By Coral Gables Gazette staff

In the two weeks after Coral Gables’ first November ballot took shape, a political committee tied to Mayor Vince Lago collected $134,500 — nearly all of it in four days, and much of it from development, construction and land-use interests with projects, clients or development-related business before the city, including two donors whose affiliated projects or agreements appeared on last week’s City Commission agenda.

The surge into Coral Gables First, detailed in campaign finance reports filed with the Florida Division of Elections, followed months in which the committee raised nothing at all. It spent through the spring instead, financing a “Vote YES on All 8” campaign for the April charter amendments. Then, beginning the day after the candidate field for November closed, the money arrived.

Nothing in the campaign-finance reports indicates illegality; Florida political committees may accept contributions larger than the limits that apply directly to candidate campaigns, including from corporations and from donors with business before local governments.

The money followed the calendar

The committee’s three most recent reports trace a precise sequence. From April 1 through May 31, the period covering the April 21 mail-only charter election, Coral Gables First reported zero dollars in contributions and $17,153.85 in spending. The largest payment, $13,060.93, went to Big Tuesday Media, led by Jorge Bustamante, on April 22, the day after ballots were due, for websites, domains, video, SMS outreach and advertising. During that election, the committee sent voters emails urging them to approve all eight charter amendments, directing readers to gables2026.com and warning that “this is not the time to protect the status quo.” Each carried the disclaimer “Pd. pol. adv. paid for by Coral Gables First.”

From June 1 through June 12, the committee reported a single contribution: $10,000 on June 8 from 1500 Park Ventures, an entity registered to the Brickell Avenue office suite of Multiplan Real Estate Asset Management, the firm of Brazilian billionaire José Isaac Peres that is planning its first Coral Gables condominium project on a $31.8 million assemblage at 1500 Monza Avenue. The qualifying period for the November election closed on June 12, setting a field of seven candidates across three races. Lago drew two challengers, Laureano Cancio and Jackson Rip Holmes, both perennial candidates.

Then came the surge. Between June 13 and June 26, the committee reported $134,500 in contributions — every dollar of it dated June 23 through June 26. It spent $21,877.20 in the same period, including $20,235.10 more to Big Tuesday Media for political consulting, digital media, outreach, digital video and email marketing.

In all, across the three reports, the committee raised $144,500 and spent $39,031.05. Since its creation, Coral Gables First has raised about $2.28 million and spent about $2.11 million, leaving roughly $164,600 on hand as of June 26.

Who gave

The donor list includes several development, construction, legal and land-use interests with business in, or before, Coral Gables.

Ponce Park Residences, LLC, the Allen Morris Company entity developing the Ponce Park condominium tower at 3000 Ponce de Leon Boulevard, gave $25,000 on June 25 from the firm’s headquarters in Alhambra Towers. Twelve days later, commissioners voted 5-0 to amend that same entity’s agreement with the city over the redesign of Fred B. Hartnett Ponce Circle Park. The amendment increased the project’s total cost to $11.2 million from $8.9 million, raised the city’s contribution by $2.9 million to $8.2 million, and raised the developer’s own contribution by $1 million to $3 million.

Steven Fifield, the Chicago-based developer whose firm is seeking approval for the contested Crystal Residences project at 110 Phoenetia Avenue, gave $10,000 personally on June 25. Twelve days later, Mayor Lago, Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and Commissioner Richard Lara voted to approve the project’s land-use change, rezoning and Planned Area Development on first reading, over objections from Commissioners Castro and Fernandez.

Winmar Construction, the general contractor that built Villa Valencia on Valencia Avenue and is building The Avenue hotel and residences across from Merrick Park, gave $25,000 on June 23.

A cluster of four out-of-state car dealerships — Mercedes-Benz of Brooklyn, Land Rover/Jaguar Brooklyn, JLR Long Island and Mercedes-Benz of Caldwell — each gave $5,000 on June 23, the same day as a $5,000 contribution from the Coral Gables-addressed law firm of Manuel Kadre. Kadre, an attorney, is chief executive of MBB Auto, which acquired the Mercedes-Benz of Brooklyn dealership in 2013 with partners including Armando Codina, the prominent developer whose firm is headquartered in Coral Gables; an endowed chair in neurological surgery at the University of Miami’s medical school carries both families’ names. Together, the dealership network and Kadre’s firm account for $25,000 given in a single day.

