In Miramar, Mayor Messam deserves re-election; Riggs better choice over Davis

With more than 140,000 people, Miramar is a fast-growing bedroom community tucked in the corner of southwest Broward County and bordering Miami-Dade County. Its population has nearly doubled since 2000.

It’s a diverse community: Nearly 47 percent African-American or Caribbean-American, and 41 percent white. About one in three residents is Hispanic. About 41 percent of its residents were born outside the U.S., according to the latest Census Bureau estimates. It also has one of the nation’s largest Jamaican communities.

Founded in 1955, Miramar is the fourthlargest city in Broward County.

The mayor and commissioners are elected at-large to four-year terms. The city manager is the top executive of the city, with the mayor serving a ceremonial role and running commission meetings.

To shake off the doldrums of the Great Recession and create a stronger sense of pride and place, Miramar leaders in 2013 persuaded voters to pass a $60 million capital improvement bond to fix aging infrastructure. The projects included a 5,000-seat amphitheater at Miramar Regional Park and a new water treatment plant on the city’s east side, among other items.

On March 12, Miramar voters must decide whether Mayor Wayne Messam should be re-elected and whether Darline B. Riggs should be re-elected to commission seat 4.

Here’s our take:

Mayor: Wayne Messam

There’s no doubt that Messam should be re-elected as mayor. He has only token opposition from a bizarre and mysterious candidate, Josue LaRosa, who did not respond to an invitation to meet with the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and did not complete a candidate questionnaire.

Here’s all you need to know about LaRosa. He was mocked on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report in 2012 for forming hundreds of political action committees and running for three public offices at the same time. In 2014, the Florida Elections Commission ruled that LaRosa, then a Deerfield Beach resident, had violated more than 2,000 campaign finance violations.

Here’s what you need to know about Messam. The 44-year-old won a national championship with Florida State University as a football player in 1993, then went on to open a successful construction business before entering Miramar politics. He also has political ambitions beyond Miramar. (More on that later).

Messam sees himself as an ambassador for Miramar, a city he describes as one of the nation’s “most progressive cities.”

He boasts of helping create more than 3,000 jobs, which pay an average of

$70,000 a year, during his tenure as mayor, which began in 2015. He also says the crime rate has dropped during his time in office.

Miramar is already an attractive city for business. It has more Fortune 500 companies than any other city in South Florida. Among its biggest employers: Comcast, Royal Caribbean Cruises and Spirit Airlines.

What we like about Messam is his laser focus on making Miramar a destination city for people to live and work, and his understanding of the needs and demands of those on the city’s east and west ends.

He wants to finish some redevelopment projects in East Miramar, which has historically been a far less affluent area than the more prosperous westside. He also wants the city to put in place an “innovation district” and improve its technology infrastructure to draw more companies.

Another top priority for Messam is affordable housing. He told us that he reviewed the city’s land code to reduce minimum-size units from 900 square feet to just over 600 square feet. That’s a good idea.

“Trends are changing,” he said. “Single individuals, young couples don’t want a four-bedroom house.”

As for his political ambitions, Messam acknowledged to the Miami Herald and to the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board his interest in exploring a possible presidential run in 2020.

Messam told us he’s keeping “all options on the table.”

“It’s no secret I’m a progressive Democrat,” he said. “I was very active during the 2016 campaign. I was a surrogate for Hillary Clinton.”

“Would the nation embrace a mayor to help Washington solve its challenges? The question makes sense, so we keep all options on the table.”

We’re not sure Messam is prepared to be president, but he certainly deserves to be re-elected mayor of Miramar.

Commission Seat 4: Darline Riggs

Five candidates filed to run for Miramar Commission Seat 4, but one has since dropped out, leaving four candidates. Darline Riggs, Alexandra Davis, Leo Gilling and Barbara Delores Ingram. Gilling, a businessman, is a newcomer to Miramar. We know little about Ingram, except that she is a longtime Miramar resident.

This race really comes down to a choice between two strong candidates – Riggs and Davis – who engaged in a testy exchange during their endorsement interview.

Riggs, 39, is finishing her first four-year term on the commission. She was raised in Miramar and graduated from Miramar High School. A former nurse, she is currently a nursing educator at Florida Career College.

Riggs chose to run for the Miramar commission in 2015 because she was worried about how the $60 million bond was being spent. She believed too much was being wasted on “pet projects.” She supported the $20 million earmarked for a new police headquarters. (Her husband is a retired Miramar police officer and she has the backing of the Police Benevolent Association).

Davis, 56, who was born in England and raised in Jamaica, is a longtime activist and a veteran of Miramar politics. She has lived in the city for nearly three decades and has worked as a Miami-Dade County government administrator, school teacher at Somerset Academy and currently works in customer service for Delta Airlines. She served as a Miramar commissioner and vice mayor from 2010-14. She resigned to run against Barbara Sharief for the

Broward County Commission in 2014. The next year, she ran unsuccessfully to be mayor of Miramar. She lost to Messam.

If elected, Davis wants to revitalize Miramar’s historic neighborhoods in the east, provide better incentives for builders to construct affordable housing and make city contracts available to local minority-owned businesses. And she will push hard to make police officers wear body cameras, a move she has long supported and one she says Riggs opposes.

Riggs says she doesn’t “see a need for” body cameras, noting the opposition of Miramar’s police chief. Given the resistance many police departments have shown to body cameras, Riggs should expand the voices she’s listening to. Body cameras help protect people from bad policing and police from unwarranted accusations. Miramar is just one of two Broward cities not using them. That should change for everyone’s sake.

Another issue on which Riggs and Davis are at odds was a $500,000 grant awarded to a Miramar business for facade improvement. Davis said the city should give money to help local businesses who cannot get state or federal funds to improve their properties; Riggs opposes such grants because they open the door for any business to request taxpayer dollars.

The controversy involved a local businessman, Roy Maynard, owner of B&M Bakery and West Indian Grocery. In 2014, the commission gave him $150,000 and then approved another $350,000 in 2017 to make improvements to his shopping center on Miramar Parkway. Riggs said the application was not properly vetted by the city.

Riggs has been criticized for not being more vocal at commission meetings. In defense, Riggs said that if others have already expressed what she believes, she’s not going to make the same point. She also said she gets her questions answered before the meeting. What Riggs fails to recognize is the public wants to hear what she thinks and why. And while she may have gotten her questions answered behind closed doors, citizens may have those same questions.

“I’m not on the commission to occupy a chair,” Riggs assured us. “If I see something is being run incorrectly, I’m going to say something about it.”

Davis, by contrast, is outspoken and stirs the pot. While likely a good activist, she is quick to become combative. Given that, we question her ability to influence others and find reasonable compromise.

There’s no doubt that Riggs and Davis are passionate about Miramar’s people and its future, but the more-composed and fiscally responsible Riggs is better suited to help lead the city over the next four years.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Sergio Bustos, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.

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