Personalities collide in Coral Gables election as mayor faces challenge from former ally
The upcoming election in the City Beautiful has turned ugly as Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago faces a challenge from a city commissioner whom he once counted as an ally, Kirk Menendez.
Issues of civility and transparency are at the heart of the April 8 election, which is Lago’s first competitive race since he became mayor in 2021. Lago, who was reelected without opposition in 2023, is now vying for a third two-year term after a tumultuous couple of years in which he survived a recall effort but lost control of the City Commission.
Unlike two years ago, Lago and Menendez now find themselves on opposing voting blocs of the five-member commission, with Menendez and Commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez often voting together and having the majority. For much of the past two years, Lago has been on the losing side of multiple 3-2 votes, along with Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, who is also up for reelection.
Winning the mayoral race isn’t the only battle Lago faces. In a city where the mayor is one of five votes on the City Commission, he needs two allies in order to override his opponents on the dais. That means Anderson, as well as a commission candidate named Richard Lara — who is viewed as loyal to Lago but has said he is an independent candidate — would also need to secure victories in order for Lago to have a chance at wrangling back a three-person majority.
Lago, 48, and Menendez, 62, aren’t the only candidates vying to become mayor. Accountant and political newcomer Michael Anthony Abbott, 60, has also thrown his hat in the ring and could force the other two contenders into a runoff if neither manages to secure a majority on election night.
Lago, the incumbent mayor who prides himself on his responsiveness to residents and sustainability initiatives, has faced scrutiny for his temperament, as well as his former ties to a controversial developer. Menendez has positioned himself as an alternative to the mayor who will restore “civility” through “ego-free leadership,” but the commissioner has had to answer questions about his employment history and management skills.
Based on the publicly available campaign finance information, Lago so far has greatly out-raised Menendez, with nearly $475,000 in campaign contributions to his hard money campaign account, compared to Menendez’s approximately $40,000. In comparison, Lago has spent over $320,000, while Menendez has spent under $30,000.
PAC campaign finance reports for the first quarter of 2025 aren’t due until two days after the election, but Lago’s PAC, Coral Gables First, had about $150,000 at the end of 2024. Menendez formed his PAC, The Coral Gables Way, in January of 2024. The PAC reported $0 in fundraising and spending at the end of last year.
But fundraising wasn’t a predictor of success two years ago when Castro and Fernandez defeated a pair of establishment-backed candidates who had significantly more money in their campaign coffers.
This year’s results will show whether their 2023 victories were a one-off or if that election portended a deeper dissatisfaction among residents with politicians seen as upholding the status quo. Depending on who you ask, the mayoral race could be looked at as a referendum on Lago or on the politicking of Menendez, Fernandez and Castro — nicknamed “KFC” by their detractors — following a series of controversial split votes the trio championed.
Early voting starts Saturday, April 5, and runs through Sunday, April 6, at the Coral Gables Library, located at 3443 Segovia St. For Election Day voting, residents can find their polling location here.
Swing vote & divided commission
A large focus of Lago’s campaign has been on those controversial split votes, which have come to define the two dueling factions of the Coral Gables City Commission.
After Fernandez and Castro were elected in April 2023, Lago still maintained a majority on the commission. When the newcomers attempted to fire then-City Manager Peter Iglesias in May of that year, for example, they were voted down.
But things began to shift in the fall of that year. Menendez cast his first significant vote that diverged from the mayor and vice mayor in September 2023 when he, along with Fernandez and Castro, voted down a proposal from Anderson to move the city’s elections from odd years in April to even years in November.
Anderson and Lago argued that moving elections to November would increase voter turnout, while the other three said April elections prevent the noise of national politics from drowning out the campaigns of grassroots candidates in municipal races.
For several months thereafter, Menendez found himself in the position of being a swing vote on the commission.
That included casting the deciding vote in a controversial salary raise proposal that resulted in a 101% compensation increase for the commissioners, a 93% increase for the vice mayor and a 71% increase for the mayor. Anderson and Lago accused their colleagues of trying to sneak the massive raises into a dense yearly budget so residents wouldn’t notice them, while Castro, Fernandez and Menendez argued they followed proper procedure.
Iglesias, the city manager at the time, told the Miami Herald in a recent interview that Menendez was the person who initiated the raise proposal. In response, Menendez said Iglesias has an “ax to grind.”
