Political newcomer, five-time candidate face off in North Miami Beach runoff
An employee of the city of North Miami and a retired teacher will go head to head in a runoff election Tuesday to decide who will replace Phyllis Smith on the North Miami Beach City Commission.
Daniela Jean, a first-time candidate who works in the risk management department in neighboring North Miami, finished first in the Nov. 3 general election with about 34% of the votes in a six-person field. Margaret “Margie” Love, who is running for city commission for a fifth time, finished second with 19%.
Because no candidate took a majority of the votes, the top two finishers will now face off. The winner will become the lone new face in North Miami Beach politics.
Smith is termed out after nearly 14 years in office. Mayor Anthony DeFillipo and Commissioners Michael Joseph and McKenzie Fleurimond each defeated a challenger Nov. 3 to maintain their seats.
Jean, 34, is an administrative coordinator in North Miami’s risk management division and has worked in local government for about eight years.
She was born in Paris and moved to North Miami Beach with her parents, who are Haitian-born, when she was 6 years old.
Jean touts her status as a millennial and refers to herself as a “born leader” and a “problem solver.” She teaches American Sign Language to school-age kids and authored a self-help e-book, called “5Gs of Success.”
“I’m a millennial, I’m innovative, I’m a leader,” she said.
Jean declined to say how she might have handled two critical recent decisions by the city commission: one to terminate a contract for private operation of the city’s water utility, and another to approve a $1.5 billion redevelopment of the Intracoastal Mall.
Instead, she said she prefers to look forward and ensure residents will benefit from those changes.
“What we want is that the promises that should be yielded from the decision [should be] actually followed through,”
Jean said of the water utility contract, citing the jobs that may be offered to employees of Jacobs Engineering as North Miami Beach transitions back to city control.
Other key issues, Jean said, include resident concerns about high water bills, more police patrols to prevent speeding, and investing more money from the city’s community redevelopment agency in small and minority-owned businesses.
Some of the city’s neighborhoods aren’t as well-kept as they should be, she added.
“Residents want more from the city,” Jean said. “They want to see improvements in their area. They want to know they have an advocate.”
Love, 68, ran unsuccessfully for North Miami Beach city commission in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2018. She says her first few campaigns were made more challenging by her career teaching kindergarten in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools. But she has since retired and learned what it takes to knock on doors and run a campaign, she told the Herald.
“In the beginning, no one told me what you have to do to win an election,” she said.
One thing hasn’t changed, though: Love isn’t accepting campaign contributions, instead pouring more than $45,000 of her own money into her campaign.
Love told the Herald an experience she had in 2010, when she was the victim of a crime and was assisted by North Miami Beach police, moved her to become a Neighborhood Crime Watch advocate. She organized meetings for residents at City Hall and brought in expert speakers, she said.
She added that, since cuts were made to the city’s police department nine years ago, she believes the department hasn’t had the funding necessary to support its officers and promote community policing.
“I feel that we’ve never ever recovered from that,” she said. “I will be the law-and-order commissioner.”
Love also said she’s been disturbed by some of what she’s seen during city commission meetings, saying the way meetings are being conducted is “appalling.” Without mentioning anyone by name, she pointed to commissioners who have been muted during virtual meetings and threatened to have their microphones cut off.
She appeared to be referring to DeFillipo, the city’s mayor, who shouted, “Mute her right now!” in reference to Smith at a meeting last month.
Love said that, if she wins, she wants commission meetings “to be a constant reminder of proper decorum and civility within our dais. For me, that’s a starting point.”
Unlike Jean, Love was blunt about her take on the Intracoastal Mall project, saying residents of the nearby Eastern Shores neighborhood “were really let down.” She called the developer pushing the project — Gil Dezer, whom she also declined to mention by name — a “shady character” who shouldn’t be trusted. The public learned in 2018 that Dezer was employing the wife of thenmayor George Vallejo and paying her through secret shell companies Vallejo set up.
Love and Jean brushed off questions about the fact that the city’s four white elected officials are all supporting
Love, who is white, while two Haitian-American commissioners are supporting Jean. A third Haitian-American commissioner, Michael Joseph, did not respond to an inquiry about whom he’s supporting.
About 20% of the North Miami Beach population is Haitian American, according to U.S. Census data. The city in northeast Miami-Dade County “is a true melting pot,” said Jean. “That’s what I want to focus on: serving my community as a whole.”
Love, meanwhile, suggested she would “ignore race” as a city commissioner, just as she did as a teacher.
“As an educator in the classroom, I was colorblind for over four decades. I just have never seen color,” she said.
Love added: “This is the time to embrace each other and ignore religion, ignore race ... and be as one in one peaceful community, one peaceful dais.”