Sunny Isles Beach commission race brings familiar faces, feuds, issues back to ballot
With two incumbents, a familiar feud and the same concerns over congested traffic and growing development, the November ballot for City Commission in Sunny Isles Beach won’t look that different than it did in 2016.
Five candidates are running on the November ballot for two seats on the City Commission. In Seat 1, which represents the northern district, current Vice Mayor Larisa Svechin faces newcomer Justen Fischer. Seat 3 incumbent Dana Goldman faces longtime rival and neighbor Greg Capra, who lost to her in 2016 but is still determined to dethrone Goldman from the commission. A third newcomer and resident in the same condo association, Fabiola Stuyvesant, is competing with Capra to unseat Goldman.
Priorities for candidates haven’t changed much over the past four years, either. Most candidates touched on their concerns about the traffic in Sunny Isles Beach, particularly along Collins Avenue, the main north-south artery that runs along the beach.
Goldman said addressing traffic concerns on Collins Avenue is some of the unfinished business she hopes to tackle if reelected. Her plans to mitigate the traffic include reducing the speed limit and widening sidewalks.
Another key concern is the development of Collins Avenue that has contributed to the heavy traffic flow. In Sunny Isles Beach, super-tall condos and resorts line the waterfront east of Collins Avenue. Candidates want to limit development to ensure the same skyrocketing buildings don’t find their way to the west side of the city.
“No one wants the west side to look like that,” Vice Mayor Svechin said.
Fischer, a lawyer at Fort Lauderdale-based Berger Singerman, said he supports sensible development by bringing in new business opportunities that will increase residents’ quality of life but still preserving what people love about Sunny Isles without the tall buildings.
“We can’t be voting on development in a vacuum,” Fischer said. “We have to be careful that we’re not setting a precedent for the future to include massive expansive development.”
Another familiarity to the 2016 election is the feud between Goldman and Capra, which dates back to 2012 when Goldman filed a lawsuit against Capra and the Poinciana Homeowners Association, which Capra has been president of since 2008.
Capra called Goldman a “nightmare neighbor” and said she hasn’t been serving on the commission with the best intentions of residents in mind. He said he wants her out.
“She hasn’t been a nice person,” Capra said. “How do you try to bankrupt your condo association?”
Capra and the condo association have been involved in a number of lawsuits with residents, including a case in which he and his wife were sued for defamation, according to Miami-Dade County Clerk of the Court records.
Goldman said Capra has been harassing her for years as the president of the condo association, and she said she believes his campaign this year is out of resentment from losing in 2016.
“I consider him to be obsessed with me,” Goldman said. “I think this is just a revenge fest for him.”
The candidates
Seat 1: An incumbent and a new father
Svechin, 47, moved to Miami from the Soviet Union when she was 6 years old. She grew up in Sunny Isles Beach and left for college and spent years in New York working in advertising. After her first two children were born and her family was growing, in 2010 she decided to move back to Sunny Isles to be closer to her parents.
She got involved with the city through volunteering and ultimately decided to run for City Commission in 2016 to bring her work to the city in an official capacity.
“You don’t need a title to get things done,” Svechin said. “But, when you have the title of an elected official things get done easier and faster.”
One of Svechin’s priorities since being elected has been having a strong presence and communication with representatives and officials in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. She said she’s advocated for private property rights and lowering insurance premiums. She explained the importance of engaging with state and national officials to get things residents want done.
“What’s been important to me is helping people find their voice,” Svechin said.
Svechin said if reelected, she wants to keep working on things she started. She talked about the importance of reopening in a safe environment post-COVID-19 and advocating for sustainable development.
Her opponent, 32-year-old Fischer, has many of the same stances, like making sensible development decisions, finding sustainable solutions to protect the city’s beaches and increasing community civic engagement.
“My main goal is to preserve the character of Sunny Isles Beach while improving our quality of life,” Fischer said.
Fischer moved to Sunny Isles Beach in 2016. He has no previous political experience, but when his daughter was born four months ago it motivated him to get involved to make the community the best place it could be to raise his daughter.
“Although we always loved Sunny Isles Beach,” Fischer said. “We realized we need to make it the best for our daughter.”
He said some of his key goals if elected are to make sure quality education and community activities are available for children, increase communication with residents and make Sunny Isles a safer community.
Seat 3: An incumbent, a rival and a newcomer
Goldman, 58, said she’s always been involved in politics. Born in Miami Beach, she left to attend college and spent some time on Capitol Hill as a legislative assistant to former U.S. Sen. Al Gore and a legal intern to former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham. Goldman moved back to Sunny Isles Beach in 2000 and wanted to get involved with politics at the local level, joining the City Advisory Committee.
In 2014, Goldman was appointed to fill a vacant position on the City Commission and then ran in the 2015 special election to complete the term. She ran again in 2016 for her first full term on the commission. Goldman, a real estate lawyer at Shutts & Bowen LLP’s Miami office, is now running for reelection.
“You do it because you love to make a difference and there’s issues you really care about,” Goldman said.
If reelected, she said she wants to continue to educate people about their rights as condo owners through workshops and clinics as well as focusing on environmental issues. She said she would like to see more alternative energy sources and electric car charging stations in the city.
Greg Capra, 64, wants to see Goldman off the commission. He said she doesn’t have residents’ best interests in mind and worries that she’ll vote to bring in too much development to the city.
Capra, started the online brokerage firm Master Trader during the dawn of the Internet and later rebranded the company as an educational firm teaching investors and traders. He’s been on the Poinciana Island condo board for about 20 years and has been president of the board for the last 12.
“Being someone who’s helped Poinciana so much over the years, I want to be able to do the same for Sunny Isles,” Capra said.
Capra said one of his concerns is keeping residents’ tax levels consistent, especially because the city has reached a point of maturity and won’t continue to experience rapid development. He said he hopes his years of experience running a business will be useful to the commission going forward.
“Sunny Isles Beach is going to have to watch its bottom line,” Capra said. “We need people on the commission who have the ability to watch the finances.”
Along with financial stability Capra said he wants traffic addressed with new studies and research as well as limiting development on the west side.
The third candidate, Fabiola Stuyvesant, 43, first moved to Sunny Isles Beach in 2007 from Venezuela. She lives on Poinciana Island with her husband and four children.
She first got involved in 2010 when she started volunteering at her children’s schools, and her involvement in the community continued. She started attending City Commission meetings in 2016 and realized she didn’t agree with some of the things Goldman was voting for, so Stuyvesant decided to run.
“I’ve never had any political aspirations,” Stuyvesant said. “I just want to keep the community safe. We are in paradise as is, but there’s always room for improvement.”
If elected, Stuyvesant said she would like to see sensitive development to avoid overdevelopment and overcrowding the city. She said she also hopes to reactivate the economy by creating a coalition of businesses and help build jobs for people within the city, as well as looking out for and providing resources for the city’s older population.
“I don’t think people realize how lucky we are to live in Sunny Isles Beach,” Stuyvesant said. “But there are always ways to get better.”
This story was originally published October 6, 2020 at 11:39 AM.