Remarks by Vince C. Lago
518 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 8 of 21
- Play at 9:25:45
“I know it's not necessary, but at the end of the day, more than well deserved.”
City Commission · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 9:27:38
“Of course, yes. Don't forget the Kikoris family. It is a few blocks away from my house. You have David Lawrence, obviously, Kurdike, Kikoris family. Mayor Thompson, Mayor Thompson, David Lawrence, wonderful people who are pillars of the community. You deserve to be in that same breath for all the hard work that you've done. It's approved. Yes, sir.”
City Commission · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 9:28:05
“You know what I can say about that? Don't believe what you read on the blogs. Don't believe it. Madam Vice Mayor.”
City Commission · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 9:31:13
“I love it. One final thing that maybe people didn't realize it because obviously we're in the middle of commission today. We have a distinct honor that God willing, if he is elected, we'll have another South Florida individual as Lieutenant Governor, Senator Brian Avila, which is my dear friend. When he was a state representative, even before he was elected, we knew each other. He was selected by Byron Donalds as his running mate in the November election for governor. He's running for Lieutenant Governor. He is an incredibly accomplished individual who has served this great country in the…”
City Commission · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 9:33:15
“Aye. Thank you. Let's reopen the meeting.”
City Commission · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 9:34:34
“Okay. So are we still are we still on or no? We're done. We adjourned. Yes. Perfect. Um, for the next meeting, I had an item that I wanted to show. Now I'll showcase it after the videos that we sent you.”
City Commission · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 19:17
“Are we on? Ready to go. Now we are. First and foremost, good morning, and I welcome everyone to the Wednesday, July 8th budget estimate review, our first opportunity to really get an understanding of what next year is going to look like. I want to thank the manager off the bat and his incredible staff for working on this over the last few months. I know it's been a roller coaster as a result of what we're potentially seeing in Tallahassee over the next year and a half, but I want to thank you and your staff and everyone who's here today who played an integral part in preparing this today.…”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 31:57
“Thank you very much. My pleasure. I'd just like to reiterate it and memorialize. I know that people don't like to go in the past, but I think it's important to understand what we did in the past so we don't make those mistakes moving forward. 2028, I'm pretty certain that this referendum will pass and you'll see many cities be in significant trouble. One of the things that we did here that I completely and utterly disagreed with, and I know the Vice Mayor also disagreed with, was in one year I think we brought in about 20 or so employees. Again, with all due respect to our employees, thank…”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 32:57
“My understanding was it's about 20 or so.”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 33:00
“In that budget, in that budget, in that budget, in that budget, we advocated to be very fiscally sound, to not make that mistake. Besides the COLA, besides the raises through the commission, We're very clear. We're going to be paying for this for the next years because employees are here for 30 years, 25 years. These are positions that we are not eliminating. But as we now foresee what's going to happen in 2028, we have two albatrosses around our neck that would have given us a lot more, a lot more wiggle room in regards to how we're going to deal with this with a short with a short six or…”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 34:27
“Okay. I just want to make sure because I'm going to say that I don't get my facts correct. So all of this has a compounding effect, especially when you're talking about union negotiations. I hate to sound like Jim Kaysen and Raul Valdez-Fauli and people who came before me, but they were very adamant about us being very careful and very thoughtful in how we conducted ourselves during budget season. This is an example of me sitting down with a manager and the DCM and the ACM and telling them, we have needs in certain areas, but we're not going to hire people. We're not going to do what we want…”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 37:58
“And if you may, just before the end of the meeting, if you would clarify in the 2024 numbers, because I know that we also have police and fire increases, but I'm not adding those to that. Obviously, I'm talking about outside of those. I think if you include those, it was over 40 employees that we added in one year.”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 38:59
“So if you look at the last 13, 14 years that I've been here, we've never had a massive number like that. Again, I want to put it on the record because hopefully one day the future elected officials will call Billy and ask for a public records request from the clerk. And they'll say, hey, how did this happen? How did we make a $2 million COLA payment for the next 10 years, $20 million? How did we increase all these employees in one year? And the reason why I say that is because the manager will probably get a good laugh out of this because we've had many conversations about this. We always go…”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 41:49
