Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins picks county public safety chief as her city manager
Miami’s new mayor, Eileen Higgins, has selected James Reyes, the head of public safety for Miami-Dade County, as her city manager. The veteran law enforcement administrator was the Democratic Party’s nominee for sheriff last year.
Higgins, a former Miami-Dade commissioner and a Democrat in a nonpartisan post, made the announcement in a memo released Monday, her first big decision as mayor and one of her new position’s top levers of administrative power. As mayor, Higgins has no authority over the city bureaucracy but does have the power to hire and fire the city manager — provided she isn’t overruled by the City Commission. The city’s five commissioners are expected to vote on the Reyes appointment Jan. 8.
In Reyes, Higgins opted for a top administrator with law enforcement experience but limited exposure to other elements of Miami government, including housing, garbage pickup, parks, zoning and building codes.
Reyes spent most of his career working in the Broward County Corrections system, rising to a senior administrator in the Broward Sheriff’s Office, which runs the county jails. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava recruited Reyes in 2022 for the top Corrections post in Miami-Dade, then promoted him to oversee all of the county’s public safety agencies as her political operation was preparing his campaign for Miami-Dade sheriff in 2024. He lost to Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz, a Republican.
After the election, Reyes remained a top Levine Cava deputy with a larger portfolio that included social services. He earns about $350,000 a year at the county. The Higgins memo did not say how much Reyes would be paid as city manager.
In her memo to city commissioners, Higgins praised Reyes as a skilled administrator able to change how things are run in government.
“Mr. Reyes has demonstrated the transformational leadership our city needs,” she wrote. “When recruited to lead Miami-Dade Corrections in 2022, he inherited facilities out of federal compliance for over a decade. Within one year, he achieved full compliance, a testament to his ability to work with employees to diagnose systemic challenges and implement sustainable solutions.”
The current city manager, Art Noriega, came to his post after running Miami’s independent parking authority. Higgins asked him to stay on as a manager during the transition. If the Higgins nomination is approved by the commission, Reyes is expected to take over as the city’s top administrator on Jan. 12.
Reyes, a married father of three, still lives in Broward. He grew up in Miami-Dade and graduated from Hialeah High School after his family left Cuba, where he was born, according to a biography posted on his sheriff campaign site.
Reyes shared a campaign manager with Higgins in his unsuccessful run for sheriff. Political consultant Christian Ulvert oversaw the Reyes campaign and also ran the Higgins campaigns for county commission and mayor. Ulvert also runs Levine Cava’s political operation and managed her campaigns, too.
Under Levine Cava, Reyes managed the county’s controversial cooperation contract between Miami-Dade jails and federal immigration authorities — “287(g)” agreements that are mandated under Florida law for corrections departments but not a statutory requirement for municipal police departments. Higgins has been critical of the city of Miami’s decision to sign a 287(g) agreement for its police department, and Reyes would bring expertise in the details of that arrangement should the mayor want to revisit the agreement.
In her own memo circulated Monday afternoon, Levine Cava praised Reyes’ work at the county, including presiding over the Corrections Department when a judge last summer ended years of federal monitoring of Miami-Dade’s jail system.
“James was the tip of the spear in one of the greatest accomplishments for this County during my time in office,” she wrote.
This story was originally published December 29, 2025 at 12:13 PM.