MIAMI Seashore – Miami Beach citizens have 4 options to replace termed-out Mayor Dan Gelber. Early voting is underway now. Election Working day is November 7th.
There is Previous City Commissioner Michael Gongora, Previous State Agent Mike Grieco, Previous MTV Chairman Monthly bill Roedy, and Present-day City Commissioner Steve Meiner.
CBS News Miami reporter Morgan Rynor spoke to every single of them individually to speak to them about their prime priorities. This is what they had to say in their individual words:
Question 1: Convey to me about who you are?
Gongora: I am a indigenous Miamian and I have lived in Miami Beach front considering the fact that 1992, begun my legislation occupation ideal on Lincoln Highway, and obtained energetic in our town seeking to make a variance. I ran for fee the very first time in 2006 and had the enjoyment of staying elected three occasions to serve as commissioner for our city, the place I labored to increase top quality of lifestyle, make our town safer and genuinely elevate Miami Beach for our inhabitants.
Grieco: I am Mike Grieco, happy father of freshmen around at Seaside High, also a former prosecutor. Worked in the Gangs and Narcotics Unit for six a long time, been dwelling on the Seashore considering the fact that the late 90s. Previous town commissioner, proudly also served in the condition legislature for 4 yrs.
Roedy: Grew up in Miami. Invested my 1st two a long time right here, went off to West Level, right after West Point, volunteered to go to Vietnam, trained as a Specific Forces Airborne Ranger, fought on the frontlines of beat, and then just after Vietnam arrived back and retrained as a nuclear missile base commander, and commanded nuclear missiles as component of NATO, defending the homeland, if you will, and then went to Harvard Enterprise Faculty. Just after Harvard Small business School, joined media for 33 a long time. Initial HBO, taking it across the country for 10 decades, and then considerably even larger, took 20 brand names throughout 2 billion people in pretty much just about every region, 200 countries, MTV and Nickelodeon.
Meiner: I am Commissioner Steven Meiner. I was elected in 2019. I grew up in New York but moved to Miami Beach front in 2007. My spouse Shannon and our two young children stay below in mid seashore in Miami Beach front. I’m a federal legal professional with the United States Securities and Exchange Fee.
Problem 2: All 4 candidates claimed public basic safety is their major precedence. Right here is HOW they approach to make Miami Seashore safer.
Gongora: I’m the Miami Beach Law enforcement endorsed applicant. I’m doing work with them to place far more police out on the streets to enhance the law enforcement price range and make guaranteed we do all the things so that everybody feels risk-free below in Miami Beach front.
Grieco: I am the only a single here with legislation enforcement expertise. I was the just one that introduced the air and sea display, solved our complications for Memorial Day. I was the one particular who developed the park ranger application and basically eliminated all the crime in our parks.
Roedy: I experienced 11 decades functioning the army in fight, so I truly feel like I can relate to the police quite perfectly. Require to get out the automobiles far more, in need to have to be on the avenue, need to have a real-time crime middle up and jogging, additional serious surveillance cameras, we have to quit the drug trafficking on the streets in which everyone sees it, and gun violence all over the place, and we just require a carry in morale and accountability and enforcement on compact crimes.
Meiner: Selection one particular is law enforcement visibility, and we have a new law enforcement chief working intently with him. That is the number just one deterrent, but we also have a municipal prosecution crew below in Miami Seaside and a pair of a long time back and 2021, we weren’t prosecuting, we experienced an 8% achievement rate, and I experienced to dig that information out, but once I did, I proposed, that our commission passed less than my leadership, a sequence of laws, we’re at a 90% results amount now on convictions.
Question 3: How would you help with website traffic congestion?
Gongora: Traffic is a complicated issue amount just one, we need to have city traffic management officers out on the street for the duration of peak hours and key destinations. Selection two, I am going to operate with Miami Dade County to calibrate our site visitors lights which are out of whack in specified parts. And 3rd, we have to do the job with the condition for the reason that two of our main streets, Collins Avenue and Alton Street are point out roadways
Grieco: So traffic is an interesting issue simply because a lot of periods we are a item of our very own results, and we are also a products of the deficiency of administration on the mainland. So what we see here on the beach front, when we get backed up from the mainland, we truly just have to continue to keep our intersections distinct, we require to be concentrating on inhabitants, but we also need to begin producing our possess infrastructure. We need to generate a state of affairs the place individuals who live on the Beach front could perhaps perform on the Beach front, and can potentially perform on the Beach front, as opposed to what we have now, which is much too a lot of commuters, as well numerous folks residing on the Seaside, but doing work Downtown or individuals performing on the Seaside, but residing in Doral or in Kendall, and I want to create much more housing for individuals who live listed here.
Roedy: You can do technology, which is just coordinating considerably greater the site visitors lights. There is certainly absence of coordination, as I see it, even among the a few entities that command the streets, condition, county and the town. Just easy, basic as that. You require a lot more coordination, and then if you lend AI technological know-how, you can I feel have greater synchronization of the lights.
