Miami commission’s vote to oust city attorney ends in near-brawl

In a vote that almost ended in a brawl between Commissioner Joe Carollo and newly elected colleague Miguel Gabela, the Miami City Commission voted Thursday to extend City Attorney Victoria Méndez’s contract for just five months, allowing her to stay on until she is eligible to collect her pension.

The vote was in response to calls for Méndez’s resignation from Gabela and community activists following a year in which multiple elected officials were entangled in ethical and legal scandals, and when Méndez herself was embroiled in a scandal of her own. She and her husband are being sued for allegedly targeting the homes of vulnerable people to flip for a profit.

But the vote also brought bubbling tensions between two factions on the commission to the surface following the November election in which two anti-corruption candidates — Gabela and Damian Pardo — defeated incumbents.

The altercation began after the vote concluded, when Gabela interrupted an emotional farewell speech from Carollo to Méndez, repeatedly telling Carollo “you are a liar.” Carollo then called Gabela a “spoiled little man.” After that, Gabela promptly stood up from his seat and made a bee-line to Carollo. A staff member quickly intervened before they could make physical contact.

When a reporter approached Gabela after the meeting to ask whether the commissioner intended to have an actual fight with Carollo in the commission chambers, Gabela said he was provoked and standing up to a bully.

“I’m just saying, ‘ look man, if you want to have a fight outside, I’ll go outside with you,’ ” Gabela said, adding that Carollo is a “bully” who “doesn’t like losing, and he’s lost control of this commission.”

Carollo told reporters that when Gabela approached him, his plan was to defend himself, but not to initiate physical contact.

“If Mr. Gabela would have made it all the way here and he would have attacked me like he was going to,” Carollo said, “you bet your heart but I was going to defend myself.”

Méndez out in June

The commission is required to renew the city attorney’s contract on an annual basis. However, deciding to extend her contract just five months can be viewed as tantamount to a termination.

“I wasn’t voting to terminate our city attorney but this seems to accomplish that in five months,” said King after voting yes on the truncated contract.

The vote was 3-2 for the truncated contract. Gabela and Pardo voted against, with Gabela saying his hope was for Méndez to resign immediately.

Carollo, on the other hand, spoke positively about her. Before the near brawl began, he told her that “God has mysterious ways of working.”

“I don’t think the city attorney has done anything wrong not to have extended her contract further,” Carollo said to reporters after the meeting.

Méndez’s contract will now expire in June. She becomes eligible for her pension on April 21, according to the city’s pension administrator. Her projected benefit will be capped at $8,333.33 per month, the administrator said.

Méndez controversy

Méndez and her husband, Carlos Morales, are defendants in a lawsuit filed this past March by a man claiming they schemed to make money off his Little Havana home by purchasing it for below market value, getting $271,250 in code enforcement fines wiped out by the city and then flipping the home for profit.

Méndez has called the allegations “patently false” and denied claims in the suit that she directed the plaintiff, Jose Alvarez, to work with her husband’s business, Express Homes.

She has sought to tie the lawsuit’s motivations to other litigation against the city, including a suit by the owners of the Ball & Chain nightclub that resulted in a $63.5 million verdict against Carollo last summer. Plaintiffs in both cases are represented by a common attorney, Jeff Gutchess.

“They have tried to bully me into submission in order to not continue to do my job as the city attorney,” Méndez said in a statement last year. “I have never seen such an intentional scheme to thwart justice.”

Morales’ company, Express Homes, came under scrutiny just days before the lawsuit was filed last March for allegedly buying homes overseen by Miami-Dade County’s Guardianship Program — a nonprofit that looks after the assets of people who can’t care for themselves — and then selling them for financial gain.

The Guardianship Program did business with Morales’ company 14 times over 12 years, WLRN found, and had six-figure code fines removed by the Miami Code Enforcement Board on multiple occasions.

Morales has said everything was “completely above board” and denied getting any special treatment from the city due to his wife’s role. Testifying last month at a hearing in the lawsuit against him and Méndez , Morales said Méndez had never promised him favors from city code officials.

“Never ever,” Morales said.