MIAMI — Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins is among the 13 candidates running for Miami mayor on Nov. 4.
Higgins, a graduate of the University of New Mexico and Cornell University, has experience as an engineer and as a marketing executive. She said participating in an exercise to write her own obituary steered her toward public service.
“A year later, I had left the corporate world and I was the director of the Peace Corps in Belize, and then continued my public service as a diplomat in the foreign service in southern Africa and also in Mexico,” Higgins said.
In 2018, voters elected the registered Democrat who lives in Downtown Miami to serve as a county commissioner. She represents District 5, which includes Brickell, Downtown Miami, Little Havana, and the industrial Miami River area.
“The secret to our affordability crisis is actually building affordable housing, and the city has a ton of land,” Higgins said, adding that the city’s “dysfunctional bureaucracy” is keeping people from housing.
Higgins said neighborhoods like Liberty City need attention and “economic prosperity.” She said the permitting system needs to be fixed.
Higgin’s had a message for voters: “I promise to work for you, and I promise to do it with integrity, with no yelling and no drama, just simple problem solving, every single day, and I hope to leave the city a little bit better when I am done.”
Related link: Campaign page
Related document: Affidavit of candidate (.PDF)
OTHER MAYORAL CANDIDATES
The other candidates in the nonpartisan race are Alex Díaz de la Portilla, Alyssa Crocker, Christian E. Cevallos, Elijah John Bowdre, Emilio González, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, June Savage, Kenneth DeSantis, Ken Russell, Laura Anderson, Michael A. Hepburn, and Xavier L. Suarez.
Name recognition: Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is not related to newcomer Kenneth DeSantis, endorsed González, a retired U.S. Army Colonel and fellow Republican who served as Miami’s city manager from 2018 to 2020.
Suarez, who served as Miami mayor from 1985 to 1993 and from 1997 to 1998, is the father of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.
Legal trouble: De La Portilla is a former Miami commissioner who served from 2020 to 2023 when Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended him over a corruption case that prosecutors later dropped.
Carollo, who served as Miami mayor from 1996 to 1997 and from 1998 to 2001, also has an arrest record. In 2001, police officers arrested him for domestic violence, and he agreed to attend anger management classes.
Later in 2023, a federal jury in civil court sided with two businessmen who won $63.5 million in damages against Carollo for “weaponizing” code enforcement to violate their rights after they supported one of his political opponents.
INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC
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