The candidates running for Miami Beach mayor and city commission agreed to sit down one-on-one with a Miami Herald reporter to weigh in on five topics: the city's budget, business and tourism, parking and transportation, what they consider to be the most pressing issue facing the city, and their own qualifications.

Candidate: Matti Bower

Major Issue:

The economy is the biggest issue right now. For the next few years, until the economy rises and gets better, we need to address the economy in any way we can. I'm helping businesses and I'm trying to see how we can raise that bar.

Budget:

We're working with the unions very closely to try and get this budget year settled. We need to work together with the unions and get it done this year. If we can get the freezes that we asked for this year, that helps toward the pension. That would address two issues at the same time. Next year, we're going to have to tighten the belt more. We're going to have to address the pension. We're going to have to see what we can do. Can I tell you what exactly we're going to do right now? No. When you negotiate with the unions you have to work together. Hopefully the unions will see that we're not trying to put anything over them.

Business and Tourism:

Like everything else, business has been down but we're still better off than most areas in Miami as a whole. That's why I'm focusing on the businesses, because we have to keep reinventing ourselves to make sure people keep coming here.

Parking and Transportation:

We really have, through the 10 years I've been here, addressed the parking issue with a lot of parking garages. We still have the one at Prairie Avenue and we need to address the one at North Beach.

There is one that just opened at Fifth Street. I think we've really come up with a lot of parking spaces. As for transportation, we're moving forward with the county, which was great to enhance the local buses. We'll have one in Middle Beach and one in North Beach. Bicycle paths we have been working on a long time. We just don't get the credit like Miami gets the credit, but if you look, we've enhanced a lot of bike paths.

We also have the bicycle-share and car-share programs we're looking into. The bicycle program seems to be moving along.

Qualifications:

I want to continue the path of moving along in the work that I have been doing. I started with education, and preservation, and have moved forward into business now.

People think I'm not a business person. I think it rounds off the career that I look forward to doing.

I'm still a very strong advocate for residents and I'll continue to be a very strong advocate for residents. I'm the best candidate because I really have a good grasp of the issues.

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@