Just days after Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo was found liable for violating the First Amendment rights of two local businessmen, and was ordered to pay them $63.5 million in damages, the city turned to a public relations and communications firm to handle the intense media attention aimed at city hall.
That firm — Wragg & Casas Public Relations — has kept busy ever since amid a flood of expensive lawsuits, federal investigations and multiplying media questions as numerous scandals unfold behind the walls of 3500 Pan American Drive.
READ MORE: The City of Miami’s legal woes continue to mount
The Agreement
Wragg & Casas was founded in 1995 by Otis Wragg and Ramon “Ray” Casas, according to Florida Division of Corporation records. Casas still runs the company today as its president.
The firm specializes in media relations, marketing and “crisis management.” Over the years, it has worked with numerous municipal clients in Miami-Dade County, including the Town of Miami Lakes, the Village of Pinecrest, the City of West Miami and the now-defunct Miami-Dade Expressway Authority. Nowadays, its government clients only include the City of Miami and the Citizens’ Independent Transit Trust, Casas told WLRN.
Casas declined further comment for this story.
As of last June, Wragg and Casas has had an “Expert Consulting Agreement” with the City of Miami to the tune of $5,000 per month to provide advice on how to respond to various scandals and crises. The city may also elect to amend the firm’s payment up to a limit of $125,000 per year, and Wragg and Casas is allowed to bill the city separately for out-of-pocket expenses, according to the consulting agreement.
Under a designated scope of services agreement, Wragg and Casas must: “Understand the media and reputational issues facing the City,” design a media strategy to promote positive stories about the City, and “create a 'setting-the-record straight' structure that will quickly respond to inaccurate reports and posts about the City.”
In the past 12 months, Wragg and Casas has had its hands full dealing with Miami’s reputational issues such as multiple expensive lawsuits against Carollo and tension between newly elected commissioners and the now-former City Attorney Victoria Méndez.
Emails
On June 23, 2023, Miami Herald reporter Linda Robertson reached out to City of Miami spokesperson Kenia Fallat with questions regarding home buyers who purchased from Coconut Grove developer Doug Cox, “The King of Coconut Grove” and felt they were swindled. Robertson relayed that the home buyers were disappointed with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who they said was not transparent in this issue because of his dealings with developer Rishi Kapoor, who is under federal investigation.
Fallat responded to Robertson’s request for comment, but did not mention Mayor Suarez. She then forwarded her response to Casas. He said he would monitor the story and suggested other talking points Fallat might add to show that the City’s building department was working to protect resident safety.
“I agree totally with not engaging on the issue that the buyers are disappointed with the mayor,” he added.
On July 5, an attorney for the Miami Herald sent a demand letter to the City Attorney’s Office after the city did not furnish records of Mayor Suarez’s financial disclosure form to Herald investigative reporter Sarah Blaskey. The newspaper's attorneys wrote that she had routinely requested disclosure forms for other city officials and received them, but slammed city officials for not sending Suarez’s disclosure in a timely fashion.
“With respect to Mayor Suarez’s latest disclosure, it appears the City is purposefully refusing to disclose. This is a standard disclosure that requires no redaction,” the Herald’s attorney wrote.
Fallat then forwarded the email chain about the disclosures to Casas with the message: “FYI.”
The following day, the Herald reported that Suarez had doubled his net worth to $3.4 million in 2022, based on the disclosure records.
As the year went on and the city’s legal battles continued to mount, Casas received more requests for communications advice from the city.
In late July, when a federal judge sided with voting advocacy groups that sued the City of Miami for racially gerrymandering its district map, numerous reporters’ requests for comment went to Casas.
Casas prepared a blanket statement for the city based on a memo from Méndez in response to the judge’s order. The statement included arguments the city maintained throughout the case, including that the voting advocate plaintiffs were only further racially gerrymandering the city’s map.
“The maps accepted by the judge not only do not “correct” the charge of racially gerrymandered maps with three Hispanic districts, one Black district, and one Anglo district, but in fact exacerbate the racial predominance,” Casas’ statement read in part.
Over the next several months, Casas and the city communicated back and forth about messaging particularly for this lawsuit as more media published or broadcast reports about the case. Casas would also send links to controversial stories to Fallat to discuss possible talking points, including stories from Florida Politics and Florida Voice News about the racial gerrymandering lawsuit.
The city recently settled that lawsuit after a federal judge declared the city had in fact racially gerrymandered its district map. The city is appealing the judge’s findings of fact.
The City Commission had to hold an emergency special meeting on December 11 after it passed an illegal budget based on advice from Méndez, and the state threatened to revoke $56 million funding because of the error. Fallat requested Casas be there in person for the meeting.
WLRN emailed the city in January inquiring about the business relationship between the City of Miami and a furniture company belonging to City Manager Art Noriega’s in-laws. Casas inadvertently responded to WLRN directly in the email thread, asking if the city was going to provide more details about furniture purchases.
“Will there be any additional response as to bidding, state contract, etc?” Casas wrote in an email to WLRN and the City’s office of communications.
Fallat confirmed to WLRN this week that the city will renew Wragg & Casas’ consulting agreement for another year, starting this June. Several lawsuits against Carollo, Méndez and the city as a whole are still pending.
