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Four of
seven Miami Beach City Commission seats are up for grabs in the
Nov. 6 election. Term limits prevent three commissioners from
running for re-election — Mayor David Dermer will finish his
term next month and termed-out Commissioners Simon Cruz and
Matti Bower seek to replace him. The future of Miami Beach hangs
in the balance. The impending power shift on the City Commission
is all the more reason for Miami Beach residents to vote. There
will be a new commission, led by a new mayor, and those who cast
their ballots will have a marked impact on Miami Beach’s future
for the next four years and beyond. With that in mind, the
SunPost recommends:
Group 6
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Frank Kruszewski |
Four candidates are running for the Group
6 commission seat.
Linda
Grosz, a real estate agent and a past president of the Venetian
Island Homeowners Association, is a passionate neighborhood
activist who sincerely wants to improve — and beautify — the
city in which she lives. She wants to swap large county buses
for attractive, eco-friendly trolleys or streetcars, and clarify
maximum decibel levels in city noise ordinances before
sanctioning offenders. Elsa Urquiza, a retired employee of the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a rental property
owner, is making her second run for office. She, too, has
serious concerns about the future, particularly about steep
property tax rates and scarce affordable rental housing for
Miami Beach workers. However, neither Grosz nor Urquiza has
well-defined plans to address other city issues.
Deede
Weithorn, also running for a second time, does have some
specific ideas about how to solve Miami Beach’s budget problems.
Weithorn, a CPA who was a longtime member of the General
Obligation Bond Oversight Committee and the Budget Advisory
Committee, is knowledgeable about the financial workings of the
city and wants to streamline City Hall, department by
department, to both cut costs and expedite simple processes. For
that, Weithorn is a tempting candidate.
However,
Frank Kruszewski is the only candidate who not only demonstrates
a solid grasp of key issues, but also has a personable demeanor
that makes him accessible to all Miami Beach citizens.
Kruszewski, a resident of Sunset
Harbour since 1999 and an outspoken
Miami Beach activist, served on the city’s Budget Advisory
Committee and currently sits on the executive board of SAVE
(Safeguarding American Values for Everyone) Dade. As the (past)
president of the Sunset Harbour South Condo Association, he led
the fight against the construction of a giant home improvement
store on Purdy Avenue.
We
believe Kruszewski will give Miami Beach residents a voice and
put their needs before those of special interests. He wants to
reengineer City Hall to provide efficient services to the city
without bankrupting its citizens and to develop a realistic
rapid transit system between Miami Beach, Miami and Miami
International Airport so
visitors and residents won’t have to rely on their cars. He also
wants to change city policy to allow only Miami Beach residents
to sit on such boards as planning, historic preservation and
design review — a bold move in a city where residents are seldom
heard. For Group 6, the SunPost recommends Frank
Kruszewski.
Group 5
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Michael Gongora |
The Group 5 race has become the battle of
the attorneys. Incumbent Commissioner Michael Gongora, an
associate with the law firm Becker & Poliakoff, was elected in
2006 to complete the last year of then-Commissioner Luis
Garcia’s term, when Garcia resigned to run for a seat in the
Florida House of Representatives. Now, Gongora is running for a
full four-year term against challenger and former prosecutor Ed
Tobin, a candidate who seems genuinely frustrated with the
status quo.
Tobin, of
the law firm Ratner and Tobin, chose to run when Gongora and his
firm sought an opinion from the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics
about whether the firm had violated an ethics law when one of
its attorneys represented a homeowner association client before
the design review board in October. Gongora believed that the
Certain Appearances Prohibited Ordinance should not prevent his
law firm from representing clients at City Hall, because he is
“just an associate.” The City Commission has since closed the
ordinance’s loophole and made this issue moot. Still, we commend
Tobin for entering this race. He believes Miami Beach residents
should be able to trust their government and participate in it.
However, while we agree with that premise, Tobin has not
presented tangible plans for solving city problems.
With the
ethics questions now resolved, we believe Gongora deserves a
chance to continue what he started this year. Gongora’s ad-hoc
Green Committee has found areas in which the city can improve
its environmental policies and its recycling program, and he
wants the city to partner with private businesses to keep our
beaches clean. Gongora vows to trim the budget from all sectors
of city operations without cutting services that residents need
and desire. Plus, he wants to bring to the Beach a viable mass
transit system that will efficiently circulate residents to and
from the mainland and bring additional parking facilities to
Miami Beach. While we hope to see Tobin continue participating
in city government and, perhaps, run for office again in the
future, the SunPost must recommend Michael Gongora
for Group 5.
