Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\nThe district encompasses parts of Miami Beach, Brickell, and The Roads.<\/p>\n
Candidates are incumbent Commissioner Vicki Lopez, former Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Joe Sanchez and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Rob Piper.<\/p>\n
Lopez was appointed to the seat after Eileen Higgins was elected city mayor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I have seen since being a county commissioner is the housing affordability has gotten worse in Miami-Dade County, unfortunately,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to find ways in which we incentivize developers to build both senior housing and more workforce housing.<\/p>\n
Lopez said her experience as a member of the Florida House of Representatives makes her qualified to tighten the budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to rely on community resources,\u201d said Lopez. \u201cWe haven\u2019t done, I don\u2019t think, a good job of partnering with churches who traditionally have been serving many of our constituents. And so putting the pie together, I think we have to look for waste.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanchez highlights his career in law enforcement and as a veteran and says safety and quality of life are key. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure that our streets are safe,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He was also asked about his plan for the county\u2019s budget. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m for one that\u2019s promoting and want to make sure that there are property tax relief for people that are using their homes,\u201d he said. \u201cOur government continues to waste money, and we need to make sure that we\u2019re fiscal responsible, and we have a government that has common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piper, who moved to Miami in 2012, thinks a task force ought to analyze the county\u2019s true fiscal situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to ensure transparency and accountability at County Hall,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to end special interest influence at County Hall, and I want to lower cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cthe county needs to take a serious look and ask the hard questions regarding not just what needs to be cut, but how we can expand the revenue base, and with my revenue generation task force that I look into introducing ordinance for, those questions will be asked, ways that we can expand the revenue base in order to pay for all the things that we are losing in this county as a result of the fiscal crunch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 There are three candidates running for the District 5 seat in Miami-Dade County. Leer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-362907","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\/362907","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=362907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}