The two remaining candidates for the City of Miami mayoral race traded insights into how they would tackle some of the city’s most pressing problems in a forum organized by the League of Women Voters of Miami-Dade last Wednesday night in Little Havana.
Candidate Eileen Higgins took the largest share of votes in the Nov. 4 mayoral election, pulling in nearly 36% of the votes amid 13 candidates. Candidate Emilio Gonzalez came in second place, with 19.5% of the votes, putting him in line for the runoff on Dec. 9.
Affordability and permitting
Eileen Higgins and Emilio Gonzalez are the two remaining candidates for City of Miami mayor.
(Eileen Higgins and Emilio Gonzalez via Facebook)
The evening began with frank talk about affordability issues, as the city has repeatedly been named one of the most unaffordable places in the entire nation in recent years.
Higgins, a Miami-Dade County commissioner until two weeks ago, said she would tackle affordability by overhauling the city’s permitting system. She compared the city’s permitting to the county’s permitting for low-income housing for seniors projects.
“I secret-shopped both systems. I put one [project] that was available for county zoning for permitting, and one in the city. The county’s project was permitted in 107 days,” said Higgins. “The same project submitted the same week to the city took over a year and a half.”
Gonzalez, a former city manager, agreed that permitting is a major problem in the city for housing and for businesses.
“I’m almost to the point where I think that if we abolish the permitting system altogether and take a step back and see what happens it would be better than what we have right now,” he said.
Abolishing property taxes
Gonzalez also latched onto a topic that has gained significant steam in Tallahassee: a push to abolish property taxes in some form.
“Our young people need an opportunity to stay here. They can’t stay here. Which is one of the reasons why I’m so into the idea of doing away with ad valor property taxes. Because you can put more money in people’s pockets — young families — that are struggling to buy a new home.”
Municipalities in Miami-Dade would lose nearly half a billion dollars in revenue if taxes on homesteaded properties were eliminated, according to an estimate by the Florida Policy Institute. The non-partisan group warns that slashing property taxes could lead to a drastic reduction in services offered by local governments like the City of Miami.
Agreement on political instability, split on immigration
Higgins is an unabashed progressive Democrat and Gonzalez is an unabashed conservative Republican, although the mayoral race is technically nonpartisan. But the candidates often agreed with what another said.
The sharpest contrast of the night arose when the conversation turned to immigration in the Trump era. Mediator Nicole Perez of WPLG Local 10 asked the candidates about masked ICE agents detaining immigrants in many US cities “based on the color of their skin or the language they are speaking,” and what the candidates would do to restore trust in the local law enforcement at a time that the Miami Police Department is formally collaborating with ICE.
Between 2005 and 2008, Gonzalez served as the head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service under the George W. Bush administration, and he spoke about how proud he felt when helping swear in many new US citizens during his tenure. Gonzalez was born in Cuba.
“I will always defend my community. I will always defend my immigrant community. But I will never ever defend rapists, thugs, murderers and child molesters just to make a point with the federal government,” said Gonzalez.
In response, Higgins said to cheers: “They told us they were gonna go after criminals. But they’re going after everybody.”
Flooding in Miami
Higgins said she has regularly attended meetings with the Florida Department of Transportation to make sure street flooding projects get funding, and she pointed to projects on Biscayne Boulevard and on SW 8th Street as examples of progress on street flooding, a major concern in some neighborhoods.
Both candidates questioned what the city has done with a $400 million bond passed by voters in 2017 in large part to address flooding issues and helping Miami adapt to rising seas. $100 million of that bond was earmarked for affordable housing, as WLRN has reported, although some of the housing money was spent in questionable ways.
Transportation
Both candidates said they see a real need for making major strides with transit in the city.
Higgins said she has worked on transit projects including getting a commitment from the federal government to fund $400 million for a commuter train project from Miami to Aventura in partnership with Brightline. As WLRN has reported, there is an ongoing legal dispute between Brightline and the Florida East Coast Railway, which owns the railroad tracks, that puts that entire project in jeopardy.
She said she would also champion the Baylink train that would extend the Metro Mover service from Miami to Miami Beach.
“It’s virtually ready to go. It’s been stuck up in Tallahassee,” said Higgins. “I will work on it.”
“We live in a city — and we hate to admit it — where if you’ve got to walk two blocks you get in your car because it’s too hot or for whatever reason,” quipped Gonzalez.
Gonzalez said that the routes of city street trolleys are extremely outdated and need to be updated to reflect where people actually want to go, and that the trolleys themselves need to be renovated. Once that happens, people will be more likely to use the services, he said.
City scandals
Gonzalez and Higgins shared an urge to turn a page on city government after years of being marred by scandals, arrests, ethically questionable behavior and high profile lawsuits.
“If you as a city employee do something unethical you are gone. No discussion. You’re gone,” said Gonzalez.
“One of the ways to get rid of corruption is just don’t be corrupt,” said Higgins.
This story was produced by WLRN, South Florida’s only public radio station at 91.3 FM, as part of a content-sharing partnership with The Miami Times. Read more at WLRN.org.