‘We need to get back to a new normal.’ Miami-Dade mayor alludes to reopening plans.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez made it clear Wednesday that while originally excluded from the state’s first reopening order, South Florida’s restaurants and retailers will begin to reopen soon.
“In order for our state to be successful, we need our South Florida communities to be successful,” DeSantis said at a press conference at the testing site at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. “Miami’s an incredible engine for the state of Florida. Same with Broward and Palm Beach.”
Standing alongside Gimenez, DeSantis assured South Floridians watching at home that together, they will “craft an appropriate way forward” to bring back parts of the economy in South Florida that are so crucial to the state, like tourism and hospitality.
“I think we can look to South Florida to really help lead Florida back,” he said.
On Monday, the rest of the state moved forward with what DeSantis calls “phase one” reopening plans, meaning restaurants and other nonessential businesses could reopen their doors with new social-distancing rules in place. Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, where the COVID-19 pandemic has hit hardest, were all excluded from the plan.
DeSantis said municipalities like Miami “shouldn’t be held back” if the cases decline more than other places. DeSantis pointed to declining numbers of hospitalizations from influenza-like illnesses — a key indicator of COVID-19 cases — deaths and other metrics that showed other parts of the state were ready to lift the stay-at-home order, which was issued April 1.
Gimenez said the committees he assembled to draft reopening rules are still working on a strategy, and that he will await DeSantis’ “blessing” before he announces a plan.
“We want to open up as fast as we can,” he said, joking that he desperately needs a haircut.
Miami-Dade currently has 13,371 cases of COVID-19, 36% of the state total.
Gimenez hasn’t released information from the closed-door meetings of the committees, whose rules will ultimately govern businesses once his emergency closure orders are lifted.
He said this week he expects the rules to be finished soon but hasn’t said when they will be made public. His administration hired the McKinsey consulting firm to help write the rules, he said.
In some ways, South Florida is slowly returning to normal, even if slower than other places. Miami-Dade and Broward counties took their own first steps last week by opening some parks, boat ramps and golf courses with lots of restrictions.
Miami, Hialeah aren’t in agreement
Miami and Hialeah, the largest cities in Miami-Dade, did not sign on with Gimenez’s timetable for opening parks last week.
Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernández said he didn’t think it made sense to allow residents in the county’s second largest city to return to recreational spaces.
Hernández said he’d prefer to see a more coordinated effort across the county’s many municipalities and the county government, emphasizing that the virus “does not know boundaries between cities.”
“I would really like to see everybody on the same page,” he said.
In his estimation, Hialeah is still not ready to consider reopening parks or commerce, though he hopes the city moves closer to that in the next few weeks.
Asked if he will secure consensus from large cities for his reopening plan for businesses, Gimenez said he’s expecting support from South Florida counties and that local municipalities can make their own decisions on timing.
“We talked to Broward, Palm Beach and even Monroe counties about having a unified approach,” Gimenez told reporters earlier in the week. “I would expect that most cities would follow the lead of Miami-Dade County. ... But cities have the right to go at their own pace. However, when they do, they have to understand that creates confusion.”
Miami Beach looks to ‘smaller reopening’
Miami Beach officials have been in close contact with the county and last week timed the reopening of certain parks in the city with the county’s broader reopening of parks and other green spaces.
“We can’t go faster than they can, and we can’t go further than they can,” City Manager Jimmy Morales said during a virtual meeting Wednesday. “We’re pretty up to speed on where we think they are in the process.”
For Miami Beach, the initial reopening will likely see retail stores resume operations and condominium pools open back up, but beaches and hotels will remain closed until the state’s “phase two,” even if the county moves to open them sooner.
How to reopen restaurants is a trickier topic, Morales said. The city is having conversations about possibly doing a “smaller reopening” to allow restaurants with sidewalk cafes to open before others do.
But even a gradual reopening won’t happen in the city unless daily hospitalization rates and positive-case rates show a steady decline and “robust” surveillance testing and contact tracing become available in Miami-Dade County, he said.
City leaders are hopeful that testing capabilities will increase as a new testing site opens Friday at the Miami Beach Convention Center and as officials meet with representatives of the Rockefeller Foundation, which has pledged to help Miami Beach and the county increase testing and contact tracing.
Miami Lakes says it’s ready
One municipality, Miami Lakes, is vocally pushing in the other direction. The town council there passed a resolution April 30 asking Gimenez to let the town reopen its nonessential businesses in the same manner as much of Florida.
In Palm Beach County, commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to send a letter to DeSantis asking for his blessing to break away from Miami-Dade and Broward and start reopening nonessential businesses.
The commission also scheduled a special meeting for Friday to decide whether to reopen the county’s beaches.
Palm Beach has seen more than 3,400 reported cases of COVID-19 and 215 deaths from the disease, a higher rate of death than Broward and slightly lower than Miami-Dade when factoring in population.
But Broward County Mayor Dale Holness said it’s too early to reopen the economy, citing an insufficient level of testing. Officials there have floated early June as a potential target date, Holness said, but plans have yet to be finalized.
Holness’ office sent a survey Tuesday to municipal mayors and managers across the county, seeking their input on what regulations should be put in place — like whether to reopen restaurants at 25% or 50% capacity.
“I know there are a lot of people who are anxious to open,” Holness said. “But what we don’t want to do is go out too early and then have a spike and then shut back down. That would hurt businesses more than it would help them.”
Holness also called for consensus among Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties on when to reopen. Although Palm Beach commissioners went rogue, Holness said he believes DeSantis agrees that South Florida should take a regional approach.
“I think it’s essential that we work together as a region, as we have been doing,” he said. “We need to realize that what impacts the folks in Palm Beach impacts the folks in Broward and Miami-Dade. If there’s a spurt of transmission in Broward, it will lead to Palm Beach.”
Miami Herald staff writers Joey Flechas and Martin Vassolo contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 6:48 PM.