Herald Editorial Board’s choices for Miami-Dade County Commission | Editorial
Along with a new mayor, Miami-Dade is getting four new commissioners, an infusion of new blood that will likely change the atmosphere on the dais. In the August primary, three of the seven seats up for grabs were won outright by candidates.
In District 1, Miami Gardens Mayor Oliver Gilbert narrowly defeated Sybrina Fulton, the mother of murdered teen, Trayvon Martin. Gilbert will take the seat being vacated by term-limited Barbara Jordan to represent the northern end of the county.
In District 9, incumbent Commissioner Joe L. Martinez, handily retained his seat, defeating two challengers. He will continue to represent the southwest area of the county.
And in District 13, former State Sen. Rene Garcia easily won the seat vacated when Commissioner Esteban Bovo decided to run for Miami-Dade mayor. Garcia will represent Hialeah and surrounding areas. Here are the Editorial Board’s recommendations in the four runoffs:
DISTRICT 3
After the August primary, two candidates of the six vying for this seat were still standing: Miami City Commissioner Keon Hardemon and community activist Gepsie Metellus.
Hardemon, who resigned from the City Commission to run for the county seat, had become a force on the commission, serving as chair and president of the League of Cities in Miami.
Despite the fact that Hardemon has the legislative chops to do well on the County Commission, we are giving his opponent, Metellus, the nod. She is a solid candidate who, as we said in our primary recommendation, has earned a chance to be an elected public servant. She has been an effective nonelected public servant in Miami-Dade for more than three decades. She was an aide to commissioner and chairwoman Barbara Carey-Shuler from 1996 to 2001 and was a Miami-Dade County Schools administrator in the 1990s.
As executive director of the Saint La Haitian Neighborhood Center, the Haitian-American Metellus is well-versed in the skills of collaboration, negotiation and compromise, and demonstrates a clarity of vision that can help her transform the district into one that works for more of its residents.
She says that the two most pressing challenges in the district are housing affordability and transportation. “We need a comprehensive countywide plan that equalizes where we build housing, that prioritizes transit development and helps boost homeownership and making repairs,” She told the Editorial Board. “There are solutions that have been tested and that should be part of a comprehensive plan.”
As for inadequate public transportation, she says that transit is “lacking in connectivity, reliability in getting people from Point A to Point B. We must invest in transporting people and complement transit with bikes and jitneys and circulators. We can reimagine the transportation infrastructure.”
We think that Metellus can amplify the concerns and challenges facing local Haitian-American communities, some under pressure from development.
The Herald Editorial Board recommends GEPSIE METELLUS for Miami-Dade Commission District 3.
DISTRICT 5
This race has changed since August: It’s grown nastier.
Incumbent Commissioner Eileen Higgins is facing Renier Diaz de la Portilla, a former state representative and Miami-Dade School Board member, to represent the ethnically and economically diverse district. It includes parts of Miami Beach and Miami, including Brickell, Allapattah, Little Havana and Fisher Island.
In her two years on the dais, Higgins has been rather low profile, but has spearheaded a handful of needed measures. In June, amid the pandemic, the commission approved her legislation to create a revolving loan fund for small businesses. In May, she led the passage of legislation to further improve transportation and mobility across Miami-Dade.
The two candidates have clashed over ethnicity. Diaz de La Portilla, an attorney, has said in political ads and to the Editorial Board that District 5 is a minority district, with 73 percent of residents being Hispanics. Therefore, he says, they should be represented by a minority member. Diaz de la Portilla says Higgins, who is white and not Hispanic, is not an appropriate voice for such a district.
That’s why a court created District 5, because they felt minorities were not fairly represented on the Miami-Dade commission,” he said. We understand his argument. Blacks and Hispanics in this community had to fight long and hard -- and in the courts -- to secure the minority elected representatives of their choice.The difference here, though, is that in 2018, Higgins was district voters’ choice. She even beat out a Hispanic candidate, Zoraida Barreiro, for the commission seat.
There’s another difference: Black and Hispanic candidates had been consistently locked out in a countywide, at-large system, which is why districts were created. Two years ago, voters chose Higgins, who speaks Spanish and gladly accepted the moniker “La Gringa.” She rejects the idea that she ignores poorer sections of her district, saying she spends more time there because they need more government attention.
The candidates agree that public transportation is less than adequate for both low-income and affluent residents. The lack of affordable housing is a key issue in the district, as is poverty, which will only worsen post-pandemic.
Diaz de la Portilla believes reopening businesses is a necessity. “If our local economy continues to be frozen, this county will face horrific financial consequences,” he said. For those who remain out of work, he would advance them the unemployment assistance they will eventually receive from the state, and also offer rent-relief programs.
