Aiming to get re-elected to his District 1 seat, Angel Gonzalez has almost $350,000 behind him so far.

Technically there is an election in the city of Miami. On paper it’s a big one. Three out of five seats are up for grabs.

Unlike many political posts, including Miami-Dade County commissioners, who receive a base salary of $6,000 a year, Miami commissioners are paid a decent income: about $60,000 a year base plus a car allowance, expense account and other benefits. Besides setting policy and having the power to appoint board members, Miami commissioners also have the power to remove committee members they appoint. And, unlike their counterparts in Miami Beach, those who contribute to the coffers of Miami commissioners won’t be barred from competing for city contracts or requesting zoning variances.

But those three seats are filled by incumbents. And unless there is a significant popular uproar against one of them, challengers face an uphill battle. Incumbent District 4 Commissioner Tomas Regalado, who in recent years has been a thorn in Miami Mayor Manny Diaz’s side, faces only one challenger, Evaristo L. Marina, who has raised $1,420 to Regalado’s campaign chest of $29,980. District 2 Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, meanwhile, remains popular among some of the more vocal residents in the Upper Eastside and Coconut Grove. He has raised $49,935 and, as of deadline, has thus far not drawn any opposition. (There’s still time; the official qualifying period does not begin until Sept. 7 and ends on Sept. 22.)

That leaves District 1 Commissioner Angel Gonzalez, a staunch ally of Mayor Diaz, along with Commissioners Joe Sanchez and Michelle Spence-Jones. Gonzalez has raised a whopping $347,205.

“He is a very active commissioner and works very hard for his residents,” Frank Castañeda, Gonzalez’s chief of staff and campaign treasurer, said, explaining his boss’s large campaign account. (Gonzalez did not return two phone calls from the SunPost for comment.)

It also helps that Gonzalez, as noted earlier, is considered an ally of Diaz. “The mayor is supporting the commissioner,” Castañeda said, “but he is getting money from all sorts of places.” Those places include not just those who live and work in Miami, but Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, New York and even North Carolina.

Gonzalez has not always been friendly with sitting mayors. When Mayor Joe Carollo stymied the Allapattah Business Development Authority, Gonzalez, a deputy director of the organization, and his colleagues backed the election of Xavier Suarez as mayor in 1997, participating in a questionable voter absentee ballot campaign led by Commissioner Humberto Hernandez. For their efforts they were convicted of voter fraud. Gonzalez pleaded guilty and the charge was later expunged from his record. Hernandez himself would later go to prison for charges that included mortgage fraud.

But that didn’t stop Gonzalez from winning the District 1 seat in 2001. His seat was up again in 2003 but no one bothered to run against him. This election (his last as District 1 commissioner), Gonzalez’s luck ran out with Mike Suarez. “He moved in the district last August,” Castañeda said. Other than Suarez being a bondsman, Castañeda knows nothing about him. (Roly More, who filed to run for the District 1 seat in January, has since withdrawn his candidacy to run for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives, according to termination of candidacy reports filed with the city of Miami.)

“There were a number of people who think that Commissioner Gonzalez’s position is very positive for the city,” Castañeda said. “He is getting contributions from a variety of sources.”

Some sources were a tad overenthusiastic with their contributions, exceeding the state-capped contribution of $500 for an individual or specific corporation. So the Gonzalez campaign gave back $4,353 in the last reported quarter (covering April 1 to June 30 of 2007) to those corporations and individuals who went over that mark. The refunds include $50 from Iberia Tiles, $500 from Thirty Sixth Street Associates, $850 from Alan Ojeda’s companies, $500 from David Mahler of Greenville, S.C., and $500 from Arthur and Edward Falcone’s Falcone Group LLC.

“We started collecting money two years ago and some people forgot they had given from a particular corporation,” Castañeda said.

Fortunately, there is a way around the $500 limit — a little something called check bundling. Simply create different companies or have your family members give allotments of $500 apiece — which enabled Gonzalez to raise $97,530 in the last quarter.

The most enthusiastic contributors were affiliated with the real estate industry: brokers, developers, property managers and investors. “Commissioner Gonzalez has supported smart growth, I guess that is the terminology,” Castañeda said.

And so Craig Robins, owner of Dacra, a development company that holds lots of property in the Miami Design District and who, incidentally, owns Thirty-Sixth Street Associates, had his companies kick in $3,000. Falcone’s companies gave about $2,500.

Companies owned by Anthony “Tony” Goldman, a prominent Ocean Drive property owner now investing in Wynwood, and his family members, gave $5,000.

Louis Zaretsky, a property manager and developer based in Miami Beach, gave $3,500.

Stephen Brandon’s Orlando-based companies donated $2,500 to the Gonzalez re-election cause.

Marc Roberts, a Palm Beach-based real estate manager, gave $2,500.

Companies affiliated with Terry Wellas and German Herrera gave at least $2,500.

John Yanopoulos, developer of Infinity at Brickell, gave $4,000.

John Cayre and his partners, the developers of Midtown Miami near Wynwood, gave $2,500.

The Related Group, developer of Grove Bay and several other high-rises in South Florida, gave at least $1,500.

Developer Robert Wohl gave about $2,500.

There was also $3,500 in contributions by companies located at the address of 1637 NW 27th Ave., Suite 200, in Miami with names like Pointe Investments LLC, Minorca Pointe and South River Pointe. Some of those companies could not be located by the SunPost on sunbiz.org, the Web site of Florida’s Division of Corporations. Those that were listed showed either Jorge Morera or Ralph Velocci as directors.

Developers were not the only donors to Gonzalez’s campaign. Outdoor advertisement companies gave about $12,000. This includes Fuel Outdoors, LLC, a New York-based company that not only is providing bus shelters to Miami’s bus riders but also does outdoor billboards on buildings. When Commissioner Marc Sarnoff recently proposed an ordinance limiting the number of outdoor murals on buildings, Gonzalez threw a fit. When asked if this had anything to do with campaign contributions, Castañeda said no. New topics are usually proposed as “blue page” discussion items to give commissioners time to get familiar with an issue. “… Nobody briefed him [Gonzalez],” he said.

Lawyers also gave lots of money to the Gonzalez re-election campaign. Twenty-two lawyers affiliated with Bilzin Sumberg et al., which often represents developer clients before city boards, contributed a total of $5,400. The partners of Weiss Serota Helfman and Pastoriza, a government relations firm, gave $2,500. Lobbyist and attorney Miguel De Grandy gave $2,000 through his firm and family members.

Another large supporter was Demetrio Perez, a former member of the Miami-Dade School Board who runs the Lincoln-Marti private school and also publishes Libre. His companies gave $3,000. Alan and Felix Lima, owner of Grove Harbour Marina, gave $2,000.

Apart from the refunds, Gonzalez’s expenditures have so far been limited. He spent more than $7,000 with Metropolitan Strategic Consultants. National Printing Enterprise got $500.76 for bumper stickers. Other notable expenditures, aside from stamps, included $400 for a table for Josefina P. Castano Kidney Foundation and $300 to photographer Jorge Perez for campaign portraits.

Comments? E-mail erik@miamisunpost.com.