Heavy Turnover at Aventura City Hall

The future is clear for Aventura politics as the races to fill all but one of its open commission seats have been over for months now.

Mayor-elect Howard Weinberg and future Commissioners Michael Stern and Paul Kruss were automatically elected when they each stood unopposed by the qualifying deadline in August. Weinberg and Stern are back after having served on the commission before, while Kruss, a longtime resident and business owner, has been entrenched in the city’s political fabric in his own way.

Now, the three are only weeks away from being sworn into office on Nov. 15, along with one of two candidates currently vying for Seat 6 on the commission. Media professional Amit Bloom and marketing expert Alberto Zaltzberg are on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Even with a heavy turnover in Aventura this year, the newly elected officials have no intention of steering this self-proclaimed “City of Excellence” off its current course.

Smooth Sailing

Located in the northeast corner of Miami-Dade County, Aventura is a lively coastal community of approximately 40,000 residents with a relatively brief history. Incorporated just 27 years ago in 1995, the city has already established a reputation that all are inclined to maintain.

“One thing has always been consistent, which is responsible, honest government,” Weinberg said. “The elected officials in Aventura have always been people who got involved for the right reasons.”

Weinberg’s peers-to-be share similar sentiments, as do his constituents. He is the first to take advantage of a 2018 charter amendment that allows former city commissioners to run for mayor directly after their last term, which was introduced by Weinberg himself and subsequently approved by 70% of voters.

The amendment, which eliminates a rule that previously required commissioners to wait four years before running for mayor, qualified Weinberg for the 2022 election despite having termed out just two years ago.

Stern, on the other hand, served from 2005-2014 and will reclaim his former seat this month.

“For us, it has never been, ‘Let’s throw the bums out and bring in new people.’ Our idea is, ‘Let’s keep it rolling. Let’s keep doing it the right way,’” Weinberg said.

The idea that Aventura residents reinstate experienced veterans like Weinberg and Stern without hesitation was reinforced by this year’s election, when heavily endorsed candidates reached the end without any lasting challengers or campaign wars.

Even Kruss was eagerly accepted as a newcomer, having already been well known in the community through his collaborations with city officials. Additionally, his business, Mo’s Bagels & Deli, is a hot spot destination for high-profile political campaigns, habitually attracting visitors like gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist and Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio.

Kruss has a happy-to-be-here attitude regarding his imminent inauguration to the city commission, generally citing issues that include infrastructure, public safety, pollution and traffic. But there is one topic that particularly emboldens him, he says, which is education.

A Growing City

Aventura has historically been a community of retirees – people aged 65 or older still comprise roughly a third of its population – but that’s beginning to change. Each year the commissioners-elect see the influx of young families moving to their city, and with that comes the demand for seats at their top-rated schools.

Don Soffer Aventura High School, which opened just recently in 2019, is "bursting at the seams," as Kruss puts it. On top of that, Weinberg notes, Aventura City of Excellence School (ACES), the city's K-8 center, has 1,600 children on the waiting list.

The commissioners all agree that their institutions must expand to welcome new students, which may require the help of neighboring communities and the splitting of the K-8 into two separate schools, doubling its current capacity.

The trouble is finding the balance between overdevelopment and preserving residents’ quality of life; this new commission expressed caution against spreading itself too thin.

“We want the city to continue to grow,” said Kruss, “but we’re densely populated, so we’ll do what we can to make sure it’s not overdone.”

“We have to be smart, and discuss as a team, ‘What do we want Aventura to look like in the next five to 10 years?’” added Stern, who places responsible development at the top of his priority list, right on par with education and transportation.

One of the city’s crowning achievements is its employment of Freebee, a local transit business that transports residents across their communities free of charge. Weinberg spearheaded the initiative as a commissioner and set the groundwork for its launch in 2021.

Funded by Miami-Dade’s transportation tax, highway tolls and soon, wrap-around ad revenue, these electric vehicles run from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, yet have already garnered hefty wait times that are resulting in a need for further investment and the expansion of services.

Brightline also topped off construction on its Aventura location last month with the addition of a pedestrian bridge across West Dixie Highway on 197th Street. The station is expected to begin service before the end of the year.

Brightline’s long-awaited arrival in Aventura is but one of the reasons for the city’s recently acquired media recognition after having kept a low profile for some time, and this newfound trend should be expected to continue as the approaching commission rolls out new transparency initiatives.

In the Public Eye

Aventura has fallen short in terms of communication and accessibility, beginning with the city’s failure to livestream its commission meetings – a practice that is commonplace among other major municipalities in Miami-Dade County. But that’s about to change.

City staff are hopeful that the cameras will start to roll on the City of Excellence as soon as this year, beginning with the swearing-in ceremony in the commission chambers on Nov. 15.

If everything goes as planned, the commission livestreams will be available online at CityOfAventura.com, and eventually on cable TV through an exclusive government channel complete with additional programming.

The city also has recently hired its first director of communications and installed a texting service that residents can subscribe to for the latest Aventura news.

“It’s very important for everything we do to be fully transparent, and having access to the meetings and all of the great things that we’re doing – that all needs to be communicated,” Stern said.

Stern and Weinberg have been careful not to spoil too much for residents ahead of their return to office. Weinberg plans to unveil his agenda at the swearing-in ceremony, but hinted to the Biscayne Times that his plans will attract teachers and police officers to the area. Meanwhile, Stern vaguely mentioned that he would like Aventura to host new events so that its diverse population feels welcomed.

Kruss doesn’t come with a robust to-do list. Instead, he says, he’s there to ensure that the commission is fiscally responsible in serving the community that he has lived in for more than 30 years, and where he raised his family.

“Aventura is not called the City of Excellence for nothing,” he said. “We love living here.”