Jesse Scheckner
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.
