Joe Carollo

In 1979, Carollo was elected to the City of Miami commission at the age of 24.[5] He quickly gained a reputation for making enemies, and in 1982, the police chief Kenneth Harms sent a memo accusing Carollo of seeking political favors for Sheik Mohammed Al-Fassi, bribing the police, seeking career favors for his friends on the police force, and enforcing these demands by withholding budget funds for the police.[6]

During the mayoral election in 1983 between Maurice Ferré and Xavier Suarez, Carollo was set to endorse Ferré at a public event with the incumbent mayor. Ferré had endorsed Carollo five years earlier for his city commission seat. Instead, at the event, Carollo accused Ferré, who was Puerto Rican, of being anti-Cuban, and lambasted Ferré. Ferré won the election but this event remains a fixture in Carollo’s career in Miami politics.[7]

In 1986, as a city commissioner, Joe Carollo attacked a plan to develop Watson Island as funded by communists. The plan was backed by several conservative leaders, such as former U. S. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, conservative anti-Castro lobbyist Jorge Mas Canosa, and the Democratic then-mayor Xavier Suarez.[7]

In 1987, at a fundraiser for his mayoral re-election campaign, Suarez said of Carollo "He's really kind of an embarrassment to those people who really are fighting communism and giving their lives and their talents and their time and their money, and in the halls of the U.S. Congress, and in South America and Africa they sometimes give their lives. In fact I think he's an all-around embarrassment."[8]

Carollo lost his Miami City Commission seat by a wide margin to Victor De Yurre in 1987.[9]

Eight years later, in 1995, Joe Carollo beat Victor De Yurre to retake the same seat on the Miami City Commission he lost to De Yurre.[10]

One year later, Carollo won a special election to replace Stephen P. Clark, who died of cancer, as mayor of City of Miami.[11]

Not long after taking office, several city commissioners were arrested in a bribery sting and it came to light that the City of Miami was $68 million in debt.[12] Carollo brought in Merritt Stierheim as interim city manager to create a recovery plan. While the city faced scrutiny from Governor Lawton Chiles, reduced bond ratings from Moody, and calls to dissolve the city government, Stierheim’s plan was approved by the city commission.[13]

In 1997, with the first Strong-mayor system in the City of Miami’s history at stake, Carollo lost his re-election campaign in a runoff election to Xavier Suarez. Although Carollo alleged ballot fraud in the first voting round, Suarez took office.[14]

Carollo continued his lawsuit alleging ballot fraud in the first round of voting of the 1997 mayoral race. On March 5, 1998, Thomas S. Wilson Jr., a judge in the Florida circuit court voided the first round of the election writing "this scheme to defraud, literally and figuratively, stole the ballot from the hands of every honest voter in the city of Miami."[15]

A Miami Herald investigation of the mayoral race found that campaign workers for Xavier Suarez and city commissioner Humberto Hernandez were registering voters where they didn't live, punched absentee ballots for voters without permission, casting ballots for voters who did not vote, and signed absentee ballots as witnesses that they did not witness, including for dead people.[16]

On March 13, 1998, Joe Carollo was sworn in as Miami mayor after the 3rd District Court of Appeals threw out 5,100 fraudulent absentee ballots.[17]

Carollo's second mayorship was marked from the beginning with struggles with the City Commission. After City Commissioner Humberto Hernandez was removed from his office by Governor Lawton Chiles, Carollo fired the City Manager Jose Garcia-Pedroza, who had been appointed by his predecessor, Mayor Xavier Suarez. The City Commission voted to reinstate Garcia-Pedroza and Carollo fired him again, a back-and-forth that led to Garcia-Pedroza being fired three times before asking the City Commission to let his dismissal stand.[18]

Main page: Miami Circle

Real estate developer Michael Baumann tore down an existing apartment building in the summer of 1998 and after being pushed to do a required archaeological survey, discovered an ancient 2,000 year old, 38-foot-wide circle beneath the soil at the mouth of the Miami River. Carollo and the developer first attempted to move the site away from its historical location. [19] Carollo opposed preserving the site as it stood because of the possibility of significant tax revenue from Baumann's planned apartment building. However, Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas took up the cause of preserving the site after pressure from Native American groups, schoolchildren, archaeologists, the Smithsonian Institute, as well as international scrutiny. [20]

On Election Day, November 3 1999, Miami voters voted to fire change their system of government to a Strong-mayor model and as a result, firing city manager Donald Warshaw and forcing Joe Carollo to run for re-election the following March, effectively cutting his term in half. [21] After the election, Carollo sued to overturn the results of the election, arguing that it constitutes an illegal recall vote. [22]

The results of the election found defenders with City Commissioners Arthur Teele, Tomás Pedro Regalado, and Joe Sanchez, whose attorneys asked the Florida Supreme Court to intervene so they could begin to plan and advertise the March election. [23] When the Florida Supreme Court refused to intervene, Carollo successfully defended his seat against the election results. [24]

Main page: Elián González

In November 1999, Elián González and his mother, along with other Cuban migrants, left Cuba for the United States. While at sea, their boat failed, and most of the passengers, including González's mother, died. González and two other survivors were rescued at sea by fishermen. [25]