Levine Cava reveals new innovation fund while touting her record as county mayor
Promising “the freedom to thrive,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava touted her administration’s record on crime, economic growth and housing Wednesday night and announced a $9 million innovation fund for the local private sector.
“I address you today with not just hope but with real plans to make our vision for the future a reality — to build the Miami-Dade you deserve,” Levine Cava said in her third State of the County address since the 2020 election, when she ran as a centrist Democrat in the officially non-partisan race. “This is our Miami-Dade County, and I promise to continue working my hardest to make it better for you.”
Before an after-dark crowd of about 500 people at Tropical Park, Levine Cava used the speech to lay out an agenda centered on jobs and safety as she prepares for a 2024 reelection campaign in a county Gov. Ron DeSantis flipped red in November. “We can’t have shared prosperity unless we have peace,” she said.
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The event was a showcase of Levine Cava, Miami-Dade’s first female mayor and the first Democrat to win the office in 20 years. Poet Richard Blanco delivered a poem he said was written in Levine Cava’s honor (but didn’t name her), and the county’s parks director, Maria Nardi, welcomed the crowd with a plug for the diverse recreational options available at Tropical. “Like our mayor,” Nardi said, “this park is a great unifier.”
The speech included an announcement: a new $9 million fund called the “Innovation Authority” that would provide money to private-sector companies working on problems facing the public, such as climate change, healthcare, housing and transit. The plan calls for $3 million from Miami-Dade, plus $3 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and $3 million from Ken Griffin, CEO of Citadel, the trading company building a Miami headquarters.
Levine Cava’s event doubled as a celebration of Tropical Park at a time when Miami mogul John Ruiz is pushing a plan to build a University of Miami football stadium on part of the park in the Westchester area. Anthony Rodriguez, the Miami-Dade commissioner whose district includes Tropical, used his welcoming remarks to declare: “We took an oath to protect and preserve this land.”
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After a rendition of the national anthem by a member of the Miami Gay Men’s Chorus, Levine Cava, the county’s first Jewish mayor, delivered a speech with a passage devoted to hate crimes. “Miami-Dade continues to stand strong in the face of injustice, loudly declaring that our county is a safe place for everyone,” she said.
Levine Cava linked new spending on youth programs and police to Miami-Dade’s decline in violent crime after a rash of gun-related deaths in 2021. She promised a county where “public safety is a continuous priority” and pledged to try and deliver an economy “where everyone has the freedom to thrive.”
This story was originally published January 25, 2023 at 8:36 PM.