS-vs.-Canova debate.
While he puffs himself up and touts his record in TV ads that run frequently during local newscasts and the Sunday morning interview programs, she runs… nothing. His ads go unchallenged. His claims go unchallenged. His lies go unchallenged. With repeated airings of these ads, his message begins to sink in with voters. Hers? Nowhere to be found. This is NOT how one wages a successful campaign.
I’m on Team Raquel, too, but sadly she’s got no TV ads anywhere as I can tell. It’s all Carlos, all the time. If you’re not running TV ads — no matter what race, be it local, state, national — you’re not serious about winning. She’s not going to win this race because her campaign hasn’t gotten serious about buying media time. In this day and age, it’s about getting your face and message in front of as large a public as possible. On that, Carlos is beating her handily. Wish it wasn’t so, but it is.
She blew her opportunity, she never made a case for why we should consider her for Mayor. She does make stuff up, similar to your blog. She was all over the place and really not impressive. He is not a good debater, but she was worst. Her attackers lacked follow up and she never pressed home her attempts to show him as a bad mayor.
The Miami Herald recapped today’s debate between Carlos Gimenez and Raquel Regalado.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article95647922.html
Let’s bring this site down by decreasing the number of readership and traffic.
We are looking at ways of bringing down your site!
Debate on Michael Putney’s between Carlos Gimenez vs. Raquelita Regalado
Debate 1: Homestead Exemption Fraud- Winner Carlos Gimenez
Debate 2: Transportation- Winner Raquelita Regalado
Debate 3: Public Safety- Winner Carlos Gimenez
Debate 4: Financial Campaign Reform- Winner Carlos Gimenez
(Outside his Jurisdiction)
Debate 5: Public Housing (Liberty City Square)- Winner Carlos Gimenez
Debate 6: Ask the Candidate a Question- Winner Raquelita Regalado (Carlos you don’t ever pass up an opportunity to test the knowledge of your opponent)
OVERALL WINNER- CARLOS GIMENEZ
Today there will be a face off between Carlos Gimenez and Raquelita Regalado in the Michael Putney’s show. I have a POINTER member who is a producer at Channel 10 who told me that there going to challenge Raquelita Regalado unethical ways and ask her what makes her qualified to be Mayor.
POINTER NATION IN FULL FORCE IN EFFECT. POINTER NATION IS AN UNDERGROUND ORGANIZATION TO BRING BACK GOOD GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE. NOW GROWING THROUGHOUT SEVERAL STATES AND OVER 10.000 MEMBERS. LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN JOINING!
Wasn’t Al Crespo thrown in jail in his early years for robbery? Yeah, a lot of credibility and integrity lol.
Hey GAP, Ladra was partly right, Moon controls the purse (Office of Management and Budget) and Lester Sola ran the Internal Services Department, of which Procurement is an integral component and where the County spends our tax dollars. It’s a symbiotic fiscal relation. Now, Lester Sola manages the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department “during the implementation of its $13.5 billion Capital Improvement Plan!!!”
Domestic Violence is grim social ill that afflicts all social and economic levels of our society. One that must be vigorously addressed by our Strong Mayor and de facto Sheriff with utmost efficacy. Has Gimenez? Below are statutory references:
FSS 741.28 Domestic violence; definitions
(2) “Domestic violence” means any assault, aggravated assault, battery, aggravated battery, sexual assault, sexual battery, stalking, aggravated stalking, kidnapping, false imprisonment, or any criminal offense resulting in physical injury or death of one family or household member by another family or household member. FSS 741.29 Domestic violence; investigation of incidents; notice to victims of legal rights and remedies; reporting. (7) There is probable cause to believe that the person has committed an act of domestic violence, as defined in s. 741.28, or dating violence, as provided in s. FSS 784.046 — ASSAULT; BATTERY; CULPABLE NEGLIGENCE. The decision to arrest shall not require consent of the victim or consideration of the relationship of the parties. It is State of Florida public policy to strongly discourage arrest and charges of both parties for domestic violence or dating violence on each other and to encourage training of law enforcement and prosecutors in these areas. Arrest only the obvious attacker under appropriate TITLE XLVI (46) CRIMES, Chapter and Section!
if this is the worst thing that they can come up with against Raquel Regalado, we will be in very good hands when she is elected our mayor.
This whole story about her house and taxes has made me feel better about Raquel than anything else. She is just like one of us. She is struggling and has day-to-day problems to deal with. And an ex husband, I have one of those y baya no es facil. What these people have done to her to make her look bad it’s just stupid. They just helped me make up my mind. I’m voting for Raquel too.
Common, he was paid off like others
Al Crespo has a hate on for all things Regalado. Sadly he isn’t interested in researching Gimenez’s past.
The problem is that these little oversights like homestead when it comes to the county could end up costing millions. Look she is a good school board member, but thats it. Having a radio show and a father who is mayor doesn’t qualifier her to lead this county. The reality is that from the school board seat, she has spent 2 years talking about the county and blasting the Mayor, shouldn’t she be doing her job as school board member? Many of her colleagues on the board supporting Gimenez. There are numerous financial issues. She has taken credit for money she has secured from Tallahassee or Washington DC, which everyone knows in this town is not correct. In fact no one wants to work with her, because she is no stable.
Dear Pedro, the mayor doesn’t hold the county checkbook. Jennifer Moon, the budget director, and Lester Sola, the procurement director, hold the checkbook. There is a finance department with more than 100 people.
By the way, Raquel has experience over six years helping to manage/oversee a budget of $3.2 billion and 50,000 employees at the school board, that is twice the number of employees at the county. She recently found millions in unpaid taxes to the school board that they used to give teachers long delayed raises.
Trust me, if Raquel had one single personal assistant, this would not have happened to her. She will be fine with the professional financial and managerial staff that works at Miami-Dade. The mayor is supposed to provide vision and lead, represent us in Tally and Washington. These are indeed things she has done, because I have seen her. And she has been working on the school board while campaigning. She has not missed a single meeting and recently proposed legislation banning hoverboards from school campuses.
She hasn’t missed a beat. And she will be the same when she is mayor of Miami-Dade.
Love, Ladra
…and to boot, Raquel’s ex-husband allegedly had “every intention of moving into the home, but when he didn’t”…Forgive me for being cynical, is this the father of the autistic daughter? What a winner to do that to the family, right? Or at least it appears that way.
I’m on team Raquel.