While the race for the District 5 commission seat in Miami-Dade County is technically non-partisan, whichever candidate wins will give the 13-member commission a majority of either Democrats or Republicans.
The district includes some of the most economically important regions of all of South Florida. Within the boundaries of the district lie the tourism havens of South Beach, Port Miami and Little Havana’s Calle Ocho as well as downtown Miami and the financial sector hub Brickell.
Facing off in the run-off election are Rob Piper, a progressive Democrat, and Vicki Lopez, a Republican former state representative who is currently serving as commissioner after being appointed to the role last year.
Lopez has been in politics for decades, going back to her time as a Lee County commissioner on Florida’s Gulf Coast. She raised $1.5 million for the primary election, an astronomical number compared to Piper raising a mere $3,000. Some observers were shocked when Lopez did not win 50% of voters, allowing Piper to bring the race to a runoff.
For his part, Piper has been involved in local community groups and progressive politics for years, and he drew on word-of-mouth, Democratic Party and grassroots support to reach the second phase of the election.
As voters get ready to select their chosen candidate for a 4-year term, WLRN conducted in-depth interviews with both candidates.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. The full conversation can be heard in the audio above. Click here to read and listen to the interview with Rob Piper.
WLRN: What are the main challenges facing this area in the coming years as you see it?
LOPEZ: It's interesting because I knock on so many doors, and I'm very visible in the community, and I think like everywhere else in Florida, it's housing — the affordability issue on housing and, of course, transportation. The traffic in the urban core is really unsustainable. And I think it's part and parcel for leaders not having had a vision of what happens in the urban core.
The district is so diverse. So Miami Beach has very different issues than the mainland does. For the beach, it’s — how to preserve the character of Miami Beach? You know, the historic preservation.
And we'll get into that in a minute.
And also the sargassum, which has become almost unbelievably tough. We had 9,000 tons of sargassum in July. It impacts the economy, it impacts the residents that live on the beach, and it impacts all of us that like to go to the beach.
You've often been referred to as the condo queen.
Yes.
And many major condo reforms that we've had in the last couple years have your stamp on them. For the Live Local Act, you were the co-sponsor in the Florida House. That allows developers to leapfrog over local governments to build condos as long as they meet certain affordability requirements. And the reforms that were passed after the tragedy in Surfside in 2021, those were meant to make sure that associations have reserves. It also meant that sometimes massive assessments came to condo owners, and I'm sure you know you've received pushback on both of those pieces of legislation.
Yes.
At a time when housing is a core issue, why should voters trust you on the housing question?
So I wanna say that the condo bills were in four iterations, if you will, and each one sought to continue to ensure safety of the building while still understanding and being compassionate towards the financial burden.
So the final bill that I did actually said to condo associations: "In lieu of increasing reserves, you can take a credit line out." So you will always have it there in the amount of your structural integrity reserve study. Because the study tells you, for the next 10 years, here are the eight structural components that will need some work. And that's all the lessons that we learned from Surfside. You know, 98 people lost their lives because there were no reserves, and no one was doing the repairs and maintenance of that building.
So in order to help alleviate the stress, the financial stress, now associations can just say, "Okay, how much money are we gonna need in the next 10 years? Well, we'll just take a credit line for that, and then we can draw down on it as needed," as opposed to increasing the condo, assessment fees. The assessments come from buildings that were not maintained, right? So now you should catch up. I feel certain that people now can say, "I'm living in a safe building. There's no danger of it collapsing, and yet I have some, I have some leeway not to, not to increase my condo fees."
Your district does include a lot of condo buildings –
825 of them. It’s a lot of condos, and I had 667 before.
Among those condo owners, some of them might have been surprised by a bill they didn't know was coming. It sounds like you're arguing that the bill was due, it was just not sent yet.
Correct.
"I was never able to make the reforms that I think really make sense...like historic preservation areas where you don't wanna destroy the character. I am best suited to make sure those reforms pass this year."
But what would you say to someone that felt caught off guard, maybe is on a fixed income and had to struggle to figure out, "How am I gonna pay for this?"
