Amid brewing power struggle, Miami commission blocks mayor’s $450M bond — for now
The Miami City Commission on Thursday delayed a vote on Mayor Eileen Higgins’ half-billion-dollar public safety bond, dealing a blow to the mayor as she’s worked to find her footing during her first five months in City Hall.
Higgins had hoped to ask voters in August to approve $450 million in spending to replace the city’s deteriorating public safety infrastructure, including building a new public safety building estimated to cost approximately $300 million that would house various emergency services and new headquarters for the Miami Police Department.
The commission’s move blocks the bond from going to voters this summer, since Thursday was the final commission meeting before the deadline to send referendums to the August primary ballot.
The commissioners, however, said they were open to putting the bond item on the November ballot. Higgins tried to persuade her colleagues to green-light the bond Thursday, even with the caveat that the proposal would go to voters in the fall rather than in the summer. But some commissioners said they needed more time, voting 4-1 to defer to the next meeting.
“When you consider bonding $450 million, it is not something you do between two commission meetings,” Commissioner Christine King said.
Commissioner Rolando Escalona, the item’s co-sponsor, voted against the deferral. While Commissioner Ralph Rosado voted to defer the item, he said he would have voted yes on the bond measure Thursday had it not been deferred. Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela was the apparent swing vote, saying that he was supportive of the bond going to voters later this year, but that he wasn’t ready to say yes just yet.
“It needs to be done. We know that,” Gabela said. “All we’re saying is that we need a little bit more time to put this on the November ballot.”
The majority of residents who gave public comment on the item at Thursday’s meeting spoke out against it, expressing concern that another bond on the heels of the $400 million Miami Forever Bond — approved in 2017 — was fiscally irresponsible.
The commission vote lands amid a brewing power struggle between Higgins and some city commissioners, underscored by a memo Higgins issued Thursday morning announcing that she would be taking over as the meeting’s chairperson.
The move yanked King from her role as chair — a coveted position among the five members of the City Commission — for Thursday’s meeting. King was first named chairwoman in 2021 under former Mayor Francis Suarez’s administration, becoming the first woman to hold that position. In December, shortly after Higgins was sworn in, she had announced that she was reappointing King as chair.
“This decision was not made lightly,” Higgins said in the May 14 memo. “The voters elected me to lead the City of Miami during a period that requires accountability, transparency, and decisive leadership on issues that will shape our city for generations.”
King told the Miami Herald she was given a heads-up on her commute to City Hall on Thursday morning. A spokesperson for Higgins did not immediately respond to a request for comment asking whether King would be reinstated as chair at future meetings.
As chair, Higgins on Thursday held the discussion for her bond item first, limiting public comment to the bond proposal only for that portion of the meeting.
In making her pitch, Higgins gave an impassioned speech. She described deteriorating conditions in police and fire facilities like mold, faulty plumbing and electrical issues.
Higgins said response times in some parts of the city are so bad that “you should be afraid.”
“I view it as a moral responsibility,” Higgins said of the bond, adding that: “One of these facilities will fail.”
In a statement after Thursday’s meeting, Higgins said she was “disappointed by the lack of urgency on an issue that directly impacts both public safety and the working conditions of the men and women who protect our city every day.”
“Miami’s police officers, 911 call takers, firefighters, and paramedics should not be asked to do world-class work in facilities that are deteriorating and failing,” Higgins said. “When public safety infrastructure fails, it puts the public at risk.“
She added that she is “sure the Commission will do the right thing at the May 28 meeting and move this forward, so Miamians can have the final say.”
This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 11:32 AM.
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