Meiner: I was a sponsor of a website traffic workshop that we held before this week, and I’m gonna carry on to be at the forefront of each and every top quality of daily life challenges. I answer e-mails, I response our people, and there is certainly a ton additional we can do again to the essentials. As I say, we seriously require to emphasis on what our citizens see and are anxious about on an day-to-day foundation.
Query 3: Where do you stand on overdevelopment and what would you do?
Gongora: I imagine that liable enhancement must generally adhere inside of their permitted FJR and height necessities. What we have observed over the a long time, and some of my opponents have supported significant-rise initiatives on the Lincoln Road floor plenty, a enormous higher rise at the Deauville, initiatives that I was opposed to, and I am equally opposed to the Clevelanders, most of the buildings in this article on Ocean Travel are very compact and they are far more than 5 stories with a handful of exceptions.
Grieco: It is really appealing mainly because most individuals imagine that we are a growing city when in point, our inhabitants has basically decreased more than the previous 10 yrs. So the concern is that some of the development which is been taking place in the town is bad enhancement, the style of enhancement that promotes transient dwelling, limited-term rentals, items that I fought in opposition to for decades when I served as a metropolis commissioner, no important developments went up. We concentrated on infrastructure. Now, all you hear about is expanding density, creating and creating and developing, and I am the just one that has the interactions in Tallahassee that can potentially cease this with these preemption payments.
Roedy: Massive notch about-improvement is a 3rd problem that I feel it is crucial to all people, the inhabitants below for the reason that we’ve designed issues. Why have we produced blunders? Mainly because we’ve been beholden to builders, and there are predicaments where by you have to pay out for perform or affect peddling, and the attractiveness about my campaign and my mayorship, is that I am not beholden to any developer. Why? For the reason that I’ve hardly ever taken a penny, hardly ever have, never ever will, get a penny from a developer so, I never have a dilemma or a problem of getting beholden to a special fascination group.
Meiner: We’re working with overdevelopment difficulties, and I have legislation at present, to restrict overdevelopment and targeted traffic.
Question 4: Miami Seashore just lately handed an ordinance that permits police to arrest a homeless specific if they deny shelter. Do you aid or oppose this? What would you do?
Gongora: We are not able to enable Miami Beach become like we see parks in San Francisco that have grow to be homeless encampments. So this new legislation will not demand law enforcement to arrest homeless folks. It is a single much more resource obtainable to them simply because Miami Beach spends a lot of revenue on homeless shelters on reunification of homeless with their people, on career instruction, even on medication as a result of the Lazarus project, a thing that I sponsored as commissioner, but often they you should not want to take the services. They both have psychological health issues, drug and alcoholic beverages habit, and they’re out there accomplishing points that seriously are bad for our community.
Grieco: I would have been a no on the concept of arresting people basically for the reason that they’re homeless. I assume that that is pretty heavy-handed. There are 101 strategies to handle homelessness. We do not have some distinctive homeless problem in this article in Miami Seaside. Some of these folks, initially of all, have been living right here for many years. They’re my constituents as well. The more recent folks that are coming, metropolitan areas all all over the nation are viewing an raise in homelessness, and we need to have to be exhibiting extra of a coronary heart, and we have to have to make positive that we are delivering as several alternatives as feasible, regardless of whether it be psychological overall health treatment method, liquor, drug remedy. These are issues that we have been falling small on more than the decades.
Roedy: I fully grasp why it was significant to do, but you won’t be able to arrest your way out of homelessness. What I imagine is each homeless human being is a disaster in humanity, and it need to not be normalized. It’s not ordinary to rest on the streets. We require better data with every single homeless human being so we can discover him, and we also have a budget over $8 million to assistance homelessness. We have facilities across the bay, we will need to make certain that they are outfitted and set up for all the distinctive factors why you are homeless.
Meiner: I basically am one particular of the sponsors of that laws, which handed our commission, and truly what it is, it really is truly humane simply because of what it will take. It’s any individual sleeping on our streets, an personal who’s homeless, and it’s unfortunate, but ordinarily in most cases, they have mental health concerns, habit issues, and we’re providing them shelter, we’re supplying them expert services. It truly is only if they deny individuals services, and they’re sleeping on our streets, that our law enforcement have the discretion to make the arrest.
Query 5: Exciting simple fact about you that most individuals do not know.
Gongora: I do like to have fun. I like arts, culture, audio, and theater.
Grieco: Via my several years of higher college in university, I really wrote on rubbish vans, labored in incinerators and truly know what genuine difficult perform means.
Roedy: I experienced a pet alligator, and I liked that pet alligator. It was at the time when you could acquire a pet alligator, so my grandmother discovered one particular on 79th Street at a tiny hole-on-the-wall pet shop at a purchasing center. I believe it really is still there on 79th Avenue off Biscayne Boulevard.
Meiner: I like to engage in baseball. I in fact performed competitively till about 7 several years in the past, and my mates joke that at the time I retired from baseball, I picked up acquiring associated in politics.
