People who are cynical about American democracy claim that your votes don’t matter and that elections are actually determined by the moneyed elite. Yet, Ken Russell, who just last year was merely a citizen concerned about toxic soil in his local park, will be Miami’s next District 2 commissioner. He…
When Florida considered whether to legalize medical marijuana back in 2014, one of the its loudest detractors was state Attorney General Pam Bondi. She tried everything in her power to try and block the proposed amendment from appearing on the ballot then. As it turned out, the amendment did make…
Laura Pierre postponed college to work full-time at Chipotle, hoping to save up for higher education. But the 18-year-old Miamian says she’s realized that’s an impossible dream with Florida’s $8.05 per hour minimum wage. Her mother, a healthcare worker who also makes less than $10 an hour, relies on Pierre to…
We have it on good word that Carlos Hernandez is a 54-year-old male who has graduated from college and spent ten years as either a commissioner or mayor for the city of Hialeah. “Wow, sounds like that guy has it together? He probably wouldn’t try to pull any juvenile stunts…
Conventional wisdom is that Republican primary voters are having a little fun now with their support off outsider oddball candidates like Donald Trump and Ben Carson, but when it comes times to actually buckle down and start voting they’ll shift towards a more “electable candidate.” Well, if the latest poll…
Yesterday, Teresa Sarnoff ended a runoff with city commission opponent Ken Russell in the most dramatic way possible, by abruptly dropping a letter withdrawing from the race and blasting the dirty politics she says have dominated local elections. But is the race actually over? Russell certainly doesn’t think so. His…
Turns out that residents of Miami’s District 2 won’t need to head back to the polls later this month to decide a city commission runoff match between Teresa Sarnoff and Ken Russell. Sarnoff has now just up and dropped out and decided to do so with a message. Basically she…
Jeb Bush is desperately trying to reinvigorate his flailing campaign. He unleashed a new slogan, “Jeb Can Fix It,” took a short tour through the friendly lands of his home state of Florida, and is now back in New Hampshire trying to re-sell his message to the first in the…
Workplace conditions at a county office have come under scrutiny in recent months. An investigation by the federal government found that the executive director of CareerSource South Florida, a public agency that uses $70 million in state and federal funds to help local job seekers, had subjected female employees to…
If your dog bites someone, even if it hasn’t been previously declared a dangerous dog, and investigators declare the resulting wound “severe,” your dog will be put to death. That’s the law in Florida, but a case involving a black lab in Bradenton, Florida named Padi has caused so much outrage…
How bad can Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign get? The one-time frontrunner has spent this week trotting out a hashtag as custom-made for Internet mockery as “Hotline Bling” and putting all his hopes in a new book about how awesome he was at email in the early ’00s. Voters have just about…
Today’s election slate might not be the most jam-packed or exciting, but the results will have reverberations in some of Miami-Dade’s most important cities for years to come. Though, local elections (especially in these parts) are plagued by notoriously low turnout, that does mean that, hey, we could be in…
If you’re a Democratic primary voter chances are you’re either feeling the Bern or silly for Hillary, but not former mayor of Miami Manny Diaz. Nope. He’s a Martin O’Malley guy all the way. In fact, when it came time for O’Malley’s campaign to round up state leadership teams, Diaz…
In a small room inside the beachfront Days Inn Hotel in North Beach, a dozen business owners and condo heads sidled up to mics to support a plan to drastically change this neighborhood. Voters will decide today whether to allow developer Sandor Scher to build a 250-foot luxury condo and…
Jeb Bush remains intensely popular in his home base. The Miami media market in fact may be one of the few places left in the country where the former Governor remains the most popular choice for the Republican Presidential nomination, but Bush’s popularity in the rest of the state continues…
There are a few non-negotiable rules of doing big business in Miami. Speak at least a little Spanish. Learn to enjoy cigars. Never speak ill of the Estefans. And — this one is important — do not, under any circumstances, reveal your admiration for Fidel Castro or Che Guevara. Marcelo…
For the least seven years, numerous female employees have been reporting their prominent county boss and the work environment at his agency to the authorities — all to no avail. Then, in August, the federal government handed down a ruling after investigating allegations against CareerSource Souht Florida’s executive director Roderick…
Is there nothing Republican can’t find to blame on Hillary Clinton? Apparently not. Marco Rubio is under fire this week after everyone collectively woke up and realized he hasn’t been doing his job as an elected US Senator of the third most populace state in the nation. He’s missed about…
The results of local elections have a huge impact on our lives. But across Miami, local election turnout has historically been meager. In the last Miami Beach mayoral race, in 2013, just 25 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot. In Miami, that number fell to 11 percent. And across…
Jeb Bush helped created Marco Rubio. He cheered him through his early victories in tiny West Miami. He even gave him a damned golden sword on the floor of the Florida House while blessing him as a “great conservative warrior.” And last night in front of a national TV audience,…
The science is conclusive: vast swaths of Miami-Dade will someday be underwater thanks to rising sea levels caused by carbon emissions. How much of Miami-Dade ends up underwater however may depend on what we do now to curb carbon emissions. So it’s quite odd that Attorney General Pam Bondi announced…
Miami Beach voters are no strangers to shady election scuffles, but one commission race has now entered only-in-Florida bizarre territory, with one candidate sending out hundreds of mailers about charges that his opponent had battered a security guard — but neglecting to redact his Social Security Number from the police…
