When Miami Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela was elected in 2023, he came into office with a mandate of reform, promising to improve transparency and do battle with controversial then-Commissioner Joe Carollo — a conflict he refers to as “the Carollo Wars.”
Now, nearly three years into his tenure, spending by his office on a pair of little-known companies is the subject of a pair of lawsuits and questions about Gabela’s reformer bonafides. His response echoes the manner of his former sparring partner, his critics say.
The questions surround two companies — Atlantis Solutions and Elandor LLC — hired by Gabela’s team to perform promotional work advertising for his office and himself beginning in 2024 and 2025.
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The companies have little, if any, online presence or digital footprint to speak of, with no websites explaining their services or what clients they’ve done PR for. One of the companies, Elandor LLC, was formed just two months before they began doing work for Gabela’s office.
WLRN reviewed Gabela’s district discretionary budget over a period of two years and found his office spent approximately $450,000 in taxpayer funds to the pair of firms whose office addresses correspond to apartments near Midtown Miami and the city of Doral.
The range of services from the companies include social media management, promotion of Gabela, his wife, the work they do in his commission District 1, and the creation of banners and vehicle wraps bearing the commissioner’s image.
In an interview with WLRN, Gabela said he hired these businesses to save taxpayer money because they’re cheaper than in-house promotional firms.
“They’re inexpensive,” Gabela said. “Going through [General Services Administration] is actually more expensive than if I go straight to these guys.”
Gabela and his office counsel, Jose Sanchez-Gronlier, allege that the commissioner is being targeted and attacked by the press and political rivals.
“You’re not going to single me out,” Gabela said, insisting his office spent less than any of his colleagues on the Miami City Commission. “Nobody owns me. Not Carollo, not anyone.”
Miami commissioners are given money annually that can fund office staffing, operations and support community causes. WLRN has requested the discretionary budgets of all other commission offices and the mayor’s office salary breakdown. The requests are pending.
Gabela insists any questions about his spending come from conservative political consultant Emiliano Antunez, who ran Gabela’s campaign and previously did promotional work for him. The two had a falling out when Gabela stopped using his services in favor of Atlantis Solutions, and since then Antunez has sued the city for access to records on Gabela’s and other offices’ spending.
“Emiliano wants to make further money on me,” Gabela said.
Antunez denies Gabela's allegation. He said the dispute began when Gabela sent Atlantis Solutions to a printing company Antunez had a business relationship with. He admits the situation angered him and led him to seek records, but concern over the spending is legitimate.
"The fact that this stuff exists has nothing to do with me and him being mad at each other," Antunez said.
The scrutiny over his office's spending has been raised by multiple sources and media outlets.
When local independent news blog Political Cortadito raised questions about the pair of promotional firms and Gabela’s use of his office’s discretionary funds, Gabela sued writer Elaine De Valle for defamation.
De Valle questioned if Gabela’s and the Trust’s spending on small, unknown firms might constitute legal or ethical breaches. She also compared Gabela to Carollo, a former commissioner infamous for getting into shouting matches with colleagues and constituents alike.
"That article is riddled with false statements accusing Plaintiff [Gabela] of fraud," Gabela's legal complaint states. "Defendants published those statements with malice, knowledge of falsity, reckless disregard for the truth."
Reached by WLRN, De Valle said she stands by her reporting.
“The articles at issue were based on public records. They addressed matters of obvious public concern involving the expenditure of public money and the operation of a public entity,” De Valle said.
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Before launching Political Cortadito, De Valle worked for the Miami Herald covering local politics for nearly 20 years. She told WLRN this is the first time an elected official has ever sued her for defamation.
Atlantis Solutions and Gabela
Beginning in March of 2024, Commissioner Gabela paid Atlantis Solutions monthly for expert consultant services out of his District office budget. The payments in 2024 hovered around $16,000 per month, usually in two installments. Beginning January of 2025, that number jumped. In some months, like July and October of last year, Gabela’s office paid nearly $28,000 to Atlantis Solutions.
Budget breakdown entries for these payments do not give much detail beyond the boilerplate “expert consulting” note on each line item. Each payment came from the office’s “Other current charges and obligations” expense category.
Atlantis Solutions was formed in 2022 by Gaston Rico and his wife, Eva Manusia, according to Florida Division of Corporation records. The firm doesn’t have profiles on social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook. The official business address on corporate records is an apartment near Miami’s midtown neighborhood.
WLRN visited the apartment and spoke with Rico, who answered the door. Rico said his firm had a contract with the city and said to contact the city’s communications department, declining to provide further comment.
Gabela’s office provided a copy of Atlantis’ “Expert Consultant Agreement” with the city of Miami, effective as of January 2024. The agreement dictates the following scope of work for Atlantis:
- Create 25 monthly social media posts.
