The escalating battle between Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago and activist Maria Cruz — who went from close kitchen cabinet ally to recall organizer — heated up another notch Tuesday when the 80-year-old grandmother dared call the mayor a wannabe king.
Cruz, a frequent flyer at City Hall and full-time thorn-in-the-mayor’s-side, took the podium — as she always does — and somewhere in her remarks referred to Lago as “the king.” She was referring to how he bends the rules and then calls other names and insinuates they are stupid if they take things out of turn.
“This business of ‘we have to do it in order’ doesn’t exist,” Cruz said. “If you look at the video from today, several things were flipped around and its okay when our king in residence decides that it’s okay but it’s not okay when somebody else presents a motion according to Robert’s Rules. She also said that the mayor often tells speakers to stay on the discussion item and not go off 
on irrelevant tangent. “Except, whoops, when the king wants it.”
Lago did not laugh. He did not roll his eyes. He did not gavel and move on. Sensitive snowflake that he is, the mayor moved to silence Cruz for the rest of the meeting.
Leave it to King L’Ego to turn a public comment into a royal decree.
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And it seems like he really went out of bounds this time. Gables City Attorney Christina Suarez told the mayor — three times — that the protocol was for him to caution her. You know, issue a warning first. Something ala “Please refrain from personal remarks, or you’ll lose your speaking privileges,” — which, to be sure, Ladra still finds a violation of our First Amendment rights.
“If a determination is made that someone is out of order… you can give a warning and please remind the speaker not to make irrelevant and impervious remarks irrelevant to the topic,” Suarez began.
“I’ve done that on several occasions over the last few meetings,” Lago said. “It continues. The level disrespect, it’s not warranted. And I will not accept it.”
Suarez tried again. “Mayor, I think it would be appropriate to give a warning,” she said.
“They obviously get a warning and they continue,” Lago quipped back right quick.
Commissioner Melissa Castro looked like she couldn’t believe her ears, calling it a potential violation of the First Amendment. “People do have freedom of speech, okay?”
Even after taking a five minute break to try to find a way to do it, Suarez continued to warn the mayor not to go the route of just silencing dissent.
“Mayor, I just want to clarify a few things,” she said, trying very carefully to frame her words. “As chair, you do not need a motion to call someone out of order. You have that authority. It’s one of the powers that you have as chair to run the meeting and maintain decorum.
“Our code does provide that someone who becomes disorderly or fails to confine remarks to the identified subject or business at hand shall be cautioned by the chairperson and be given the opportunity to conclude remarks in a decorous manner,” Suarez said.
Cruz was certainly not disorderly. Salty. Sarcastic. Smart-assy. But not disorderly. And even if she were, he had no right to shut her down, Suarez basically said, repeating herself over and over again like Lago is a child that needs repetition to learn.
“So, that is what our code provides, that there should be a caution first and then, failing to abide by that caution, there are additional steps taken,” Suarez said, again repeating herself: “But the caution is required as a first step.”
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Lago didn’t heed the city attorney, anyway. He made the motion to cut Cruz off entirely for the rest of the meeting. Never mind that public comment is, inconveniently, a public right. Basic. Standard. Not exactly revolutionary governance.
He said he had cautioned her enough in the past. Apparently, prior irritation now carries over like unused PTO.
On cue, Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and Commissioner Richard Lara said went into their recognizable ‘all hail the king’ mode and agreed with the 
motion — because por supuesto — and just like that, Cruz was done speaking for the day. Lara called her a “repeat offender.”
Long live the majority.
And King L’Ego cited decorum of all things. This is the same mayor that sent a racy holiday mailer to residents painting Commissioner Castro in a sexualized manner. This is the same mayor that has a bunch of trolls on social media attacking Castro and Commissioner Ariel Fernandez — another former ally — and, as noted by New Times recently, the mayor has liked comments calling Castro and Cruz gargoyles and Castro a bitch and Fernandez a homophobic slur. He’s been egging this behavior on for months.
Suddenly, he’s all about decorum?
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The motion to gag Cruz for the rest of Tuesday’s meeting passed 3-2 and everyone knows who voted against it. Fernandez said that he’s had plenty of disparaging and defamatory remarks aimed at him on the dais (Ladra might add from the elected to his right, even), “and I’ve never made motions to silence anybody. And I’m not going to do that today.
“The reason that America has stood for 250 years is because of the constitution, and because of the rights that are given to us 
under the constitution,” Fernandez added.
Here’s where things get less theatrical and more serious: Public comment at city meetings isn’t unlimited, but it is protected speech — and those protections do not end when it’s directed at elected officials, is critical in nature and/or occasionally sarcastic. Calling a mayor “the king” might be rude, exaggerated, or dripping with irony, but it’s not exactly shouting fire in a crowded theater.
The question now — and you can bet someone is already asking it — is whether Lago skipped a step. Because even his own legal counsel suggested warn first, act second. Instead, he went straight to ‘off with her mic.’
Whether the city charter or meeting rules require a meeting-specific warning before cutting someone off? That’s going to matter. A lot. Mrs. Maria Cruz is not one to let things go.
But honestly, it doesn’t really matter. It’s already a bad look for Lago, who has an election this year that he apparently expects to 
be a coronation. He got called “king” and didn’t like it, and used his authority to shut the speaker down. Kinda like a king.
When a mayor moves to silence a critic over a silly nickname, it raises a very uncomfortable question: Was it about maintaining order or protecting the throne?
Either way, if you’re going to react like that to being called a king, you might want to check the mirror.
Because in Coral Gables this week, the real headline wasn’t what Maria Cruz said.
It was how quickly the crown slipped and how people are noticing the king has no clothes.
And that ain’t a violation of decorum. It’s just an observation.
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