![\"City](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MIA_127CGables110Phonetia07NEWPPP.JPG\" "\\"Coral")
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Coral Gables Mayor Vince C. Lago (right) and City Manager Peter J. Iglesias (left) worked on the deal with the University of Miami for years.<\/p>\n
Pedro Portal<\/p>\n
pportal@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago is facing criticism during his reelection campaign for the key role he played in crafting a 30-year development agreement between the city and the University of Miami.<\/p>\n
Political opponents have raised concerns over whether Lago has a conflict of interest and should not have been involved in, or voted on, the UM deal that commissioners approved this month because of his new job as principal of a construction firm whose parent company is an authorized UM contractor.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Melissa Castro, a political rival of the mayor who is also running for reelection, has publicly questioned whether Lago or his company has financially benefited \u2014 or will benefit \u2014 from the deal that gives the private university the ability to plan for more students, new housing and other new buildings on its growing campus. Jackson \u201cRip\u201d Holmes, one of two opponents running against Lago for mayor, has accused Lago of violating state law and filed an ethics complaint against him last week, although experts told the Miami Herald the county\u2019s Ethics Commission is unlikely to review the matter until after November\u2019s election to avoid the appearance of political interference.<\/p>\n
Lago, who\u2019s spent much of his career building educational facilities across South Florida, including for UM, described the allegations as political theater as he runs for a final term and points out that the Florida Commission on Ethics earlier this year found probable cause against Castro<\/a> regarding potential conflicts with her own outside employment. (No final determination has been made in Castro\u2019s case.) Lago said his private attorney advised him that he had \u201cno obligations to recuse myself\u201d and that his new role at Hammer Commercial focuses on workforce housing \u201coutside of Coral Gables.\u201d Its parent company, Hammer Construction Corporation, did work for UM as recently as several months ago, permit information shows.<\/p>\n Four ethics experts contacted by the Herald said that, based on the publicly available information about the mayor\u2019s job and the UM deal, Lago does not appear to have run afoul of any state ethics laws. But they said he needs to be careful moving forward.<\/p>\n \u201cThe optics are terrible,\u201d said Bob Jarvis, a law professor who specializes in ethics at Nova Southeastern University and who lives in Naples. Jarvis said he would have recommended that Lago recuse himself from the vote to avoid even the appearance of a potential conflict of interest \u2014 it\u2019s like \u201cgiving your opposition red meat that they can throw around at election time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut that is a different question from \u2018Are you doing anything illegal?\u2019 and I don\u2019t think that Lago is doing anything illegal,\u201d he added. He described the situation as a problem that occurs when residents are \u201cnot willing to pay for a full-time mayor and full-time commissioners.\u201d In Coral Gables, like most other local governments in Miami-Dade County, the mayor and commissioners are allowed to maintain outside employment.<\/p>\n Jarvis and the three other experts the Herald spoke with said Lago did the right thing by seeking advice from his private attorney before voting on the deal. They recommend he go a step further and seek an opinion from the city attorney, the county ethics commission or state ethics commission on how to navigate his public and private roles, just like he did in 2018<\/a> when he worked for BDI Construction, another company that sometimes does work for UM.<\/p>\n Lago told the Herald he doesn\u2019t plan to seek further guidance because he \u201cfeels very comfortable\u201d with the guidance he already has from the city attorney, the ethics commission and his personal attorney.<\/p>\n \u201cI have great legal counsel who has provided the necessary guidance, and prior to me making any decisions, I always follow that protocol,\u201d Lago said. Lago said he has not yet seen Holmes\u2019 complaint.<\/p>\n Caroline Klancke, director of the independent, nonpartisan Florida Ethics Institute in Tallahassee, said there\u2019s no inherent issue with public officials having private employment, but certain boundaries need to be in place.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not illegal to be entrepreneurial in the great state of Florida and be a public citizen \u2014 that is perfectly permissible \u2014 but care is required, ultimately, to safeguard the public\u2019s trust and confidence that [public officials] are acting in the best interests of their community,\u201d said Klancke.<\/p>\n The problem is that Florida\u2019s ethics laws are kind of vague \u2014 the \u201clines are squiggly, and they move\u201d \u2014 which can sometimes make it difficult to know what is and is not a potential conflict of interest, according to Mike Carr, an attorney and former Collier County judge who previously served on the Florida Commission on Ethics.<\/p>\n Both Carr and Klancke, who herself previously served as general counsel and deputy executive director of the Florida Commission on Ethics, said the best way to get rid of speculation is to seek guidance from the state ethics commission.<\/p>\n The more simple approach: Follow the \u201cbad man theory of law,\u201d Carr says.<\/p>\n \u201cTry and do whatever you\u2019re going to do as if you\u2019ve got a bad man looking over your shoulder who\u2019s working hard to misinterpret what you\u2019re doing … you kind of have to go the extra mile,\u201d Carr said.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what to know:<\/p>\n The UM deal<\/p>\n The deal, which Lago and City Manager Peter Iglesias worked on for years alongside city staff, is a renewal of a previous agreement and was unanimously approved by commissioners earlier this month.<\/p>\n As part of the deal, UM will pay just over $1 million a year to the city for the next 30 years, with the payment increasing by 4% annually. The university will also give the city one of Lago\u2019s key asks: nearly six acres of grassy land to transform into the city\u2019s largest park.<\/a><\/p>\n In return, the city increased the cap on how many full-time undergraduate students UM can have on its Gables campus, gave it more \u201cdevelopment square footage\u201d to build on, and agreed to rezone several university-owned properties on the same strip as the popular Titanic Brewery and Restaurant from commercial low-rise intensity to university campus purposes. The changes would make it possible for UM to open a new medical facility in the area.