South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Pembroke Pines mayoral candidates discuss growth, school
A three-person race to replace the outgoing mayor in Pembroke Pines is focusing on many growth-related issues, including traffic.
The election is March 19. There will also be a City Commission race for two districts.
Mayor Frank Ortis, a familiar face as the ceremonial leader and business leader, is retiring. He served on commission since 1996, the last 20 have been as the mayor.
At more than 170,000 residents, Pembroke Pines is one of the largest cities in the county. The mayor’s seat is elected citywide. The mayor serves a term of four years, and presides over commission meetings. There are no term limits.
The mayor receives a salary of $46,311 and receives an additional stipend for car expenses ($738.46 a month) and travel reimbursement. The mayor also receives $1,596 a month for all other expenses to do the job, although receipts are not required, and there are no specifics how the money must be used.
Now, with Ortis’ departure, three contenders say it’s time for a change. Elizabeth Burns is an event planner and political newcomer. Angelo Castillo was first elected to the City Commission in 2004, and lost a mayoral bid to Ortis in 2020. Iris Siple also serves on the City Commission, also first elected in 2004.
Here are the candidates:
Burns
Burns, a city resident for 25 years, said seeking the city’s highest elected office is the best way to make the change she wants to see.
“People are tired of the same old, same old,” she said. Electing one of the two current commissioners would mean the “same results.”
“Change is now,” she said.
She said the city’s growth has caught up with it: “I’m running to make a difference with the traffic,” she said. She said the city is overbuilt and the current commission “made some blunders.”
But when it comes to ideas to fix it: “I can’t tell you details,” she said, worrying her competition will take credit for ideas she wants to first share publicly, which include collaboration with Broward County government.
Affordable housing is also an issue for every city within the county. Broward County records show the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Pembroke Pines is $2,720 but the median renter household income is just $55,731. That’s an affordability gap of $1,327 a month, and a shortage of 3,925 apartments.
Burns said she believes space already exists to push for housing to be listed at affordable prices.
“Right now the prices are through the ceiling,” she said.
She blames current city commissioners who gave permission to builders for the current expensive supply. “We have to be mindful of our residents, our young people, who… will go somewhere else to find a home,” she said.
She said she is going door-to-door to reach the voters and learn their concerns. And she believes that parents will be outraged if their school is among those chosen by the School District to be closed because of underenrollment. The Broward school district plans to close or overhaul at least five schools in 2025, with dozens more possible in the next few years. Among the schools considered underenrolled within city limits because it has less than 70% its capacity includes Pines Middle and Chapel Trail Elementary, Pines Lakes Elementary, Silver Palms Elementary and Pasadena Lakes Elementary.
As mayor, that’s something she’d speak out against.
“I do believe no schools should be closed,” she said. “Children need to go to the schools in their community. I totally disagree with closing schools.” She said she would work to “protect the children from being bussed from all over the city.”
She said she has much in common with the average resident because she is a small-business owner. “I feel their pain,” she said. She can also connect as a woman of color. She is the “only female who is not part of the political regime,” she said.
Castillo
When Cuba-born Castillo moved to the city in 1996 it was a fast-growing city with a focus on its school overcrowding. Now the problem has shifted to underenrollment in the public schools within the city, and running out of space to build new communities.
“Our next challenge is managing a mature city with new urban challenges,” he said, which includes traffic, public safety, flooding and infrastructure and need for affordable housing “which is so incredibly strong here in our area.”
There is hardly a city block where there isn’t somebody who lives with their parents “because they cannot afford housing.”
A one-bedroom apartment “if you can find one” in the city is commonly starts at $2,600, he said. “I never paid that much in a mortgage,” he said.
People don’t want more studies “they want an answer to problems,” Castillo said. “Pembroke Pines residents want to see us move forward, not to talk more.” He said he has voted against new residential projects if they don’t deal with traffic woes. “People can’t get to work on time,” he said.
While most of Broward’s cities have voted to create a new taxing authority that will be tasked with handling the disposal of trash and recycling, in August, Pembroke Pines voted not to join the consortium.
“I believe the plan should come before people are taxed for it. Not the other way around,” he said.
He is also concerned the School Board, with their intended plan to shutter some schools that are underenrolled, could possibly target “numerous” schools in Pembroke Pines.
If schools have to close, he said he wants to make good use of that land, with the city developing it into affordable housing units for teachers and those “in need of starter, family, or senior housing. It should be uplifting in every respect, in sharp contrast to the stereotype of affordable housing.”
He said the city needs an “ambitious” plan for housing or the city’s young people who want to start families will leave when they can. “It’s not sustainable,” he said.
Castillo said he also believes in being accessible, and once helped a dying resident reconnect with her estranged son, and helped another with a dispute with a local business. “How many elected officials would do that?” he asked.
Castillo is the former director of the Broward County Human Services Department, which handles issues such as elderly and veterans services, as well homeless services, crisis intervention such as sexual abuse, and addiction recovery.
Now that he retired in 2019, he said his full-time focus will be the city’s business.
Siple
A Hollywood native, Siple is a graduate of South Broward High School. She has lived in the city for 30 years, and is now the Pembroke Pines vice mayor. She retired from the Clerk of Courts in 2017, where she worked for 16 years. She retired as Chief Administrator, responsible for overseeing the budget, construction, employee issues, among other issues.
Her family owned two small businesses, including an accounting firm and the former Mayday’s Restaurant.
She said having been a small-business owner, “I understand how important it is to have good employees and to treat them with respect. I know the challenges of small businesses meeting payroll every Friday.”
When it comes to the possibility of closed schools within city limits, Siple said she would consider using that land to create more parks.
“That might be a good opportunity for us to take on something like that, certainly it’s a tough decision,” she said.
Another option is using former school land for affordable housing.
Pembroke Pines already has affordable housing stock but “we’re a popular city” and “we need to address true affordable hous
ing and what all that entails. Some of that land might be suitable for that if the land becomes available,” she said.
Regarding growth, she said she has “consistently” voted no for housing projects that didn’t fit well, and “growth is going to continue to happen. We’re a popular place to be.”
But more could have been done to consider future infrastructure needs and how the city could handle the influx of residents and the issues that come with them, such as traffic, she said: “Planning perhaps should have been in the future-looking.”
“Our city is pretty much at a build-out, we’re going to have to look at some of our older sections that need some modernizing, that could be housing, different types of housing, as well as different types of business coming in,” she said.
While Pembroke Pines is one of only a few cities not joining the county’s new taxing authority to handle the disposal of trash and recycling, Siple said she wants new ideas to be considered. Among the reasons for her opposition: the county is mulling a wasteto-energy incinerator which would burn waste to create electricity on whatever couldn’t be recycled.
“You still have to deal with the ash,” she said, adding she is worried about health, water and environmental impacts. “We’re not accepting it anymore.”
“We do not need to add more burn,” she said. “That’s so old and archaic.”
The county consortium of cities is working now to create a “master plan” on ideas how to deal with the garbage. The process is expected to take most of the calendar year, county officials said, and an incinerator is not a guarantee but still “on the table.”
Siple also said she is approachable for residents with their concerns whether it’s how to get a first-time buyer housing grant, something she can direct residents to the right information, or venting about insurance rates, which is out of the city’s control.
And she shows at homeowner association meetings “regularly … thereby keeping an open line of communication with residents.”