By Coral Gables Gazette staff
Barely a month after Coral Gables commissioners paused the city’s lawsuit against the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center Association, the dispute has resurfaced outside court — this time over financial transparency, public records and who owes answers to whom.
Association secretary and attorney Jane Muir sent a public email this week responding to renewed criticism from Aesop’s Gables, an anonymous blog that has been sharply critical of the association. Muir said the nonprofit has repeatedly answered questions about its finances and argued that the city, not the association, has left key questions unresolved.
The latest exchange comes despite the commission’s June decision to suspend litigation over the 1958 deed restriction until at least Dec. 1 while both sides continue discussions. The city has argued the reverter clause should be revised or removed because it does not adequately protect residents if ownership were ever to revert to the association. The association maintains the clause is the very mechanism that has protected the property as a youth center for nearly seven decades.
A paused lawsuit, but a continuing dispute
The latest dispute was sparked by an Aesop’s Gables post that renewed allegations surrounding the association’s finances and challenged Muir to personally certify that the organization’s books are free of impropriety rather than continue defending the association through legal arguments.
In her response, Muir rejected the suggestion that the association has refused to answer questions about its finances.
“A recent piece asked why the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center Association has supposedly refused to answer basic questions about its finances,” Muir wrote. “There is something ironic about an anonymous writer asking someone else to sign an attestation, especially when the Association has been answering the questions posed, in writing, with my signature, for nearly a year.”
What the association says it disclosed
Muir outlined four separate responses the association has provided to the city since August 2025, including IRS Form 990 filings, annual reports, legal documents supporting the reverter clause and subsequent correspondence responding to the city’s requests.
According to Muir, those documents showed that no board member received compensation and that the association had complied with its reporting obligations under Florida law.
Muir also wrote that the association’s April 2026 correspondence walked city officials through the nonprofit’s financial filings “line by line,” showing balances that never fell below $118,000, no liabilities and average annual expenditures of less than $4,000. Those expenditures, she wrote, were primarily for scholarships, uniforms, trophies and youth programs.
Turning the transparency question back on the city
Beyond rebutting the blog’s allegations, Muir argued that the central dispute has never been about financial transparency.
“There is a more appropriate question buried in all of this,” she wrote. “The 1958 deed does not subject the Association to the City’s oversight. It does the reverse: it conditions the City’s continued ownership of the Youth Center on the City’s compliance with the donors’ terms.”
Muir argued that because the association exists to enforce the donors’ original intent, the city is the party that owes answers. She wrote that the association submitted three public records requests to the city in January seeking documents that would clarify whether any financial or governance relationship exists between the two entities. Five months later, she wrote, those requests remain unanswered.
A dispute that predates this week’s email
The exchange follows nearly a year of conflict between the city and the nonprofit association.
While commissioners voted in June to pause litigation, the resolution also conditioned major capital improvements at the Youth Center on reaching an agreement over the reverter clause. That provision drew criticism from Commissioners Ariel Fernandez and Melissa Castro, who argued that the clause exists to ensure the property remains dedicated to serving Coral Gables youth.
The disagreement centers on the 1958 deed language that governs the War Memorial Youth Center property. The city says the clause should be updated to better protect the public interest. The association says weakening or removing the clause would undermine the very safeguard that has kept the property tied to youth use for generations.
A parallel to the dog park fight
Muir closed her response by drawing a parallel to another recent city dispute.
She noted that the commission recently removed a deed restriction on another city-owned parcel to facilitate development of the proposed University Drive dog park. In Muir’s view, that episode illustrates how deed restrictions can be altered by future commissions.
By contrast, she argued, the Youth Center’s reverter clause provides a legally enforceable safeguard that cannot be undone by a simple majority vote. That, she wrote, is why the association continues to resist efforts to weaken it.
The lawsuit may be paused until December. But the underlying dispute — over who controls the Youth Center’s future, who gets to enforce the original donors’ intent and who owes the public answers — has not gone quiet.
The land for the youth center was a gift to the City and its citizens that has benefitted all for 70 years? There is no valid reason for this commission to question the terms of the gift after all these decades. The only reason seems to be the majority of commission’s dislike of Kirk Menendez – who sits on the association but in no way controls (he is one vote of 12?). There is no basis for a law suit against the association to change the deed – and the City Attorneys office knows it. Perhaps the commission can move on to more important issues ? (Like cutting spending, as the city budget has gone from 190 million to 320 million since 2020? Or perhaps finding some of this increased budget to improve our public schools ?
As Mayor Lago says, it is “election season.” The repeated defamation by an anonymous blog is cover for Lago’s waste of City time and money pursuing political retribution against perceived enemies (i.e., Kirk Menendez). Lago and his minions (Anderson and Lara) are attacking a not-for-profit corporation that GIFTED real estate to the City 70 years ago subject to the City’s compliance with a reverter clause – maintenance and use by the City for recreation and benefit of the youth in Coral Gables under the name of the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center. Lago also stopped soccer watch parties on the plaza in front of Fritz & Franz purportedly because of “safety and noise.” Commissions over the past 24 years welcomed and encouraged these watch parties to bring the community together, generate revenue for small businesses in the City and enhance our quality of life. There are no safety or noise issues. Lago is wasting more City money to pay for watch parties at Ponce Circle Park so he can direct business to tenants at the Plaza. Lago’s major campaign contributor (Agave Holdings) owns the Plaza. Menendez is on the not-for-profit corporation’s Board, and F&F had Menendez’s campaign signs in its window. Lago is Joe Carollo (who owes $63M for his political attacks on Ball & Chain) on steroids weaponizing City resources against perceived enemies. Using an anonymous blog to direct his minions how to vote and what to say is also another Sunshine law violation by Lago per AGO 2008-07. City Attorney Suarez is employed and over-paid by the City to represent all of us. Instead, she is Lago’s Todd Blanche allowing Lago’s retribution tour to continue. Do your job or resign because Lago will not – he wants a 4-year Mayor term.
I am so darn sick of Lago with his puppets, and his vindictive, vicious, autocratic, narcissist behavior. I can not wait until I do not see you or hear your rude disrespectful voice. You are corrupt and have been proven so. YOU ARE JOE CARROLLO #2. Get out of our city so we can have our Coral Gables back again.