Broward’s mayor doesn’t need your vote, yet

It’s easy to understand why many Broward residents don’t know who the county mayor is. They’ve never voted for one.

That could change, if voters approve a charter referendum that creates the position of an elected countywide mayor.

In order for them to make that decision, it has to get on the ballot first.

County commissioners said Tuesday they’ll discuss putting a referendum on the November 2020 ballot, although most are skeptical the current system of selecting the mayor needs changing.

“Why are we trying to fix something that’s not broken?” Vice Mayor Dale Holness asked. “My concern is not what’s on the table now, but what this opens the door to in the future.”

The current mayor, Mark Bogen, was chosen by his fellow commissioners to serve a one-year term, like all the county mayors before him. Commissioners will pick a new one in November.

It’s pretty much a formality the position will go to Holness, who was picked to serve as vice mayor by the commission last year.

Referendum supporters say an elected mayor would give Broward a much-needed recognizable face during emergencies such as a hurricane and tragedies such as the Parkland shooting and to promote the county on state, national and international levels.

A group calling itself “Broward Citizens for an Elected Mayor” said it might try collecting signature petitions to put the issue on the 2020 ballot — with a mayoral election in 2022 if the referendum is successful — but has asked the commission to take the lead.

Instead of the group having to gather 82,240 voter signatures, six of nine county commissioners could decide to put the item on the ballot.

“I think that an elected mayor brings much needed, direction, stability and accountability to Broward County,” said Larry Davis, an attorney who is part of the group and who headed the county Charter Review subcommittee that looked into the issue last year. “It really does need one person that’s the go-to person.”

The problem is deciding how the mayor will be elected and what powers the position will have.

Most everyone appears to be opposed to a “strong mayor,” who would run county government, which is the

situation in Miami-Dade County. Broward voters defeated a strong mayor referendum in 2002 at the same time they expanded the commission from seven to nine members, with commissioners elected from within individual districts instead of countywide.

“It’s a way of having at least one person that runs countywide,” said George Platt, a member of the Broward Workshop and referendum supporter. “No one [on the commission] can speak that represents the entire county.”

Bogen and Holness are against having the elected mayor discussion at all.

“This is the one issue I feel passionately because I feel that when things are working right, why do you want to fix it — unless there’s ulterior motives,” Bogen said.

The county’s Charter Review Committee considered putting a proposed referendum on last year’s ballot, but couldn’t muster enough support on the committee because

of disagreements the details:

Should the position be partisan or nonpartisan? Does the mayor have a vote on the commission? Should there also be an additional commissioner elected? How much would the mayor get paid? How long could the mayor serve? Could the mayor have outside employment?

The proposal from the outside group suggests having a countywide elected mayor and adding a 10th county commissioner, so that there would be 11 voting members on county issues.

Currently the mayor runs the commission meetings and is the rotating face of the county if an emergency happens. Otherwise, the mayor is the same as a commissioner. That’s also the way Palm Beach County’s seven-member commission does it, with its mayor selected by the commission on an annual basis.

Miami-Dade has a 13-member commission. Its mayor runs county government, which has no county manager. Miami-Dade’s mayor doesn’t vote but does have veto power.

over

The Broward proposal would keep the county administrator in charge, with the mayor having a vote like all other commissioners. Fort Lauderdale and many Broward cities have mayors elected citywide that serve similar roles.

Commissioner Barbara Sharief said people don’t know who the mayor is. She still bumps into people who think she’s the mayor, having seen her on television during Hurricane Irma and during the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting, both in 2017.

“As recently as Hurricane Dorian, I had people coming up to me saying, ‘Mayor, why aren’t you on the TV?’ ” Sharief said.

It’s also confusing on trade missions and doing other outside county business, she said.

“When you go on those trips and you’re meeting dignitaries and presidents and all of that, they look at you and they say, ‘OK, that’s the mayor,’ ” Sharief said. “Then the next year, when they come back, they say, ‘Hey, what happened to that mayor I met that last time.’ ”