After contentious runoff, Dana Goldman beats Larisa Svechin for Sunny Isles Beach mayor
In a nail-biter of a runoff election, voters in Sunny Isles Beach elected Commissioner Dana Goldman Tuesday to succeed former Mayor George “Bud” Scholl, who resigned in August.
Goldman will serve the rest of Scholl’s term, which ends next November.
With all precincts reporting, unofficial results from the Miami-Dade County Elections Department showed that Goldman captured about 50.75% of the vote, just 31 votes ahead of interim Mayor Larisa “Laura” Svechin but more than enough to avoid an automatic recount.
Svechin, who had been serving as mayor since Scholl resigned, captured 49.25% of the vote.
Just 2,060 out of 12,155 registered voters — or 16.96% — participated in the runoff election.
About 18% participated during the Nov. 2 special election, where neither Svechin nor Goldman netted more than 50% of the votes in a four-way field, triggering a runoff.
Goldman also came out ahead of Svechin on Nov. 2.
The run-up to the runoff election was a contentious two-week period. Both candidates faced attack mail advertisements, incendiary endorsement emails, dueling websites hosted by political committees and finger-pointing over development in the a resort town of 22,000, known for its high-rise condos, celebrity residents and Russian ties.
Svechin was first elected to the commission in 2016, and was reelected in 2020. She immigrated with her family to Miami Beach from the Soviet Union in 1979 through religious asylum and moved to Sunny Isles in 1987.
Goldman, a real estate attorney, filled a vacancy on the commission in 2014 and won a special election in 2015. She was reelected again in 2016 and 2020.
She did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday night.
Because both Goldman and Svechine vacated their seats to run for mayor, Sunny Isles Beach will hold a Special Election on Jan. 25, 2022, to fill their spots. The qualifying period began Tuesday morning, and ends Friday, Nov. 19, at 4 p.m.
This story was originally published November 16, 2021 at 8:55 PM.