Kirk's Chronicles (Part 3): The Big Lie

On outrageous distortions of truth.

As you can see, I’m continuing the new tradition of providing an executive summary for those who lack either the time or inclination to read the entire post. Yes, yes, you’re welcome:

• Kirk Menendez claims he's a victim of a "massive development project" across from his childhood home, but public records reveal he orchestrated and profited from this very development

• Documents show Kirk spearheaded the bulk sale of properties to developer Trammel Crow, selling his own homes for $1.8 million each—roughly triple their appraised value

• Kirk reportedly pressured city employees to help rezone the Crafts Section, with former staff testifying under penalty of perjury that he implored them to lift zoning restrictions that affect his remaining property

• While lamenting development publicly, Kirk is actively trying to sell his remaining property across the street to developers and remove height restrictions that would make it more valuable

• Kirk championed MX2.5 zoning that would have conveniently erased height restrictions on his remaining property

• Despite voting on projects from a developer who employed his son, Kirk has never recused himself from these commission votes

---

There’s an infamous propaganda technique known as the "big lie," which boils down to the deliberate telling of outlandish lies based on the idea that people are more likely to believe a bold fabrication over a modest one precisely because of the sheer audacity of the former. This concept was first articulated, oddly enough, by Adolf Hitler, who wrote in Mein Kampf that the big lie works because ordinary people "could never come up with such an outrageous distortion of the truth." Lo and behold, it was Hitler and the Nazis who would go on to perfect this very technique writ large.

But, alas, what emerges at the geopolitical scale is by no means confined to it. The immeasurably evil notion, aggressively peddled by Big Tobacco, that cigarettes were not only perfectly safe but in fact good for one's health is an example of the big lie being deployed on an industrial scale, while the sex-offender concealing his predations by posing as a male feminist is an example of the technique being deployed on a more human level. Indeed, the intuition that the most effective lies do not merely diverge from the truth, but run completely orthogonal to it seems to occur all too naturally to era-defining sociopaths and two-bit scoundrels alike—or to frame it more vividly, from the leader of the Third Reich to the occupant of the third seat on a city commission.

Kirk’s Big Lie

I could happily write a very sassy post on how Kirk's very identity is, itself, a "big lie." But that's not saying much when you consider the bizarrely ecclesiastical nature of the recently transfigured Kirk, who over the past couple of years has grown increasingly fond of portraying himself as a kind of anointed light-worker chosen by God Himself to lead Coral Gables to salvation and rid it of the evil and corrupt forces that possess it (those who Kirk allows to follow his fire-walled social media accounts will know I'm hardly exaggerating here).

But I'd rather unpack a different big lie, one that concerns more immediate and more Earthly affairs, a lie that Kirk has perpetuated himself recently, repeatedly, and unabashedly. I’m referring, of course, to this one:

For context, this was from an email sent from Kirk to the entire city wherein he pretends to set the record straight in response to "misleading information" sent by his "opponent." It's chock-full of absolute humdingers, like how, akshually, KFC was totally transparent about the raises they buried in the budget or how Lago challenged Aimless Amos to a fistfight.

But that exquisite little morsel above? Kirk’s crocodile tears over the big bad development on his doorstep? My God, that one is simply 🤌🤌🤌🧑‍🍳.

It's one thing to attack a straw man, it's quite another for Kirk to position himself as the victim of an outcome he worked so diligently (for once in his life) to bring about. As you are about to see, Kirk's lament that, thanks to Lago, he is "now dealing with a massive development project across the street" from his childhood home is about as audacious and grotesque a lie as they come—the very biggest, one could argue, of Kirk's big lies.

The Paper Trail

For the better part of a year, I've felt what I would call reluctantly impelled to someday perform a painstakingly thorough examination of Kirk's real estate dealings in Coral Gables' Crafts Section. This reluctance stemmed not from any misgivings about exposing Kirk's machinations, but from the predictable difficulty of unraveling the complicated web of his property transactions in a way that would be accessible to readers not versed in the arcane art of complex real estate transactions. Fortunately, it seems I won't have to subject either myself or you to this ordeal, for Coral Gables Magazine recently did the heavy lifting for me.

