Miami postpones vote on mayor’s $450M public safety bond to the summer
With votes from three out of five city commissioners needed to send her $450 million public safety bond to the November ballot, Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins is asking for more time to secure buy-in from the majority of her colleagues.
On Thursday, the Miami City Commission deferred a vote on Higgins’ bond proposal to July 9, six weeks from now. That still puts Higgins on track to land her proposal on the November ballot, after the commission earlier this month blocked her from sending the measure to voters on this summer’s primary ballot.
Higgins had initially hoped to ask voters in August to approve $450 million in spending to replace the city’s deteriorating public safety infrastructure, including building a unified public safety building estimated to cost approximately $300 million that would house various emergency services and new headquarters for the Miami Police Department.
But with the deadline for sending referendums to the August ballot passing this month, Higgins has now set her sights on November.
So far, two commissioners have publicly stated they are ready to support the bond measure: Rolando Escalona and Ralph Rosado. Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela said at the previous meeting that he was generally supportive but wasn’t fully on board yet.
Speaking to the Miami Herald after Thursday’s meeting, Higgins said the deferral to July will allow her to address her colleagues’ concerns.
“This way they get the time to get their questions answered, I get to answer questions, I get more time to explain the need to the residents,” Higgins said. “And so July 9 works perfectly with the new timing for [the] November ballot.”
The mayor also said she has asked City Manager James Reyes to have his administration create a website to report the status of the $400 million Miami Forever Bond, passed by voters in 2017. Some residents at the May 14 commission meeting had expressed concern about passing another bond on the heels of Miami Forever. She said her bond, dubbed the Safe and Ready Bond, is “totally different” from the Miami Forever Bond.
“It is a complete project-based bond,” Higgins said. “That means we know exactly what we’re building.”
Higgins, who was elected in December, has spent a great deal of political capital pushing her bond measure through, arguing in recent weeks that the city’s aging police and fire facilities need to be addressed urgently. She’s described poor conditions that include mold, faulty plumbing and major electrical issues. Those infrastructure issues, the mayor has said, pose safety issues to the public by affecting things like response times.
If things go according to plan, Higgins’ bond would be on the same ballot as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ property tax amendment, which would raise the homestead exemption to $250,000 and require the Legislature to enact a plan to eliminate property taxes entirely for the vast majority of Floridians who own the homes they live in.
Some residents have raised concerns about how cutting property taxes would impact the city’s financial health by decreasing revenue. Higgins said she wasn’t concerned about the two measures being on the same ballot.
She pointed to a poll recently commissioned by her political committee showing about two-thirds of Miami voters supported the bond after receiving detailed information about it.
In some areas of the city, Higgins said, “our response times are far in excess of the national average, or national standard, of six minutes, and that’s the difference between life and death.”
“Our residents understand that,” Higgins said. “They want to be safe, they want to live in a safe city, and they also want the people that protect them to be in buildings and facilities that are adequate.”
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