Miami-Dade mayor celebrates police spending as he teases a run for county sheriff
In one of his final major addresses, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez touted the county’s dispatch of police to area schools after the Parkland school massacre and praised his administration’s spending on security.
After delivering his eighth State of the County speech, the term-limited mayor confirmed he was interested in running for sheriff once that returns to being an elected office in the coming years.
“Maybe,” Gimenez said when asked if he wanted to run for sheriff. “But that’s in 2024.”
Gimenez, set to finish nine years as mayor in the fall of 2020, used his speech at PortMiami on Thursday to declare public safety his top priority. He highlighted the county’s agreement to pay millions of dollars in overtime to temporarily station Miami-Dade police in suburban schools in order to help the school system comply with post-Parkland legislation requiring armed security for all students.
His 2019 budget also has about $5 million for nine “priority response” teams described as police trained to respond to “active shooter” situations.
“I want to make Miami-Dade County the safest place to be,” he told the crowd in English and Spanish during what’s slated to be his second-to-last annual address as mayor. “We were able to achieve all of this heightened level of security throughout Miami-Dade County without having to raise property taxes or reduce service.”
Law enforcement was one element of a speech in which Gimenez praised the county’s economy, the planned development of the American Dream Miami mega-mall and the need for an 836 extension into West Kendall.
“I would fight anything that puts the Kendall Parkway in jeopardy,” he said of the project by the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, an independent toll board that the mayor leads as its appointed chairman.
He also touted an agreement with Florida Power and Light set to bring solar panels to county land, including the possibility of a floating installation on lakes around Miami International Airport. He said the for-profit utility expects to have 300,000 panels in Miami-Dade, producing fuel savings that are the equivalent of 12,000 cars being taken off the road.
During budget hearings on the mass-shooting measures, county commissioners questioned the expense of stationing county police in schools, pointing to high-crime areas that could use more police on a daily basis. The Gimenez administration cited the new school patrols in explaining last August’s shift reductions in the Liberty City area.
Gimenez has made no secret of his interest in staying in politics once he departs as mayor in 2020, and he rarely rules out seeking potential offices. The former city manager is seen as a potential candidate for Miami mayor in 2021, if he doesn’t opt to run for his old County Commission seat next year.
He has never been a police officer. Gimenez served as a paramedic during his career in the city’s fire department, and later became fire chief.
While sheriffs are already elected in Florida’s other counties, state law currently gives sheriff powers to the elected mayor in Miami-Dade and makes the police director a county department head appointed by the mayor.
That’s set to change by 2024 after a state referendum mandating elections for a number of county offices across Florida, including sheriff, elections supervisor and tax collector.
Gimenez opposed the 2018 referendum requiring the elected offices. Since its passage, Broward and Palm Beach’s election supervisors, both elected, were suspended by Florida governors after drawing national ridicule for problems with the November recount. Gov. Ron DeSantis also suspended Broward’s elected sheriff, Scott Israel, for his response to the February 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Along with Gimenez, potential sheriff candidates for Miami-Dade include County Commissioner Joe Martinez and Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernández. Both are retired police officers.
Some of the loudest applause for Gimenez came at the end when he said that as a Cuban-American and mayor of a county where many residents have “suffered under oppressive regimes,” he would be “remiss if I did not speak up for the people of Venezuela.”
He praised international recognition of Venezuelan assembly leader Juan Guaidó as the country’s acting president. “Venezuela, Miami-Dade County stands with you today, tomorrow and always,” he said. “Viva una Venezuela libre.”
This story was originally published January 31, 2019 at 5:26 PM.