‘Absolute anarchy’: Coral Gables Commission censures mayor, blocks salary reductions

The Coral Gables City Commission on Tuesday formally condemned Mayor Vince Lago and blocked his move to reverse a controversial pay raise, escalating an increasingly public feud between the city’s elected officials.

In two separate 3 to 2 votes, the split commission held firm on hefty raises adopted last month for the mayor and vice mayor, and then formally censured the mayor for digs he made toward his fellow commissioners during recent interviews with Spanish-language media outlets.

“This is absolute anarchy here,” Lago told the Miami Herald shortly after the commission publicly rebuked him.

The votes were the latest development in the shifting power dynamics on the City Commission, where the mayor previously encountered little resistance, and unanimous votes were the standard.

That began to change in April, when Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez defeated two establishment-backed candidates who had Lago’s endorsement. Then, last month, Castro, Fernandez and Commissioner Kirk Menendez voted to double their compensation.

With the mayor and vice mayor in firm opposition, the three commissioners approved 78% raises for themselves, a 71% salary increase for the vice mayor and a 54% salary increase for the mayor — in addition to monthly car allowances for all five officials, which they did not have previously. Lago and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson vowed to reject any increase for themselves, while also accusing their colleagues of approving the raises with limited public input.

In the ensuing days, Lago spoke with Spanish-language media outlets, where he made jabs at the commissioners who voted in-favor of the raises. Fernandez, who accused the mayor of “calling in favors” to the outlets, played a series of clips during Tuesday’s meeting from those interviews, in which Lago said his colleagues were unprepared for office, that they “reached into residents’ pockets” and that they “live off their wives.”

Fernandez said the mayor was reacting to losing control over the commission. “Your response was to take to the airwaves and publicly attack your colleagues who haven’t voted the way you want them to,” he said.

Menendez, historically an ally of Lago and Anderson, was so incensed that he proposed a motion on Tuesday to censure Lago.

“To go outside the confines of City Hall, to make personal, public comments that also bring in family members of elected officials, or anyone — I think that’s something I’ve never seen in Coral Gables in my lifetime,” Menendez told the Herald. “We can’t allow this type of poison to really damage the amazing community that we are, so I thought it was important to draw a line.”

Menendez’s stance is a shift since the April election, when he joined Lago and the rest of the then-City Commission in endorsing the candidates who ran against Castro and Fernandez. He was the swing vote in September, helping Castro and Fernandez successfully shoot down a proposal from Anderson, who had Lago’s support, to move the city’s elections to November. And he cast the deciding vote again Tuesday to block the mayor and Anderson from undoing the raises for the positions of mayor and vice mayor.

“They won,” Menendez said of the new commissioners in an interview. “They’re now sworn in, they took an oath, they’re elected officials, they’re my colleagues.”

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Anderson and Lago had hoped to revert their expense allowances and salaries to what they earned previously, plus an annual 2.63% salary increase. They had also proposed to eliminate the new car allowances for themselves.

Though the proposed reductions only applied to the mayor and vice mayor, the three commissioners blocked the proposal. In explaining his vote, Menendez said the salary reductions applied to the positions of mayor and vice mayor — not specifically to Lago and Anderson — meaning that future mayors and vice mayors would receive a much lower pay than the commissioners. Fernandez said providing better pay to future elected officials in those positions would allow less-affluent people, and not “just the elite” to run for office.

Lago accused his colleagues of being hypocritical.

“Let’s be very, very careful with the stones that we throw,” he said to them, “because this is a glass house, and we need to be very, very thoughtful about how we conduct ourselves.”