The next month, in October 2023, Castro, Fernandez and Menendez voted down a proposal from Lago and Anderson to reject their own raises, which still would have allowed the other three to receive the increases. That left the city with no mechanism to pay the mayor and vice mayor a lesser amount. Still, Lago and Anderson vowed not to accept the increases, saying they would donate the money to charity instead. Neither Anderson nor Lago provided documentation for donations when asked by the Herald last month, although both candidates said they have made donations.
READ MORE: Did Coral Gables mayor and vice mayor keep or donate the raises they voted against?
Menendez effectively drew a line in the sand in February 2024 when he cast the deciding vote to fire Iglesias and joined in on another 3-2 vote later that month to hire retired law enforcement agent Amos Rojas Jr. as city manager without a national search and without Rojas’ potential appointment being publicly noticed on the meeting agenda. The commission was expecting to vote that day on a proposal to “engage an executive search firm” to find a replacement for Iglesias.
Menendez supported Rojas Jr.’s hiring at that meeting, highlighting his experience as a retired U.S. Marshal and former Florida Department of Law Enforcement special agent.
“The city of Coral Gables is adrift in a cesspool of public corruption,” Menendez said at the meeting, “and I’m here to help navigate our beloved city out of the muck and to safe harbor. So I vote yes.”
Asked last week what pushed him to join forces with Castro and Fernandez, Menendez wrote: “I shifted away from Vince Lago when I witnessed a pattern of aggressive behavior toward Commissioners Fernandez and Castro, as well as anyone who disagreed with him.”
The challenger
Menendez spent his early career working as a private attorney before taking a job at Miami City Hall after his first child was born, saying he believed a move to the public sector would provide stability and flexibility. His jobs in the city included working in intergovernmental affairs and as an assistant city attorney, records show.
His experience working on Dinner Key wasn’t always smooth. Public records show that in May of 2015, Menendez, then a legislative liaison in the City Attorney’s Office, was reprimanded for “insubordination and incompetent performance.”
Menendez said in a statement this week that he has “never reviewed nor seen the letter of reprimand in question.” However, his signature appears on the document below an acknowledgment of the reprimand, dated May 28, 2015.
The next month, public records show, Menendez submitted his resignation to the City Attorney’s Office. Menendez told the Herald his resignation was “a personal decision based on the circumstances at the time.”
“I moved forward from that chapter and focused on the next steps in my career, always striving to improve and contribute meaningfully to the community I serve,” he said, adding that: “The fact that these questions are now coming up feels a bit politically motivated.”
Later that year, in December 2015, Menendez was tapped to be chief of staff for then-City Commissioner Ken Russell. But two months later, Russell said he fired Menendez.
Reached for comment about his reason for terminating Menendez, Russell said that as a newly elected official at the time, “I needed a proactive chief of staff.”
“I could tell it wasn’t working out,” Russell said. “I wasn’t seeing that sort of drive or initiative.”
He added that the termination wasn’t due to any concerns about ethical improprieties. “There was no climactic moment or controversy that happened,” Russell said. According to Menendez, “the decision to part ways was due to a difference in approach to the direction of the office.”
After leaving Miami City Hall, Menendez said he took time off to take care of his mother, who had Alzheimer’s. During that period, he also pursued a real estate license, which he obtained in August 2016, according to state records.
Menendez maintains an active license at a brokerage called The Keyes Company. However, Menendez said he has not done any transactions with the company and that he got his license to “help my aging mom who was a realtor and who was struggling physically.”
Asked if he would do real estate in the city should he be elected, Menendez said: “I will be a Mayor full-time with no side business deals.”
Menendez returned to government work in 2021 when he was elected to a four-year term on the Coral Gables City Commission. He said his accomplishments during his first term include advocating for funding for Phillips Park renovations and sponsoring legislation to create the CodeMania “hackathon” competition for high school students, as well as the Cavaliers Future Leaders Program, which introduces high schoolers to local government.
Four years after he was elected, Menendez has decided to run for mayor rather than seek reelection to his commission seat. In explaining his reasoning, Menendez pitched himself as a rational, grounded alternative to Lago.
“I want to bring civility, stability, and ego-free leadership to Coral Gables and end what many have described as Lago’s ‘reign of terror,’” Menendez said in a statement.
“The influence of special interests inside City Hall is significant,” Menendez added. “Coral Gables residents deserve a fresh start, a chapter free from scandals and corruption.”
