Left: Incumbant Mayor Matti Bower. Right: Challenger Laura Levey. Photo by Angie Hargot

Ready to do 'Business?'
Challenger and Incumbant Mayor Debate Tourism, Local Business, the Convention Center and Blight

By Lee Molloy

In the final installation of the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club’s candidate debates held in anticipation of the upcoming Nov. 3 general election, the group of politically engaged citizens hosted two candidates for the Mayoral race. Until the most recent, Oct 6 gathering the group, along with media co-sponsors The Lead, has successfully hosted every candidate for Miami Beach office – Tuesday, two candidates that had initially qualified for the race were not in attendance.

Twenty-eight-year-old Joshua LaRose, was kicked out of the race after his qualifying check of $1,360, bounced. However, instead of accepting the fact that his finances were not in order LaRose, who is also running for Governor in 2010 and for the U.S. Senate in 2012, told the press that he believes incumbent Mayor Matti Bower had something to do with his disqualification.

And LaRose is not the only one making dubious claims against Bower.

Assuming the phrase ‘perennial candidate,’ Raphael Herman is running for Mayor against incumbent Matti Bower. The race marks his sixth candidacy for Miami Beach Mayor. And, according to a police report filed on Sept. 22, the former Israeli soldier told police that three men, one of who was armed, told him to drop out of the race against Bower, or he be killed.

Bower’s Chief of Staff Rebecca Wakefield dismissed all the allegations against the Mayor.

“Its ridiculous,” Wakefield said. “The Mayor is obviously not going to send goons to attack a candidate or interfere with the decisions of the City Clerk’s office.”

Absent the presence of LaRose and Herman, attendees at the Breakfast Club debate which included commission candidates Michael Gongora, Sherry Roberts, Alex Fernandez and Oddy Segui, along with Mayor Charles Burkett of the Town of Surfside, settled in to watch the debate between the two attending candidates: incumbent Mayor Matti Bower, who entered the room to a rapturous round of applause, and political newcomer Laura Levey.

Moderator David Kelsey opened proceedings and handed the microphone to Levey to make her opening statements.

Levey, a mother of five and a former President of the North Beach Elementary School PTA, expressed her concern that the current commission simply doesn’t work well together. She promised to “prevent taxes from going up” and “to make Miami Beach a city that can be the best,” she said.

Bower’s platform differed, however.

“As a commissioner I worked hard to represent your interests, the residents’ interests,” Bower said, reaffirming her election-winning moniker of the ‘People’s Mayor.’ However, facing the reality of a declining economy, she focused her efforts on tourism. “Our lifeblood is tourism,” Bower said.

An audience member asked the candidates about the $55 million once tapped by Miami-Dade County to build a ballroom at the Miami Beach Convention Center, but is now considered to implement a hotel and a food court, many say would negatively impact Lincoln Road restaurants.

Bower said that those involved need to sit down and have a discussion about “what is it that our Convention Center needs to be competitive in the nation,” she said. Bower added that there are differing opinions on what needs to be done in regard to a hotel or a restaurant. She did, however, seem open to the idea of a rooftop restaurant. “We have never taken advantage of the roof of the Convention Center,” she said.

Levey opined that $55 million was a lot of money to spend, and could be better spent on infrastructure.

“We have got to watch where our dollars are going because there is nobody watching over our dollars,” Levey said, adding “a restaurant would take a lot from business from Lincoln road.”

The topic of tourism again arose when an audience member asked what was being done about dirty city streets.

Bower explained that, over the past few years, programs have been implemented to keep the streets clean.

She maintained the City has a comprehensive plan for “how to keep a city clean,” Bower said, adding that Miami Beach is a “tourist community…it is hard for us as residents sometimes to tolerate where we live, but, that’s what Miami Beach has been and will be” in the future,” she said.

Levey described the issue as a delicate and emotional one, and addressed the problems tourism creates for residents. “They leave garbage on the beach,” she said, “they take our parking spaces.”

In accordance with a burgeoning sentiment among local business owners that City Hall possesses an anti-business sentiment, an audience member asked how that attitude could be changed.

“I’m with you,” Levey said, “I think our city is being abandoned by businesses.”

Levey thinks that permitting rates, taxes, other fees and city codes are scaring away local businesses. “We have to modify the laws in this city and bring businesses here,” she said.

Bower, however, focused on tourism and cited the noise and disruption thousands of visitors bring to neighborhoods, especially South Beach.

“The residents don’t want all that aggravation,” she said, “then, on the other side, you have the businesses” that need it.

Bower also said that the city has not raised taxes in two years. “I don’t think that we have anything against the businesses,” she said, “I think that the balance is hard to find.”

Surfside’s Mayor Burkett stepped up to give his two cents to the mayor.

“Kudos to the city,” Burkett said, “I think everything is running smoothly.”

However, Burkett did get opine that it is easy for politicians to say they have not raised taxes when they have “hiked every fee in sight,” such as the water rates and various permit fees. Burkett also suggested that the City look at their staffing levels.

Bower was quick to point out that cuts had already been made to City staff.

“If you go to the clerk’s office you will see a lady crying there because she lost her position,” she said. “By attrition in the past year, we have cut 80 positions or more.”

One diehard audience member asked Levey why she felt qualified to be mayor.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be the mayor of this city,” Levey said, asserting that her time serving in PTA’s and as a mother of five had given her the leadership skills needed on a commission whose “meetings are really a joke,” she said.

comments@theleadmiamibeach.com