Natacha Seijas' blood feud with Gwen Margolis ... by gimleteye

In "Special vote could have been dodged", the Miami Herald warily describes how the county commission decided upon a special election for the first elected property appraiser of Florida's most populous county. The reason lies in the personal animosity of Natacha Seijas (VNS) and former county commission chair and candidate for property appraiser, Gwen Margolis.

And so, the error of voters in directing a heretofore professional position to be subject to politics is already yielding bitter fruit before the seat's first election. Seijas' grudge against Margolis is the reason county commissioners agreed to an extraordinary election schedule that prevented the property appraiser post from being voted alongside the November slate. Instead, a special election will be held-- costing millions of dollars.

Its likely result will be the lowest turnout ever; a turnout favoring the Hispanic candidate by weight of demographics. Where does Seijas' bile toward Margolis come from? That's the more interesting story.

The Herald article reports that the Margolis-Seijas feud "dates to the early morning hours of a long budget meeting more than six years ago. It was past 4 a.m. when Margolis tried to cut off a Seijas speech, and was dealt a chilling retort. "You're going to leave here in a body bag if you keep this up." That's just sloppy reporting: there's more marrow in these bones.

Seijas perceives herself -- and is recognized by her colleagues on the unreformable majority of the county commission--as the leader who has done the heavy, behind-the-scenes lifting for the Latin Builders Association. A rising tide lifts all ships, though. Seijas resents the fact that someone like Margolis, who has benefited politically with like-minded allies, gets accolades while she does the hard work.

Seijas does not hesitate to remind the Anglos and Jews that she is The One. How could the Herald miss it, when the Graham Companies (ie. former US Senator Bob Graham's family real estate interests) quietly slipped their six hundred plus acres behind a highly controversial CDMP amendment to move the Urban Development Boundary for Hialeah and for Armando Codina and Raul Martinez in 2005?

From the dais Seijas tartly objected to the Graham family's piggy-backing their application on Hialeah's. From the audience, you could see Graham family executives go pale. Seijas didn't let it rest; certainly not for the family of a US Senator. "If you want a zoning change to turn your farmland into millions of developable acres," she might as well have said, "You have to pay me respect."

And If you ever wanted to see Anglo developers walking to the speakers' podium with their tails between their legs, you had to have been there when the CDMP amendment came back to the full county commission for final approval in 2006. And respect was paid.

But Margolis never paid Seijas respect. When Margolis was county commission chair, she gave no deference to Seijas, a former help-line operator and might as well still have been so far as Margolis was concerned. I'm guessing Seijas wonders who is Margolis, that her junk doesn't stink. The animosity goes even deeper.

Seijas and Margolis were both on the county commission when Margolis' godson Michael Baumann was the prospective developer of The Miami Circle a decade ago. Margolis, chair of the county commission at the time, recused herself from the issue when Baumann, who bought the land for $8.5 million in 1998, cashed out a year later to the state for $26.7 million. Think that turned a few heads?

Margolis is the smooth operator to Seijas' forklift, the silver dollar next to Seijas' bad penny. Undoubtedly there are other buried coins of the realm that exacerbate Seijas' acid reflux; visible only to her, to Margolis and their lobbyists.

There would be a poetic side to this rivalry, if Margolis were not securely lodged in the pocket of real estate developers. The fact is, Margolis and Seijas are bound by the same obligations and fealty. At the end of the day, it is all collegial and everyone can work with everyone else. But Seijas wants to have the last word with the Queen of Aventura, and she likely will.