Castro, who is running<\/a> for re-election, flew to Tallahassee on Jan. 23, three days before the start of a Florida League of Cities (FLC) event she previously notified the City Commission, City Manager Peter Iglesias and City Clerk Billy Urquia she\u2019d be attending.<\/p>\n On the day she landed, Castro attended a meeting of the Florida Commission on Ethics, which was holding a hearing on whether she had a conflict of interest in her work as a Coral Gables official and as the head of a permit-expediting company that does business in the city.<\/p>\n The Ethics Commission determined there was <\/a>probable cause<\/a> to believe she had a conflict, which the panel said explicitly is not a finding of lawbreaking or an ethics violation.<\/p>\n In a travel request form submitted to the city ahead of the trip, Castro said she planned to fly to Tallahassee on Jan. 26. The form listed $481.51 for two nights at the Residence Inn by Marriott. Castro says the room was never booked.<\/p>\n Her later expense claim instead lists a three-night stay at the Four Points by Sheraton Tallahassee Downtown totaling $1,506.71, including hotel taxes charged after she paid with her personal card.<\/p>\n Also included was a list of Uber charges, one of which showed a $20.94 ride to Tallahassee International Airport on Jan. 27, one day before Castro\u2019s return flight. Anderson suggested the ride was for another person.<\/p>\n The city ended up reimbursing her just $488.99 of the $2,226.16 she claimed for the trip, which ended Jan. 28 \u2014 $7.48 more than the original estimate for the two-night hotel stay. That was because Castro\u2019s annual travel allocation<\/a> had been exhausted, according to Lago.<\/p>\n \u201cIf these records are accurate, I am outraged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cCommissioner Castro owes our residents a complete explanation of why she traveled to Tallahassee days before the official city business she cited, what expenses taxpayers ultimately paid, and whether any of those expenses were connected to her personal appearance before the Commission on Ethics.\u201d<\/p>\n In phone interviews Tuesday, Castro confirmed she indeed flew to Tallahassee three days earlier than she initially told the city in a memo where she stressed the trip was \u201cnot optional or personal,\u201d but part of her responsibilities in representing Coral Gables.<\/p>\n At the time, Castro was Vice Chair of the FLC\u2019s Development Code Compliance and Redevelopment Board. She\u2019s now the panel\u2019s Chair.<\/p>\n But she also confirmed the authenticity of an audio recording Aesop\u2019s Gables published showing she appeared before and addressed the Ethics Commission on Jan. 23. After that, she said she rented a car, drove to Destin to visit her boyfriend, and then returned to Tallahassee ahead of FLC event\u2019s kickoff.<\/p>\n Despite the extra time she spent in North Florida, Castro said she actually \u201csaved the city money\u201d by flying up on a Friday rather than a Sunday or Monday, when the FLC event began. Sunday and Monday are indeed generally more expensive<\/a> for domestic flights than Friday, according to NerdWallet.<\/p>\n She noted that she still only boarded two flights, one to Tallahassee and one back to Miami, and did not include any other expenditures she incurred Jan. 23-25 in the form she submitted to the city.<\/p>\n \u201cIt happened to be that both those things were scheduled over there at the same time,\u2019 she said, referring to the Ethics Commission hearing and the FLC event. \u201cChanging the flight was more economical for the city than me just needing the flight. And was I really supposed to fly up, then back down to Miami, then back up there again 24 hours later? No. So, I just paid for my hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n Castro \u2014 who, like Lago, is running for re-election<\/a> this year \u2014 argued that her trip to Tallahassee included activities that were personally beneficial, the city didn\u2019t pay a cent more than it would have spent had she only attended the FLC event.<\/p>\n \u201c(The city doesn\u2019t) own my time 100% of the time,\u201d she said. \u201cI get to do what I want to do, on top of the fact that I saved them money.\u201d<\/p>\n Lago and the person behind Aesop\u2019s Gables, which has published dozens of posts critical of Castro, maintain that Castro lied when she told city officials her trip had no personal motivation and that she should face scrutiny in light of information showing otherwise.<\/p>\n The Mayor called for full disclosure and review of Castro\u2019s relevant travel authorizations, receipts, reimbursements, hotel charges and other supporting documents.