{"id":335526,"date":"2026-07-10T09:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T09:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/335526\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T09:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T09:37:11","slug":"miami-commission-advances-mayors-450m-bond-to-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/335526\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami commission advances mayor\u2019s $450M bond to November"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"City<\/p>\n

Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins speaks as she chairs the commission meeting where her $450 million bond proposal was discussed on Thursday, July 9, 2026.<\/p>\n

Pedro Portal<\/p>\n

pportal@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n

Miami voters will weigh in on two major proposals affecting government spending this fall after city officials agreed to send Mayor Eileen Higgins\u2019 $450 million public safety bond to the November ballot.<\/p>\n

The Miami City Commission on Thursday voted 3-2 to greenlight Higgins\u2019 bond, named Safe & Ready Miami. It will appear on the same ballot as a statewide proposal to eliminate property taxes<\/a> for the vast majority of Floridians who own the homes they live in.<\/p>\n

Higgins wants voters to approve $450 million in spending to replace the city\u2019s deteriorating public safety infrastructure, including by building a unified public safety building estimated to cost approximately $300 million that would house various emergency services and new headquarters for the Miami Police Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question in front of us today is, do we want to allow [voters] to choose to repair these facilities, expand the fire-rescue facilities we need,\u201d said Higgins. \u201cThese are problems that our city should have solved 10, 15, 20 years ago, but it didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photos Photos show deteriorating conditions at city of Miami fire stations. Courtesy of Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins\u2019 office <\/p>\n

Landing her measure on the November ballot is a success for Higgins, who has spent a great deal of political capital championing her bond measure throughout the past three months. The city this week launched a detailed website<\/a> about the measure that includes an interactive map and a seven-year \u201cphased timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s bond proposal had been deferred three times prior to Thursday\u2019s meeting. Up until now, Higgins had failed to secure support from three of her colleagues on the five-member City Commission. As mayor, Higgins has the power to veto legislation and to meet privately with commissioners to whip votes, but she herself does not have a vote on the commission.<\/p>\n

Higgins flexed another mayoral muscle Thursday, taking over as chair of the meeting. Higgins made the same move in May when she took the gavel from longtime Chairwoman Christine King and tried unsuccessfully<\/a> to get her bond on the August primary ballot.<\/p>\n

Under the city charter, the mayor can act as the presiding officer of a commission meeting but cannot \u201cmove, second, debate, or vote on any matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before approving the measure, commissioners adopted a series of amendments proposed by Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela, who said he wanted additional safeguards for taxpayers before supporting the bond. One amendment requires proceeds from the future sale of the city\u2019s current police headquarters to be used to pay down the bond debt or reduce the amount the city borrows. Another requires any grants secured specifically for the bond-funded projects to be used to reduce borrowing or pay down the debt.<\/p>\n

A third directs the city to make its best efforts to use future developer community benefit contributions to help offset the cost of the police and fire projects when feasible.<\/p>\n

\"Commissioners Commissioners Miguel Angel Gabela (left) and Damian Pardo (right) listen during a City Commission meeting on Thursday, July 9, 2026. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n

The city attorney\u2019s office is finalizing the ballot language before the measure appears on the November ballot.<\/p>\n

King, who voted against the proposal, said she supports investing in the city\u2019s police and fire departments but argued the city had not done enough community outreach or explored alternative financing before asking voters to approve the borrowing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am sure we could, if we put our minds together, identify public-private partnerships that would lower the amount of money that we need to ask our residents to go into debt for,\u201d King said. \u201cWhat will break my heart is if we just move forward and rush this through, that our community rejects it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Commissioner Commissioner Christine King speaks during a City Commission meeting chaired by Mayor Eileen Higgins at City Hall on Thursday, July 9, 2026. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n

Commissioner Damian Pardo backed King, saying, \u201cLike everybody up here, and as you know, police and fire, we support you 100%. But the question is, it shouldn\u2019t be this choice of police, fire, increase tax. There are other options. We just haven\u2019t explored them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Public comment reflected the divide, with several residents urging the city to let voters decide, while others warned the proposal would place too much financial burden on taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of our police and fire facilities have reached such an advanced state of disrepair that renovation is no longer an actionable or cost-effective solution,\u201d said Miami police officer Dortis Gomez. \u201cReplacing these outdated facilities with a modern public safety infrastructure is an investment not only for the safety of our first responders but the community that we serve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others urged for more transparency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bond ballot reads like a sales page,\u201d said Morningside resident Elvis Cruz. \u201cIt\u2019s asking us to charge $450 million on our credit card, but it leaves out an important piece of information. How much do we already owe on our credit card?\u201d<\/p>\n

Higgins has argued in recent months that the city\u2019s aging police and fire facilities need to be addressed urgently. She\u2019s described poor conditions that include mold, faulty plumbing and major electrical issues. Those infrastructure issues, the mayor has said, pose safety issues to the public by affecting things like police and fire response times.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad had a heart attack. … Fire-rescue saved his life within five minutes,\u201d said Commissioner Ralph Rosado, who supported the measure. \u201cI cannot, in good conscience, say that I can\u2019t support giving voters the right to choose what they want the response times to their families to be.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Tess Riski covers Miami City Hall. She joined the Miami Herald in 2022 and has covered local politics throughout Miami-Dade County. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School\u2019s Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins speaks as she chairs the commission meeting where her $450 million bond proposal was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-335526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}