A vote for new blood: Brent Latham and Julianna Strout win in North Bay Village

After a nasty race between the candidates seen as the “old guard” and the slate of outsiders, North Bay Village residents firmly came down on the side of the two newcomers to represent them on the village commission.

Just more than 1,700 residents cast their votes in the three island municipality located along the 79th Street Causeway. Winning over 61 percent of the total votes cast, Brent Latham, 43, beat current commissioner Laura Cattabriga, 49, to become North Bay Village’s next mayor. Julianna Strout, 32, beat her opponent Robert Alvarez, age unknown, by an even larger margin, earning 66.16 percent of the vote.

“I couldn’t be more pleased to see the North Bay Village community come together and make such a strong statement for change,” Latham said in a victory statement. “I look forward to working with the new commission, residents and other stakeholders in a transparent and accountable government to build the city that the residents deserve.”

Although she did her best to distance herself from the current mayor, Connie Leon-Kreps, many voters saw Cattabriga as an integral part of the Leon-Kreps administration, plagued with dysfunction and drama over the past 12 months. Cattabriga endorsed many of the controversial actions of the current commission, including the expulsion of various high-ranking staff members.

“There is only one candidate for change in this race and that’s me,” Latham told the Miami Herald during his campaign.

The mayoral candidates fought bitterly, ending up in front of the Miami-Dade ethics commission twice in the past month after Cattabriga accused Latham of living outside of the village. The ethics commission called Cattabriga’s statements untrue and asked the candidate to denounce third-party campaign material falsely accusing Latham of crimes. Cattabriga was also caught on security camera inside a private condo building with current Vice Mayor Andreanna Jackson, when Jackson removed all of Latham’s campaign fliers. The commission determined that Cattabriga may not have been aware of Jackson’s actions.

At the time Latham told the Miami Herald that Cattabriga’s tactics may have undermined his campaign, but he won resoundingly in the end.

Latham is a newcomer to North Bay Village government, but not to diplomacy. He has a master’s degree in international relations from Georgetown University, served as a member of the Peace Corp in Honduras, and most recently did communications for ESPN and FIFA.

Strout comes from a family of politicians. Her grandfather, John Pierce Lynch, served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. To date, she might be most famous for her history as a pageant queen; she used her earnings from the Miss America Pageant 2010, where she represented Rhode Island, to pay her way through Dartmouth and now holds an MBA. Strout works at a private equity firm, GACP.

Strout’s opponent, Alvarez, did not respond to the Miami Herald’s efforts to get comment from the candidate. When approached at a public forum — his first public appearance on the campaign trail — Alvarez told Herald reporters he was “very busy ... with a lot of things” not just the campaign and would “possibly” call them back. He said then that he ran “to improve the neighborhood” before walking away.

Latham and Strout will be joined by one other newcomer on the five member commission — Marvin Wilmoth, 38, who ran uncontested for the Harbor Island seat. Wilmoth works in community development and real estate.

This story was originally published November 6, 2018 at 10:27 PM.