Coral Gables City Manager Peter Iglesias speaks during a public meeting at Coral Gables City Hall on Sept. 25, 2025.
Alexia Fodere
for Miami Herald
Coral Gables City Manager Peter Iglesias is resigning.
His last day will be Oct. 2, according to a letter Iglesias sent late Wednesday to Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, and Commissioners Melissa Castro, Ariel Fernandez and Richard Lara.
Iglesias served as city manager from 2018 to 2024, when a slightly different version of the City Commission fired him in a 3-2 vote by Castro, Fernandez and then-Commissioner Kirk Menendez. He was reappointed a year ago in a vote by Lago, Anderson and the newly elected Lara.
Iglesias, in the letter, said his role was meant to be “transitional,” with a goal to provide “steady leadership, support the organization and move forward the city I am proud to call home.”
“I am announcing my resignation now to provide the City Commission with sufficient time to identify a successor and allow for an orderly transition,” Iglesias said. “The effective date follows the approval of the Fiscal Year 2026-27 budget, allowing the next city manager to begin with an adopted financial plan in place and ensuring continuity for the organization and the community.”
Iglesias did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iglesias, an engineer and longtime Gables resident, was initially hired by the city in 2016 to be the assistant city manager of operations and infrastructure. He became the city manager in 2018, running day-to-day operations in the city as the top administrator in the Gables. Prior to that, he worked in the city of Miami as the senior director of building, planning and zoning.
He was fired in 2024 over allegations of insubordination, in part because of comments he made when he expressed opposition to renewing the lease for Fritz & Franz, a popular German bierhaus, as the Herald previously reported. Lago and Anderson defended Iglesias in that meeting.
After he was fired, retired U.S. Marshal Amos Rojas Jr. was hired in a February 2024 vote by Fernandez, Castro and Menendez to be city manager without a national search, much to the chagrin of Lago and Anderson. Iglesias was then rehired in May 2025.
Lago, who led the effort to rehire Iglesias, at the time described his reappointment as an “interim” decision to help lead the city and bring stability as it prepared for various changes and challenges ahead.
“Coral Gables has been my home for more than 45 years and serving this city has always been deeply meaningful. Over the past 12 months, the focus has been on advancing important projects, strengthening city operations and finances and positioning Coral Gables for the future,” Iglesias wrote in the letter Wednesday.
The soon-to-be-outgoing city manager reassured commissioners that the city has “strong leaders in place” and also touted several of the projects that have occurred throughout his tenure. This includes the restoration of the historic Venetian Pool, the ongoing restoration of historic City Hall, the establishment of long-term plans for the Granada Golf Course that are meant to reduce overcrowding and make it profitable, and the city’s plans to create a facility that will use large, futuristic ovens to bake fallen trees and other vegetative waste into biochar, which could be used as fertilizer in golf courses and parks and mixed into concrete and asphalt for sidewalks and parking lots.
Commissioners will now need to prepare to find someone new to oversee a city with about 50,000 residents.
This story was originally published May 20, 2026 at 8:20 PM.
Miami Herald
Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow.
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