By Coral Gables Gazette staff

Mayor Vince Lago declined to recuse himself and voted June 2 in favor of a variance appeal involving the Coral Gables home of Brian Goldmeier, a longtime political consultant and fundraiser whose property was listed for $3.85 million and under contract to sell.

The 3-2 vote affirmed a variance allowing pool equipment at 722 Aledo Avenue to remain inside the required setbacks, while removing a covenant the Board of Adjustment had imposed to require future owners to maintain an acoustical cover. City staff had recommended denying the variance.

Before the vote, a resident asked Lago to recuse himself because of his political and past business relationship with Goldmeier. Lago declined after City Attorney Cristina Suárez orally summarized her advice that, based on facts the mayor supplied, he had no actual voting conflict under state law or the Miami-Dade County ethics code.

What the vote changed

The equipment serving the home’s pool, spa, waterfall and saltwater system sits roughly one foot nine inches from the side property line and two feet seven inches from the rear, where the zoning code requires five feet on both sides. A variance is permission the city may grant when strict application of the code would impose a unique hardship, weighed against eight standards written into the code. It is not a right, and city staff, after reviewing the request, recommended denial.

The Board of Adjustment approved it 5-1 on May 4 with two conditions: an acoustical cover to reduce the equipment’s sound by half, and a covenant running with the land that would bind every future owner to maintain it. The owner, through attorney Jeff Rodriguez of the law firm Quesada Valdes Rodriguez PLLC, appealed, asking the commission to keep the variance but remove the conditions, particularly the covenant.

The financial stakes of that appeal were stated on the record by Deputy City Attorney Stephanie Throckmorton, who told the board on May 4 that the property was under contract and the variance was the item holding up the deal. The owner, she said, would either “have to defer a potential closing or close with the open permit, holding back monies in escrow.”

Resident asks mayor to recuse himself

Before the commission voted, a resident asked Lago to recuse himself, pointing to the mayor’s own public record as an advocate for transparency and for a city inspector general, and to the sums Goldmeier’s firm had earned from the mayor’s political operation. She placed that figure at roughly a quarter of a million dollars since 2024 and acknowledged there was nothing illegal in a successful business relationship. Her concern, she said, was whether an ordinary resident could be confident the mayor would weigh the appeal free of the pull of a long and close association.

Those figures, and the records behind them, come from the resident’s public comment and from a packet that a group of residents hand-delivered to the City Attorney’s Office days before the meeting. The Gazette has not independently verified the amounts and reports them as claims presented to the commission.

City attorney summarizes conflict advice

Lago said he had sought guidance from Suárez and asked her to summarize it for the record. Suárez told the commission that Lago previously had a contractual relationship with an entity owned by Goldmeier, but that Lago advised her the contract had concluded and that he had no current contractual agreement or business relationship with Goldmeier or any associated entity. Based on those facts, she said, “there’s no actual voting conflict under state law, there’s no actual voting conflict under the Miami-Dade County code.” Any benefit to the mayor from the vote, she added, would be “remote or speculative.”

Suárez also reminded commissioners that, because the appeal was quasi-judicial, each official had to determine whether he or she could remain fair and impartial. “If you can remain fair and impartial then you can proceed,” she said.

That distinction became central because Suárez’s summary was based on Lago’s representation that the contractual relationship had ended, and the record does not establish when it ended. Under the county ethics code, Section 2-11.1(d), municipal officials with a voting conflict must leave the room during discussion and abstain from the vote; whether the provision applies depends on the precise facts of the relationship.

“I do not have a bias on this matter and I will not be recusing myself,” Lago said, before casting his vote.

Political ties become part of the debate

Goldmeier’s political work also intersected with another member of the commission majority.As the Gazette reported in July 2025, Goldmeier’s firm, BYG Strategies, was paid by Coral Gables First, the political committee aligned with the mayor, and that committee played a prominent role both in Lago’s re-election and in the successful campaign of Commissioner Richard Lara, who cast one of the three votes that affirmed the variance. The committee’s role does not establish that either official acted improperly, but it places the vote in the context of Goldmeier’s prior political work.

The same address had already raised an impartiality question one level below. At the May 4 Board of Adjustment hearing, Chairperson Nicolas Cabrera volunteered, before any testimony, that questions had been raised about his ties to the owners. “I do not work for the homeowners on Aledo. I have never been financially compensated by the homeowners on Aledo,” he said, adding that he would decide the matter impartially. A board member, Eugene Wolman, separately disclosed a phone call from a longtime friend that had turned to the Aledo item, saying it would not shape his judgment.

Residents challenge the variance request

The owner’s case rested on the argument that moving the equipment into compliance would impose a hardship out of proportion to any public benefit. Residents disputed that argument, pointing in part to the property’s renovation and sales listing.

The home, purchased for $2.2 million in 2022, is now listed at $3.85 million and was marked pending on Realtor.com as of publication. The listing describes a new fully automated saltwater pool with glass mosaic tile, a heater, an integrated spa and a rock waterfall, and states that the residence was remodeled with no expense spared. Danielle Frontella, who lives at 715 Escobar Avenue, told the commission that the engineer’s original permit plan had shown the equipment relocated to comply, and that the owner had chosen not to follow it. “Do some residents have to follow the rules while others can ignore them and seek a variance afterwards?” she asked.

She and her neighbor, Virginia Ferrara, who has lived behind the property at 719 Escobar Avenue for more than 30 years, asked the commission to deny the variance. At the board hearing a month earlier, Ferrara had described first noticing the equipment only recently, when “this horrible noise disrupted our backyard.” A third resident, Albert Sanchez of 619 Camilo Avenue, told the commission, “I view our zoning code as the DNA of our city,” and urged it to uphold the staff recommendation of denial.

Rodriguez countered that the equipment predated his client’s purchase, had never drawn a noise citation, and was not shown by any decibel reading in the record to exceed the city’s noise limits. Moving it two feet, he argued, would do nothing measurable for the neighbors while imposing real cost on the owner.

Commission splits 3-2

The discussion returned repeatedly to a gap in the record: no sound measurement appeared in the record, leaving the noise question undocumented. The code already limits mechanical noise at the property line, generally 10 decibels above ambient or a maximum of 60 by day, and a stricter 5 above ambient or 55 overnight, enforceable against any resident through code enforcement.

The lone dissenter at the board level had warned that the conditions strayed from the board’s authority. “There is no hardship here,” board member Javier Salman said on May 4, adding that “what we’re doing is actually outside the purview of this board.”

At the commission, Commissioner Melissa Castro moved to affirm the board’s decision in full, arguing a covenant was the only way to guarantee the cover would survive a change of ownership. Commissioner Ariel Fernandez backed her, citing the incoming buyer’s stated reluctance to maintain it. Their motion failed, 2-3. Lara then moved to affirm the variance but strip the covenant, leaving the cover as an option a future owner could use to meet the existing limits. Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, who described the dispute as a matter of substance over appearance given the absent sound data, joined him. The motion carried 3-2, with Lago, Anderson and Lara in the majority and Castro and Fernandez opposed.