Richard Lara wins Coral Gables City Commission seat in runoff
Coral Gables residents cast their ballots Tuesday in a runoff election that’s likely to tip the scales on the City Commission, which has been the site of infighting and split votes for the past two years.
Preliminary election night results showed Richard Lara won with over 55% of the vote. He had faced Thomas O. Wells in the race for the Group 3 seat.
Lara’s victory is also a major win for Mayor Vince Lago, who backed Lara in the race and who won reelection earlier this month.
While Lara has stated that he would act independently if elected, his win helps Lago regain a foothold on the City Commission, where he and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson have been on the losing side of multiple 3-2 votes for the past couple of years. Anderson, who also backed Lara, was reelected earlier this month.
Lara and Wells made it to the runoff after neither managed to secure more than 50% of the vote during the general election earlier this month. In that race, Lara led with 47%, followed by Wells with 39% and a third candidate, Claudia Miro, with 14%. Miro later threw her support behind Lara.
In the general election, Lago defeated opponent Kirk Menendez, who had opted not to run for reelection to his position as commissioner and vowed to restore civility to the commission if elected as mayor. Had Menendez won, he would have had a three-member majority on the City Commission, where he had formed an alliance with Commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez.
Wells, who self-financed his campaign, cast himself as an independent candidate not beholden to a particular faction, while others viewed him as being aligned with Fernandez and Castro.
This story was originally published April 22, 2025 at 7:29 PM.
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