It’s halftime and the City of North Miami is at the 50-yard line as the May 11 municipal election looms.
Team North Miami may be down on points, but don’t bet against it. The second half is beginning to look pretty good, particularly if the right candidates know how to navigate the next two years.
The boom is starting.
The bad news is familiar enough: an $8 million deficit in the general fund, zero reserves, squandered gifts, groaning infrastructure needs, disquiet in the ranks and politics playing out in the theater of the absurd.
This is rich material for the 15 candidates jostling for three seats in a race as congested as the corner of US 1 and 123rd Street – the very corner where the imminent sale of Johnson & Wales’ 25-acre campus will likely transform the city’s landscape.
Managing that boom will be critical as the city struggles to emerge from fiscal crisis.
Ideally, the winners will be conscientious, incorruptible, thrifty and transparent. They will place service before self, possess even temperaments, play well with others and not get suckered in. Developers play the long game and smart council members will be the ones with their eyes wide open.
Elected candidates will need a grasp of infrastructure, climate impacts and budgets. They must be able to actively listen to taxpayers and voters both lofty and humble. And they had better bone up on enterprise funds. North Miami’s aging water plant, serving 70,000 people, needs urgent upgrades, and the state wants the city to prove it can pay for them.
This campaign also offers juicy stuff worthy of a comic novel mashup of Carl Hiaasen and Evelyn Waugh. Incumbent District 3 Commissioner Mary Estimé-Irvin faces severe financial challenges, with a $1.4 million IRS lien from business taxes and unpaid bills. She lives rent free at the sufferance of her landlord, Michael Etienne, former city clerk, whom she beat by 74 votes two years ago, thanks to a surge in absentee ballots. Her challengers include two middle-aged brothers who share a house, and Evens Samuel Bien-Aime, who promises to “bridge the gap” and is no relation to the incumbent mayor, Philippe Bien-Aime.
Mark Sell for Biscayne Times
The incumbent mayor faces opposition and campaign signs scream at voters all across the city.
Bien-Aime, who joined the council in 2013, is running for his second mayoral term and has had foreclosure issues of his own, as well as a settled sex harassment suit with a city employee. He faces a sharp and largely self-funded challenge from none other than Estimé-Irvin’s landlord Etienne, a lawyer who portrays Bien-Aime as a steward of the fiscal irresponsibility that has hobbled the city.
Says Etienne, who owns three properties, “For the past two years our financial crisis has been drastically detrimental to any property owner in the City of North Miami. I am of the opinion that the city is run by people used to banana republic governments.”
Etienne knows the issues but has faced his own ethical brushes, including settling a reimbursement for a side trip he made to Mount Rushmore on the city’s dime as elected city clerk in 2016. He says that at age 37, he is mellowing.
As Etienne targets Bien-Aime, civic activist Laura Hill, a transplant from Washington State, is running a pointed reform-minded campaign against Estimé-Irvin. Hill, a paralegal, is president of Northeast Miami-Dade Democrats and advocates for a more professionally run city hall, better training for employees and serious grappling with decaying infrastructure.
Bien-Aime and Estimé-Irvin enjoy incumbency’s advantages, with campaign donations pouring in from big wheels. Both possess certain strengths. After eight years on the council with two as mayor, Bien-Aime knows the territory and can run a meeting. Estimé-Irvin, two years in, has good broadcast presence and loyal constituents, if still-unproven fluency on issues she is working to grasp.
North Miami is poised for success in spite of itself. The city’s nascent boom is due to a combination of forces: market demands, low interest rates, rising prices in surrounding areas, city zoning and land use changes that have made development feasible, progress for an eastern rail corridor, encouraging transit-oriented housing and the city’s strategic location.
Southeast of Biscayne Boulevard and 151st Street, work proceeds on the $4-billion Solé Mia, with the six-story Villa Solé, Villa Laguna residences and UHealth medical complex scheduled to open in 2022.
By year’s end, ground will break on Blue Road – a midrise 175-unit over-55 residence, assisted living facility and commercial space – at 950 NE 124th St., and Eleven55 NoMI Village, a 369-unit workforce and affordable housing mixed-use project developed by Omega Investors Group to replace 12 blighted buildings around 1155 NE 126th St.