In a March 3^rd article titled “A Tale of Two Cities,” the Magazine’s Kylie Wang commendably distills Kirk’s dealings down to its essential parts with a clarity and economy that I myself would struggle to achieve. I highly recommend reading the entire article, which you can find here (emphasis mine):

While one can only speculate on why this transformation happened, reports of Menendez’s financial situation have sparked rumors that he might have gone so far as to “sell” his vote. A 2021 article published by Political Cortadito when Menendez was first running for commissioner states that he had recently taken out three mortgages totaling $900,000 on three homes he owned (or part-owned) on Malaga Avenue. Though he allegedly told “everyone” he had no plans to sell, he did, in fact, do just that in June 2022. Two of his properties at 323 and 325 Malaga were sold for $1,857,500 each to developer Trammel Crow, which is now building a mixed-use development at the site that includes several other plots of land from the sales of Menendez’s neighbors’ homes. That block was rezoned from 40-feet to 77-feet. Multiple sources have told Coral Gables Magazine that Menendez was peddling this property around town to other developers as well, claiming he could not only get his neighbors to sell but could also get the area rezoned in exchange for cash and other properties. Former city manager Iglesias claims that two city employees came to him to discuss a meeting with Menendez after he was elected in which he had allegedly pressured them to help him with the rezoning. One of the employees, who no longer works for the city but requested to remain anonymous, told Coral Gables Magazine that Menendez “wanted us to make sure a certain project got approved. [He said,] ‘Don’t let anybody stand in the way.’”

But one thing Wang’s article doesn’t quite capture, due not to a lack of rigor but of column inches, is the relatively sophisticated nature of these transactions. This was hardly a case of Kirk reluctantly relinquishing cherished properties to a developer who methodically gobbled up his entire block and who was ready to surround him like a Chinese nail house the way The Plaza surrounded Orlando Capote after he refused to sell.

Rather, the bulk-sale of roughly a dozen homes was painstakingly orchestrated, with Kirk spearheading the deal on behalf of his neighbors via a complex array of quit claim deeds, LLCs, and water utility agreements—the latter of which, in an endlessly amusing example of accidental irony, refers to Kirk and his former neighbors as “developers.”

Nice double homestead there, Kirk! 💪

This complexity was not for nothing, of course. It’s what enabled Kirk and his comrades to sell their homes to the developer in one fell swoop, thereby allowing them to fetch a hefty premium on each property. What kind of premium? Well, according to the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser, the market value of Kirk’s 323 and 325 Malaga Avenue properties before the sale was approximately $623,000 and $750,000 respectively, both of which he sold for $1,875,000 apiece:

I guess that’s what happens when you make buying an entire city block as smooth and frictionless as humanly possible for a developer—you get to unload your modest Craft’s Section homes at a $2.4 million combined markup. Not too shabby for government work.

Dealing with Massive Developments

As far as big lies go, Kirk's pretending that the Alexan Crafts (Kirk’s massive development) project was inflicted upon him by his erstwhile friend Lago rather than being something he himself desperately and assiduously connived to bring to fruition certainly checks the outlandish box.

Indeed, the public record speaks for itself. Unless Lago placed a banana peel on the sidewalk in front of Kirk's house causing him to slip and fall onto a pile of LLC filings, quit claim deeds, and utility contracts with a pen in his hand that just so happened to scribble his signature in just the right places a few dozen times—it's difficult to describe the massive Crafts Section development as something that, woe is he, happened to Kirk.

But all lies are easier to tell when you can trick yourself into believing them, even if only partially. This makes me wonder if there isn't a Straussian/Freudian subtext beneath Kirk's grousing about "dealing with a massive development across the street." Perhaps he means "dealing" with it emotionally, in a wistful "what might have been" sort of way.

