What voters didn't know was that Garcia, whose $167,000 home has been in foreclosure proceedings since 2009, owes more than $290,000 on the 1,136-square-foot house he shares with his wife, three kids and 10-year-old chocolate lab, Max.
Now Garcia -- who runs a marketing firm, ZMG Media Inc., from his master bedroom -- is scalping Heat tickets to apparently raise money to help pay down his debt.
"$1,800 or best offer for the pair," Garcia wrote on his Facebook wall early Tuesday morning, as he tried to scalp a pair of tickets to the Heat game. "Section 122, Row: 36, Seats 1 & 2, serious inquieries [sic] only."
To sweeten the deal, he offered to throw in a parking pass. Then he guaranteed "no one" would sit in front of the buyers, though he was not able to say where those in the other 35 rows would go.When a friend asked him to come down a little in price for the tickets, Garcia said: "Make me a deal I can't refuse."
Sounds like something his mortgage lender might ask him at his June 22nd foreclosure hearing.
Garcia did not return repeated calls seeking comment. He hung up once and did not return five text messages responded to messages seeking comment with the following text message: " I am having a hard time figuring out why you would want to write a story about such a personal family issue. My wife and I are at the brink of resolving this matter with our bank and really don't feel that anything good
could come from you doing so."
Last April, Garcia was elected mayor by 54 percent of voters in Miami Springs, a small city near Miami International Airport with a population of 13,000.
During his 2011 bid for office, signs depicting little green shade trees with the slogan "working for us" sprouted on lawns across the city as Garcia raised more than $63,000 -- the most in the city's history.
His platform: fiscal responsibility and being "green."
"My track record speaks for itself," said Garcia during his city campaign interview.
Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.