“OK, so let's talk about that. But before you got here, we hadn't raised the amount of the firefighters advocated every month, every day for new positions. And we hired 15 new firefighters and 15 new police officers. What you see is an increase in those positions in regards to public safety, number one. Number two, in an effort to confuse You may not have your facts tree, but let me educate you and I'll have stuff and I'll have stuff education when you talk about the employees talk about the employees that were brought in in regards to the permitting department. Those employees are paid for…”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 43:17
“So at the end of the day, what I'm talking about is if we're making decisions outside of public safety and we're making decisions where there's an enterprise fund, I don't have a problem spending that money on those issues because you have a dedicated revenue stream. Just like, for example, you're spending money on a bond issuance or the mobility hub and you have a dedicated revenue stream, which is the money that's coming from parking revenue. But the problem here is the amount of employees that were brought in during Amos Rojas, which everyone has to admit was a catastrophe. And if you…”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 45:57
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 47:09
“Who dictates what it can be used for? The state. The state of Florida, correct? The state statute. And that is as a result of permit revenue, correct? That is correct, Mayor. I just want to be clear. This is what I'm telling you. There has to be a dedicated revenue source. If it's outside of public safety, I'd like to see a dedicated revenue source, which is something that I've always said. Case in point, the mobility hub, I think, is something important. So you have 16 employees that were added in one year. That will have an impact on the budget because again, additional salaries, additional…”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 48:18
“Okay, so it's very clear, very clear. I don't want to have this back and forth game anymore. That's the type of decisions that are detrimental to our budget. If you keep adding every single year 16 positions, 16 positions, 16 positions, you're going to hurt yourself because eventually you're going to have to, guess what, let go of positions if there's a downturn in revenue. That's what I've been telling you. Let's be very careful and be very thoughtful and not put ourselves behind the eight ball, okay?”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 51:59
“So who pays for code enforcement? Where does it come from?”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 52:17
“That's my point. So we can keep going in circles and trying to one-up each other, but at the end of the day, I just want you to take ownership of last year's budget, which you voted in favor of. The Vice Mayor and I voted against it. So... You followed the recommendations of Amos Rojas, a person who led the city for one year and had never had the experience of leading this many amount of people that you see in this room. Imagine leading a thousand people in a city. So my point is that, This city, once I'm gone and whoever's left up here, will pay the consequences for adding 16 positions…”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 54:08
“So to make a long story short, she's mentioned about nine out of the 12. The two that were police, obviously, are public safety. They have to get funded. And there were requests, obviously, from the police chief. We can, in regards to public safety, we prioritize public safety. But as you can see, a majority of the positions, I would say 80% of the positions, probably led us to maybe two or three new positions were all from an enterprise fund. So, thank you very much for clarifying that. Commissioner.”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 55:39
“First and foremost, I think putting it on the record and being very clear on the record, even though I know maybe someone like yourself doesn't want to put things on the record, I understand that and I agree because decisions were made that embarrass the city. By the end of the day, we're having a constructive conversation to be very clear. Outside of Steve Marin, who was the person that recommended this position to Ariel Fernandez, I don't know of anybody that called me and said that the smartest thing that we did was in the middle of a commission meeting, basically was hire a manager…”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:01:43
“If I may, maybe I misheard, the mayor doesn't have veto power here in the city of Coral Gables?”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:01:54
“That'll make it onto the blogs tomorrow.”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:01:57
“But by the way, like I mentioned yesterday at the end of the meeting, you know, we hit the highest numbers we've hit in three years, so that's a good point. And I want to congratulate our staff, like I said yesterday. Well done.”
City Commission · Jul 8, 2026