The Worst-Kept Secret

What I mean is this: Kirk's former properties on the north side of Malaga were only half the story. Kirk still owns at least one property that we know of—his current residence—just across the street on the south side of Malaga. And the worst-kept secret in all of Coral Gables is that he is desperate to sell that property to a developer as well. The problem for Kirk, however, is that the south side of Malaga is height-restricted, which makes his property essentially worthless to developers unless Kirk can somehow have that height restriction removed.

Enter MX2.5, one of the few legislative initiatives Kirk has championed since he began loitering on the dais in 2021. I first wrote about this initiative in February 2024, so I won't relitigate it except to say: MX2.5 was designed to allow developers to build taller buildings in MX2 areas without requesting a conversion to MX3. It was the bugaboo of Kirk-detractors-turned-allies Felix Pardo and Sue Kawalerski—the former now reportedly singing Kirk's praises, the latter serving as the animating spirit of the CGNA—and it was conceived precisely with areas like the Crafts Section in mind.

Oh, and any property/area that receives MX2.5 designation would have any ad hoc restrictions instantly erased—like the kind of height restriction that currently burdens Kirk's remaining property. Quite the happy coincidence, right Kirk?

The Second Worst-Kept Secret

But Kirk isn't one to put all his eggs in one basket. The second worst-kept secret in Coral Gables is that Kirk also tried to remove the height restrictions on his remaining property the good old-fashioned way—by strong-arming his subordinates. What was once rumor has escalated to highly credible accusation, with former high-ranking city employees testifying under penalty of perjury that Kirk convened private meetings with certain department heads and aggressively pressed them to rezone the Crafts Section internally, claiming, it's alleged, that "it was important to his family’s future."

The Third Worst-Kept Secret

Finally, there’s the third worst-kept secret in Coral Gables: that Kirk has repeatedly approached many of Coral Gables’ top developers practically begging them to buy his property with assurances that he would come through with the zoning they need. Now, this is one of those rumors that you as truth-seeking residents are supposed to take with a grain of salt, especially from a highly-partisan anonymous writer on the internet. Because when has anything I said proven correct, amirite?

Really though, if you’re sincerely interested in the truth, all you need to do is, get this, talk to people. You can’t throw a rock in this town without hitting a developer, so go ahead and ask one about Kirk. The next time you’re at Hillstone or Zucca or wherever these guys like to hang out, chat one up and ask them if they have ever been approached by Kirk about his remaining property on Malaga. You might be shocked at the candor of some, like the one who once quipped to me, and I paraphrase here, “The way Kirk was talking, I honestly thought he was wearing a wire.”

A final note on developers: one interesting tidbit that doesn’t get enough attention is the fact that Kirk, while commissioner, helped get his son a job with a local developer. And not just any local developer, one of the biggest in the business. The same developer who is responsible for the project that Felix Pardo excoriated (and that Kirk voted to approve) as being out of scale in a recent e-blast to residents, the same developer whose items Kirk votes on when they come before the commission. And with a resounding “YES” every single time, of course.

Imagine getting all lathered up over the mayor’s brother having represented a property owner in the Little Gables over a decade ago, only to turn around and drape your arm over the shoulder of a guy who constantly fails to recuse himself when his own son’s bosses bring an item to the commission. Nice double standard you’ve got there, CGNA.

The Confidence Man

The real outrage here isn't that Kirk sold his properties at a premium, or that he's desperately trying to sell more. It's that he dares to campaign as a crusader against overdevelopment while leaving behind a mile-long paper trail detailing his lucrative dealings with developers. It's that he poses as a martyred defender of neighborhood character while secretly offering to upzone his neighbors into oblivion. It's that he portrays himself as a messianic light-worker while operating in the shadows, and a victim of a crime he himself perpetrated.

Perhaps the biggest lie of all isn't any single deception, but the cumulative fiction that is Commissioner Kirk Menendez—a man whose every public utterance stands in direct opposition to his private actions. In this, he has achieved what even the most accomplished propagandists might envy: a lie so comprehensive, so total in its scope, that it transcends mere falsehood to become an alternate reality. One where, apparently, we're all supposed to forget that we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and the basic intelligence to recognize one of the most audacious confidence men in Coral Gables' history.