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BEST POLITICAL COMEBACK

Justice Leslie Rothenberg

BEST POLITICAL COMEBACK Justice Leslie Rothenberg Third District Court of Appeal Talk about comebacks! Rothenberg keeps popping up in the most influential places, defying all expectations and, some would say, reason. First she quit her job as a circuit court judge to run for state attorney. (Her tenure on the circuit court had its fair share of controversies; she had to recuse herself several times for displaying bias against defendants.) While campaigning for state attorney, she snuggled up to the Christian Family Coalition by publicly vowing to oppose while in office most anything that aided or abetted homosexuality. But alas, she was trounced in the Republican primary and limped off to the private sector. But wait! Gov. Jeb Bush himself plucked her from her ignoble fate as a private lawyer and whisked her up to even greater heights by appointing her to fill a vacancy on the Third District Court of Appeal. Her openly anti-gay position could prove troublesome as issues related to sexual orientation make their way through the court system, a prospect that apparently didn't faze the guv.

BEST POLITICAL CONVICTIONS OF THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS

Jacques Evens Thermilus and Richard Caride

BEST POLITICAL CONVICTIONS OF THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS Jacques Evens Thermilus and Richard Caride It didn't start out as a political case. It began as an inquiry into a simple heist -- albeit a long-running one. For years employees of private companies that work at Miami International Airport were stealing the valuable jet fuel by the truckload. When a multiagency team of investigators cracked the case, though, they uncovered a hive of politically connected companies and individuals fraudulently billing the airport for work that was either never done or vastly overpriced. As a result, several defendants pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the State Attorney's Office. Jacques Evens Thermilus took a plea and led investigators to a similar scheme he was working with Miami City Commissioner Arthur Teele, who was then arrested. Another MIA defendant, Richard Caride, pleaded guilty and told investigators about scheming with businessman Antonio Junior to defraud the airport, and also about Junior's close ties to county Commissioner Barbara Carey-Shuler. Consequently authorities have opened another investigation.

BEST POLITICAL COUP

Carlos Alvarez

BEST POLITICAL COUP Carlos Alvarez In late July 2003, when the director of Miami-Dade's police department entered the race to become the county's second executive mayor, no one gave him a chance against the other political war dogs in the contest. Many saw Alvarez as a fifth-place finisher behind José Cancela, Maurice Ferré, Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, and Jimmy Morales. Yet Alvarez's grassroots campaign, supported by the state's largest police union and enabled by public campaign funds, inflicted serious damage on the well-oiled electoral machines operating in 2004. He obliterated Cancela, Ferré, and Diaz de la Portilla in the August primary. November 4 he clobbered Morales with a margin of nine points. His success could encourage other outsiders to take aim at one of the most entrenched political institutions the world has ever seen -- the Miami-Dade County Commission.

BEST POLITICAL MISCALCULATION

José Cancela

BEST POLITICAL MISCALCULATION José Cancela Despite a rave endorsement from the Miami Herald touting his candidacy for Miami-Dade County mayor, Cancela tanked in the August 31 first round of voting. But on the way down he pumped a lot of good money into the local political economy. The former head of Radio Unica (a Spanish-language radio network that also tanked) and darling of the chamber-of-commerce crowd came in fifth place, about 9000 votes behind fourth-place finisher Miguel Diaz de la Portilla and just 45,000 votes behind the victor, Carlos Alvarez. Cancela, however, ended up at the top of the heap in fundraising and campaign spending -- nearly two million dollars. The political pork helped sustain a host of needy pollsters, strategists, composers of radio jingles, creators of political advertisements, media outlets, and many more. Cancela also showed heart and loyalty by sending a big chunk of his campaign change to the Herald -- even before the endorsement -- for a barrage of very well-placed ads. In the proud tradition of also-rans, he also infused the campaign discourse with radical, even noble, ideas other candidates dared not raise, such as his solemn pledge to synchronize traffic lights. Conspiracy theorists imagined that Cancela's ill-conceived bid served a hidden agenda: siphoning enough votes from contenders Diaz de la Portilla and Maurice Ferré to keep them out of the runoff. If so, it was one very expensive agenda.

BEST POWER FAMILY

Los Valdes-Fauli

BEST POWER FAMILY Los Valdes-Fauli When Raul Ernesto Valdes-Fauli died in 2003 at age 84, evidence of success in this life wasn't measured by the prominence and prosperity he had achieved as a former lawyer who represented banking and sugar interests in pre-Castro Cuba. (He was very prominent and prosperous.) No, it was the prominence and prosperity his children had gone on to achieve. The siblings didn't just sit on their trust funds; they clambered to the top of a variety of fields, mainly leaning toward endeavors connected to money and power. Son Raul J. is the former mayor of Coral Gables and now an attorney at Steel Hector & Davis. Another son, José, is Colonial Bank's South Florida regional president. A third son, Gonzalo, is a director at Knight Ridder who formerly headed Latin American operations for the Barclays banking organization. Daughter Teresa Weintraub is president of Fiduciary Trust International of the South.

