A North Miami City employee and a retired teacher will run off against each other on Tuesday, November 17, to determine who will replace Phyllis Smith on the North Miami Beach City Commission.
Daniela Jean, a first-time candidate working in the risk management department in neighboring North Miami, took first place in the November 3rd general election with around 34% of the vote in a six-person field. Margaret “Margie” Love, who is running for the city commission for the fifth time, came second with 19%.
Since no candidate received a majority of the votes, the two best players now face each other. The winner becomes the only new face in North Miami Beach politics.
Smith is fired after almost 14 years in office. Mayor Anthony DeFillipo and Commissioners Michael Joseph and McKenzie Fleurimond each defeated a challenger on November 3 to keep their seats.
Jean says she is a “born leader”.
Jean, 34, is the Administrative Coordinator in the North Miami Risk Management division and has worked in local government for about eight years. She was born in Paris and moved to North Miami Beach with her Haiti-born parents when she was 6 years old.
Jean promotes her status as a millennial and describes herself as a “born leader” and “problem solver”. She teaches American sign language to school-age children and has written a self-help e-book entitled “5Gs of Success”.
“I’m a millennium old, I’m innovative, I’m a leader,” she said.
Jean declined to say how she might have dealt with two critical recent city commission decisions: one to terminate a contract to privately operate the city’s water company and one to approve a $ 1.5 billion redevelopment of the Intracoastal Mall -Dollar.
Instead, she said she’d rather look ahead and make sure residents benefit from these changes.
“We want the promises that should result from the decision [should be] actually enforced, ”Jean said of the water supply contract, citing the jobs Jacobs Engineering employees might be offered when North Miami Beach returns to city control.
Other important issues, Jean said, include local residents’ concerns about high water bills, more police patrols to prevent speeding and the investment of more money by the city redevelopment agency in small and minority companies.
Some of the neighborhoods are not as well-maintained as they should be, she added.
“The residents want more of the city,” said Jean. “They want to see improvements in their area. They want to know they have a lawyer. “
Love emphasizes courtesy, support for the police
68-year-old Love ran unsuccessfully for the North Miami Beach City Commission in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2018. Her early campaigns were made more difficult by her career as a kindergarten teacher in Miami-Dade County public schools. But she’s since retired and learned how to knock on doors and run a campaign, she told the Herald.
“In the beginning nobody told me what to do to win an election,” she said.
One thing hasn’t changed though: Love doesn’t accept campaign contributions, instead investing more than $ 45,000 of its own money in their campaign.
Love told the Herald about an experience she had in 2010 when she was a victim of a crime and was assisted by police in North Miami Beach. She became an attorney for Neighborhood Crime Watch. She organized meetings for residents in the town hall and brought in experts, she said.
She added that the city police department made cuts nine years ago and believes the department did not have the necessary resources to support its officers and promote policing in the community.
“I feel like we never recovered from it,” she said. “I will be the commissioner for law and order.”
Love also said that she was bothered by some of the things she saw during the city commission meetings. The way in which the meetings are carried out is “appalling”. Without mentioning anyone by name, she pointed to commissioners who had been muted during virtual meetings and threatened to turn off their microphones.
It seemed to be referring to DeFillipo, the city’s mayor, who shouted, “Mute them now, mute!” regarding Smith at a meeting last month.
Love said that if she wins, she wants the committee meetings to be “a constant reminder of proper decency and courtesy on our podium. For me that’s a starting point. “
Unlike Jean, Love was open about her take on the Intracoastal Mall project, saying residents of the nearby Eastern Shores neighborhood were “really disappointed”. She called the developer who is driving the project – Gil Dezer, whom she did not want to mention by name – a “seedy character” who should not be trusted. The public learned in 2018 that Dezer was employing then-mayor’s wife, George Vallejo, and paying her through secret shell companies that Vallejo founded.
A shared commission
Love and Jean brushed off questions about the city’s four white-elected officials all supporting Love, who is white, while two Haitian-American commissioners support Jean. A third Haitian-American commissioner, Michael Joseph, did not respond to a question about whom he supports.
According to US census data, about 20% of the population in North Miami Beach are Haitians. The city in northeast Miami-Dade County “is a real melting pot,” said Jean. “That’s what I want to focus on: serving my community as a whole.”
Meanwhile, Love suggested that as a city commissioner she would “ignore” the breed, just as she did as a teacher.
“As a teacher in the classroom, I was color blind for over four decades. I’ve just never seen color, ”she said.
Love added, “This is the time to hug and ignore religion, ignore race … and be one in a peaceful community, a peaceful podium.”
Aaron Leibowitz is a city government reporter for the Miami Herald. He writes about local politics in every city, village, and town in Miami-Dade County and sometimes beyond.
Comments are closed.