In his last major speech as county mayor, Carlos Gimenez touts ‘fantastic turnaround’

Eyeing the end of nearly a decade as mayor, Carlos Gimenez used his final formal address to tout himself as a consensus builder who brought prosperity to Miami-Dade and discipline to Florida’s largest local government — burnishing a legacy already under attack by Democrats as he prepares to run for Congress.

“What a fantastic turnaround,” said the two-term Republican who took office in 2011 at the tail end of a housing crash, cut the budget enough to undo his predecessor’s unpopular tax increase and was comfortably reelected in 2016 amid a building boom and job growth. “We have a lot to be proud of.”

The address at the Frost Science Museum was Gimenez’s final State of the County speech before his forced exit under term-limit rules in November after nine years in the post. Mandated by the county charter, the address is also Gimenez’s first as a likely candidate for Congress. Though undeclared, the Republican who broke with Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race has become one of the party’s best hopes of unseating a Democrat in 2020.

Gimenez’s expected entry into the Republican primary for the District 26 seat held by Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell sets up a test of the two-term mayor’s legacy and political base against Trump’s standing in a district the incumbent flipped blue by fewer than 2 percentage points in 2018. On Tuesday, he gave hints of his transition into partisan politics, thanking Trump in his address for expected federal approval of a new rapid-transit bus line in South Dade.

“I want to thank the president for his leadership to bring common sense reform to reduce red tape without harming our environment,” Gimenez said. But at a press conference under the Frost aquarium after the speech, Gimenez passed up the chance to give all the praise to his party’s leader. Asked which president was better for Miami-Dade since 2011, Gimenez gave both Trump and Barack Obama credit.

“I think they’ve both been good for the economy. It started to improve under President Obama. The economy really got moving under Trump,” Gimenez said as sharks and rays swirled behind glass above him. “I’ve got to say at this point in time, if it stays on the same path, the economy has created more jobs and higher-paying jobs for its citizens under Trump.”

Following his speech, one of the three leading Democrats running to succeed Gimenez in the nonpartisan mayor’s office issued a statement criticizing him for lack of progress. “Too many rightfully feel that the administration did little to lay out a vision for a better future,” Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava said in a statement issued by her campaign. “Our transit system is paralyzed by missed opportunities ... and our most essential infrastructure is failing.”

If he joins the race to unseat Mucarsel-Powell, Gimenez first must make it through the Republican primary as a candidate who, running for reelection in 2016, announced plans to vote for Hillary Clinton over “despicable” comments Trump made about women on an Access Hollywood tape.

Gimenez ended his State of the County event in the same political state as he began it: publicly insisting he hasn’t decided whether to run for Congress while his closest political advisors are planning for an announcement as early as Wednesday. “I’ll announce my next step when I announce my next step,” Gimenez told reporters. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

Walking the stage of the county-funded museum’s auditorium, Gimenez used a speech peppered with Spanish to cast his tenure as one that saved Miami-Dade from the financial crisis that followed the housing crash of 2008, and then navigated toward stability and economic growth.

He touched on the fight to legalize Uber and Lyft in 2016, a program with FP&L to bring floating solar panels to Miami International Airport, and county efforts to bring an Amazon warehouse and the American Dream Miami megamall to the county as large hiring centers.

His first major act after winning the 2011 special election called after voters recalled his predecessor, Carlos Alvarez, was to undo an increase in property-tax rates Alvarez championed as a response to the collapse of real estate values. Gimenez secured wage cuts from unions and spending reductions in the budget.

That reduction in property rates amounted to a savings of about $1,700 for the average taxpayer and removed about $1.8 billion in county spending over the next nine years, Gimenez said in his speech. The countywide property tax rate remains slightly below where it was in his first approved budget.

“Today,” Gimenez said, “I’m proud to say the state of our county is stable and strong.”

Gimenez would run for Congress in a district that includes South Dade and parts of the western suburbs, an area where the mayor has fought to extend the 836 toll road into a new expressway. Dubbed the Kendall Parkway, it would bring the new 13-mile toll road into wetlands and other areas that critics say will harm Everglades restoration and encourage sprawl. Gimenez calls the $1 billion project a vital improvement for areas not served by the county’s Metrorail system.

“I will keep fighting for the residents of South Dade and West Kendall who are desperate for relief from traffic congestion that is destroying their way of life,” he said.

While the tax burden has been lower for residents than it would have under the Alvarez rates, the Gimenez budgets also coincided with service cuts in transit, deferred maintenance in county parks and concerns that Miami-Dade is falling behind on addressing the challenges of climate change and sea-level rise.

“Just because they now call everything in the budget ‘resilient’ doesn’t make it so,” Cindy Lerner, a former Pinecrest mayor running for Gimenez’s old County Commission seat, said after the speech.

His address highlighted the role of the private sector in his administration’s efforts.

Under Gimenez, Miami-Dade approved significant redevelopment at PortMiami, allowing cruise companies to replace drab industrial terminals with modern glass-walled facilities. He presided over a bitter procurement fight that led to the developer Related Group winning a contract to rebuild Liberty Square, one of the oldest public housing complexes in the country. The first phase of about 200 units opened in July.

“Nothing that’s great is ever easy,” Gimenez said of the project. “Remember that.”

Gimenez’s role as the county’s chief procurement officer has also brought controversy. Two of his top political operatives from his 2016 reelection bid, campaign manager Jesse Manzano-Plaza and fundraising chairman Ralph Garcia-Toledo, are partners with casino company Genting in a bid to build a monorail system between Miami and Miami Beach. Gimenez has praised the proposal, which sparked a bidding process to invite competing offers.

Florida’s Democratic Party has already issued an online attack video on Gimenez, claiming his administration was more interested in helping the mayor’s allies than residents. Gimenez’s office has rejected the video as false and misleading, and the mayor Tuesday seemed to take on one of the video’s barbs about past plans to cut library hours.

The county’s library system has expanded since 2014, when Gimenez didn’t block a commission-backed increase to the property tax that funds libraries. “Let me say that again,” Gimenez told the crowd in laying out the libraries’ current offerings. “Our libraries offer more hours and services than at any time in our county’s history.”

Ahead of his speech, Gimenez offered a hint at the bipartisan praise he’s hoping to bring to his next political race. Audrey Edmonson, a Democrat and chairwoman of the County Commission, lauded Gimenez as someone who “accomplished what he set out to do ... and so much more.”

“This man has met the mountains,” she said.

The State of the County address brings an unusual mix of pomp and stagecraft to Miami-Dade business, which typically unfolds in a windowless commission chambers with an audience mostly filled with lobbyists and administrators. An honor guard from county police marched in with flags, and a video screen flashed faces of county leaders and department heads thanked by Gimenez, interspersed with polished videos of improvement plans at Miami International Airport, the Underline park, and other county projects.

Edmonson also offered a look at the lifestyle Miami-Dade’s senior elected official would surrender if elected to Congress in November. The six Gimenez grandchildren joined the mayor and his wife, Lourdes, on the stage for the Pledge of Allegiance, and Edmonson noted the youngsters are central to Gimenez’s current routine. “At a special hour of every day he’s not available,” Edmonson said of Gimenez, “because he’s going to go pick up his grandchildren.”

This story was originally published January 14, 2020 at 3:24 PM.