After 10 years in office, one of Miami-Dade’s greenest mayors is moving on

In 2010, when Philip Stoddard was first elected mayor of South Miami, he penned an ordinance implementing term limits for city officials. Mayors could serve no more than five two-year terms, it said.

He’s sticking to that.

Stoddard, a 62-year-old biology professor at Florida International University who has garnered national attention for his environmentalism as mayor, won’t be on the ballot for South Miami’s February election.

It’s not clear whether Stoddard would have been allowed to run for one more term — because the ordinance was passed after he took office, he could have argued that it applied to him only after his second term began.

But stepping aside now was “in the spirit” of what Stoddard wrote a decade ago, he told the Miami Herald. Plus, he said, the time feels right.

“I still feel 10 years is enough,” Stoddard said. “It’s probably good to leave the stage when people still like you.”

Stoddard admitted that some fatigue has set in.

“I guess I’m tired of being nice to people who don’t deserve it,” Stoddard said. “Most of the people do deserve me being nice to them,” he added, but he said the job “takes a fair bit of emotional energy.”

This is Stoddard’s fifth term in office. A biologist by trade, he has made science central to his approach to public policy. Earlier this year, Stoddard led the South Miami commission to become the first in South Florida and eighth in the state to commit to 100 percent renewable energy citywide, setting a goal of 2040 to achieve it.

In 2017, the city passed a first-of-its-kind law in Florida requiring solar panels on new homes. He also helped ban pesticide spraying in the city to protect butterflies and other wildlife.

Stoddard runs his own home on solar energy and drives an electric car.

“We’ve sort of been guided by science,” Stoddard said. “I’m very proud of that and certainly hope the next mayor will continue that.”

Stoddard gained a national profile: He was appointed in 2015 to help the Obama administration develop policy on sea level rise as part of the Governance Coordinating Committee of the National Ocean Council. He has championed the idea of “managed retreat” — controlled flooding, rather than raising roads, in the region’s most vulnerable areas.

On another front, Stoddard acknowledged that he has only been “partially successful”: revitalizing South Miami’s struggling downtown and increasing its commercial tax base. The Shops at Sunset Place, an open-air mall along U.S. 1, has long suffered from vacant storefronts and a lack of shoppers and diners. The City Commission spiked a proposed makeover to the mall in 2017.

This past April, the commission reversed course and approved a tweaked version of the plan for developers to tear down roughly half of the mall, encompassing about 80,000 square feet of mostly vacant retail space, and replace it with three apartment and hotel towers along South Dixie Highway.

Stoddard said he wasn’t a fan of development when he first became mayor, but has changed his approach over time as he has studied city planning. He said South Miami’s commercial development has a long way to go.

“If you gave me another 10 years, I would definitely get it done,” Stoddard said. “I know how to do it now.”

Stoddard has had his detractors, especially those who say he’s welcomed too much development downtown.

Vice Mayor Walter Harris, who was first elected to the commission when Stoddard took office in 2010, has clashed with Stoddard on the issue.

“He believes more in, I call it, excessive development than I do,” Harris said. “He has a lot of projects on the horizon that hopefully will never happen.”

But Harris praised Stoddard’s environmental efforts and his approach to the job.

“He’s the smartest, most conscientious mayor this city has ever had,” Harris said. “We don’t agree on all particular matters, but we’re still friends.”

Horace Feliu, the mayor of South Miami from 2002 to 2004 and again from 2006 to 2010, has been battling Stoddard for residents’ votes on the issue of development for years. Stoddard defeated him narrowly for mayor in both 2016 and 2018.

“We have to keep our downtown free of high buildings or high density,” said Feliu, one of six candidates who have filed to run for mayor on Feb. 11, according to the city website. Stoddard “has a different opinion and I respect that. I’ve raised my kids here. I want to make sure that future generations and new families that have kids can enjoy the things that my kids did.”

But Stoddard has increasingly pushed the city to invest in its commercial district.

“Some older members of the community don’t want any development contrary to how things used to be,” Stoddard said. “And yet they don’t propose a viable solution.”

Stoddard said he wouldn’t rule out running for political office in the future, but for now, he said he will focus on teaching, traveling with his wife and spending time with his daughter, who is about to graduate from college.

He’s also throwing his support behind one of the candidates running for his seat on Feb. 11: Sally Philips, the chair of South Miami’s planning board and a retired psychologist who has an environmental bent similar to Stoddard’s.

Stoddard won the 2016 race by just 200 votes. He won again in 2018 despite last minute robocalls to voters accusing him of an inappropriate sexual encounter with a former commissioner.

The recorded call included an account by Valerie Newman of an unwanted kiss at her home in 2010 or 2011. Stoddard has denied the accusation.

Stoddard said he’ll be available to help the new mayor, whoever it is. That person will take office immediately after the February election.

“I really want to see whoever succeeds me be successful,” he said. “I’ll help them finish things in progress.”

Stoddard said he’s appreciated the learning experience of being mayor, including calling up experts to get him up to speed on various issues. But the job has taken time away from his teaching and his research. Stoddard has thousands of mosquitoes in his lab at FIU, where he’s studying how the species resists human attempts at control.

The mayor described himself as a bit of an introvert. Running a city, he said, has forced him out of his comfort zone.

“I’m not the kind of person whose life is fulfilled by being an elected official,” he said. “It doesn’t make me feel whole.”

He added: “I’m busy. I’ve held down two jobs for 10 years. I’m sort of looking forward to getting my life back.”

This story was originally published December 12, 2019 at 6:15 AM.