During election season, politicians are often accused of flip-flopping on issues simply to move the political needle in their favor so that on election night, they have a better chance of winning their respective races.

When someone is accused of flip-flopping, there is usually just cause for the accusation.

While no one can hold a candle to former Republican-turned-Independent-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist when it comes to flip-flopping Raquel Regalado, who is currently in the race for Mayor of Miami-Dade County, can run with the best of them.

This past March, CBS Miami reported that Miami-Dade School Board members, including Raquel Regalado, voted unanimously in favor of developing the American Dream Miami mall on vacant city land.

Ironically, Raquel Regalado has repeatedly criticized Miami-Dade County Mayor, Carlos Gimenez, for supporting this project, calling it “shameful” and unrepresentative of the kind of vision she supports for the county.

Oh, just so you know, the vacant land where developer Triple Five wants to build the mall, was leased to the Miami-Dade County Public Schools. With the agreement, M-DCPS would receive $7 million in compensation for giving up its lease.

In March 2015, Raquel Regalado told CBS Miami that it was the right decision to give the property comprising the vacant land and use the money to fix the schools. However, somewhere between this statement and her decision to run for County Mayor, she started referring to the project as representing an outdated economic model and called it the last straw that pushed her to run for Mayor of Miami-Dade.

That same month, Regalado told The Miami Herald, that “her position as a mayoral candidate is completely different from her position as a school board member” and further stated “the lease cancellation is nonetheless a good deal.” Is it possible to reconcile Raquel Regalado’s decisions?

As another example of her contradictions, we should mention that in October 2014, Going a bit further back to October 2014,  The Miami Herald reported that Raquel Regalado joined her father, Tomas Regalado, and auto magnate Norman Braman, to discuss a project to build a new school in downtown Miami. It turns out, she was one of the chief proponents behind building a new public school in downtown despite the fact that Booker T. Washington, a high school in the Overtown area of Miami, was under-enrolled at 983 students.

Fast forward to January 2016, where Raquel Regalado heavily criticized Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s support for the redevelopment of Liberty Square, partly because she opposed the developers’ proposals to build a charter schools in the area surrounding the housing project.

Raquel Regalado attempted to justify her conflicting positions by arguing that these two scenarios are different, as public funds would not be utilized to build the new school in downtown, the way the funds would be used to redevelop Liberty Square.

Many of Raquel Regalado’s colleagues at the school district share a different sentiment about the need for a new school in downtown Miami. At least one school board member referred to talks of the new downtown school as ‘bogus’, mentioning other existing schools around the area.

Moreover, in November 2014, there was an editorial in The Miami Times talking about Raquel Regalado’s failure to inform her constituents of the other public schools in her district as a clear disregard for her public service duties.

Should all Miami-Dade taxpayers have to flip the bill because of a few of Regalado’s constituents?