MIAMI — Following her decisive victory in Miami’s runoff election, Mayor-elect Eileen Higgins laid out a vision for a new era in Miami politics Wednesday, with promises to end City Hall’s “reality TV show” culture and instead focus on tackling major issues plaguing Miami residents.

“So first of all, the temperature on the dais has to go down,” Higgins told reporters in her first post-election press conference. “People must treat each other with respect. The era of commissioners yelling at one another and threatening to punch one another is going to stop.”

Trust in City Hall has been waning in recent years amid criticisms of corruption and chaos. City Commission meetings have escalated into screaming matches. Two commissioners almost got into a brawl in early 2024 during a vote to fire the then-city attorney. City leaders have faced investigations, criminal charges and multimillion-dollar lawsuits.

In Spanish, Higgins said she was “very, very confident that we are going to change the culture in the meetings, which is more or less a reality TV show of a professional meeting.”

“We have to act like the government of one of the most famous cities in the world,” she added.

To that end, Higgins said her main priorities include building more affordable housing, especially on city-owned land, and fixing the city’s permitting department. She also wants to ensure a smooth transition to the next city manager and limit the city’s involvement in immigration enforcement.

The soonest Higgins can be sworn in is Dec. 17, according to the city clerk, meaning outgoing Mayor Francis Suarez is still in the role for at least another week.

What to expect

When Higgins takes over as Miami mayor, she’ll be bringing a literal to-do list to the job.

A source close to the mayor-elect described the document as a running punch list of tasks Higgins wants to accomplish as the new leader of Miami. Titled “Miami Mayor To Do,” the document has about 300 items — some categorized by neighborhood (Liberty City, Allapattah) and some by topic (transportation, small business).

The source didn’t share specific tasks on the list but said Higgins plans a busy agenda for her first 100 days in office to record some early wins and create a sense of momentum.

While Higgins tapped into frustration with Miami’s rowdy politics with her slogan to “stop the chaos” in city government, she’s hardly an outsider. A second-term commissioner for Miami-Dade County, Higgins has represented Little Havana, Shenandoah and other neighborhoods north of U.S. 1 since 2018.

As a county commissioner, she was known for drilling down deep on problems and then chipping away at what was needed for action. That included reforming how the county’s courts, law enforcement agencies and clerk offices handled unpaid fines that led to suspended licenses. Higgins was part of a group that won support for changes, including wiping out backlogged cases and creating a new office in the court system aimed at resolving license cases quickly.

“She’s totally informed. A lot of people just use talking points or catchphrases. That’s not who she is,” said Carlos Martinez, the county’s elected public defender and a member of the suspended-licenses task force. “She delved into the issue. When people would have a concern, she would work it out. She would ask 20 questions and get to the bottom of it.”

Fluent in Spanish, Higgins began her political career with a 2018 County Commission campaign, running under the nickname “La Gringa” and pledging to prioritize public transit.

After winning, she broke with many of the county’s most staunch rail advocates when she backed a plan by Miami-Dade’s then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez to build a rapid-transit bus system in South Dade instead of waiting for the billions needed to extend rail there.

Gimenez, now a Republican member of Congress, remained a Higgins ally. Though Miami’s two other two Republican House members endorsed González, Gimenez stayed on the sidelines. On Tuesday, the former mayor was in Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado when he placed a late-night call to congratulate Higgins after her win.

“She was a good commissioner when I was Mayor and I consider her a friend,” Gimenez said in a text message.

He declined to say who he voted for in the Miami mayor’s race, but multiple people close to Higgins said they considered Gimenez a supporter of hers.

Higgins vs. Suarez

As mayor, Higgins said she plans to be present in the City Commission chambers “at every commission meeting.”

That’s a change in leadership style compared to Suarez, who rarely attends commission meetings beyond the morning ceremonial proceedings.

The Miami mayor, which is a part-time position, does not have a vote on the City Commission but does have veto power. They also have the authority to appoint the city manager, who oversees the actual day-to-day operations of the city.

Since the campaign trail, Higgins has pledged to replace Art Noriega, the current city manager. But she told the Miami Herald on Wednesday that she wouldn’t be naming Noriega’s replacement until after the new year.

“We are going to have a nice, orderly transition,” Higgins said, adding that she’s spoken with Noriega, who “absolutely wants a smooth transition, and we’re already working together.”

Higgins said her office will be conducting a search for the next city manager, who “will probably come from outside of the city, because we need so much innovation.”

The “temperature” on the City Commission is likely to go down on its own without much intervention from Higgins: Commissioner Joe Carollo, who frequently found himself at the center of controversies, is termed out of his District 3 seat, and Thursday is his final meeting. He’ll be replaced by Rolando Escalona, a political newcomer who defeated Carollo’s younger brother, Frank Carollo, in a runoff Tuesday.

Higgins acknowledged those shifting dynamics, saying Wednesday that: “We have a new dais, we have new ideas, and we certainly have people that are quieter and behave, in this case, in a more gentlemanly manner.”

Suarez, a Republican and Trump ally who is termed out, will be ceding power to a successor who’s quite different from him: Higgins is the city’s first ever woman mayor and also the first Democrat elected to the position in decades.

One of the places where their policy differences could become most apparent is immigration, a pertinent issue in a city where about 58% of residents are foreign born and over 70% are Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

In June, the commission voted 3-2 to enter into an immigration enforcement agreement with ICE. While Suarez wasn’t an outward proponent of what’s called a 287(g) agreement, he didn’t publicly oppose it, nor did he exercise his veto power.

Suarez has outwardly become more conservative during his tenure, including a visit to the southern border in early 2024. Higgins, on the other hand, has been a vocal critic of Florida’s immigration crackdown, saying city should not have entered the 287(g) agreement.

But on Wednesday, Higgins said she wasn’t sure if the city was able to back out of its agreement with ICE at this point.

“The city should never have entered into that agreement ... but the regulations are unclear about whether you can walk back and reverse that,” she said.

“What I can tell you is the city of Miami is going to minimize any involvement,” Higgins said, adding that: “There’s no reason in the city of Miami that our police department should be in the job of federal immigration enforcement.”

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(Miami Herald staff writer Max Klaver contributed to this report.)

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