One year into office, Miami-Dade mayor talks UDB, sheriff problems and her 2024 race

On her 365th full day in office, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s voice caught when she addressed staff at the Lotus House Women’s Shelter in Miami for a volunteer session with county employees.

”It really helps me to get back to my roots, and really motivates me to do the work that I do,” Levine Cava, a former social worker, told the two dozen people crowded into an office. “Which was always to make sure children and families were safe, and received love and support.”

Afterwards, the 66-year-old former child-welfare lawyer and foster-care administrator said she got emotional thinking about the connections between her current post and past career.

“I just really care about these things,” Levine Cava said. “It’s really important to not just be about the government process all the time. To take the time to get back to what really matters.”

The first Democrat elected to Miami-Dade’s highest office in 20 years, Levine Cava campaigned on the slogan “A Mayor Who Cares.” She ran a campaign that positioned the sitting county commissioner as the Democratic choice for the non-partisan mayor’s office against Republican Esteban “Steve” Bovo Jr., now Hialeah’s mayor. She took the oath of office Nov. 17, becoming Miami-Dade’s first female mayor.

She’s already raising money from lobbyists and county vendors for her 2024 reelection, and confirmed this week she’s planning to seek a second term.

Her first year brought the national spotlight to Levine Cava after she took the lead in daily media briefings on the county’s response to the June condominium collapse in Surfside, which killed 98 people. It also brought a surge of more than $500 million in federal COVID relief through 2023, allowing her first budget to pass with spending boosts and union raises.

Levine Cava, the only Florida mayor who still holds the powers of sheriff, also faced a rash of shootings in her first year, followed by commission adoption of a $90 million anti-violence campaign she pushed through alongside sponsor Commissioner Keon Hardemon.

In her second year as mayor, Levine Cava is hoping to win a fight with developers who want to expand the Urban Development Boundary into farmland for a South Dade industrial park.

She didn’t attend the Sept. 9 commission meeting granting preliminary approval for the move, and Chairman Jose “Pepe” Diaz declined to let county staffers working for her give a presentation on why the line should stay put.

For the second vote, she can count as an ally Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who this week joined the county mayor in calling the proposal bad for the Everglades.

Wearing a black county shirt embroidered with “Madam Mayor,” Levine Cava sat down for an interview with the Miami Herald in a recording studio that Lotus House maintains for in-house productions and podcasts.

She talked about why she dropped resistance to the plan backed by her predecessor, then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez, to build a monorail between Miami and Miami Beach; why she doesn’t want to lose the county police force to an elected sheriff; and what happens when the federal COVID dollars run dry.

Just now in your remarks before the service day, you said it really helps to get back to your roots. What did you mean by that?

To be grounded in what public service really means. Obviously I’m on the 29th floor, I’m handling this $9 billion budget, 29,000 employees. But what’s it all about? It’s really about taking care of our community. It’s important to have that touch, to be really on the ground, learning from people, listening, seeing how we can care for them.

You get recognized a lot. Do people in really deep need reach out to you and say: ‘I need help.’

Yes, all the time. That’s partly why I created a director of constituent services, and we created this ‘no wrong-door policy’ and all the departments are being cross-trained so that if anyone comes to them in need, they will be directed to where they can get assistance...

Yesterday, I had a press conference [outside the Stephen P. Clark Center in downtown Miami] and two people came up to me ... One was a homeless man and his family. He had been assisted to find housing. But he had put his belongings in storage. And he wanted to know: could he get help paying for the storage unit?

What a great point. I honestly had never thought about that. So I told him people would meet with him to see if we have the flexibility to see if we can use the money for something like that.

Will Miami-Dade face any sort of funding crunch once the COVID dollars run out?

We’re certainly banking on the economy fully recovering and doing better. We continue to have new properties and property taxes. We think we’ve created sustainable programs.

On monorail, did you come into office wanting it to be converted to Metromover?

Yes, I think that a one-seat ride is always preferable. I’ve been persuaded it really will not be that difficult to make that transition. It will be the same platform. I’m satisfied.

What do you think will be the result of Sen. Rubio coming out against moving the Urban Development Boundary for the South Dade project?

I’m hopeful that it will help some of those commissioners that were trying to fully evaluate to have a different vote when it comes back.

The first UDB vote, you didn’t participate in the meeting. Why was that?

You know, when I am in the chambers, I become sometimes the focal point. The staff were totally prepared, they had done a magnificent job and were teed up to do what they always do, which is make a presentation. And I did not want to distract from the professional work. I did not want to, really, politicize it. I wanted to make it about the merits of the situation.

You were surprised they weren’t allowed to give a presentation?

I was shocked.

The county will elect a sheriff in 2024. What do you think the county should do about its police force in the meantime? Should it have its own municipal police force, or should the sheriff be in charge of that?

We’re looking at all the possible variations. The sheriff’s specific role could be very narrowly defined, or it could be very broadly defined. So there are decisions to be made by the commission. I certainly plan to weigh in on what we should do. I do believe we’ve done an outstanding job with our police force under the purview of the mayor. My initial inclination is to maintain that same quality under the mayor’s supervision...

I’ll just use Surfside as an example. The way in which we managed that crisis, with our police and fire working so closely together, was a result of all of that being under the mayor’s purview. I did think about that a lot during Surfside, and wondered what it would be like if some of that would have been decentralized.

Should we expect you to run for reelection?

Absolutely ... I always intended to be a two-term mayor. I have work to do. I don’t think I can accomplish it in four years.

Your political committee is raising money from entities that have business before the county. Why raise money so soon, and how do you deal with those conflicts?

First of all, people want to give me money. Let’s be clear. People are ready. People think ahead. That’s a good thing. Obviously our laws permit a wide range of people to donate, and I think I’ve proven that I am independent of those dollars when it comes to decision making.

That to be said, we have used some of those dollars for things that are happening now, some programs I wasn’t able to fund through the county.

[Levine Cava’s political committee, Our Democracy, has raised about $155,000 since November and spent about $5,000 sponsoring nonprofits and their events. The rest has gone to political expenses, including a consulting retainer for campaign manager Christian Ulvert and contributions to candidates, including $3,000 for Annette Taddeo’s gubernatorial run in the Democratic primary.]

What’s your role as a leader in the Democratic Party versus your role as mayor, and is it okay when they mix?

I am a very dedicated Democrat. But I think truly this job is a non-partisan job. I think it’s been really helpful to be a Democrat with a Democrat for the White House. I think that is good for us. And we’ve formed a strong relationship with the White House, as evident by my two invitations so far and our strong support for Surfside.

This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 6:28 PM.