The nonpartisan race for Miami-Dade County Commission District 7 is a runoff and a rematch. Incumbent Raquel Regalado beat former Pinecrest Mayor Cindy Lerner in 2020.
Lerner is again challenging Regalado in the Nov. 5 General Election. They were the top two candidates in a three-way August primary. Regalado finished first with almost 49% of the votes, just shy of the 50% plus one she needed to avoid a runoff, and Lerner received 42%.
Regalado was the Herald Editorial Board’s choice in August, and she is again in the runoff.
District 7 covers the southern portion of the city of Miami, parts of Coral Gables and Kendall, as well as Key Biscayne, Pinecrest, and South Miami.
This race has turned personal and contentious. In a campaign video, Lerner tried to link Regalado to other Cuban-American officials embroiled in political scandals, such as former Miami Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla, who was arrested last year on corruption-related charges. Regalado — daughter of former Miami mayor and property appraiser Republican candidate Tomas Regalado — has never been accused of corruption and said Lerner’s ads were anti-Cuban-American. Regalado, 50, is a lawyer and former school board member who describes herself as a “happy workaholic.” She has deep policy knowledge and is well-versed in what’s happening in local government.
For example, she was among the first commissioners to urge her colleagues to create a framework to transition the Miami-Dade Police Department to a new sheriff’s office. Regalado has had an extensive list of accomplishments during her first term. She has worked to accelerate the removal of septic tanks that can pollute Biscayne Bay, to pass a moratorium on the sale of county property that isn’t connected to a sewage system, and to create new septic tank standards that make them less likely to leak waste into waterways. She sponsored legislation to allow accessory dwelling units (aka efficiencies) in single-family homes in unincorporated Miami-Dade to create more affordable housing options and co-sponsored a “Tenant Bill of Rights” to grant more rights to renters. She touts her work to bring Tri-Rail to downtown Miami while she was heading the tri-county board that oversees the rail service.
The mother of two young adults on the autism spectrum, she also created autism-sensitivity training for county employees. Regalado and Mayor Daniella Levine Cava are trying to evict the Miami Seaquarium from county land on Virginia Key after a string of federal animal welfare violations. Regalado vowed she won’t support the sale or lease of the land to developers and said the county requires the property to remain recreational. Lerner, 71, accuses Regalado of being too friendly to developers.
On occasion, she’s been right. Regalado flipped her vote in 2022 to approve a concerning plan to expand Miami-Dade’s Urban Development Boundary (UDB) to allow a South Dade logistics and warehouse district that could impact Biscayne Bay restoration. She said she changed her mind after developers agreed to donate more than 200 acres to the county’s environmental lands program. She also supported, to the chagrin of many of her constituents, the conversion of the Calusa golf course in Kendall into a 550-home development. She said she helped negotiate a requirement for the monitoring of a rookery on the property that was an environmental concern.
Lerner opposes both projects. Lerner, a former Democratic state representative, touted her environmental record as Pinecrest mayor, including a climate action plan to reduce carbon emissions and the introduction of a free transit service. She agreed that the Seaquarium should be evicted and said the property should become a marine animal sanctuary. She criticized the lack of public transit in West Kendall and said she would like to open a district office in the area to serve constituents who are unheard.
We have questions about Lerner’s ability to deal with opposing views. In the 2020 elections, an attack ad compiled footage of Lerner berating citizens during Pinecrest village council meetings. She has tried to spin that into a positive, saying in a campaign video she’s angry about corruption. Lerner’s criticism of Regalado’s record at times is valid, but the incumbent’s accomplishments are many. The Herald Editorial Board endorses RAQUEL REGALADO for Miami-Dade County Commission District 7.
