Highlights on issues from two online, virtual Miami-Dade mayoral forums

On the week after the vote-by-mail absentee ballots started to arrive in mailboxes, a couple of Miami-Dade mayoral forums got heated last week. It also became apparent in those debates and on TV appearances that collaboration with cities — as opposed to what the current incumbent Mayor Carlos Gimenez has done with the CARES COVID-19 federal funding — has become a campaign issue.

Both the Actualidad Radio debate on Facebook, where there were fireworks because all attacks and jabs are better in Spanish, and a virtual English language debate hosted by the Miami-Dade League of Cities were dominated by two issues: the COVID-19 government response and transportation, specifically the misuse of the half-penny sales tax slush fund, which is where most of the sparring happened — mostly between former Mayor Alex Penelas and termed-out Commissioner Esteban “Stevie” Bovo but Commissioners Daniella Levine Cava and Xavier Suarez threw a few punches.

This post concentrates on the four front runners and summarizes their positions and comments on some of the main issues as stated at virtual forums and in TV interviews last week.

The COVID-19 crisis and government response:

They all talk like they’re running against Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and agree that he got it wrong on his solo COVID-19 response without taking anyone else or any city into account and taking two steps back every time we took a step forward.

Every candidate said she or he would be more inclusive, and Levine Cava even playfully changed her name (again) to Daniella Collaboration Cava because she has been inclusive of the incorporated areas in her county district, including Homestead, Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay and Pinecrest, her “adopted” home, meeting with city leaders regularly. She said the M.O.M. sessions — for Meeting of Mayors — began as monthly powwows and have become weekly phone calls in the wake of the pandemic.

“It was about building a regional strategy,” she said, adding that she still wants to bring back development to South Dade.

“From the beginning, the mayors just wanted leadership, help from the county, the expertise — and Mayor Gimenez didn’t give it to them,” she said. coming back to the COVID response, and referred to a potential lawsuit against the county. “They had no opportunity to say what they wanted to do to help the residents in their cities.”

She has also said that she the back and forth with changing positions has been confusing and that she would appoint a county medical director on day one. Gimenez, she said, “is not talking with people with expertise and that is why we are where we are.”

As the “only social worker” in the race, she wants to get more outside funding for mental health, recreational and preventative programs. “There are many ways to protect ourselves not only masks and social distance, but also to strengthen ourselves against whatever disease can come… I am married to a doctor and he gives me much advice.”

Penelas called the communication from the county “disastrous” and said that he had made several suggestions to county leaders, including the three commissioners running for mayor against him, and that they were ignored. Does he think he’s mayor already? Nah, he acts like it because he thinks he’s the only one with the experience necessary for an emergency, having been mayor through 22 hurricanes and the 9/11 attacks and economic fallout and handling those, he keeps reminding us.

“And always I did it with the cooperation of my municipal colleagues,” Penelas said, adding that 11 mayors in Miami-Dade support him. “But to gain that cooperation, you have to work with them, you have to get on the phone and put aside whatever political differences you have.

“Unfortunately, there’s been a hurry to get to the press conference without doing the work.” Ouch. Eso es una indirecta a Gimenez.

“All the emergency orders I gave would be based on experts, on what science indicates,” Penelas said on the Actualidad debate. “I didn’t know anything about hurricanes. I was not a weather expert. I didn’t know how to recuperate the economy after 9/11. I sat down with the experts. I didn’t have a playbook and every time we were prepared and we recovered stronger than ever.”

He also mentioned that the crisis has also affected the community with mental health issues and that should also be addressed.

Penelas also said that it could be a time to target in-state travelers because of the hit on tourism. “It will be a while before we have the same level of cruise traffic and air traffic so we need to take advantage of our own purchasing power right here in Florida,” he said.

Bovo said the biggest problem is communication between the mayor of the county and city but he said the blame should be shared. “They all have the responsibility. It has been a grand failure not to have that communication,” he said, adding that press conference “don’t help anyone.” He said that the three cities in his district — Hialeah, Hialeah Gardens and Miami Lakes — had different rules and zero cooperation until he met with them and got them to be uniform.

“I am opposed to closing businesses. I don’t think that’s an option. We have to cooperate to open safely,” Bovo said, adding that the fines for violations should help keep businesses in check. He called Penelas the “expert in tax increases” — its among the nicer things he’s said about him — and said he doesn’t think now is the time to divert taxes to public health or mental health initiatives.

In the English language forum, however, he mentioned how important it is to continue funding beach renourishment programs that had begun before the pandemic. It’s important to coming back as a tourist destination, Bovo said: “People will actually decide to go someplace else, because they have that option, if our beaches aren’t clean.”

Suarez said he wouldn’t have an endless curfew and he wouldn’t have closed beaches and parks, which strangely enough goes against “the mayor in Miami” which keeps getting dragged into this. Instead of hiring 400 people to patrol the parks to enforce the mask order, Suarez would invest in teams to do testing and tracing.

On mass transit and the misuse of the half penny tax:

Suarez has been the leader on this issue from the start, actually from before the start having gone to the transportation trust meetings and having sued the county over the use of half penny tax dollars to plug up the budget, which he has consistently voted against. Even Penelas has had to give him props when he blamed the other two commissioners for misusing the monies.

