Miami mayoral candidates Gonzalez, Higgins lay out plans to improve housing, public transportation ahead of runoff

Voters in the City of Miami will have a chance to voice their choice again after elections earlier this month failed to elect a new mayor Next month voters will head back to the polls for a mayoral runoff vote with two candidates vying to be the city s next leader Eileen Higgins a mechanical engineer by training with a background in manufacturing right now serves as a Miami-Dade County commissioner Higgins is running against Emilio Gonzalez a former city manager and former director of Miami International Airport He also served in the Department of Homeland Safety during the George W Bush administration The candidates laid out their visions for a better Miami at a nonpartisan society forum hosted by the Downtown Neighbors Alliance on Wednesday at the Miami Dade College Koubek Center Gonzalez mentioned he wants to take a holistic approach to lowering the cost of housing by suggesting eliminating property taxes Our young people need an opportunity to stay here They can t stay here which is one of the reasons that I m so into the idea of doing away with ad valorem property taxes because you could put money in people s pockets Young families that are struggling to buy a new home imagine if you don t have to pay taxes he announced Higgins noted she wants to eliminate red tape and streamline permitting processes in building new housing as well as examine property the city already owns That will be a priority for me as mayor to look at every piece of city-owned property and say Why aren t we using that for housing ' she commented Both candidates want to improvement the city administration and root out corruption to change the image of Miami for residents and visitors We need to have a mentality where nobody will get a second chance stealing money abusing people being corrupt corrupting their office reported Gonzalez From the very top in the organizations if you look in the mayor s office and you look in the manager s office right now there are employees that are making well over various of them over that have second jobs Doing what Right So all this outside employment number one has to stop explained Higgins On masses transportation both candidates want to see it expanded and made more efficient I worked on the Better Bus Structure several years ago and the goal of the Better Bus Architecture was to redesign our bus architecture to bring high-frequency arrangement to over households and that has worked our buses are arriving more frequently they re on time and we sought to integrate the city s trolley system into this new efficient system disclosed Higgins We redesigned it for the city The city commissioners could not get out of their own way and vote to make these changes so they have the same old trolley system that they designed years ago They haven t made a single change to a single highway even though our neighborhood has changed and grown in different approaches The timing is such where you can sit stand there and wait minutes for a trolley and then three of them come up one right behind the other We need to do a better job commented Gonzalez Sought to describe their future administrations in just one word Gonzalez reported unstoppable whereas Higgins commented resident-focused Mail ballots are being sent to those who requested one starting Monday The runoff electoral process day is coming up on Tuesday Dec