Miami Beach selects Alina Tejeda Hudak as next city manager; first woman to run city
The Miami Beach City Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to select Alina Tejeda Hudak as the city’s top administrator.
Hudak, 61, is the first woman appointed city manager in Miami Beach, according to a city spokeswoman.
Hudak, a former county deputy mayor who joined Miami Beach last year as an assistant city manager, will begin her new job as city manager immediately. By Wednesday afternoon, she had already started posting tweets from the city manager’s Twitter page and the city’s website has been updated to reflect her appointment as the head of City Hall.
Hudak came out of retirement to work for the city after a 35-year career in Miami-Dade County government, where in 2011 she also became the first woman to serve as county manager. She said her two daughters were watching Wednesday’s meeting and she hoped to make them proud.
“Today is much more emotional than I expected it to be,” Hudak told commissioners after the vote. “That emotion comes from a place of love for this city, its residents and my colleagues. I am honored and humbled.”
Although she is not a resident of Miami Beach, which commissioners said they would have preferred, Hudak promised the commission she would work “24-7” to move the city forward. The Cuban-American Hudak is bilingual, satisfying another preference commissioners had.
Hudak will be sworn in at the May 12 commission meeting after commissioners approve her new contract, which will be retroactive to her Wednesday start. Hudak will take over for Interim City Manager Raul Aguila, who assumed the position following the December resignation of former City Manager Jimmy Morales, who left to become chief operations officer for Miami-Dade County.
The commission-approved base salary for Morales when he was city manager was set at $305,736. The city did not provide Hudak’s current salary, nor say what her new salary will be. The city will craft Hudak’s new contract prior to the May 12 meeting.
The city manager in Miami Beach is charged with running the city’s day-to-day operations and executing the policy that commissioners pass. Hudak was one of 29 candidates for the position, a field that was later narrowed to six finalists. Previously, some commissioners had complained about a lack of compelling external candidates.
The commission held two rounds of votes to whittle the short list further. Hudak led the pack in votes received. The two other internal candidates — Assistant City Manager Eric Carpenter and Chief Financial Officer John Woodruff — tied for second place. Instead of proceeding to a third and final head-to-head vote that would have required a tiebreaker between Carpenter and Woodruff, the commission moved to appoint Hudak immediately.
Before officially voting to appoint her, commissioners took turns congratulating Hudak on being hired for the new job. They also stressed the challenges she will be responsible for addressing as city manager, including addressing public safety and zoning concerns in South Beach.
Commissioner Ricky Arriola said that as city manager, Hudak will serve as the city’s CEO. But, he said, Hudak should not let the seven-person board push her around. He encouraged her to “take the bull by the horns” and raise the standard of governance in City Hall.
“Please get this city back on track,” he said.
In a statement after the vote, Gelber called Hudak a “world-class selection.”
“While it’s historic in that she will be our first woman city manager, it’s important that our residents know her record of accomplishment is flat-out exceptional,” he said.
Two other women have previously served as interim or acting city managers, the first in 1991 and, most recently, in 2012. But Hudak is the first to hold the position outright.
Hudak will oversee a $627 million operating budget and 2,200 full-time employees. During her time as county manager, she oversaw 27,000 employees and an $8 billion budget. She helped plan six Super Bowls, led the county’s Zika response and presided over the completion of the 2018 recount of statewide races, which earned the county’s Elections Department praise amid botched counts in Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Since joining the city in February 2020, she has overseen Miami Beach Fire Rescue’s vaccination program, which has administered more than 10,000 doses to Florida residents, and Miami-Dade’s disbursal of federal CARES Act coronavirus aide to the city.
“I believe very strongly that whenever you start a new job, it doesn’t matter what you’ve accomplished prior to that,” Hudak said in a statement. “You have to prove yourself all over again.”
In an interview earlier this month with the Miami Herald, she said her immediate priorities as city manager would be to prepare for Memorial Day Weekend crowds, focus on the 2022 budget and complete resiliency projects.
Hudak said she is sometimes asked why she decided to leave a much bigger government and join a city of about 90,000 residents.
“For me it comes from the heart, it comes from a place where I want to make a difference,” she said.
This story was originally published April 21, 2021 at 11:12 AM.
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