Year In Review 2008

The fallout of recently released secret recordings of top Coral Gables officials continues as City Attorney Elizabeth Hernandez is now under investigation by the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust.

A piece of Coral Gables history died on Oct. 22, when employees of the city’s Public Service Department chopped down a massive, 88-year old, Brazilian Bay Leaf tree at Merrick Park just south of City Hall.

Discussion on two possible charter change questions to be put before voters at the Oct. 28 City Commission meeting led to talk of two more possible charter changes in the upcoming spring 2009 elections, meaning that there could be as much as five questions for the electorate to decide.

As expected, a City Commission workshop held Oct. 28 to try and determine how best to go about finding a successor to embattled City Manager David Brown – who announced his retirement effective Jan. 31, 2009 – inflamed passions and disagreement among commissioners, but in the end they agreed to go out and hire a professional search firm to find the best possible candidates.

NOVEMBER: The city’s pension managers said that the fund has shrunk by 10.2 percent so in the year. As of Sept. 30, the fund had a value of just under $221 million.

Assistant City Manager Maria Alberro Jimenez was promoted to interim city manager when the commission convened a special meeting on Thursday, Nov. 6. Alberro Jimenez was the candidate of choice for Mayor Don Slesnick, Vice Mayor Bill Kerdyk and Commissioner Ralph Cabrera.         

Reverting to her pre-David Brown ways, Commissioner Maria Anderson kicked off a new era at Coral Gables City Hall by calling for more financial accountability and checks and balances among the top tier of administrators in the city at the Nov. 18 meeting.

The Coral Gables Commission selected Colin Baenziger & Associates as the search firm charged with helping the City of Coral Gables find its new top administrator.

Three hundred and ninety-three Coral Gables city employees, almost half of the municipal workforce, became members of one of the most powerful unions in the nation – the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, with more than 1.4 million members in North America.

Jimenez was on the job for less than two weeks, before she did enough to convince usually miserly City Commissioners that she was due a 10 percent raise.

The Coral Gables Building and Zoning Department is in danger of losing its last vestige of prestige as the Insurance Services Office, Inc., better known as the ISO, has warned the city that it plans to lower its Building Department rating. What effects that could have on residents are still uncertain.

The Village of Merrick Park threatened to become the biggest white elephant in Coral Gables with news that General Growth Properties, Inc., owner of the Village of Merrick Park and 4 other malls in South Florida, was facing bankruptcy in upcoming months. Commissioners discussed the situation at their Nov. 18 meeting.

Tough economic times or not, the Coral Gables Commission voiced strong sentiment that it would not support the demolition of a historic apartment building at 111 Salamanca Avenue because it was difficult to maintain profitable.

December: The Coral Gables General Employee Association (CGEA) became the latest and last of the city’s three to challenge city officials on wage issues in recent years and, as has happened twice before, it ended up winning its case.

Coral Gables Commissioners were briefed over a possible settlement with former Building and Zoning Director Margaret Pass.

The commission may have grudgingly approved the contract for an executive search company to look for the city’s next city manager earlier in the year, but the issue was far from over when Danilo Benedit, the city’s procurement supervisor, objected to the process by which the city awarded the contract and said his responsibilities were usurped.

Gonzalo Sanabria, 61, a real estate investor with a background in economics, announced that he would join incumbent Commissioner Maria Anderson and challenger Omar Pasalodos in a battle for the group 3 spot in the spring 2009 elections.