It's a "New Day" in Coral Gables
Just wake me when it's over, please.
It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.
Full disclosure: I was an Ariel voter. Not your quintessential “take back our city now!” Ariel voter, mind you, but the kind who thought that for all his warts a commissioner Fernandez would add an interesting inflection to a commission that arguably had become a tad ideologically monotone. That’s not a knock on any of the incumbents—they’re good people whose contrasting personalities clearly gel. But over time those that get along tend to go along, and the intra-group regression toward the political mean was bound to irk that fraction of the residency with an appetite for, shall we say, more vigorous governance, e.g. a moratorium on all commercial building permits. I don’t count myself among those residents, but I’ve seen their ire and respect their right to representation, so much so that I used my vote to help secure it. So, there you go, if and when it all goes south like a duck in the winter, I’ll gladly shoulder my 1/3972 share of the blame.
The mandate. Sort of.
Credit where credit is due, Ariel ran a clever campaign. Leveraging Gables Insider as both a perpetual focus group and a digital soap box, he cultivated a savior-like persona that read one part Upton Sinclair and one part Abraham Lincoln (or P.T. Barnum, depending on how you gauge Ariel’s sincerity) and injected it straight into the veins of the most universally reliable voting bloc that ever was: pissed off people.
And he didn’t just win, he won, as another interesting personality might say, bigly; by a nearly 20% margin that by conventional political wisdom is considered a landslide. It was a mandate plain as day. Or was it?
Lost in all this talk of a mandate—and there has been plenty from none other than the commissioner himself, usually in the form of “the residents have spoken” and “the residents want,” as if all 33,002 registered voters hop on a Zoom call with him every morning to discuss the issues of the day—is the fact that the 2023 election generated the lowest voter turnout in over a decade. In fact, we’d need to look all the way back to 2009, when social media was in its infancy and the Gables population was 5% smaller, to find an election with lower (barely) turnout.
As one of my favorite professors used to say, “angry people vote, happy people don’t.” It’s hyperbole, of course, but one rooted in the idea that a dissatisfied electorate is a motivated electorate, and so if “the people” are as upset and hungry for change as Ariel suggests, why did several thousand usually reliable voters sit this one out?
YOLO
Okay, so maybe the mandate talk is a bit rich. But there was clearly a profound impetus behind Ariel, a fervor amongst his supporters so intense that if the voting scanners could somehow measure the energy contained in a vote bubble, each one of theirs would count as three.
Which brings me to my vote. As alluded to earlier, I differ with Team Ariel on most issues. In some cases passionately. But passion for our community is a virtue upon which I’ve come to place a high premium, and in an election that appeared to be a battle between the passionate and the perfunctory, I found myself, in the end, drawn to the former. And so, like Indiana Jones at the foot of the Invisible Bridge, I took that leap of faith and cast my ballot for Ariel Fernandez.
Uh oh
Spoiler alert: I’m already regretting it. Let’s skip over the interim period between the election and induction—although there is plenty of meat on that bone—and start with the May 8th Fernandez/Castro so-called “town hall,” an absurdly gratuitous event that was bordering on exploitative. To all the residents who attended, I’m sorry, but you got played. Not one minute of that meeting was about you. It was about aggrandizing the conjoined twins/commissioners who stood pointlessly behind the podium at the front of the room, occasionally sputtering terse platitudes like malfunctioning animatronics in Disney’s Hall of Presidents. It was about creating a spectacle, a physical manifestation of the Gables Insider comments section but with city staff in forced attendance as a bonus. Speaking of staff, what’s the point of a town hall in which the vast majority of resident questions are answered not by the hosts, but by the city manager, whom the hosts intend to fire the very next day?
Also, why host a town hall so soon? Didn’t Fernandez and Castro (“Fernastro,” perhaps) spend the past four months knocking on “thousands of doors,” speaking with residents and listening to our concerns? Aren’t we all up to speed? Haven’t the residents spoken?
The truth is, it was never meant to be a town hall. It was meant to be a Roman triumph with two commissioners playing Caesar and Calpurnia, and the city manager playing the King of the Gauls, who after being defeated and captured, had to be paraded before the people of the republic one last humiliating time.