But Suarez wasn’t as kind back. “The one error that Alex made is to allow the money to be used elsewhere,” he said.

Bovo said it was “the most important” issue in the county. “Now with COVID-19, we don’t talk about it as much. This will be the number one issue again,” he said, calling the half-cent initiative “a fantasy” and saying the votes were bought by promising MetroRail extensions and increasing the compensation for transit workers, who have endorsed Penelas (but both the candidate and the union have the same PR agency, by the way).

He, too, prefers rail but says it is out of reach. “The federal government is not going to give us money if we can’t demonstrate how we are going to maintain it,” Bovo said, adding that Penelas and others were “making promises they can’t keep, the same as they did with the half penny.” Well, Penelas then.

Levine Cava struggled a little bit with the language, but pointed out the obvious: “We can’t build more roads. More transit is needed.” She said she has worked for the past six years to replace old buses with brand new electrical ones and she supported bus rapid transit for the south corridor. She also has talked about bringing the circulators and trolleys used by cities to the unincorporated areas.

She didn’t miss a chance to throw the blame on Penelas. “We are living with the lies from the past. That half penny we all know was a lie because the plan was for a penny.”

“It’s incredible to hear these people,” Penelas shot back.

“They have been on the horse for the last 10 years and they have done nothing. Except give more than enough excuses and get million dollar studies. It is a nightmare and here are the commissioners who have been at the forefront of the issue and have done nothing.”

Before he left office, Penelas said, he expanded MetroRail by more than eight miles. “Since then, it hasn’t been extended even one inch.

“It has nothing to do with promises. It is because they have misspent the money. I give credit to Xavier Suarez, but the rest are the guilty ones. More than $1 billion has been misspent. We never said the half cent was to cover all costs. It was to match federal funds. They want to change history.”

He said as mayor he would “stop the bleeding” of the half penny funds.

“I predicted the disaster of transit we have today and I had the political courage to do something about it,” he said, adding, in the Spanish forum, that he got the Golden Pass free ride for seniors. “I don’t know if any of you are suggesting to take that away from the public,” he said, which is a scare tactic because nobody suggested that. Actually, Suarez wants to extend that free ride to the rest of us.

Penelas also said that he plans to scrap the $300M rapid-transit bus line to South Dade that has already been approved and has already gotten $100 million in federal funding. He is willing to undo everything, even though the bids are apparently in, and build light rail there instead.

While Levine-Cava criticized that stand on Facing South Florida with Jim DeFede on Sunday, it is what the people of South Dade want. She knows that and she went with the BRT plan anyway, promising it will be adjustable for rail in the distant future. Sounds a little too much like Gimenez.

On increasing, or not, taxes and funding services:

Bovo said he came into office on the heels of a recall due to tax increases and misspending. “The government has to be a reflection of the people,” he said. “All my opponents talk about, all the things they are going to do in the community, that is going to cost money.”

He says people just want government to pay for core services — police, fire, garbage, water and sewer. “Every time the government wants to do something that, in my opinion, gets away from what government was made for, I am against that,” Bovo said, adding that services have to be the best quality.

“As mayor, we have to focus on that. Courage is being able to live with what the people can pay,” said Bovo, who has the support of the police unions. “Core services. That will be my priority.”

Kudos to Levine Cava for trying. She gets an A for effort but a C for communication in Spanish. After all, she’s not really Hispanic, despite the addition of Cava. It’s not easy to quote her but it doesn’t seem like she was completely against raising taxes or completely for it. Duh.

Suarez has said, actually for years, that the best way to increase revenue is to cut expenses. He said there is too much fat in the budget — he has railed against $8 million in new furniture — too many employees making six figure salaries and too many unused assets. He cited 17 administration buildings, 7,000 vehicles, 4,500 properties.

“We have to look at that so we don’t reduce services,” he said, adding that the $480 garbage fee should also be eliminated.

Penelas said the commissioners “have no understanding of how to prepare a county budget.

“Let’s leave something very clear — the budget has gone up from $6 billion 10 years ago to $9 billion today. That’s a 50% increase. “When they have had a budget hole, what they have done is to take money from the half cent to cover the hole. I balanced it for 8 years consecutive as a mayor.”

He said he was “not a termed-out commissioner” and would be “more honest” about the short and long term budgetary effects of the COVID crisis.

“Short term, it won’t be difficult. We have help from the federal government. The big challenge will be mid or long term. To assure that local businesses survive and thrive we have to make an extraordinary effort with lobbyists at state and federal level,” he said, citing specifically the tourism and construction industries.

There will be another chance to hear the candidates answer questions and snap at each other. Miami Herald reporter Douglas Hanks and WLRN’s Tom Hudson will moderate a forum with four of the candidates from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Friday in partnership with the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.

The first 60 minutes of the forum will be available on WLRN, 91.3-fm. Video of the entire forum will be streamed on Facebook Live and YouTube.

Alex Penelas, Daniella Levine Cava, Esteban Bovo, Miami-Dade Mayor 2020, Xavier Suarez

Highlights on issues from two online, virtual Miami-Dade mayoral forums added by Ladra on August 2, 2020
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