The Rending of a Recall: The Conclusion

The conclusion of a series, maybe, but not the final word on the subject. The first batch of recall petitions was submitted to the city clerk just last Friday, which means this freight train of temerity will have to traverse a few more miles of procedural track before it finally derails. I’ll be obliged, then, to revisit this subject sooner or later.

Frankly, I had mixed feelings about this series from the beginning. On one hand, this recall is quintessentially KFC; a veritable feast of dishonesty and ineptitude—precisely the kind of thing I like to sink my teeth into. On the other, it’s so ridiculously flawed at the propositional level that it makes even a hint of serious scrutiny seem superfluous. A municipal recall is an immensely divisive and toxic affair. As a political measure, it should be considered the very last of last resorts. Full stop. Therefore, to subject a community to one that is aimed at a mayor who is less than a year away from his next election is about as reckless and excessive as it gets. In the present context, it’s like proposing to amputate an arm to cure a hangnail that doesn’t even exist. Is it wise, therefore, to grant such a manifestly bad idea the dignity of a serious rebuttal?

I guess one could say that this series has been more exposure than rebuttal, even if a decidedly positive case for Lago’s mayorship has been made in the process. I, myself, had forgotten just how strong he’s been as an anti-development mayor until I dug into my research.

Anyway, I wanted to end with one last summation of the recall effort now that we have a much better understanding of who and what is driving it. But before I do, I wish to touch ever so briefly on a few miscellaneous items.

The criminal investigation

In case you missed it, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office recently confirmed that End the Corruption is currently under a criminal investigation. Yes, you read that correctly. The recall committee that illegally paid professional canvassers to knock on your door and lie to you about the mayor being under a criminal investigation is now, itself, the subject of a criminal investigation. Talk about sweet, sweet cosmic justice.

The best part, though, is that this is almost certainly the result of KFC and End the Corruption’s extremely cynical attempt to make political hay out of reports that canvassers were being stopped and supposedly harassed by the police (because everything is harassment with these people). You see, just as soon as I and other residents exposed the fact that the recall committee was paying canvassers in violation of state law, lo and behold Political Cortadito (I think that is Español for "will shill for cash”) chimes in with this blatant and ill-advised attempt at narrative judo:

Funny how KFC’s various mouthpieces can’t quite decide whether Coral Gables police are the heroes we don’t deserve or a bunch of violent and racist thugs. It’s almost as if political expediency determines which at any given moment.

The post also includes a choice quote from Kirk, who has absolutely nothing to do with this recall, hand to God:

“Having been involved in local government as a government attorney, I thought it was best to get the city attorney’s office engaged,” said Menendez, who was once an assistant city attorney in Miami. “The fact that it happened again today means that whatever our law is or the exemptions are weren’t properly communicated or defined.”

Ah, so commissioner I have nothing to do with this recall thought the matter needed to be escalated. He thought it needed to get legal. Very well, Kirk. Very well.

Perhaps we should file this one under be careful what you wish for.

The margin of many errors

As you know, Mrs. Maria Fernandez Castro Menendez Baños Garcia Bittel de Valle Cruzchev submitted the recall committee’s first batch of petitions last Friday. According to reports, 1,719 of them. You may have even noticed the air of triumphalism with which the usual suspects have relayed the news—End the Corruption succeeded by successfully gathering enough petitions to successfully move on to the next successful phase of their sure-to-succeed recall effort.

I almost can’t knock their optimism. The fact that any petitions made it to city hall at all was a small miracle with David Winker involved. Don’t forget, he’s the one who destroyed the Joe Carollo recall before it even got off the ground due to his lack of understanding of how a calendar works:

But timeliness aside, allow me to suggest that 1,719 signatures in 30 days is…well…not great. That’s only 69 more than the bare minimum required by statute. That’s after a flock of paid canvassers knocked on doors every single day for a month. That’s after pulling out all the stops and working community events like the farmers market. That’s after asking literally every sentient being who happened to be passing through the city to sign a petition, including a crew from God-knows-where who happened to be delivering furniture to a home in the Gables. I kid you not.

To put it in perspective, 1,719 is less than half the number of residents who voted for Ariel last April. It’s also only 1/3 of the 4,900+ signatures needed to actually trigger a special election. And, in case you’re wondering, End the Corruption can’t use the existing 1,719 signatures for the second phase. They would need to go back and get fresh signatures from those residents. Have fun with that.