But Lago’s campaign has raised questions about the commissioner’s financial management and political motivations.
Menendez, a longtime sports coach at the War Memorial Youth Center, has served as president for the War Memorial Youth Center Association, or WMYCA, for more than a decade. According to the city’s website, the independent organization provides funds for summer camp programs at the city-operated youth center on University Drive.
Lago has suggested that Menendez caused the organization to lose its nonprofit status. The organization, founded in 1944, appears on the IRS’s “auto-revocation list,” which states that the WMYCA lost its tax-exempt status in May of 2020. That happens after three consecutive years in which annual tax reports — known as 990s — aren’t filed, according to the site. The IRS notes that being on the list “does not mean the organization is currently revoked, as they may have been reinstated.”
Online databases that track nonprofit tax filings do not show any 990s for the organization after 2015. However, Menendez allowed the Herald to review paper copies and photos of the 990s from 2016 to 2023. It’s unclear why those documents don’t appear in online databases or what caused the organization to appear on the IRS’s auto-revocation list.
Menendez said the organization is still a nonprofit and “has never been and will never be a for-profit organization.”
Menendez has also faced scrutiny for appointing his wife and daughter to the board of the organization. Asked about his decision, Menendez said his “family is committed to preserving its legacy. “
The Lago campaign has criticized Menendez for a zoning code change he once pushed for.
Public records show that in 2023, Menendez sponsored legislation that would have loosened the height restrictions for mixed-use properties in the city’s commercial district. Lago’s campaign has suggested that Menendez did so to benefit himself and increase the property value of his home on Malaga Avenue.
Reached for comment, Menendez said he held public meetings about the zoning proposal but dropped it after seeing “mixed reactions.” The change would have applied to the Central Business District only, Menendez said, adding that his home in the city’s Crafts Section — located outside of the business district — would not have been affected by it.
Iglesias, who was the city manager at the time, said Menendez’s proposal to create the new zoning designation went through multiple iterations for nearly a year. He said that while the publicly available staff report outlining the proposal applied to the Central Business District specifically, earlier iterations would have made the change citywide.
However, “those were internal discussions,” according to Iglesias. He said he didn’t believe there were public records that showed previous versions of the proposal.
The item was never voted on by the commission, records show.
Menendez said in a statement that there had been discussions about “broader applications” of the change that would extend beyond the business district but that “they were rejected.”
“My only goal has always been to improve Coral Gables for its residents — not for personal gain,” Menendez said.
Lago has alleged that Menendez faced resistance from city staff in trying to get the upzoning proposal approved and that the pushback is what motivated him to align with Castro and Fernandez.
“Apparently, when his push to get his remaining property in the Craft section upzoned [was] met with opposition from then city manager Iglesias and other city staff, he decided to align himself with commissioners Fernandez and Castro to fire Iglesias. Not very ethical or transparent from him, in my opinion,” Lago said.
Iglesias told the Herald that he was opposed to early iterations of the proposal that would have applied citywide but that he supported the version of the legislation that would have applied to the business district specifically, calling it a “good idea.”
The incumbent
Lago, who drives an electric vehicle and whose house runs on solar, has championed legislation focused on sustainability, including requiring that all new buildings in the city over 20,000 square feet meet LEED Silver standards, the widely used “green building rating system.” He’s also helped increase the number of parks downtown and sponsored legislation to direct a portion of developer impact fees to the acquisition and improvement of parks.
As mayor, Lago prides himself on being available to residents during his weekly Friday office hours, as well as town halls. “And before I go to bed every night, I answer every single phone call and every single email from every single resident that writes me personally,” Lago told the Miami Herald Editorial Board.
In addition to his work as a part-time elected official, Lago is an executive at BDI Construction and maintains an active real estate license. After leaving a small politically connected brokerage called Rosa Commercial Real Estate in the fall of 2023, state records show, Lago in February 2024 registered his license with a brokerage called Florida Realty of Miami.
Lago said he has not done real estate deals in Coral Gables since he joined Florida Realty of Miami and that he would not do real estate in the city should he be reelected.
Lago has focused his campaign on transparency, pitching himself as a “dedicated public servant” who is a good steward of public funds.
“When it comes to your tax dollars, I’ve always believed in fiscal responsibility, because Coral Gables should be a city that serves its residents,” Lago said in a recent campaign video. “Not one that burdens them with higher costs to benefit a select few.”