Well, gratefully, Miami-Dade County is the only county out of 67 counties that has a fund. It's called the Condo Assessment Loan Fund, and you can borrow up to $50,000 interest-free. I think that's been incredibly successful, so they should be fine in this county.
Your opponent says he would like to see the Live Local Act totally repealed. You co-sponsored it in the House –
Yes I did.
Where do you stand on how it is in its current form?
So, it needs reform, and I attempted to reform that bill every single year that I sponsored it in the House. The pushback was always in the Senate, and they owned that piece of legislation. I was never able to make the reforms that I think really make sense, common sense, right?
Reasonable reforms, like barrier islands such as Miami Beach, like historic preservation areas where you don't wanna destroy the character. Those all should've been included in the bill. But there was this very strict message from the Senate that, "You take our bill as it is or nothing," and, and that was unacceptable to every leader in the House. So I believe that I am best suited to make sure those reforms pass this year. I'm already working with leadership on potentially some reforms that make sense for Miami Beach and Miami.
And you're speaking of reforms at the state level. And because you used to be a house representative, you have relationships up there.
Yes. I do. I do. And I'm a well-trusted former member of the House. So they're willing to listen.
News came out recently that the iconic art deco Savoy Hotel on Ocean Drive could soon be demolished and developed into a 38-story condo. Locals fear this could be the beginning of a wholesale shift in how South Beach feels. You voted for the controversial bill in 2024 that allowed for the demolition of these kinds of structures, even as your colleague Republican Representative Fabian Basabe, who represents South Beach, voted against it. What would you say to South Beach residents that worry about this?
I know that I supported the bill because so many of the buildings were in such disrepair, and this is a perfect example where the owners have done nothing with it since Irma. So it has sat since 2017 vacant. And I think what needs to be done is for the character – I'm hearing that from some developers, they want to tear down the structure but to keep the facade, and that was really important. That's also in the Live Local Act is the ability to, in the historic preservation, especially in buildings like the Savoy that has a history, is to allow at least the facade so that you're not building these 38-story buildings in the middle of very small buildings.
You've been a registered Republican for many years, and you've bucked your party on many votes, I will say, in the Florida House –
I sure have.
And you also have shown strong support from Democrats like Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. Why do you think you've gotten so much support from Democrats?
I think that I have always done what I thought was right. I'm known in the Florida House, and potentially now getting known in the commission, as an independent thinker. I look at things from the perspective of, does this make sense first? I always ask myself, does this make sense? And then, is this what the majority of my constituents could live with?
And I think in the case of bucking against my party, you know, I remember once a leader saying to me, "You have voted against us 12 times this week." And I said, "Yeah, 'cause you're wrong." And that's just simply how I felt about it, and yet it never stopped me from moving into leadership.
As a sophomore, I was the only sophomore as a budget chair and, and I think because I worked so closely across the aisle, it shouldn't matter what party you are. We are all trying to solve problems that affect all of us.
This is a nonpartisan race technically. But I got an Instagram ad the other day from your campaign saying, "Democrats trust her to keep leading us," and that, "Vicki Lopez is an advocate for Democratic values." And I thought to myself, "But Vicki Lopez isn't a Democrat. She's a Republican." Why is your campaign running ads suggesting you're a Democrat?
No, I think it – democratic values don't mean that –
It was a capital D.
It was a capital D. Well, I feel like I represent the values of freedom, which I've often said my party seems to be moving away from freedom, right? I've been a Republican, a lifelong Republican because I believe in, kind of like a “Live Free or Die” — I'm a New Hampshire motto kinda person. I want to be free to make my own decisions. I believe in personal responsibility, and so those are the things that I think are democratic values, not Democrat values.
I'm sure my Democrat friends believe the same thing, and I know Republicans who are in — because I'm a center-right candidate, and I believe that very many people are still in the center. And whether you're center-left or center-right, that's where most of us sort of reside, if you will, politically. And I think we have democratic values that are representative of this country, and what founded this country, and that's certainly, that's what I meant when I say democratic values.