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no conflict because I don\u2019t have any personal gain. … There isn\u2019t any set prescribed public benefit which I would receive at this current moment,\u201d Lago told the Herald. He said the UM deal \u201chas many, many moving parts, and a lot of it is not having to do with construction. A lot of it has to do with just the mechanics of the University of Miami over the next three decades, so I don\u2019t have a conflict because I don\u2019t have any personal gain.\u201d<\/p>\n Lago\u2019s job<\/p>\n For years, Lago worked at BDI Construction, and three months ago, he became a principal at the recently established Hammer Commercial Construction. It\u2019s an affiliate company of Hammer Construction Corporation, which is \u201can approved University of Miami contractor,\u201d according to its website.<\/p>\n Lago\u2019s friend Norman Newell, whose family owns Hammer, is listed as both principal and the registered agent for both companies in state business records. Hammer Commercial was registered with the state in March.<\/p>\n The parent company has done work at 11 Gables addresses in the past five years, including pool resurfacing and gazebo-related work at Lago\u2019s house in 2025 and summer 2026, as well as work in Newell\u2019s home over the past several years, according to permit records.<\/p>\n This year, it got permits for work at UM\u2019s Orovitz building at 1507 Levante Ave. The building is near Titanic Brewery and adjacent to the strip that will be rezoned for potential hospital use, records show. The city has not issued any permits to Hammer Commercial, the company Lago is principal of, records show.<\/p>\n Lago, in a recent commission meeting, said Hammer Commercial is a new company \u201cthat was created this year to build workforce housing outside of Coral Gables because there is no workforce housing.\u201d<\/p>\n While Lago is listed as \u201cprincipal\u201d of both Hammer companies on its website, he clarified to the Herald that he only works for Hammer Commercial. Lago also said to the Herald, and in a recent city meeting, that he holds \u201cno stock, no equity and no ownership interest in Hammer Construction\u201d or in Hammer Commercial.<\/p>\n \u201cTo claim that Hammer might somehow benefit from a 30-year agreement covering buildings that have not been designed, funded or bid is pure speculation and, under Florida law, is speculative benefit. It\u2019s not a conflict,\u201d Lago said in a recent meeting.<\/p>\n Ethics commissions review complaints \u201cas a snapshot in time\u201d based \u201con the facts in existence at the time of the vote,\u201d said Klancke, the Florida Ethics Institute director. Previous advisory opinions have said that \u201ca past relationship or even a possible future relationship is not implicative of a present tense conflict\u201d because it could \u201cstymie\u201d the ability of qualified candidates to serve as public officials.<\/p>\n Essentially, the state \u201cwants people who have expert knowledge and expertise to be in public service. We don\u2019t want to prevent them by holding past relationships or even speculative possible future relationships against them,\u201d Klancke explained.<\/p>\n What ethics experts say<\/p>\n Jarvis and Ben Wilcox, research director at the Tallahassee-based nonprofit Integrity Florida, said Lago\u2019s new job is similar to the role he previously held with BDI Construction and therefore, he should continue to follow a 2018 opinion issued by then-City Attorney Miriam Soler Ramos.<\/p>\n Ramos\u2019 2018 opinion concluded that Lago, a commissioner at the time, was not prohibited from working for BDI, even though it sometimes does work for UM, but Ramos recommended he avoid voting on any BDI projects for the university that may appear before the commission. Lago said he\u2019s followed that guidance ever since and plans to continue doing so.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is my exact plan,\u201d Lago told the Herald. \u201cAnd I am not doing business in the city of Coral Gables.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida ethics laws prohibit public officials from voting on measures that could economically benefit or hurt them, their relatives and business associates, but it puts the burden on public officials to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether to recuse themselves, according to Klancke.<\/p>\n The advice Carr and the other experts have? When in doubt, recuse yourself from voting.<\/p>\n And voting isn\u2019t the only area where city leaders need to tread carefully. Under Florida\u2019s ethics laws, for example, Lago would be prohibited from doing business with the city through Hammer, but it doesn\u2019t mean the company is \u201cnecessarily prohibited\u201d from doing business with other entities within the city, such as the University of Miami, according to Klancke.<\/p>\n What that means, she said, is Lago can still vote on UM projects, but he needs to avoid voting or working on any Hammer-related UM projects, similar to the previous guidance he was given for his work at BDI. Lago already says his work will be outside the Gables.<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s ethics laws also prohibit public officials from \u201cputting their thumb on the scale in favor of themselves, in their private capacity or their businesses that they own,\u201d including by using information that only they may be privy to due to their position, according to Klancke. However, it\u2019s usually only through an ethics investigation that a determination can be made on whether that part of the law was broken.<\/p>\n Wilcox, of the anti-corruption Integrity Florida organization, said government officials should be mindful of public perception, because \u201cpublic perception affects the public\u2019s confidence in their government.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust be as transparent as possible about how you\u2019re conducting your private business as it relates to your public business because, again, it may not technically be a violation of Florida\u2019s ethics laws, but if it looks bad to the public, doesn\u2019t smell good, then take that into account,\u201d Wilcox said.<\/p>\n Follow More of Our Reporting on Reality Check<\/p>\n Michelle Marchante<\/a><\/p>\n Miami Herald<\/p>\n Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health\u2019s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald\u2019s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow.\u00a0
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