This 21-year Miami City Hall veteran says he wants to run for mayor again
Miami’s next mayoral election already has attracted a familiar face to the race.
Tomás Regalado, who served in public office for two decades in Miami City Hall, announced this week that he intends to run for mayor again. He plans to run after Francis Suarez leaves office, whether that’s at the end of his second term in 2025 or sooner — Suarez is considering a bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“There are things that need to be fixed,” Regalado, 75, told the Miami Herald on Friday. “Not that I can fix everything, but I think that I am healthy — I am old but healthy. I’m younger than Biden and Trump. I have historic memory, and I think that I can do something to restore decorum to the government of the city, which it doesn’t have anymore.”
Regalado, who served as a commissioner from 1996 until he was elected mayor in 2009, said he has “unfinished business” at City Hall. He pointed to an initiative he sponsored as his last mayoral term ended in 2017, the Miami Forever bond. On the day voters elected Suarez to succeed Regalado in November 2017, they also authorized the city to borrow $400 million for a slew of public projects to improve drainage and parks and fund affordable housing. City records show that more than $300 million has not yet been allocated.
“It’s been now almost six years, and I have not seen the money on the street,” Regalado said.
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The former mayor, who first announced his return to politics in Spanish on Telemundo 51 on Wednesday, told the Herald he’s been disappointed to see city cultural projects stall in the years since he left. The restoration of Miami Marine Stadium has made little progress, and the facade of the Olympia Theater is still crumbling.
What Regalado has been doing
Regalado has stayed busy and remained in the public eye.
In June 2018, he was appointed head of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, the federal agency in charge of Radio and TV Martí. His tenure was marked by expanded coverage and larger presences on digital platforms and social media.
He also faced a series of scandals and budget challenges. An antisemitic report on financier and political donor George Soros, which came before Regalado’s tenure but resurfaced when he was in charge, prompted the government to investigate the station’s actions. Citing his office’s budget, he ended the contracts of several independent journalists who reported from Cuba.
Regalado resigned in September 2019.
He now hosts a weekend television talk show on Mega TV called “Hoy con Tomás Regalado.” He regularly interviews local, state and national political figures.
Regalado was first elected mayor in 2009 when the city was on the brink of financial collapse. The city’s finances bounced back and the tax base has grown in a trend that began during Regalado’s term and has continued under Suarez, but Regalado said he doesn’t favor Suarez’s approach to the job.
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“Most important to me is the fact that the people of Miami do not have a mayor,” he said on Friday. “Francis has been doing things other than the job of the mayor, in my opinion.”
He criticized Suarez for holding multiple private-sector jobs and for, in Regalado’s view, promoting the city and himself instead of attending City Commission meetings and publicly steering the direction of the commission.
Suarez, who won reelection in a landslide in 2021, is term-limited in 2025. A run for higher office could end his term sooner, though the mayor has not publicly stated when he will make a decision.
This story was originally published March 3, 2023 at 5:17 PM.