“I think the City of North Miami is about to go through the most incredible boom it’s ever seen,” said Omega partner Sebastien Scemla. Omega owns 735 NE 125th St., which Jewish Community Services is leaving to make way for the new offices of North Miami’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) on the first floor and the new corporate headquarters for Payless Shoes, which in March opened its flagship store at 850 NE 125th St.
Developers and lobbyists are rewarding incumbents and certain veteran challengers. As of February 28, Bien-Aime had raised $100,900; Estimé-Irvin, $39,800.
Entities controlled by Keystone resident and real estate scion Jimmy Tate and his fellow scion and partner Sergio Rok have contributed at least $49,000 to Bien-Aime’s campaign, $10,000 to Estimé-Irvin’s and $7,000 to District 2 candidate and former North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns, who runs a Christmas tree business and lobbies before the city.
Tate plans a 350-unit workforce housing development at 1810 NE 146th St. and Bien-Aime proposed a 99-year lease on its city-owned land, starting at $125,000 a year. That item was introduced and quickly pulled from the March 9 agenda. If that one comes up before the elections, look alive.
Other election kingmakers and campaign bundlers include former North Miami Mayors Andre Pierre and Frank Wolland, through Keystone Law Firm, and State Rep. Joe Geller, partner at the Greenspoon Marder law firm, who often represents developers before the city.
District 2 candidate Michael McDearmaid, a Greenspoon Marder community and government relations liaison and a longtime fixture on North Miami boards, has raised $35,000 from residents and business interests as far away as Tallahassee and Texas. Former mayoral candidate and activist Hector Medina is also launching a challenge for the District 2 seat.
Turnout was just over 19% for the May 2019 general election and 17% for the District 3 runoff. Even in a pandemic year, absentee ballots could be critical as they have influenced and even swung narrow elections, with door-to-door brokers visiting apartments and homes, “helping” voters fill in the absentee ballots in exchange for $50 supermarket shopping passes.
Voting registration deadline is April 12 to vote on May 11; the registration deadline is May 3 for the June 1 runoff, a projected necessity given the crowded District 2 and 3 races. For updates on candidates and contributors, visit NorthMiamiFl.gov/805/Candidates.
Lifelong North Miami resident Carol Keys’ term-limited departure from District 2 after eight years on the council and many more as a board member and activist, the council is losing one of its most diligent and detail-oriented members, though she’s arguably too gentle with city management at times.
Said Keys, a real estate lawyer and minority fiscal hawk, “What I’ve done behind the scenes is work with the administration to enhance and improve laws and ordinances for the city. I have tried to maintain fiscal responsibility ... We are still trying to crawl out of the hole. We need to cut back on the parties, the events, the self-promotional stuff. ... We have a tremendous need to make sure landlords keep up with code ... The environment and sustainability are big concerns of mine, and I hope others on the council carry that concern forward.”
In addition to Burns, McDearmaid, Medina and Evens Bien-Aime, District 2 candidates include former North Miami Public Affairs Officer Kassandra Timothe, Jessica Tracy Wolland – daughter of Frank Wolland – and William Welsh, former president of the Sans Souci Voluntary Gated Homeowners Association.
Mark Sell for Biscayne Times
Seven candidates are vying for North Miami’s open District 2 seat, which includes downtown. Six are contesting incumbent Mary Estimé-Irvin’s central District 3 seat.
District 3 incumbent Estimé-Irvin faces challenges from activist Hill; Bryan Nigel Ali; Tahamood Ali Jr.; perpetual District 3 candidate Wancito Francius, who is pushing transparency, beautification and small business help; and former North Miami District 3 Councilman Jean Marcellus, who bills himself as “the honest man.”
In one striking oddity, Bryan Nigel and Tahamood Ali are brothers at the same address who separately filed on the same day last July 13 and have waived financial reports. Bryan Nigel Ali, 54, is an insurance adjuster and real estate agent who is usually out of town. Tahamood Ali, 49, is a notary public who helps people with taxes. Tahamood said the city needs a better permitting process.
Said Tahamood: “If Bryan wins, I’ll be his second. If I win, he’ll be my second.”
Said Bryan Nigel: “At the end of the day, somebody needs to fill a seat.”
And to fill a seat properly, informed residents need to educate themselves on the issues and vote May 11 and June 1.