Higgins, a marketing executive, was a popular newcomer when she first ran, emphasizing her own use of public transit during her two-month campaign. This time, old Miami-style political tactics are being thrown at her, like campaign literature accusing her of leftist leanings. There is also a doctored photo of her wearing a Che Guevara-style beret. It a preposterous comparison.
On their end, Higgins’ supporters appear to be putting out ads painting Diaz de la Portilla and his brother, Miami City Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, as gangsters, with The Godfather-inspired mailers. Those ads are just as offensive. Higgins denies knowing their source.
That said, we continue to think Higgins, who has some solid policy wins, should be given another chance to flourish as a commissioner.
The Herald Editorial Board recommends EILEEN HIGGINS for Miami-Dade Commission District 5.
DISTRICT 7
Cindy Lerner, a former state representative and two-time mayor of Pinecrest and Raquel Regalado, a former School Board member and radio personality are vying to replace Commissioner Xavier Suarez, who unsuccessfully ran for county mayor this year. who herself ran unsuccessfully for county mayor in 2016. Her father, Tomas Regalado, is a former Miami mayor.
This race has been dominated by biting political mailers, clouding the issues in this district, which covers Key Biscayne, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Kendall and South Miami.
Regalado and Lerner each has experience in government, a plus for them both. As we said in August, Lerner has collected the most money and cachet endorsements. One of her priorities is easing traffic gridlock along U.S. 1 by extending Metrorail to South Miami-Dade.
“A main issue is the length of time it takes to get to work or run errands,” she told the Board. “I will still fight for the expanded Metrorail we were promised.” Lerner is an early advocate of mitigating sea-level rise and would give priority to the county’s resiliency efforts.
Here’s the delicate issue. Lerner has been hit with accusations of bad temperament in exchanges with Pinecrest residents and council members when she was mayor. A YouTube compilation video circulated by opponents has made the rounds. One ad from Regalado now features Lerner’s outburst at a Pinecrest meeting. Regalado vows to treat residents who appear in front of the county with respect.
In her second round of interviews with the Board, Lerner said it was unfair to use the video compilation, which was edited to show she was being baited by a handful of residents with whom she was at odds. She said it did not provide context for the interactions and painted her in a bad light. That may be true, but the Board could not ignore them.
Regalado’s grasp of how the county functions always impresses. She is critical of how Mayor Carlos Gimenez, whom she challenged in 2016, has handled the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the county should not be run by his executive orders. “The commission should get in there and start legislating, and people need to start participating in these meetings,” she said.
Regalado, the mother of two autistic teens, said she would be the only working mom on the commission. She says she would also become a champion for adults with disabilities.
We think Regalado would bring a sharp, smart perspective to the commission, much as she did on the School Board, where she was a vocal member thinking of innovative ways to bring money and resources to the district.
The Herald Editorial Board recommends RAQUEL REGALADO for Miami-Dade Commission District 7.
DISTRICT 9
District 9, Miami-Dade’s southernmost district, has big-city challenges — transportation, affordable housing, crime — all of which, however, present opportunities to improve residents’ quality of life, a top issue in the district.
Our choice in the primary was state Rep. Kionne McGhee, facing term limits in the Florida House, where he is the Democratic minority leader. This is what gives him a big edge against an attractive opponent.
As commissioner, he and his colleagues would be charged with getting the county to the other side of the coronavirus. It will take robust teamwork, legislative know-how and state and federal political connections to make not just District 9, but the entire county, whole, given the economic and social damage still being wrought by COVID-19.
McGhee is being challenged by Elvis Maldonado, a former Homestead city councilman and a popular candidate in the district. A network engineer and IT analyst, he says he’s always focused on solutions. He told the Board that he puts transportation at the top of the list of pressing issues for the district.
But the commuting woes of District 9 residents was already brought to the forefront by McGhee, who insisted — as the mayor prepared his SMART Plan — that the County Commission recognize that a two-hour commute, each way, for District 9 residents was unacceptable.
McGhee plans to push for the light rail that still hasn’t become a reality. In the wake of COVID-19, he says business and job development is a priority and he wants to offer developers incentives to include workforce housing in their plans.
McGhee has brought a life of personal trauma and professional triumphs to his legislative career: his false arrest and beating as a youth at the hands of rogue police officers, making it to college, then law school and the position of assistant state attorney in Miami-Dade.
He rightly links the lack of effective public transportation in the district to leaving residents trapped in poverty, unable to easily access better jobs elsewhere in the county and children unexposed to life possibilities beyond their immediate neighborhoods. We think McGhee’s personal and professional backgrounds would continue to inform his actions as a commissioner.
The Miami Herald Editorial Board recommends KIONNE McGHEE for the Miami-Dade Commission District 9.
This story was originally published October 15, 2020 at 6:00 AM.