Tomás Regalado, a City Hall fixture for the past 13 years, will be sworn in as Miami's 33rd mayor at noon Wednesday.

Regalado, 62, easily defeated fellow Commissioner Joe Sanchez last week in a low-turnout two-man race by campaigning on a promise to slow the breakneck development of the past eight years and focus more on local neighborhood issues.

A four-term commissioner, Regalado first won office during the city's darkest hour in 1996, when Miami struggled through the brink of bankruptcy as several city leaders were convicted of crimes emanating from an undercover law enforcement sting called Operation Greenpalm.

As two-term Mayor Manny Diaz departs, Regalado has already made clear he wants the ouster of nationally recognized police chief John Timoney. He also confronts a bleak city budget drained by fast-rising union pensions that Regalado and other commissioners approved.

Commissioners were able to balance the city's $500 million budget for this year by filling a $118 million hole with department, salary and service cuts, and through one-time pacts with the unions.

Commissioners forced salary cuts of between 6 and 15 percent for nonunion employees. But for Miami to ease its financial burden in coming years, the unions must come on board with the salary cuts.

Those unions strongly supported Regalado's election bid. The new mayor vows to sit down with the city's three main unions to renegotiate the 2007 agreement.

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