Conflicted

Melissa Castro's (totally predictable) ethical quagmire.

Unless you subscribe to the Miami Herald, you might have missed the mini-bombshell that dropped over the weekend. According to the Herald, Miami-Dade’s ethics commission issued a draft opinion on September 28 that strongly cautions Melissa Castro against doing business in Coral Gables through her permit-expediting company, M.E.D. Expeditors, as it would very likely violate the county’s ethics code. In other words, Melissa’s company is effectively barred from pulling permits in Coral Gables. I’m not usually one to say I told you so, but let’s recall what I had to say about this all the way back in June:

But then I got to thinking, isn’t Castro’s permit-expediting company located in Coral Gables? Doesn’t it do business in Coral Gables? Didn’t her company do the expediting for the developers who built The Plaza, the largest development in the city’s history at seven acres and 2.25 million square feet? Doesn’t having an enormous capacity to shape the building department’s policies and procedures stand to benefit her business, a business that is paid to navigate those policies and procedures? Is Castro going to continue pulling permits at the very department she is so insistent on reshaping? Is she capable of safely navigating the minefield of conflicts she’s stepping into?

Apparently, the ethics commission has serious concerns as well, and according to Melissa this is “a big deal.” For once, I agree with her.

Which makes one wonder, where is the hysterical CGNA e-blast heralding this breaking news? Where is the potentially Pulitzer Prize-winning article from Gables Insider? I mean, come on, if Lago were to receive a parking ticket during a night out, these people would have the corresponding exposé in your inbox by no later than 4 a.m. the next day. But for this, nothing. Zilch. Go figure.

But let’s talk about implications. According to Melissa, the Gables is home to about 40% of her company’s business, although I’ve heard it’s more. Either way, that’s an awfully big chunk. Not a lot of firms can survive losing almost half their business, so it stands to reason that some very tough choices have to be made.

I’m just on the outside looking in, of course, but the way I see it, Melissa has three options available to her:

1. Take the hit. Stop doing business in the Gables and hopefully make up for it somewhere else.

2. Sell or surrender her stake in the company (and stop receiving compensation) and thus eliminate the primary threat of conflict. This will allow the company to resume its normal operations in the Gables, at least in theory.

3. Resign from the commission. This is the safest way to eliminate conflict and preclude future ethics violations, and likely the only option that will allow her to preserve her Gables-based revenue stream.

Option 1 has self-evident drawbacks. If Melissa could simply flip a switch and make up that 40% elsewhere, why hasn’t she done so already? Who leaves that much extra revenue on the table? No one, which is why it seems rather improbable that she’ll be able to fill the massive Gables-shaped hole this opinion just left in her business. Assuming Melissa hasn’t suddenly and aggressively leaned into the philosophy of money can’t buy happiness (that would make for an odd bumpersticker on a Maserati), this feels like the most unlikely option. Then again, there are those raises, the timing of which is looking improbably optimal in retrospect.

Option 2 strikes me as Melissa’s preferred option, but also the most difficult, as I’m not so sure she’d be able to sell her stake without having to shoulder a painful discount. Putting potentially disputed ownership aside—rumor has it there’s a legal battle being waged between Melissa and other members of her family regarding ownership of the company—any prospective buyer of Melissa’s stake should realize that the company is bound to remain irremediably handicapped so long as Melissa remains in office. Why? Well, because even if she does sell, there’s simply no way for M.E.D.’s clients to know with certainty that the sale wasn’t part of some shell game, that there isn’t some kind of under-the-table kickback flowing back to Melissa. Therefore, you have to ask, why would a sophisticated client risk ensnaring their project, and themselves, in a future corruption scandal when they can simply use an expeditor with demonstrably cleaner hands instead? It’s not as though M.E.D. is a sole-source provider of proprietary technology, there are other capable expeditors to choose from, none of whom will be under the microscope the way M.E.D. will so long as Melissa remains in office. In fact, if I were a potential buyer of M.E.D., I would probably make Melissa’s resignation a condition of sale.

