Well, Coral Gables voters have spoken, and six of the eight charter amendments so ardently backed by Mayor Vince Lago — including one that will move the elections up from next year to this November — just sailed through.
Not a clean sweep, but a majority. Mission mostly accomplished.
Voters only rejected eliminating runoffs and giving commissioners the right to remove board appointees before their term ends, or what Ladra likes to call the Off With Their Heads If They Don’t Behave Rule. Voters must have seen it that way, too.
And now the real question begins: What exactly was approved?
Because while City Hall will call this modernization, efficiency and progress, critics are already whispering something else: consolidation. Power consolidation.
Read related: Coral Gables voters to decide their city’s future — from their mailboxes at home
A mail-in-only election with dense ballot language — save money and increase turnout — and a blanket “Vote Yes on All Eight” 
campaign run by Coral Gables First, the mayor’s own political action committee — and we won’t know how much he spent on this agenda until July — created the perfect conditions for momentum. And momentum wins elections when voters don’t have time to dissect the fine print.
For voters, this means the rules governing their city — elections, administration, and oversight — have just been rewritten in one fell swoop. Some changes may turn out harmless. Some may even be helpful. But others could quietly reshape how power flows inside City Hall for years to come.
Most significant is the change to city elections from April in odd numbered years, the norm for a century, to November in even numbered years, to coincide with county, state and national elections. It passed with 66% approval.
But the language was pretty convincing: “Shall the City Charter be amended to change the month and day when the City of Coral Gables holds its general elections from April of each odd year to the date of the national election in November of each even year commencing in 2026, resulting in an approximately four-month reduction of current elected official’s terms and adjustment of associated dates with the intention of increasing voter turnout and decreasing the cost of general elections?”
Increasing voter turnout? Decreasing cost? Sign me up! The nuances about giving established, monied candidates an advantage during a crowded election cycle and making it harder for grassroots candidates to get their message across are lost in the tilted ballot language.
The voters also made it impossible, by a 63% vote, to change that election calendar again without voter approval — which is kind of moot since the courts already decided the city can’t do that, like the mayor wanted to.
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago caves on election change; wants public vote
The rest of the amendments also went pretty much the same way, with more than 60%, practically two to one, on the questions that passed — with one notable exception. When asked if the city charter should be amended so that any change to electeds’ 
compensation beyond annual inflation adjustments also require the people’s vote, the people overwhelming said yes. By 78%.
This is a loud rebuke to Commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez — and former Commissioner Kirk Menendez — who had voted in 2023 to increase their salaries, which Mayor Lago can’t let go of. He’s going to milk this vote for what it’s worth. But maybe Castro and Fernandez deserve to be reminded every day about the biggest political mistake of their lives.
It’s not that they didn’t deserve go from $36,488 to $65,000 a year. It’s the way they did it seemed sneaky and self-serving.
You can bet lunch at Morton’s that this will still be part of the campaign material against Castro and Fernandez, who opposed some of the charter changes and now face a new reality: An election in six months rather than in April of next year.
And that’s where the political implications start to get interesting.
Because make no mistake — this is a political victory for Lago, who pushed aggressively for all eight amendments and treated the 
referendum lke a confidence vote in his leadership. Winning three quarters of the ballot gives him leverage — not just policy leverage, but narrative leverage.
“The results are in, and our community has spoken,” L’Ego posted on Instagram. “By voting to move elections to November, approving an Inspector General’s Office, and requiring voter approval to change elected officials’ compensation, residents have sent a clear and unmistakable message — they reject positions taken by Commissioners Melissa Castro and Aerial Fernandez. These are all changes they opposed and fought tirelessly against.”
See? It wasn’t about reform at all.
Read related: Vince Lago sees ghosts, cries “election meddling” with ballots still rolling in
Ladra is pretty sure that he’s not going to talk about the two amendments he lost. One would have eliminated runoffs, which would make it possible for someone to win outright with a simple majority and not more than 50%. The other would have allowed him — any elected, but really Lago — to remove a board member from that position “prior to the expiration of their term, for any reason, in so far as that removal is not in conflict with state law?”
This was so blatantly about the ouster of Sue Kawelerski from the planning and zoning board last year — after she got into a public fight with Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado over an RTZ overlay — and the potential ouster of Maria Cruz from the code 
enforcement board. Both are activists who have opposed Lago and his agenda.
More than 60% of the voters also said nananina con eso. So while, technically, he won and, clearly, Lago has plenty to celebrate, he didn’t dominate. Not the way he wanted to. A clean sweep would have allowed him to claim overwhelming validation. Which, as we can all see from every commission meeting, he so desperately needs.
Voters did pass his safeguards for the general fund reserve and a required charter review process every ten years, by 63% and 66% of the vote, respectively. And they voted by 69% to authorize a contract with Miami-Dade County “or a private entity” to provide inspector general services “as needed to the city to investigate, audit and oversee municipal matters in order to identify efficiencies and investigate and prevent fraud, waste, mismanagement an abuse of power.”
But Ladra is not sure how independent “as needed” services will be. Who determines the need?
Read related: Vince Lago’s Coral Gables charter push runs on fumes, burns PAC money
Yep. Now comes the hard part voters don’t see on the ballot: implementation of these changes.
Every one of those six amendments that passed will have to be interpreted, applied and, yes, defended when the unintended consequences start to surface — and they always do. And here’s what comes next — beyond the campaign for the November elections that starts today whether anyone is ready or not: More discussion, more conflict, more political positioning.
Because this vote didn’t end the debate over how Coral Gables is governed. It sharpened it.
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Six Coral Gables amendments pass, two fail in mail-in ballot only referendum added by Ladra on
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