It may not be a general or mid-term election year, but several cities in Miami-Dade have important elections that can impact the lives of their residents for years to come. The biggest are in Miami and Hialeah, where mayoral contests will be wide open, and Miami Beach and Homestead. Those four are in November.
There are also other elections in smaller municipalities scattered throughout the year with different qualifying periods.
The first two elections in Miami-Dade for 2025 were cancelled.
In Golden Beach, Mayor Glenn Singer and Councilmember Judy Lusskin were re-elected without opposition. Newly elected Councilmember Jessie Mendal, who is filling the seat vacated by Jaime Mendal, who served for eight years, was elected without any opposition. In Hialeah Gardens, Mayor Yioset de la Cruz and two council members — Group 5 and Group 6, but the website doesn’t say who is which group — were also re-elected with no opposition. Which is predictable in these tiny towns.
Read related: Long list of potential 2025 Miami mayoral candidates starts to take form
There could be an election in Bay Harbor Islands, where there are two candidates in one of the council races, so far. And in Miami Springs, where there is some movement based on term limits and personal reasons leaving an open mayoral and three open council seats. Both of those are April 1, but qualifying doesn’t end until Feb. 20 and Feb. 14, respectively.
There is also a special election in Surfside on April 1, where voters will be asked if the charter should be amended to limit the floor area ratio to a maximum 0.50 for new detached single family homes in the H30A and H30B districts. That’s basically half the size of the lot area. The only exception would be made after a unanimous approval from the commission and a 60% vote of the public.
Floor area ratio (FAR) is the measurement of a building’s floor area in relation to the size of the lot/parcel. FAR is expressed as a decimal, derived by dividing the total area of the building by the total area of the parcel. Higher FARs indicate greater building volume. FAR is most often used to express development intensity and has spurred much debate at several municipal zoning meetings.
The first highly-anticipated and contentious election is in Coral Gables on April 8. The truly contested mayoral race is expected to be dirty and full of lies, as Mayor Vince Lago defends his position to a challenge from Commissioner Kirk Menendez. Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson is also up for re-election and is facing a challenge from Felix Pardo and Laureano Cancio. The open seat vacated by Menendez will see a contest between attorney Richard Lara, the handpicked and groomed Lago candidate, FreeBee lobbyist Claudia Miro, who lost a commission race in 2021, and attorney Tom Wells.
Read related: Two more candidates say they will run for Coral Gables commission in April
The Lago/Anderson/Lara slate is being cast as the pro-development, anti-resident ticket. But Lago’s pull is questionable. He was unopposed two years ago but supported two commission candidates who lost. Shortly after that, he lost the majority. Lara is his attempt to get it back. If he and Anderson win, but Lara loses, Lago will still be as paralyzed by the 3-2 vote as he is now.
April 8 is also the date for the Miami Shores election and the special election to fill a vacant commission seat in Biscayne Park.
In May, voters in Sweetwater have an election scheduled for commissioners in Groups 1, 2, 3 and 4. City Clerk Carmen Garcia told Political Cortadito that nobody has registered yet. The deadline to qualify is March 28.
Of course, the big races are in November, and Ladra will have independent stories on each of those as the campaigns roll out.
A relatively new Florida law requires all vote-by-mail ballot requests to be purged after every general and midterm election. But the county elections department has been sending out emails and text messages to get traditional absentee ballot voters to make their requests. As of Wednesday, since 19,113 have requested a vote-by-mail ballot since Jan. 1 of this year, according to the Miami-Dade Elections Department.
To request an absentee ballot for an election in any of these cities, visit the county elections department’s page.
Miami-Dade 2025 election calendar starts with cancelled races, April ballots added by Ladra on
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We’ve voted in the U. S. For , about fifty , of our sixty three years here. We requested an absentee ballot for our parents when they started to experience lthe frailties accompanying advancing age. We presented at the Elections Department at the Metro Building, identifying ourselves and were given an absentee ballot along with the accompanying requirements , for its delivery. We considered a socially relevant occasion to assist to the polls when we exercised our initial vote casts. We took the opportunity to be a poll worker ,, with the same rationale, and earn a not insignificant pay-check at the same time. We’ve also voted assiduously all this time, and voted often ,having resided in Coral Gables fifty years, and attended Coral Gables’ Sr. High School. Our elections are well attended, knowing that they occur, the April, following a Mid-term, or General Election.
When is the last time Hialeah Gardens had a new council? They have no term limits over there. And it is not that small 23,000 is the population.
Coral Gables needs to be run by elected officials acting as independent Commissioners, NOT the 3 Musketeers!!
Vote-By-Mail ballots are not like absentee ballots, because VBM does not require a reason.
VBM is rife with fraud: there is no voter ID, there is no chain of custody, and signature verification is subjective. No other country uses it.
All municipal elections should be held on the same day, not spread out throughout the year. Maybe all in November during odd-numbered years.
“The Lago/Anderson/Lara slate is being cast as the pro-development, anti-resident ticket.” By whom? What are the pro-development, anti-resident initiatives taken by the Mayor and Vice Mayor? To my knowledge there’s been no partisan split on a single building project. By “anti-resident,” do you mean not making special allowances for Fritz and Franz or do you have something else in mind?
And how is Lara any more handpicked and groomed than his opponent Wells?
After the upset wins in an extraordinarily low turn-out election, my guess is that the electorate is highly aware and motivated to go to the polls in this go-round. And remember too how the Recall Lago referendum crashed and burned, an embarrassment to the insurgents that hardly suggests momentum on their side.
As to your intuition that the campaign will be “dirty and full of lies,” while that claim may promote clicks, there’s no evidence of that as yet from any candidate. You might want to wait for actual news rather than reporting your guesses.