An exodus at Miami Beach City Hall? Four top officials announce exits amid tensions
Miami Beach City Attorney Rafael Paz tendered his resignation Monday after three years in the role and a decade with the city, a critical departure of a top administrator that puts him among four high-ranking city officials to announce their exits in the past month.
In a letter to Mayor Steven Meiner and the City Commission, Paz said his last day would be May 28, meaning he will remain through the tumultuous period of spring break that has brought chaos and a host of legal battles in recent years. Paz wrote that he had secured a new position with Bilzin Sumberg as a partner in the law firm’s land development and government relations group.
“In the next 90 days, I remain fully committed to working with each of you on your legislative priorities, while providing the stability and continuity that is necessary to ensure a smooth transition for the office,” Paz wrote, urging elected officials to hire one of the attorneys in his office as his successor.
Parking Director Monica Beltran also announced Tuesday that she plans to retire. Beltran, a nine-year employee of the city’s parking department and the director since 2020, said in a letter that her last day would be April 26.
Beltran’s department will play a critical role in the coming weeks as the city prepares to shut down numerous public garages and parking lots to visitors during the second and third weekends of March.
Paz and Beltran are among four city officials to announce departures since late January, possibly forecasting more turmoil to come a few months after voters elected a new mayor and three commissioners.
Last Friday, City Manager Alina Hudak announced that Marcia Monserrat, the city’s chief of legislative and external affairs, had accepted a position with Miami-Dade County starting in early March. And in late January, Hudak said that Ana Salgueiro, the building department director, would retire two months from then.
Meanwhile, there is speculation about whether Hudak — who runs the city’s day-to-day operations — could be the next administrator to leave. Hudak, a former Miami-Dade deputy mayor, was hired as city manager in Miami Beach in 2021 with a contract that expires in April 2025.
The new-look City Commission has put pressure on Hudak and city staff to address the types of public safety and quality-of-life issues that they campaigned on. Commissioner David Suarez has been particularly critical, blasting Hudak and several department directors, including Beltran, for perceived failures and peppering them with questions and requests for information.
At his first meeting in December, Suarez placed an item on the agenda to discuss Hudak’s contract, though Meiner has yet to call the item.
In an email to a resident earlier this year, Suarez referred to city administrators as “your typical government bureaucrats who hold on to power by doing the bare minimum with zero accountability” and said he was seeking to “change our current leadership.”
Others have been less explicit, at least publicly, about any desire to push out city leaders.
Commissioner Joseph Magazine, who was also elected in November, said he is grateful for staff who have served the city. He said turnover is a “routine occurrence” at large organizations but that the recent departures create a “tremendous opportunity for aspiring individuals either internally or externally.”
The turbulence at Miami Beach City Hall comes as officials prepare for an influx of spring break visitors in March, a period that has previously brought shootings, stampedes and an aggressive police response.
Last year, Paz said he believed the city had legal grounds to announce sweeping spring break measures proactively before March began, given a pattern of large crowds, violent incidents and curfews in each of the three prior years.
“When hurricanes are coming, we adapt and declare [an] emergency in advance of the hurricane,” Paz said last March. “This is our hurricane.”
The City Commission followed that advice, voting last month to approve a spring break plan by the administration that includes parking restrictions, sidewalk cafe closures and license plate readers during peak weekends.
Paz, 50, worked for Florida International University and Miami-Dade County before joining the Miami Beach City Attorney’s Office in 2014.
He was the deputy attorney in December 2020 when the City Commission appointed then-City Attorney Raul Aguila as acting manager and elevated Paz to acting attorney. Those moves meant the city for the first time had an openly gay city manager, attorney and clerk, a moment Aguila called “historic” at the time.
Paz was appointed as the full-time city attorney in October 2021. He guided the city through a host of thorny legal issues as officials have sought to tamp down on the all-night party scene of South Beach, including by rolling back last call for alcohol, regulating sidewalk cafes and imposing spring break curfews.
Paz told the Miami Herald his decision was “all about pursuing a great opportunity.”
“There is never a good time to step down from a leadership role in any organization,” he said.
