Miami Mayor Francis Suarez inaugurated as president of U.S. Conference of Mayors
Standing between Miami’s downtown skyline and dozens of supporters, Mayor Francis Suarez marked a triumphant moment by taking a minute to reflect on his failures.
He had just received the gavel at his inauguration as the 80th President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Monday, and he decided to abandon his prepared remarks. Before he offered a short preview of an “America Forever” agenda to tackle poverty and promote cryptocurrency, Miami’s marketer-in-chief offered a rare moment of unprompted self-reflection when he went off-script.
The 44-year-old elected official spoke of his failed first run for mayor and the 2018 campaign to make himself a strong mayor, which voters rejected. He reflected about a young man he knew who’d recently received a second chance at Immaculata-La Salle High School, Suarez’s alma mater.
“That was me 27 years ago. I was that boy trying to figure out what I was going to do myself, who I was going to be, what I was about,” he said. “And so you see someone up here, and I think sometimes you get the impression that we’re perfect, but the truth is we’re all struggling day in and day out to make sure that we can be the best version of ourselves.”
Suarez cast himself as a scrappy public servant whose strength was forged in adversity before his moment in the spotlight, which just got a bit brighter. He now holds a leadership role in a nationwide organization of municipal leaders that in 2009 detailed which projects should benefit from a federal stimulus package during the Great Recession. The conference could be seen as the City Hall lobby, working to steer federal sources to local governments, away from partisan fights in Washington.
Suarez had another description.
“We are like a mayoral support group,” the mayor said.
Former Mayor Manny Diaz was the first mayor from the Magic City to be elected president of the conference, in 2008. He told the Miami Herald that he was proud of Suarez, whom he encouraged to get involved in the group. Now chairman of the Florida Democratic Party, Diaz said he’s still involved in the group that connected him with mayors of other major U.S. cities who became role models and friends.
“What mayors do is copy each other,” Diaz said. He recalled visiting Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and being inspired to upgrade Miami’s dilapidated bus shelters. The former mayor also recounted securing federal dollars for parks and affordable housing through relationships that he formed through the conference.
“It’s a phenomenal resource if you use it wisely,” Diaz said.
Suarez has said he wants to “set an agenda for urban America” to deal with issues facing cities, from poverty to housing to climate change. On Monday, he kept his remarks light on policy and heavier on his term as Miami’s mayor, from low property taxes to a historically low crime rate.
The mayor did offer a view into part of his national agenda — branded as “America Forever,” borrowing from the “Miami Forever” branding of a voter-approved bond promoted by his predecessor. That plan to borrow and spend $400 million for drainage, parks and affordable housing has, by Suarez’s own account, progressed too slowly under his first term.
One of Suarez’s priorities: to ask fellow mayors to sign a “mayoral crypto compact” that would promote the use of the crytpocurrency.
“We need to make sure that our regulatory system embodies success in the future instead of stifling success as other countries like China have done by banning Bitcoin,” said Suarez, whose enthusiasm for crypto has won him accolades from the tech sector and criticism from those who see the unregulated financial system as conduit for illegal activity and an environmental burden because of its intense use of energy.
A Republican in a nonpartisan City Hall post fresh off reelection in November, Suarez enters 2022 still riding a wave of hype around his enthusiasm for the tech industry and his possible future in national politics. As president of the mayoral group, Suarez could have doors opened to him in Washington, where he could find himself lobbying members of his own party on issues that matter to cities.
This story was originally published January 3, 2022 at 8:46 PM.