Option 3, naturally, is the safest and wisest option. M.E.D. is no joke. It is, or at least was, one of the bigger and better permit expeditors in South Florida. Built by Melissa’s mother, it’s been the go-to expeditor for a host of major builders and developers, e.g. Agave. Oh, and by the way, the Agaves of the world aren’t hiring expeditors to stand in line at the building department, any intern can do that and grab Starbucks on the way back to the office to boot. No, they want a company that can grease the skids, one that can leverage relationships. What they want, in effect, is a de facto lobbyist, and that is what M.E.D. essentially is. And there’s nothing wrong with that, so long as that lobbyist isn’t simultaneously an elected official. If Melissa were to resign from the commission and remain at the helm of M.E.D. and rule with a steady hand, there’d be nothing left standing between her and all the happiness and abundance and Maseratis she so clearly desires.

Meanwhile, and let’s be honest, it’s not like Melissa has any legs as a politician. It’s not like she’s a rising star on a clear fast track to the governor’s mansion, and it’s not like she’s one of these people who’s heard the call of civic duty since she was a wee child. The woman is pushing 40 and has yet to vote in a presidential election. No, the commission is the end of the road for Melissa, it’s her political 15 minutes. So why should she risk her financial future, and potentially squander her mother’s legacy, for a commission seat everyone knows she doesn’t truly care about, one she’s practically guaranteed to lose after this term? Hell, she can’t even leverage it to boost her business anymore. Really, what’s the point?

But even as I type these very words I can feel the dark side of the force exerting its Sith-like influence. I can see, clear as day, certain individuals assuaging Melissa’s fears, convincing her that she can have her cake and eat it too. I can even track, step by step, the very Miami-ish thought process running through Melissa’s mind right now, the one telling her that all she needs to do is arrange for a Gables Insider-esque fake sale of her stake in the company, remove herself from the corporate equation on paper, secure an under-the-table arrangement and then, voilà, conflict avoided. And I can sense her ignoring that little angel on her shoulder telling her, “No, don’t do it. That’s exactly how you go from conflicted to convicted, and, believe me, much shrewder people than you have gotten caught, so unless you’re looking to add an orange jumpsuit to your wardrobe, you need to drop this idea, stat.”

Mind you, Melissa may already have a few ethical fires to put out. Conflict is conflict, it isn’t just birthed into existence once an authority identifies it. If pulling permits in the Gables is a conflict today, it was a conflict yesterday and on all the days going back to Melissa’s victory in the April election. I know Melissa claims that she’s the one who asked for the opinion and that she supposedly relied on an earlier and different draft opinion (someone clearly spoke to her attorney) and maybe she’s telling the truth about all that. Maybe she is even telling the truth about not having seen the Sept. 28 opinion until the Herald brought it up, although that would be rather odd given that she says she was the requesting party. It doesn’t change the fact that she has what is said to be upward of 80 open permits right now in Coral Gables. How are these handled? I suppose we’ll find out.

To be sure, there are more than a few people in Melissa’s life right now who do not have her best interest at heart, people who look at her and coldly see nothing but utility. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that those responsible for transforming Melissa Castro into Commissioner Castro didn’t work a little planned obsolescence into the design, even if it wasn’t meant to kick in so soon. She desperately needs to escape the influence of these people, for if they cared about her, they would have stopped her from getting herself into this highly foreseeable mess to begin with, they would not have let her torpedo her own business and put her livelihood at stake, and they would have met any interest she expressed in running for office with, “Hey, we think that’s great and would like to help you, but you are new to the Gables and have no civic resumé. Why don’t you join a board and get your sea legs while the community gets to know you? We’ll be happy to support you next time. Oh, and by the way, keep in mind that if you were to get elected, you’d probably be the first permit expeditor to ever hold public office, and so you should talk to an attorney about how that might look vis-à-vis conflicts of interest.”

But who has time for such crazy talk when raw political power is at stake?

Melissa, you have a family to think about, a legacy to tend to, and a labyrinth of conflicts to escape from. For the love of God, listen to me, just this once, and get out before it’s too late.