By the Coral Gables Gazette editorial board

The Coral Gables Commission’s decision last week to override a colleague’s appointment and remove a sitting board member underscored a broader question about how trust is built in city government. Supporters of the majority see the move as restoring order by enforcing standards and demanding accountability. Others see it as another step in a winner-take-all approach that treats dissent less as contribution and more as disruption.

With a 3–1 vote, the commission majority stripped away a colleague’s appointment in a move that longtime observers could not recall happening before. Commissioner Melissa Castro, who had appointed and reappointed Sue Kawalerski, objected to the ouster. The bloc of Mayor Vince Lago, Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, and Commissioner Richard Lara prevailed, with City Manager Peter Iglesias playing an unusually central role in presenting the case for removal.

The issue is not whether a board member can be held accountable. Rules exist for that. The issue is how those rules are applied — and whether power is exercised in a way that sustains tradition, independence and civic voice.

For decades, Coral Gables commissioners honored an unwritten covenant: each respected the appointments of their colleagues. That understanding safeguarded pluralism, ensured a range of perspectives on city boards, and kept the majority from swallowing every appointment whole. Breaking that covenant sets a new precedent in which three votes can override the will of an elected colleague and remove any board member they dislike.

Commissioner Lara laid the logic bare when he said Kawalerski served at the pleasure of “the majority of this commission.” It was a telling phrase. Not the commission as a whole. Not the commissioner who appointed her. The majority.

This is the language of consolidation. It reflects a view of governance where the power to win three votes not only directs city policy but now extends to deciding who is permitted a voice on the advisory boards that shape that policy.

The majority has justified this approach by pointing to the last election. As Mayor Lago has argued, voters gave him and his allies their seats, and with them the mandate to act. “This is what the voters want,” the refrain goes.

But elections, while decisive, are not blank checks. They confer authority, but not license to dismantle traditions that ensured fairness and balance. They do not justify silencing dissent. A healthy democracy requires more than winning elections. It requires preserving the spaces where minority voices can be heard and where citizens can serve without fear of political retribution.

What happens when civic participation begins to look futile? Who will serve on boards if volunteers believe they can be removed the moment they challenge the prevailing majority? If service on city boards begins to hinge on political loyalty rather than skill and independence, Coral Gables will be poorer for it. The city needs residents willing to bring their expertise and perspective, not simply their allegiance. Advisory bodies work best when they are independent and diverse, not when they are reduced to echo chambers.

Even those who supported Kawalerski’s removal for reasons of conduct should be concerned about the precedent. Standards must be applied consistently and transparently, not redefined by whichever three commissioners hold the majority today. The majority may be comfortable now. They may not be in the future.

Equally troubling are the optics of the city manager’s role. Iglesias introduced the case against Kawalerski with a lengthy prepared statement and an 18-minute video montage. A city manager is the professional administrator of Coral Gables, not the political arbiter of who may sit on a commission-appointed board. Even if Iglesias believed he was protecting decorum, the appearance of an unelected executive driving the removal of a citizen volunteer sets the wrong tone for civic governance.

The commission should ask itself whether this is the image Coral Gables wants to project in its centennial year: a City Beautiful that values control over conversation, consolidation over participation. The city has long been proud of its boards and the residents who give their time to serve on them. That tradition is worth protecting.

What is needed now is not more purges or tests of loyalty. What is needed is a recommitment to the balance that has kept civic life (mostly) healthy for a century. That means respecting colleagues’ appointments even when disagreements are sharp. It means recognizing that residents who serve on boards do so out of commitment to the city, not out of loyalty to a majority bloc. And it means remembering that governing Coral Gables requires both power and restraint.

The commission had the authority to remove Sue Kawalerski. But authority is not the same as wisdom. A majority vote is not a blank check. In choosing winner-take-all governance, the commission risks losing something more valuable than control: the trust of the community it serves.