Activists deliver petitions to recall Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago

An effort to recall the Coral Gables mayor took one major step Friday.

Resident Maria Cruz, along with attorney David Winker, walked inside City Hall and delivered a box filled with petitions.

“Coral Gables is the city I love and I can not stand to see what he’s done here,” Cruz said of Mayor Vince Lago.

He has made the city a laughing stock, she added outside City Hall.

Cruz, who is the chair of the recall committee, told NBC6 they collected close to 1,700 signatures, about 100 more than what was required.

Cruz said they needed 1,649 or 5% of the total registered voters in the last election, which was about 33,000, she said.

In the petition, those behind the recall allege Lago “financially benefitted from a 2022 lease of real estate developer, Rishi Kapoor, when the said company had pending projects that were before the City Commission in Coral Gables.”

“It’s really bad. It’s really bad," Cruz said. "You talk to people and the first thing they tell you is I’m afraid. The mayor is a bully."

Lago wouldn’t go on camera when NBC6 went to his office but said he would release a statement.

"…this municipal recall effort is being pursued by special interests who want to control the future of our city. These pay-to-play interests are falsely portraying the recall as a resident-driven process, but the reality is far from that," his statement said in part. "Our residents were misled and deceived by illegally paid canvassers who used questionable tactics, false narratives, and outright defamatory accusations against our elected officials and me in particular. This manipulation of residents undermines the integrity of the entire process.”

Lago alleges there is dark money behind the recall effort from out-of-town developers. The mayor did not provide any proof.

“The mayor who is not a strong mayor thinks that he’s so powerful he can get everybody to do his calling,” Cruz said.

“Residents were fed up with reading in the paper about their mayor doing deals that they didn’t think their mayor should be doing with people that they did not feel the mayor should be doing business with,” said Winker, attorney for the political action committee, End the Corruption.

The petitions will be verified at the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections office. Once they’re verified, those behind the recall effort said the mayor will have to answer to the charges.

Residents will then have to collect twice the number of signatures and Coral Gables could subsequently hold an election to recall the mayor.