Meanwhile, rumor has it that the much quieter political committee, Accountable Coral Gables, has obtained more than 5,000 signatures on the November-elections item alone.

This isn’t about bragging rights, but rather a simple and unavoidable reality of any recall effort: rejected petitions. Rejected petitions, which are regarded as a kind of inevitability in any recall or referendum, are why competent petition collectors aim to obtain what they call a buffer of extra signatures, usually in the 10% range. At 1,719, End the Corruption’s buffer is rather anemic, to say the least. I won’t make any predictions yet, but I will say this: don’t be surprised if the final tally ends up being lower than the 1,650 required to keep this thing alive.

Triggering every conceivable failure mode

A municipal recall is a complex operation with a high number of failure modes—there are a great many ways to screw up. Nevertheless, End the Corruption might be the first recall committee in the country that has managed to trigger virtually every major failure mode simultaneously.

Take one of their more recent blunders, in which they allowed their chairwoman and flesh-and-blood faux pas, Mrs. Cruzchev, to step in front of a mic without a muzzle. During a mercifully brief appearance on Billy Corbin’s Because Miami podcast, Mrs. Cruzchev was asked to explain why she launched a recall against Lago:

This may be the first time in history that something Mrs. Cruzchev said actually matters. One can’t recall an elected official simply because one feels like it. One must choose at least one of seven statutorily prescribed grounds for a recall. End the Corruption chose malfeasance and misfeasance. Unfortunately for Mrs. Cruzchev, those words mean something, and that something is not “out of control,” “abuse,” “harassment,” “bullying,” and “doesn’t listen to the people.” Those might be grounds for not voting for the mayor next April, if you buy any of that. They are not, however, grounds for a recall predicated on malfeasance and misfeasance.

It’s bad enough that the grounds for recall statement on the petition reads as though a first-year law student wrote it and that paid canvassers are defaming the subject of said recall when gathering signatures. But it’s potentially ruinous to allow the chairwoman, the supposed originator of the recall, to go on a live show and undermine an already weak effort by essentially admitting that the recall never had anything to do with any of the crap that’s listed in the petition. I imagine this will prove less than helpful to End the Corruption’s cause if and when the legal sufficiency of the recall is challenged.

The final summation

I'll end with one final, but probably not comprehensive, summation of the recall effort—one that incorporates most, if not all, the sordid details and allegations that have been brought to light so far; one that, because it is as convoluted as it is obscene, I have to enumerate as a series of whereas clauses, as though I am reciting a deal made with the devil himself:

Whereas the ongoing effort to recall Mayor Lago is being conducted while the mayor is actively running for reelection; and

Whereas this effort is being carried out by a political committee that began operating and deploying resources before it was legally formed; and

Whereas this effort began almost immediately after KFC conveniently began making frequent, if cryptic, allegations of rampant corruption aimed at unidentified individuals within city hall; and

Whereas this effort is chaired by an individual who was forced to resign as a public-school teacher for gross immorality and moral turpitude; and

Whereas this effort selected as its registered agent a financially burdened attorney who was recently accused by an appeals court judge of playing fast and loose with evidence and who perjured himself at an official proceeding; and

Whereas this effort composed a “statement of grounds for recall” that appears to lack legally sufficient allegations in support of the recall effort's chosen justifications; and

Whereas this effort is said to be funded primarily by a mega-developer who, in addition to being a well-known sex predator, is the largest property owner on Miracle Mile and the driving force behind its upzoning; and

Whereas this effort is funded by dark money that has been washed through a series of Tallahassee-based political action committees; and

Whereas this effort is said to be utilizing the services of a man who was imprisoned for election mischief; and

Whereas this effort hired a man who once had a fugitive arrest warrant issued in his name to run its canvassing operations; and

Whereas this effort is illegally paying professional canvassers to circulate recall petitions; and

Whereas this effort has defamed the mayor by instructing its canvassers to tell residents that he was caught money laundering, made $35 million by selling city-owned property, and is the subject of an FBI investigation; and

Whereas this effort is itself under a criminal investigation by the FDLE for activities related to its canvassing efforts; and

Whereas this effort needed 30 days of illegal canvassing to collect (pre-validation) 1,719 signatures of the 4,900+ it will eventually need to trigger a special election.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the above-described recall effort is officially the most asinine and disgraceful example of political theater Coral Gables has ever had to endure, and that it shall fail not only as a recall, but as the smear campaign it was intended to be all along.