Group 4
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Jonah Wolfson |
Businessman Luis Salom and lawyer Jonah
Wolfson have battled fiercely for the Group 4 seat. Salom
denounced Wolfson for what he calls negative campaigning. Under
any other circumstances, we would be inclined to agree, but in
this case the materials turned up viable questions about Salom
and his tendency to exaggerate his educational background. Salom,
a lifelong Miami Beach resident, says he would streamline the
city’s Capital Improvement Projects Department and work to stop
beach erosion in Mid-Beach. However, we believe Wolfson, who is
new to Miami Beach politics, would bring a fresh perspective and
innovative ideas to the commission. Wolfson, an attorney with
the Wolfson Law Firm in Miami, has a solid understanding of the
issues affecting Miami Beach. Wolfson vows to bring more
resident voices to city boards, add beat cops to city streets
and push to revitalize neighborhoods in need rather than
contribute to the city’s “out of control overdevelopment.” He
wants to address the affordable housing crisis on Miami Beach in
a meaningful way and bring in new revenue sources, and he isn’t
afraid to streamline the budget across the board to bring tax
breaks to Miami Beach residents. For Group 4, the SunPost
recommends Jonah Wolfson.
Mayor
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Matti Bower and Simon Cruz |
While four individuals are vying for the
mayor’s seat on the commission, only two are solid candidates.
William
Smatt, who announced his mayoral candidacy by displaying a
banner proclaiming “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and
Steve,” seems more intent on offending the community than
actually solving problems. Raphael Herman, who ran against Alex
Daoud repeatedly in the late 1980s, expresses his disdain for
corruption, but has never actually tried to do anything about
that or any other city issues.
That
leaves two viable candidates for the mayor’s seat — both
termed-out commissioners who agree on almost everything.
Commissioner Simon Cruz was elected to the Miami Beach
Commission on the Save Miami Beach ticket in 1997. Commissioner
Matti Bower, a former member of the Miami Beach Housing
Authority, was elected to her commission seat in 1999.
Throughout the years, both have lent their voices and votes to
an increasingly progressive government — one that has controlled
future development, enacted the most stringent ethics
legislation in Florida, rolled back property tax rates and
increased its municipal bond ratings.
The
candidates do have their differences. Bower is a devoted
historic preservationist who believes the city should do
whatever it takes to increase the amount of affordable housing
available in Miami Beach — including requiring developers to
build inexpensive units as part of new projects — and she takes
the time in public forums to ask questions about issues the
commission must decide. Cruz wants to examine placing affordable
housing across the bridge in Miami. Cruz also vows to clean up
city streets, increase the amount of parking in the city’s
commercial areas and bring more cultural institutions to Miami
Beach. Both candidates support streamlining the budget, making
city services more cost effective, creating a stronger police
presence and controlling development. And both candidates told
the SunPost editorial board that they wouldn’t deviate
from the direction set by outgoing Mayor David Dermer and City
Manager Jorge Gonzalez. The biggest difference between these two
candidates is their personalities.
Other
than acknowledging that Smatt and Herman were not serious
mayoral contenders, our editorial board deadlocked on this
recommendation and could not choose a clear candidate for mayor.
As such, the SunPost recommends that voters examine the
stances and leadership qualities of Matti Bower and
Simon Cruz.
Charter Amendment
Miami
Beach Mayor David Dermer placed on the ballot a referendum for a
charter amendment that would require a special election “prior
to enacting less stringent standards to the city’s code of
conduct.”
Essentially, the referendum is an insurance policy that will
preserve the city’s recent ethics legislation, the strongest in
Florida, so it is not watered down by successor governments.
For
example, individuals who lobby on behalf of third parties cannot
serve on any city boards — including the Miami Beach City
Commission. That particular code, called the Certain Appearances
Prohibited Ordinance, applies to anyone who works for a firm
that also employs a city board member or elected official.
Since its
enactment, the law has stopped lobbyists from serving on city
boards — a problem that once plagued City Hall.
Another
ethics code requires that lobbyists disclose their fees to the
city. Another bans for one year anyone who contributes to a
Beach candidate’s campaign from seeking contracts or development
agreements from the city, whether for themselves or a third
party.
Such
rules help to filter blatant cronyism from
Miami Beach city government, cronyism that only hurts the citizens of
Miami Beach. Today, only four
votes on the City Commission can weaken these laws. The
SunPost recommends voting ‘yes’ for a charter
amendment that would cement these ethics rules and help preserve
the integrity of Miami Beach’s government. |