- Develop monthly campaigns for promotion and engagement.
- Analyze competitors' social media strategies to inform their own approach.
- Collaborate with local organizations to amplify the commissioner’s reach.
- Train the commissioner’s team on social media best practices.
- Manage the commissioner’s social media accounts.
- Cover live events through social media channels.
- Record professional videos for the commissioner.
- Regularly update the commissioner’s website.
- Email marketing.
Gabela said he was introduced to the company by a former political consultant, and they performed satisfactory work for a good price.
Elandor LLC and Gabela
Payments to Elandor LLC began last August, just two months after the company was incorporated according to the Florida Division of Corporations records. The payments had more information included in the explanation field, primarily being for promotional material and printing.
Last October, Gabela’s office paid Elandor nearly $7,700 for “sign manufacturing and installation.” This January, the office paid Elandor nearly $40,000 for back-to-school, Thanksgiving and Christmas mailers to constituents.
The same company has also regularly charged the district office $18,000 for access to an employee scheduling app called “Connecteam.” Discretionary budget documents show one $18,000 payment for Connecteam last August, and one in November.
In January of this year, District 1 paid Elandor LLC $12,000 for a similarly described “employee scheduling” service. Gabela said he realized he did not need the full suite of app features and reduced his subscription.
The city of Miami already employs a timekeeping HR software called “Kronos,” which all city departments use and is paid for out of the city’s general fund. Gabela was not familiar with Kronos when asked, but said he pays for the new software to better track his district employees’ whereabouts.
Gabela and Gronlier said his office began using Connecteam in order to track his employees working out in the field to make sure they're working their full shifts, thus saving taxpayers money.
He did not explain why his office doesn't contract with Connecteam directly. He said he uses Elandor as an intermediary because “they get things done.”
Employee accountability is also part of Gabela’s explanation for the number of city district vehicles now wrapped with an image his face. He says workers are less likely to sleep in their cars if residents can see the commissioner's face and report it to his office.
The other reason, he said, is to combat a common problem for local governments: public awareness. Many local government officials lament that their constituents don’t know what services are available to them, nor who is responsible for work in their neighborhoods.
So, Gabela said, he’s paid for promotional banners and material so his constituents know who he is and who they can go to request services.
Another tranche of that awareness campaign is through a district magazine, for which Gabela paid Elandor LLC $10,000 to cover the cost of postage.
The magazine, reviewed by WLRN, includes written pieces about Gabela, his district employees including the “weed eater team” that performs landscaping and cleanup work, and Gabela’s wife, Mariela Gabela.
Mariela is not a city employee and isn’t paid by taxpayers, but Gabela said she assists him with work on a volunteer basis and he wanted to highlight her.
“ She doesn't get paid anything. And you know, she's an asset to me. We actually asked the city attorney if there was any problem with that and he said no,” Gabela said.
Caroline Klancke, executive director of the Florida Ethics Institute, said this type of spending is worth scrutiny, but it doesn’t rise to the level of an ethical breach.
“Utilizing a small business could be a benefit for the public. It could merely be a commissioner using discretionary funds for services by small businesses, albeit very small,” Klancke told WLRN.
Klancke said even if promotional material like banners and magazines provide a small personal benefit to Gabela, if they provide a larger public benefit by informing residents of city services, this spending would not violate Florida ethics law.
Other spending
But the spending isn’t exclusive to payments to Atlantis Solutions and Elandor LLC.
In December, around Christmas, the District 1 office spent $65,000 on pork shoulder — 35,000 pounds of it, to be exact. The premium white meat came from local carniceria “El Toro Loco.” El Toro Loco’s owner, Aldo Episona, was at the center of a city scandal in January when a photo showed him giving a luxury gift box to the head of the Miami Police Department’s Internal Affairs division, in violation of the department’s ethics rules prohibiting gifts and gratuities.
El Toro Loco previously received more than $666,000 from former Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo’s office over a period of two years for holiday pork shoulder and turkey giveaway events.
Gabela said he used El Toro Loco to provide food for a Christmas food giveaway to senior centers in his district. He said they were the only vendor with the capacity to meet the demand he required.
Between 2024 and 2025, Gabela’s office spent more than $240,000 on sponsorships for various galas and charity events.
One of those sponsorships was a $20,000 donation to the Florida International University foundation for its Champion of Freedom dinner and celebration hosted by the Adam Smith Center. A WLRN investigation found the Center receives millions in taxpayer funds from the State of Florida and works to influence Latin American politics toward conservatism.
Gabela told WLRN he is in the process of hiring an in-house PR firm because the attention from press has led Atlantis Solutions and Elandor LLC to exit their agreements with his office.