In contrast, he has cast Menendez as part of a trio of officials seeking to serve themselves over the residents. Lago has specifically taken aim at Menendez’s vote to double his compensation.
“No matter how Kirk tries to spin it, the fact is he hid his salary increase in the budget so residents wouldn’t see it coming,” Lago said in another video. “He lied to you, the people of Coral Gables — our bosses.”
Lago coasted into a second term in 2023. But the past two years have proven to be challenging for the mayor, with some events creating potential roadblocks in his path to a third term.
Shortly after his 2023 reelection, Lago faced increased scrutiny when Herald reporting revealed that he was a landlord for embattled developer Rishi Kapoor, who in recent years has faced multiple investigations from federal agencies. Kapoor has broadly denied wrongdoing; he settled a fraud case with the Securities and Exchange Commission late last year without admitting or denying the agency’s allegations.
In 2022, Kapoor was seeking to build a luxury high-rise at 1505 Ponce de Leon Blvd., directly across the street from a small commercial building owned by Lago and a small group of associates. Kapoor’s development firm, Location Ventures, rented space in the building, planning to use it as a showroom for the project. Lago recused himself from voting on Kapoor’s 1505 project, disclosing that he had a conflict.
Two days after the City Commission’s initial approval of the 1505 project, Lago transferred his real estate license from a large brokerage to Rosa Commercial Real Estate. Only five other people were registered with the now-dissolved brokerage, including Hialeah Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo, former Hialeah Councilman Oscar De la Rosa, who is Bovo’s stepson, and Chelsea Granell, who is Lago’s chief of staff in City Hall.
Later that year, Rosa Commercial Real Estate brokered the $35 million sale of 1505 Ponce, netting a $640,000 commission, internal company records showed. Lago denied any involvement in the sale and has stated that he did not make any money off of it.
Lago ultimately left the brokerage in the fall of 2023. The lease agreement with Kapoor was also terminated around that time.
READ MORE: Coral Gables mayor and an arrested lobbyist exit from politically connected brokerage
Lago recently told the Miami Herald Editorial Board that he wouldn’t have gotten involved with the developer “if I would have known that Rishi Kapoor was going to have these type of issues.”
“We do background checks, we vet people,” Lago said. “But I didn’t know what was happening in his own personal business capacity.”
Asked why he switched his real estate license to Rosa Commercial Real Estate two days after Kapoor’s 1505 project received the initial City Commission approval, Lago didn’t provide a clear answer as to the timing. Instead, Lago explained that he has a “very good relationship” with De la Rosa, who led the brokerage, and that he knew De la Rosa’s expertise as a lawyer would be useful for conducting due diligence in real estate transactions.
While Lago has not been accused of any wrongdoing in relation to Kapoor, his former financial ties to the developer were a focal point last spring when a group of activists launched a recall effort against Lago. The recall campaign ultimately failed, falling short of the required number of petition signatures.
Shortly thereafter, Lago was in hot water again when law enforcement began investigating an alleged “incident” between Lago and Rojas Jr., the city manager at the time, who reported that Lago got into a heated exchange with him in which the mayor “jumped out of his chair, ripped off his jacket, and threw it on the back of his chair all while saying something to the effect of ‘I’m a man, be a man’ but in an aggressive tone.”
Lago was cleared after an investigation found that “the facts did not meet the elements of an assault” against Rojas Jr., who resigned earlier this year. Lago at the time called the incident “nothing more than political theater.”
Before he became mayor in 2021, Lago had years of experience on the Coral Gables City Commission, after first being elected in 2013 and reelected in 2017.
Despite losing control of the commission after the power dynamics shifted in 2023, Lago has not adopted a position of retreat. Soon after he was outvoted by the three commissioners who wanted raises, Lago told Spanish-language media outlets that his colleagues were unprepared for office, that they “reached into residents’ pockets” and that they “live off their wives.” The same three commissioners then voted at an October 2023 meeting to issue a formal censure — basically a public reprimand — against the mayor for his comments.
At the same meeting, Lago sparred with Miami filmmaker and community activist Billy Corben, who accused Lago of “corruption.” Lago responded by threatening legal action against Corben. In late 2023, Lago filed a defamation lawsuit against the Spanish-language radio station Actualidad for a segment about an ethics inquiry. The lawsuit is ongoing.
This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 8:58 AM.
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