MIAMI (WSVN) – Voters in the city of Miami will get the chance – again – to make their choice known after elections earlier this month failed to elect a new mayor.
Voters will return to the polls next month for a second mayoral election, with two candidates vying to be the city’s next leader.
Eileen Higgins, a mechanical engineer by training, with a background in manufacturing, currently serves as a Miami-Dade County commissioner.
Higgins is running against Emilio Gonzalez, a former city manager and former director of Miami International Airport. He also served in the Department of Homeland Security during the George W. Bush administration.
The candidates presented their vision for a better Miami Wednesday at a nonpartisan public forum hosted by the Downtown Neighbors Alliance at the Miami Dade College Koubek Center.
Gonzalez said he wants to take a holistic approach to lowering the cost of housing by proposing the elimination of property taxes.
“Our young people need the opportunity to stay here. They can’t stay here, which is one of the reasons I’m so supportive of eliminating the ad valorem property tax, because you could be putting money in people’s pockets. Young families struggling to buy a new home, imagine not having to pay taxes,” he said.
Higgins said she wants to eliminate red tape, streamline permitting processes for building new homes and examine properties the city already owns.
“That will be a priority for me as mayor, to look at every piece of city property and say, ‘Why don’t we use that for housing?’” she said.
Both candidates want to reform city government and root out corruption to change Miami’s image to residents and visitors.
“We have to have a mentality where no one gets a second chance by stealing money, abusing people, being corrupt, corrupting their office,” Gonzalez said.
“From the top of the organizations, if you look at the mayor’s office, and you look at the manager’s office now, there are employees making well over $100,000, some of them over $200,000, who are working a second job. Doing what? Right? So all this outside work, number one, has to stop,” Higgins said.
In the field of public transport, both candidates want it to be expanded and made more efficient.
“I worked on the Better Bus Network several years ago, and the goal of the Better Bus Network was to redesign our bus network to bring high-frequency service to more than 300,000 households, and it has worked – our buses are arriving more often, they are on time – and we wanted to integrate the city’s trolley system into this new, efficient system,” Higgins said. “We redesigned it for the city. The city commissioners couldn’t go out of their way and vote to make these changes, so they have the same old trolley system they designed 12 years ago. They haven’t made a single change to a single route, even as our community has changed and grown in many ways.”
“The timing is such that you can sit, stand and wait for a trolley for 40 minutes, and then three come in a row. We have to do a better job,” Gonzalez said.
Asked to describe their future governments in just one word, Gonzalez said “unstoppable,” while Higgins said “resident-focused.”
Starting Monday, mail-in ballots will be sent to those who requested them. The second election day is coming up on Tuesday, December 9.
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