Recall drive to oust Joe Carollo has begun

District 3 commissioner Joe Carollo

Former Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chair Juan Cuba and a group of local activists have started a petition drive which asks for the removal of City Commissioner Joe Carollo, who has been offending people since he was City of Miami Mayor in the 1990s. Cuba filed paperwork Thursday. Their political committee "Take Back Our City" hopes to do just that.

The group claims he has abused his power as commissioner and broken laws in the process, committing "misfeasance and malfeasance." Each City Commission meeting turns in to a circus. Rather than get any work done, the commission is too busy fussing and fighting. Earlier this month a meeting as adjourned over silly in-fighting, over nothing really. The whole agenda was scrapped until a future meeting.

He and some others have no respect for people who show up, missing work and school, to participate at the meetings, only to be fed up and left with nothing but a wasted day.

A group of local people in District 3 will go door to door with the petition, hoping to get enough signatures to start the recall. They need 5% of registered voters to sign the petition within 30 days, that comes to about 1500 signatures out of a district of 31,500 voters. That shouldn't be difficult.

It's a long process. If they receive the required signatures, Carollo would be allowed to write a 200-word rebuttal and then the recall people would have to get more petition signatures - this time 15% of the District 3 voters, which is about 4700 signatures. If they receive those signatures, it would got to a recall election or Carollo could resign, which seems highly unlikely knowing his personality.

The group is following state law regarding recalls, as the city does not have a law for that.