Kadre also chairs the University of Miami’s Board of Trustees and sits on the University of Miami Health System’s board of directors. The university, whose main campus lies within Coral Gables, is seeking sweeping amendments to its development agreement with the city that would permit hospital use on campus, expand allowable building area, and includes a proposed transfer of development rights involving university-owned green space at Granada and Ponce de Leon boulevards. The plan went before the city’s Development Review Committee in late June and ultimately requires City Commission approval.

That pending hospital-use request bears on another PAC donor. Sid Perkins, an energy broker who founded Snapper Creek Energy, gave $25,000 on June 25. He chairs the Foundation council for Baptist Health’s Doctors Hospital, located next to the University of Miami campus, and for Baptist Health Orthopedic Care, and sits on the Doctors Hospital Operating Board and the Baptist Health Foundation’s Executive Committee. Perkins and his wife, Ashley, recently donated $1 million to Baptist Health Foundation to support renovation of Doctors Hospital’s surgical facilities, a gift the foundation said would be recognized with a naming. Doctors Hospital has reason for concern about the university’s hospital-use request: a competing hospital on the UM campus would sit near its own doorstep. No matter involving Perkins or Doctors Hospital was found on the City Commission’s own agenda, and his role, if any, in the university’s approval process could not be determined from public records.

Two limited liability companies sharing a single Coral Gables office suite — River Rapids Partners II and Delaware Parkway Partners, both at 1550 Madruga Avenue, Suite 502 — gave $2,500 each on June 26. That suite is the headquarters of ROVR Development, the Coral Gables firm led by Oscar Rodriguez and Ricardo Vadia, and the entity names match ROVR’s River Rapids apartment project on the Miami River and its Delaware Parkway expansion site. The same day, A+ Mini Storage, the company that sold ROVR both of those development sites, gave $2,500.

The June 26 contributions also included $2,000 from Iris Escarra, a land-use attorney who practices before South Florida governments, and $1,000 from Robert Behar, co-founder of Behar Font & Partners, the Coral Gables architecture firm whose current projects include the nine-story 301 Madeira residential building under construction in the city and the Cassia Residences project near Merrick Park. Additional checks came from Modis Architects, a law firm and other development entities.

One donor’s identity resolves to a name well known in Miami-Dade transit circles. R.G. Business, Inc., which gave $5,000 on June 23, lists Rene and Raymond Gonzalez as managers in state records; the brothers are also, respectively, vice president and president of Transportation America, Inc., according to its own state filings, which share R.G. Business’s Miami address. Transportation America and its affiliate, Limousines of South Florida, hold a roughly $260 million, five-year Miami-Dade County paratransit contract, additional county bus routes, an exclusive Miami International Airport shuttle agreement and a City of Miami trolley contract, and report about $92 million in combined annual revenue. According to published reports, the Gonzalez brothers, through dozens of affiliated companies, have given several hundred thousand dollars to Miami-Dade and City of Miami officials. No direct contract between the Gonzalez companies and the City of Coral Gables was found in public records; a Coral Gables active-contracts list identifies a different company, Hometown Trolley, Inc., in connection with the city’s own trolley service.

The Lago connections, in the committee’s own records

Coral Gables First’s ties to the mayor appear in its own filings and communications. The committee’s expenditure report shows a $1,000 contribution on May 27 to the Vince Lago Campaign, listed at 4914 SW 72nd Avenue — the same address that appears as Coral Gables First’s own mailing address in the footer of its charter-election emails. The committee also gave $1,000 on May 6 to the state House campaign of Frank Lago, a real estate consultant and urban planner who chairs the Miami-Dade County Planning Advisory Board and is one of three Republicans seeking the vacant District 113 seat, whose boundaries include parts of Coral Gables. The committee gave $500 to $1,000 each to three candidates for Doral and Miami-Dade offices.