Mayor Matti Bower. File photo by Richard M. Brooks

Hear Her Roar
Mayor Matti Bower Fends Off a Challenge to Her Authority and, She Says, Her Gender

By Lee Molloy

A new commission brings a chance to start over, to put aside past differences and enter into a spirit of renewed collegiality. And, with bright purple balloons behind the dais and the acceptance of a gift of rum cake, the commission meeting of Dec. 9, welcomed new commissioners Michael Gongora and Jorge Exposito, seemingly getting off to a good start. However, as Commissioner Ed Tobin brought forward a resolution to amend the city ordinance covering the Capital Improvements Projects Oversight Committee (CIPOC), the tone shifted from the cordial to one of sometimes barely concealed contempt. 

The ordinance currently mandates that the appointment of the CIPOC chair is the sole prerogative of the mayor. Tobin’s resolution, however, aimed to take that power of patronage away from the mayor, and place it in the hands of the commission as a whole by way of a majority vote. The resolution would also require that the CIPOC chairman be a sitting city commissioner.

As reported in The Lead on Nov. 27, the mayor has already made her choice for the next CIPOC chairman — recently termed-out Commissioner Saul Gross.

“It is not intended as a slight to you,” Tobin told Bower Wednesday. “I am going to try and convince you it is a good idea.”

Tobin’s argument was that, in the past, the commission had agreed that the city wasn’t always getting the “best bang for our buck” on citywide projects. As the CIPOC deals with a budget of three quarters of a billion dollars, there should be an elected official in charge, he argued. Tobin doesn’t, however, want the job himself.

“I’m not asking to be the chair of that committee,” Tobin said, “I will not put my name in to be the chair.”

Although Bower said that Tobin made a good point, she did take exception to the fact that he brought up the issue during the first meeting of the new commission.

“I am a little bit at odds that you want to take one of the few responsibilities that a mayor has,” Bower told Tobin. “If people do not like the way I appoint people, they do not have to vote for me.”

Commissioner Wolfson explained to those watching that the City of Miami Beach is a strong manager form of government, which means that the City Manager has executive power and the commission acts as the legislature. One of the few things that differentiates the mayor from the other commissioners is the ability to direct policy, partly via the appointment process.

“Take this away and I think you are taking away the residents decision [by way of electing a mayor] to make policy direction in Miami Beach,” Wolfson said.

Commissioner Jerry Libbin took the middle road, suggesting that the Mayor could appoint a chair from among the elected commissioners. Gongora wanted to defer judgment and Exposito was conspicuous in his silence. Commissioner Deede Weithorn, who was booted from the CIPOC chair by Bower in March, said that she is “worried about the precedent of a non-commissioner chairing.”

According to City Attorney Jose Smith, any appointment made by the mayor to the CIPOC chair would constitutionally have to run its full two-year term even if the commission voted to change the appointment process. Therefore, as Gross is expected to take over the chair next month, an up or down vote had to be made by the commission right away if the appointment was to be halted.

Bower was not going to make it easy, and raised another controversial concern.

“I think that this is a challenge to womanhood most of the time,” Bower said. “When a man sits in the chair nobody questions what they do.”

Wolfson explained why he was not going to vote for a change. “I don’t think, in any government, because you don’t like the result of a decision that was made by an elected official that you change the process,” Wolfson said. “It is just not good for government.”

Bower agreed that the change would be bad for the city and then proceeded to chastise Tobin for scheduling the item so soon into the tenure of a new dais before speaking to the commissioners directly.

“I would ask my fellow commissioners to support me as the Mayor of Miami Beach. This in particular, I think, is a jump on me,” she said. “I think it is a personal thing, if it is not on me it is on Saul Gross.”

With that Libbin withdrew his seconding of the resolution and, obviously lacking votes, Tobin withdrew the item, leaving the path now clear for the mayor to make her appointment.

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