But wait, it gets worse.
Although tacky and superfluous, one could forgive the town hall as a mistake; an unfortunate faux pas on the part of two (one, really, because who are we kidding, Ariel is running the show) wet-behind-the-ears commissioners eager to take their newly acquired status for a spin. But what happened the very next day is unforgivable.
To the chagrin of anyone not consumed with bloodlust, Ariel Fernandez, as his first meaningful act as a commissioner, introduced item G3: a “discussion regarding the termination of the city manager.” Granted, that the item was on the agenda was no surprise to anyone paying attention, but I, for one, was confident Ariel would pull it, especially after the dog-and-pony show town hall the night before. But, sweet fancy Moses, he didn’t.
Let me be clear, I unequivocally oppose the termination of the manager. He’s a decent and competent man. Still, I knew Ariel wanted to oust the manager long before I cast my vote. It was baked into the equation. I’m not mad at Ariel for wanting to vanquish a sworn enemy, I’m disappointed in him for being so bad at it.
It doesn’t take a world-class political strategist to see that the timing of G3 not only contributed to its failure this time around, it likely precluded it from succeeding anytime in the foreseeable future. With Lago and Anderson representing obviously untouchable no votes, the item’s only chance of success rested with Menendez, who thanks to the ambush-like timing of the move, couldn’t possibly vote yes without instantly being viewed by all as Ariel’s lackey. Heck, even Castro wavered.
Ousting the manager was the crown jewel of the Ariel agenda, the raison d'être of his “residents first” candidacy. And while it may have been a tall order in any event, it was never impossible. With a little intelligence and a touch of patience, Ariel could have dealt himself a much stronger hand. He could have bided his time while he strengthened relationships, forged alliances, replaced speculation with data, built an actual course of dealings with the manager to rely upon, and, for goodness’ sake, spent a few months showing deference and respect to Menendez so that he could vote yes without losing face. Instead, Ariel chose to throw a grenade at a wall, only to see it bounce back into his lap as a vote of confidence in the manager.
Blunders and failure theater
Look, one of two things have happened here. Ariel either misread the room and blundered away the biggest plank in his platform, or he delivered his first act of failure theater by deliberately pushing the issue early, knowing very well that it would fail.
Regarding the latter, it’s possible Ariel never really wanted G3 to pass. Firing a manager is as risky a move as one can make in local government, it’s utterly seismic. It’s a be careful what you wish for proposition that, if it succeeds, can create many more problems than it solves. But shooting and missing at the manager, well that carries its own risks, of course, but it also confers the immediate and obvious benefit of letting Ariel play the role of the fearless warrior heroically but hopelessly taking a stand against an unstoppable enemy, like Leonidas at Thermopylae. It also greases the skids for his next big ask, more power. This, friends, is the essence of failure theater.
But if I had to guess, I’d say the former is more likely. Yes, Ariel is a political animal, and he knows how to count to three. But those who know him will tell you it’s not the first time he’s misread the room. Getting elected is a real achievement, a level of success I’m not sure Ariel is used to. That can do a number on an ego (especially to a famously hungry one) which in turn can do a number on the mind, on one’s judgement. Did Ariel, drunk on power, simply let his inner Commodus get the best of him? Probably.
Buyer’s Remorse
Look, I’m not a fan of Ariel’s politics. I’m not a fan of his antics. I am, however, a fan of my community, every segment of it, including those with whom I disagree. I have my champions on the dais. I want others to have theirs, even if it has to be Ariel.
But I have a bad feeling that I just can’t shake. Yes, I know it’s early, but the early indicators are as ugly as they are strong. Perhaps, in a vacuum, you can overlook the pontifical air Ariel’s recently acquired, or the overripe wannabe Reaganisms (“It’s a new day in Coral Gables”). You might even overlook the patently problematic segue from investigative journalism, such as it was, into public office. But when you put it all together and map it onto his performance at Tuesday’s commission meeting, you begin to see a foreboding picture of pathologically poor judgment. And while everyone deserves an opportunity to grow into the job, some things just come down to a leopard’s spots.
I guess we’ll see what happens.
Reminded of JC ( if your instincts are on target)… and I don’t mean the Lord.