Hialeah catches recall fever

Hialeah may be in a money mess in the wake of former mayor and county mayoral candidate Julio Robaina‘s mad dash to County Hall. There are some rumors of fiscal mismanagement that have left the city with a budget shortfall. Robaina certainly seemed to be less focused on his job and more on the campaign […]

Llorente to endorse Gimenez

Former State Rep. Marcelo Llorente, who came in third last month in the special election to replace the recalled county mayor, will announce that he will endorse the number 2 horse, Carlos Gimenez, in the June 28 runoff against Julio Robaina, who came in first. Llorente could not be reached for comment this morning and […]

Ladra’s Candidates Cliff Notes

After seven (seems like 17) different forums and debates in the last couple of weeks, Ladra feels likes she gets the gist of the 11 mayoral candidates because, well, they sound like broken records. Granted, most voters only go to one or two forums and hear the carefully prepared “messages” with soundbites and buzz words […]

Candidate stumps for job, not seat

Looks like Gabrielle Redfern is giving up on the race for the Miami-Dade mayor’s seat and is going after a county job instead. In transit, what else? The Miami Beach single mom doesn’t want to be mayor anymore. She wants to fix the public transit system she says works badly for too few at too […]

Who’s real development darling?

There’s this great saying in Cuban — “como los pajaros tirandole a la escopeta,” which translates, really pitifully, into “that’s like the birds shooting at the rifles” but more literally into “the kettle calling the teapot black” (us Cubans have no teapots and the birds quote is more colorful). That’s how Ladra characterizes most of […]

Robaina: "Ricky was robbed."

Attorney Ricardo Corona, denied entry into the race for commissioner in District 7, has at least one ally in his quest to delay the race so he can get on the ballot: Former State Rep. Julio Robaina, who did technically qualify. “What they did to Ricky is a travesty,” Robaina told Ladra Tuesday night in […]

Chivalry and guts shine at forum

She may be small in size, but Gabrielle Redfern — the only woman on the 11-member county mayoral wannabe contest — has big you-know-whats. Repeatedly uninvited to candidate forums and debates, Redfern is likely the one responsible for getting all the B-list candidates into The Miami Foundation’s debate on the UM campus Tuesday. The next […]

New poll: Robaina drops, Luke #3

Unconfirmed results of an unseen mayoral candidate poll — and this time Ladra only got the same information from two people, not the three we like to have — are not surprising in the sense that Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina may have dropped from two-months-ago numbers. Robaina still leads, but he lost a whopping 10 […]

All inclusive mayoral forum Monday

Miami-Dade mayoral hopefuls Jose “Pepe” Cancio and Luther “Luke” Campbell, snubbed from other candidate forums, finally have a platform on which they can finally share the stage and be compared to each other and all the other guys and, finally, one girl (more on that later). Cancio, a businessman and former interim county commission (appointed […]

Robaina sets huge $$ race lead

Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina, one of the front runners in the race to replace recalled county mayor Carlos Alvarez, has raised more than $611,000 for the election bid. That’s more than twice as much as former commissioner Carlos Gimenez, who resigned this week to run for the top post, and quite a leap frog jump […]