By Coral Gables Gazette staff

Near the end of the March 10 City Commission meeting, Mayor Vince Lago took the opportunity to voice his concerns and displeasure with a video “reposted” by Commissioner Melissa Castro on her Instagram account. The “story” involved a candidate for Florida House of Representatives insulting the mayor after a previous commission meeting.

The mayor showed the video, blurring the individual’s face  and bleeping out the profanity. He said such rhetoric crossed the line of what should be acceptable between elected officials and undermined the standards of conduct expected at City Hall.

“Is this the new normal? A commissioner insulting another commissioner using foul language on their social media?” Lago said. “Attacking me, attacking my family. We are better than that.”

Lago acknowledged that Castro eventually removed the story but argued that reposting the video in the first place effectively endorsed the message. “When you repost something, those words become yours,” he said. “You are standing behind what that person says.”

The mayor referenced the city’s civility code, which calls for respectful interactions among commissioners and with the public, and noted that the city charter allows the commission to censure its own members for misconduct. “I’m not asking for a censure,” Lago said. “It’s not worth it  it has no teeth, no bite. But if we have disagreements, let them be based on policy. Let them be based on ideas.”

Castro pushed back on the mayor’s characterization, arguing that the videos shown by the mayor did not include the full context of the exchange.

“Where is the rest of it?” Castro asked. “Where is the part where you attacked him?”

“I didn’t attack anybody,” Lago replied.

Castro maintained that she was simply reposting content created by someone else and that the remarks were not her own words.

“That was a story. Those words were not mine,” she said. “You can’t tell me what I can post or repost.”

Lago countered that reposting the video still amounted to an endorsement.

“A story versus a post — it doesn’t matter,” he said. “When you repost, you’re giving credence to what that gentleman is saying. It’s classless and undignified.”

Commissioner Richard Lara said he believed the mayor had exercised restraint by not pushing for a formal censure, though he noted that the circumstances might have justified one.

“I commend you for not reaching for a censure,” Lara said. “Although we haven’t agreed in the past, these circumstances maybe would have warranted it.”

Lara said he struggled to see any reasonable justification for sharing the video.

“I can think of no rational basis why a commissioner would put that on her social media page,” he said. “There is no defensible position you could take when all it served to do was repeat a baseless spewing of vile references to family.” Lara added that he believed Castro owed the mayor an apology.

Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson also weighed in, saying that posting or reposting remarks online carries responsibility. “When you sign off on it, you endorse it,” Anderson said. “Publication has consequences. When you publish something, you own it.”

Anderson added that public statements made in Coral Gables often follow people for years. “People who say words in our city will have those words follow them forever,” she said. “Enough has been said. Let’s try to move in a positive direction.”

Commissioner Ariel Fernandez attempted to steer the conversation away from the personal dispute and toward the broader tone of public discourse.“We need to leave politics at this table,” Fernandez said. “Politics has become all-consuming, especially on social media. Friends are no longer your friends. Even up here, our votes can turn into something personal.”

Fernandez urged his colleagues to move past the exchange. “We are the City Beautiful,” he said. “Let’s be beautiful.”

Commission silent on FIU controversy

While commissioners spent more than 17 minutes discussing Castro’s social media post, the commission did not address another controversy that erupted less than a week earlier involving Florida International University’s College Republicans group – a matter that has also touched Coral Gables.

The controversy centered on a group chat that included racist, antisemitic and misogynistic comments. One of the participants, Dariel Gonzalez, who allegedly made numerous remarks in the chat with hateful rhetoric to African Americans and Jews,  had extensive ties to the Coral Gables civic and political scene.

Gonzalez had been a consistent presence at city meetings and events over the past several years and appeared in photos posted on social media by both Lago and Lara. The commissioner removed photos that included Gonzalez after the chat messages became public. Lago, however, has not removed a November Instagram post showing him visiting and speaking to the FIU College Republicans group at the center of the controversy. The post includes a group photo with the mayor standing next to Gonzalez.

In the caption, Lago wrote: “It was inspiring to see so many students interested not just in politics, but also in serving their communities and strengthening our country. Thank you to the FIU College Republicans for inviting me. Keep standing up for your values, ask the tough questions, work hard and get involved!” The mayor’s visit occurred months before the controversy emerged.

After learning of the issue, Commissioner Fernandez sent an email to city administrators asking for them to “ensure that the individual involved is no longer associated with the City of Coral Gables in any capacity.”

According to reporting by the Miami Herald, Gonzalez was removed from a volunteer role with the city and is no longer affiliated with a Gables architecture firm where he had been working as an intern.

City spokeswoman Martha Pantin told the Herald that Gonzalez’s only formal connection to the city was as a volunteer at the city-operated Merrick House. “Effective immediately upon learning of these posts, he was removed from that role and is no longer affiliated with the Merrick House in any capacity,” Pantin said, describing the language in the chat as “heinous” and saying it “has no place in our community.”

Lago condemned the chat messages in a statement to the Herald, calling them “reprehensible” and saying racism and antisemitism have no place in public discourse. Lara similarly told the Miami New Times that the comments were “abhorrent.”

The silence at the meeting created a contrast: while commissioners debated the implications of a reposted social media video for nearly 20 minutes, the widely publicized controversy involving Gonzalez and his connections to city political circles went unmentioned from the dais.

The issue has nevertheless drawn discussion elsewhere in Coral Gables political circles.

Aesop’s Gables, an anonymous blog that has often taken positions friendly to the mayor and that Lago has used in the past to validate investigations into fellow commissioners, published an opinion piece by a nameless Gables lawyer of more than 1,800 words last week. The piece criticized Fernandez for calling for the city to take decisive action, while giving short shrift to the controversial chat itself and its connection to the city.

The blog itself said in an introductory note that its own views on the underlying controversy were “still forming,” even as the op-ed author condemned the remarks. The same site has also hosted a podcast featuring Gonzalez and his “friend” Nicolas Cabrera – another frequent participant in Coral Gables civic circles and the mayor’s appointment to the Board of Adjustment – in which Gonzalez spoke about the importance of civility in local politics.

As the blog itself acknowledges, the podcast remains available online.

Taken together, the developments underscored the broader tensions surrounding political discourse in the city, albeit with very different attention given to them at the commission meeting.