Carlos Gimenez Corruption & Ethics Florida

Carlos Gimenez's Administration Extended an Airport Contract for the Company Whose Bridge Collapse Killed Six. His Wife's Cousins Run It.

MCM built the FIU pedestrian bridge that fell onto traffic in March 2018. The firm is run by cousins of Gimenez's wife, and both of his sons have worked for it. In early 2019, months after OSHA cited MCM and as the firm went bankrupt, Mayor Gimenez's administration extended MCM's $130 million contract at Miami International Airport.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 04, 2026

Carlos Gimenez's Administration Extended an Airport Contract for the Company Whose Bridge Collapse Killed Six. His Wife's Cousins Run It. — Photo: Pedro Portal/Miami Herald, via WLRN

On March 15, 2018, a new pedestrian bridge at Florida International University fell onto a busy road in Miami. Six people were killed, one bridge worker and five people sitting in their cars underneath. Ten more were hurt.

The company building it was Munilla Construction Management, known as MCM.

Less than a year later, the administration of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez kept MCM working on a separate county job: its construction contract at Miami International Airport.

MCM wasn't just any contractor to Gimenez. The Miami Herald reported that his wife, Lourdes, is a cousin of the Munilla brothers who run the company, "and both of the Gimenez sons have worked for MCM in the past."

A family business, in more ways than one

PolitiFact laid out the ties. One son, Julio, was a general superintendent at MCM from 2006 to 2012. He left soon after his father became mayor. The other son, C.J., was a registered lobbyist for MCM; the company said he lobbied for it in 2015.

The conflict was clear from Gimenez's first months in office. In September 2011, MCM was the low bidder for a $50 million contract to do construction at the county's airports. Gimenez had to step aside from the decision after the county ethics commission's director advised him to "remove you from the decision-making chain." Writing at the time, a Miami New Times columnist said MCM employed his son Julio and used his son Carlos Jr. as its lobbyist.

The county signed an airport agreement with MCM that year. It was meant to cover about $50 million of work. Through extension after extension, the Herald reported, it grew to about $130 million.

MCM was also a big political giver. Before the bridge fell, the Herald reported, it gave "about $100,000 to incumbent county commissioners and $500,000 in federal races."

After the collapse

After the collapse, two federal agencies investigated, and both named MCM.

In September 2018, the U.S. Labor Department's safety agency, OSHA, cited MCM and four other companies. OSHA found that the companies "failed to protect workers when indications of a potential bridge collapse were evident."

The National Transportation Safety Board found the main cause was design errors by the bridge engineer, FIGG Bridge Engineers. But it also named MCM, along with FIGG, the inspection firm, FIU and the Florida Department of Transportation. All of them failed "to cease bridge work when the structure cracking reached unacceptable levels and to take appropriate action to close SW 8th Street," the road the bridge fell onto.

The extension

In early 2019, months after OSHA's citations, Mayor Gimenez's administration extended the airport contract. The Herald dates it to February; WLRN reported that the administration "granted the extension administratively in March." Then it asked the county commission to ratify keeping MCM there through August 2020.

In March 2019, MCM filed for bankruptcy. The company said the bridge collapse had left it unable to borrow the money it needed to finish jobs and stay afloat.

The county kept it on anyway. In July 2019, the Herald reported, county commissioners approved the extension "without discussion." The county's aviation director, Lester Sola, said of MCM: "They have been performing exceptionally well."

A Gimenez memo said the extra time was "needed to seek competitive bids to replace MCM," WLRN reported. That is the administration's side of the story. The result was that a bankrupt company tied to the mayor's family, already cited by OSHA over a deadly collapse, kept its place at the county's airport through August 2020.

What the fact-checkers said

Gimenez's opponents made this an issue when he first ran for Congress in 2020. PolitiFact rated one attack "Half True", and its points are worth stating plainly:

Both sons had left their formal roles at MCM years before the collapse.
The extension was for airport work, not bridge work.
The county commission approved it unanimously.

PolitiFact also noted the Miami Herald's report that C.J. Gimenez offered MCM free communications advice after the bridge fell, according to an unnamed person who had spoken to him.

None of that changes what happened. The mayor's office had a family tie to this contractor that was serious enough to keep him out of the original contract decision. After the contractor's bridge killed six people, his administration still let it keep billing on the county's airport work.

What the record shows

MCM, the builder of the FIU pedestrian bridge that collapsed in 2018 and killed six people, is run by cousins of Carlos Gimenez's wife, and both of his sons have worked for it. The family tie was strong enough that Gimenez had to step aside when MCM bid for county airport work in 2011. In early 2019, months after OSHA cited MCM over the collapse and as MCM went bankrupt, Mayor Gimenez's administration extended that $130 million airport contract, and county commissioners later approved it without discussion.