BEST PROMOTER OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Mary Luft

BEST PROMOTER OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY Mary Luft Tigertail Productions

842 NW Ninth Court

Miami

305-324-4337

www.tigertail.org Mary Luft is Tigertail Productions, and this year Tigertail is celebrating 25 years of continuous operation. In this town, that's epochal. As if mere survival weren't enough, Luft has led the way in presenting the contemporary arts to a town that even today barely appreciates them. But for her success has never been a function of mass appeal. Her own mission statement says it best: "Founded in Miami in 1979, Tigertail Productions is Florida's pioneer of innovative art. Tigertail is a catalyst and connector, putting in motion dynamic people and provocative projects in the performing, literary, and visual arts. Tigertail projects reflect the socio-economic range, diversity, and profile of Miami-Dade. Our focus is on the new -- art of our time that reflects current directions and thinking." From the ten-year-old FLA/BRA festival (which brings to Miami the best of Brazil's performance artists) to dance companies from all over the globe to unique musical collaborations (like the recent Nervous City Orchestra led by sound artist Livio Tragtenberg) to anthologies of Miami poets to programs that introduce inner-city kids to artistic expression and others that subsidize the work of Miami artists -- Mary Luft has achieved icon status for her unflagging efforts to bring us aesthetic endeavors of the highest caliber.

BEST PUBLIC MELTDOWN

Miami City Commissioner Jeffery Allen

BEST PUBLIC MELTDOWN Miami City Commissioner Jeffery Allen Public service is not rocket science. Once in office, you meet with constituents, declaim on their behalf, avoid prostitutes and smoking crack with undercover cops, and chances are you'll do okay. It's also not a bad idea to speak cordially with the press and to avoid brawls. So what does Commissioner Jeffery Allen do after about three months in office? He has a chest-butting match with his chief of staff right in front of city hall, in plain view of several observers. The aide, Milton Vickers, warned he would press charges if Allen touched him, and taking the high road, the commissioner threatened to do the same, according to witnesses. At a community meeting the next morning, Allen moved quickly to modify his hothead image. When a reporter asked about him the fracas, the commissioner spun around and called her "libelous" and "slanderous," loudly announced that his entire staff was now banned from speaking with her, and then stomped off.

BEST PUBLIC RESTROOM

Village of Merrick Park

BEST PUBLIC RESTROOM Village of Merrick Park 358 San Lorenzo Avenue

Coral Gables

305-529-0200 If you were to think about it, you'd expect the cleanest, least claustrophobic, most hantavirus-free public restroom to be at the Village of Merrick Park in Coral Gables, along with Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and the Donald J. Pliner store. And it is.

BEST PUBLIC-WORKS PROJECT

Bicentennial Park seawall

BEST PUBLIC-WORKS PROJECT Bicentennial Park seawall This ten-million-dollar state-of-the-art bulwark is the first sign of real progress toward a future bayfront walkway for downtown Miami. The construction itself is notable for its quality. The seawall's steel casing is a high-grade, coated variety imported from Europe and known as sheet piling, which the contractor, Shoreline Foundation, Inc., is driving into the bay bottom for that sharp, squared-off, 90-degree-angle look. "It's the most impressive seawall you'll ever see. It's going to transform that whole area," says Robert Weinreb, the City of Miami's project director for Bicentennial Park. Portions of the existing barrier were 50 years old, which is about as long as it's been since a major public-works project in Miami was under budget and ahead of schedule like this one. (Funds are federal, state, and local.) The new seawall is the first in a series of improvements that are scheduled to include a sophisticated reworking of the long-neglected park and an expansive baywalk winding southward to the Miami River.

BEST REAL-ESTATE APPRECIATION

Aventura

BEST REAL-ESTATE APPRECIATION Aventura With all the hype over the forest of condo developments sprouting in downtown Miami, the Design District, and Miami Beach, it's important not to lose sight of reality -- especially if you're one of the many hopefuls mortgaging your future in the name of quick profits. According to a Wall Street Journal study, 2004's greatest real-estate appreciation in the entire Southeast was (drum roll, please) zip code 33180 -- Aventura -- where the median home sale price was $445,500. That's a one-year increase of 23.6 percent and a five-year increase of 112.5 percent. Of course you'd never know this from our local media coverage, in which the decidedly unsexy Aventura finds itself overshadowed by the hype for buzz-laden new projects to its south. Let the buyer beware.

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