This is an accepted version of this page Joseph Xavier Carollo (born March 12, 1955) is a Cuban-American politician who served as mayor of Miami from 1996 to 1997 and again from 1998 to 2001.
[1] Following his loss in the 2001 mayoral election, he served as Doral, Florida city manager from January 2013 until his firing in April 2014;[2] he was reinstated in June 2017, then immediately resigned.
[4] Carollo's combative and erratic behavior in his political career earned him the name "Crazy Joe" from award-winning Miami Herald journalist and author Carl Hiaasen.
[11] One year later, Carollo won a special election to replace Stephen P. Clark, who died of cancer, as mayor of City of Miami.
[14] In 1997, with the first Strong-mayor system in the City of Miami’s history at stake, Carollo lost his re-election campaign in a runoff election to Xavier Suarez.
On March 5, 1998, Thomas S. Wilson Jr., a judge in the Florida circuit court voided the first round of the election writing "this scheme to defraud, literally and figuratively, stole the ballot from the hands of every honest voter in the city of Miami.
[17] On March 13, 1998, Joe Carollo was sworn in as Miami mayor after the 3rd District Court of Appeals threw out 5,100 fraudulent absentee ballots.
[20] Carollo opposed preserving the site as it stood because of the possibility of significant tax revenue from Baumann's planned apartment building.
However, Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas took up the cause of preserving the site after pressure from Native American groups, schoolchildren, archaeologists, the Smithsonian Institution, as well as international scrutiny.
As a result, city manager Donald Warshaw was fired and Carollo was forced to run for re-election the following March, effectively cutting his term in half.
[29] In the days leading up to the April 21st federal raid, City Manager Donald Warshaw wrote memos saying that Carollo was attempting to direct the police to defend the González's home.
[31] Facing a field of nine opponents and the pressure of a public domestic violence scandal, Carollo failed to make the runoff in the November 2001 election for mayor.
Carollo had accused several members of the council of taking bribes for votes and predicted his firing in an earlier press conference.
[36] November 21, 2017, Joe Carollo defeated Alfie Leon in a runoff election to take the district 3 seat on the Miami city commission.
In 2018, Carollo applied for permits on the same space and time that would have held Viernes Culturales in a move to force the festival to shut down.
[38] In March 2021, Mayor Francis Suarez announced that he had recruited and hired Houston police chief Art Acevedo.
[39] Acevedo quickly began to follow through with high profile firings of police officers starting in June 2021, which brought controversy to his position, and criticism from the Miami City Commission.
Carollo criticized him for the statement, calling it "unbelievable," and pointed out that Fidel Castro used the same language to denigrate Cubans in Miami.
At the swearing in of his replacement, Manny Morales, Carollo played the theme from the film The Godfather, referencing the "Cuban mafia" statement.
[50] The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office eventually dropped domestic violence charges against Carollo after he agreed to attend anger-management courses.