<\/p>\n \u201cPublic service requires transparency, particularly when public money is involved,\u201d he said. \u201cYou cannot tell residents that a trip is strictly official business and then leave unanswered questions about whether that same taxpayer-funded travel facilitated your attendance at a personal ethics proceeding. Every dollar needs to be accounted for.\u201d<\/p>\n Anderson also raised the issue during a City Commission meeting Tuesday, describing the expense forms Castro submitted to the city as an \u201covercharge\u201d and questioned the Jan. 27 Uber charge.<\/p>\n \u201cThose types of expenses are not appropriate, and I suggest you take the opportunity to rectify that rather than make our taxpayers pay for your personal travel when you needed to go up there for an Ethics hearing and stay in hotels for additional days,\u201d Anderson said, adding that the original room rate Castro received approval for was significantly cheaper than the one she included in her post-trip invoice.<\/p>\n \u201cIRS rules, rules that exist in the city on charges that are allowable for city events were just violated. I\u2019ve gone on business trips many times and I don\u2019t charge \u2026 the government for things I shouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Castro told Anderson that while she got to Tallahassee \u201cearlier for personal matters,\u201d she did not charge the city for costs related to her earlier arrival.<\/p>\n Lago, at City Hall, suggested to Castro that she repay the city for the rest of the trip\u2019s costs, noting she still faced additional findings from the Ethics Commission on her potential conflict of interests.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have enough issues with the Ethics Commission,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s the best interest of the city to move on. \u2026 It\u2019s a good opportunity for you to show good faith as an elected official.\u201d<\/p>\n He later accused her of using the FLC trip as an excuse to use taxpayer money to fund her appearance before Ethics Commission.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can try to put as much smoke up as you want and confuse people, but at the end of the day, it\u2019s just disappointing, and I\u2019m giving you a lifeline to say, \u2018Hey, I\u2019ll just pay back the flight and get out of the way,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n Castro said she felt ambushed and requested that time be set aside in the next City Commission meeting so she could go over her activities in Tallahassee and for what she did and didn\u2019t invoice the city.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in this political environment and you want to point fingers when I\u2019m a pretty honest person, especially when it comes to money,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty transparent.\u201d<\/p>\n The blog post, Lago\u2019s press release and City Hall discourse come four days after Castro called for an independent authority<\/a> to review Lago\u2019s professional relationship with the University of Miami before the city approves a proposed 30-year development agreement with the school.<\/p>\n In a resolution<\/a>, Castro pointed to Lago\u2019s leadership of Hammer Commercial Construction, an approved university contractor that the Mayor has said spent about 22 years working on UM projects.<\/p>\n Lago has denied any double-dealings, saying he is a Hammer employee with no stock, equity or ownership interest in the company and that Hammer is not party to the development agreement, played no role in its preparation and would receive no money through it.<\/p>\n Castro and Lago have had a bitter relationship for years, frequently clashing<\/a> during City Commission meetings, since Castro and outgoing Commissioner Ariel Fernandez won upset<\/a> victories<\/a> over better-funded opponents Lago supported in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson are calling for an investigation into a Tallahassee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[10428,164154,76464,85127,46187,80415,164155,232,234,233,24139],"class_list":["post-414329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-coral-gables","tag-flc","tag-florida-commission-on-ethics","tag-florida-ethics-commission","tag-florida-league-of-cities","tag-melissa-castro","tag-rhonda-anderson","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-vince-lago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Travel-form-640x798.jpg\")
<\/a>Image and emphasis via Aesop\u2019s Gables.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/City-invoice-640x810.jpg\")
<\/a>Image and emphasis via Aesop\u2019s Gables, substantiated by Mayor Vince Lago.<\/p>\n