After a bruising loss four years ago, former Pinecrest Mayor Cindy Lerner is back in the ring, facing a familiar opponent.
Former Pinecrest Mayor Cindy Lerner is a candidate for the Miami-Dade District 7 Commission race where she faces Richard Praschnik, a police officer with the Miami-Dade school system, and incumbent Raquel Regalado, who defeated Lerner in a tight election four years ago. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the August 20 primary, the top two finishers will compete in an election day runoff in November. Lerner, 71, spoke recently with the Spotlight’s David Villano, sharing her thoughts on the county’s transportation bureaucracy, the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the West Grove Community Redevelopment Agency, and the causes of public corruption. Lerner, who served one term in the Florida State Legislature in the late 1990s, also discusses partisan politics in Miami-Dade and her reputation for losing her temper while mayor of Pinecrest. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Spotlight: Traffic and pedestrian safety are key concerns in Coconut Grove. And yet many of the street-level fixes – lower speed limits, speed bumps, crosswalks, road design – require approval from county transportation officials who many residents believe are beholden to an automobile-first transportation policy. Whether that’s true or not, how would you make county transportation planning more receptive and responsive to neighborhood-level concerns?
Cindy Lerner: We had this experience in Pinecrest before, during, and after my term as mayor, and it was somewhat a function of having to deal with a large county bureaucracy that had their rules, but what we came to appreciate was that these were actually traffic engineers that you could have dialogue with. You could demonstrate a need in a particular part of the community and advocate for what was necessary. It was somewhat also dependent on who the engineer was you were talking to – if they were very rigid or they were very open. But over the course of years Pinecrest has been able to get much more autonomy out of the county. So that would be my goal. Of course, the City of Miami has its own bureaucracy and challenges too. But for a neighborhood like Coconut Grove, with a business district and a residential district, they all have their own needs, so I think we need to create a process in which the county provides the city with the ability to be more responsive directly. I will also say planning for safety first has to really be a priority with the county, which I’m seeing and hearing as a result of what’s going on with the re-engineering for the Commodore Trail and especially along Bayshore Drive. The input from the residents and the need for safety – for pedestrians and for cyclists – was not a priority and it’s still an ongoing effort to make it a top priority for the county. But it’s a prime example of what has to be done to refocus the county on not just, like you say, making it more convenient for cars to zoom through, but instead making safety for pedestrians and cyclists the top priority. And that would be my top priority.
Spotlight: You’ve advocated for a full restoration of the Coconut Grove Playhouse – preserving the entire existing footprint – which is at odds with the county-endorsed plan of partial demolition and construction of a smaller venue. As commissioner, would you continue to oppose the county plan as it exists today?
Lerner: Oh yes, absolutely. That would probably be one of my top priorities, to honor the legacy, the history, the need for a cultural center in the Grove. What the lease requires is restoration of a regional theater first and foremost. And the county plan ignores that stated objective of the lease with the state. So, I would want to make sure that there is restoration of what has been designated on the [National] Register of Historic Places. Make it a cultural arts venue, a regional theater that could attract real cultural arts. The size recommended is somewhere between 600 and 700 seats, which gets you to regional theater status. And I think that’s critically important. But this plan was at odds with [former Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos] Gimenez and his plan to demolish, which wasn’t partial, it was 80 percent demolition. And because the Gimenez plan was against a true regional theater, it was impossible to go out and seek philanthropic commitments. But I am confident that a revised plan for regional theater will be economically feasible, with all of these residential high rises that are being built in the Grove.
Spotlight: The City of Miami in 2021 approved plans for a community redevelopment agency or CRA that would have provided dedicated tax revenue to help fund affordable housing and other improvements within the West Grove. But the plan stalled at the county level with the majority of commissioners, including Commissioner Regalado, opposing it. If elected, would you oppose or support the West Grove CRA?
Lerner: If elected I would support the effort to provide the structure for a CRA. From what I was told by the former [City of Miami] District 2 Commissioner, he addressed a lot of the concerns that were brought up at the state level for CRAs. He had addressed that in the framework, gotten it passed through at the city, gotten an initial commitment from Regalado to support it, and then at the 11th hour, she refused. And what was described to me by him was “she betrayed us.” Those were the exact words that he used and others in the West Grove. When you say the majority of the commission, the commission followed the lead of the District 7 Commissioner. They just let her take the lead, and she dropped it like a hot potato. It’s critical that there be some kind of economic development and residential investment infrastructure for the West Grove to be successful, and not to be fully gentrified. I want to support an instrument – whether it’s a CRA or if that doesn’t have the support it needs from the community and the city – then we will look at other instruments. Regalado said we will look at other instruments and after four years we have with nothing.
Spotlight: Your campaign has identified four issues that you would prioritize if elected. The first is public corruption. And the second is holding the line on the urban development boundary. Are these two issues linked?
Lerner: Certainly. The outside influence of developers, land use lawyers, the construction industry, is blatant. It is weighing in favor of special interest development, over-development, super development, and it violates community trust. So, the vote to expand the urban development boundary [in November 2022] – the course of that decision went through several deferrals – and the deciding vote was by Commissioner Regalado. If you look at Commissioner Regalado’s political committee, she’s probably raised over a million dollars, over 70 percent of which comes from developers and real estate industry and law firms. And she has been in favor of just about every major development in District 7, whether it’s the apartment mega-complex next to an elementary school in West Kendall, somebody told me they wanted to rename it Regalado Village because they blame her.
Spotlight: You’ve been criticized during your time as Pinecrest Mayor for having what some have described as an abrasive, if not abusive, demeanor. Does your temperament make you more suited to a seat on the county commission, and thus potentially more effective than your opponents?
Lerner: I would say my community engagement and involvement allows for input from the voter when I’m knocking on doors, or from advisory committees when I was in the legislature and when I was mayor, or from the members of the community as we share a vision and then plan together. That has always been the way that I’ve operated. So, my temperament is open and welcoming and collaborative. Whether I was in office or out of office, I was always engaging with other communities. I was president of the Miami-Dade League of Cities. That took not only leadership, but it took engagement and listening to help advance the needs and priorities of all 34 cities. I’ve been on the board of numerous environmental organizations, not just on the board, but president of many of them, because again, I want to be a voice and hear the voices of the community and advance their interests.
Spotlight: County Commission races are nonpartisan, meaning no one is running as a Republican or Democrat or any other political party. But in today’s highly polarized society, is an election without an incursion of partisan politics truly possible in Miami-Dade County?
Lerner: I hope so. I think so. Municipal races are nonpartisan because at the local level of government, people want problem solvers. They don’t want political agendas. And so it’s worked very well. And I am finding the same thing with County Commission, that problem solving is job number one. Identifying resources and making them available to a community based on their needs, not based on friends and favors or political agendas. And so I feel very comfortable running nonpartisan. I am communicating with voters of every registration and have had and hope to continue to have support from every voter, no matter what their party affiliation.
Read the Spotlight’s interview with County Commissioner Raquel Regalado.