Twenty-two cities, towns and villages are picking leaders, considering charter changes, or both.
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Voters in 22 Miami-Dade County municipalities will settle mayoral contests, fill Council and Commission seats and weigh in on dozens of ballot questions in the Nov. 3 General Election, with runoffs in some cities stretching into December.
Seventeen of those cities, towns and villages have candidates on the ballot, including nine mayoral races. Ten are putting a combined 43 referendums to voters, from pay raises for elected officials to a $450 million public safety bond.
Runoff dates vary by charter. El Portal and Pinecrest hold theirs Nov. 17, while Coral Gables, Cutler Bay, Medley, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Palmetto Bay and Sunny Isles Beach follow on Dec. 1. Doral and Opa-locka go last on Dec. 8.
Miami Gardens is the outlier. The Nov. 3 ballot includes the city’s runoff from its Aug. 18 General Election.
Two contests are essentially decided — in Biscayne Park and Virginia Gardens, no more candidates qualified than there are seats available — but vote totals still matter because they determine who gets a four-year term and who gets two.
Here’s what’s on the ballot.
Aventura
In the race for Mayor, incumbent Howard Weinberg faces Alberto Zaltzberg.
Weinberg, a lawyer who works as corporate counsel and Senior Vice President of Business Development at Hotwire Communications, spent eight years on the City Commission beginning in 2010.
He was elected Mayor unopposed in 2022 after his only rival withdrew.
Zaltzberg, a real estate broker and online marketing specialist who left Buenos Aires for Florida in 2001, lost a 2022 bid for Commission Seat 6 and is now running on the slogan, “Make Aventura Great Again.”
If he wins, he’d become Aventura’s first Latino Mayor.
Two proposed city charter amendments are also on the ballot:
— Amendment 1: Would double the city’s salaries for elected officials, from $10,000 to $20,000 for the Mayor and from $7,500 to $15,000 for Commissioners.
— Amendment 2: Would increase the interval between independent CPA audits of city accounts from five years to seven years.
Biscayne Park Town Hall. Image via Facebook.
Biscayne Park
Three candidates qualified for three at-large Commission seats, meaning everyone on the ballot — incumbent Commissioner Daniel Samaria and candidates Howard Goldman and Judi Hamelburg — is bound for Village Hall.
Samaria and Hamelburg both lost their seats in 2022, when a three-candidate slate swept the Commission. Samaria returned two years later by winning a Special Election for a seven-month term.
Their ballot totals still matter, as the top two vote-getters will win four-year terms, while the third-place candidate will receive two years.
Coral Gables
This is Coral Gables’ first November municipal election, the result of a voter-approved charter amendment that moved the contests from April and shortened several current terms by about four months.
Incumbent Mayor Vince Lago, a construction executive first elected in 2021 over then-Commissioner Patricia Keon after years on the City Commission, including as Vice Mayor, is seeking what would be his final term before term limits end an eight-year run.
His opponents: Laureano Cancio, a lawyer who qualified in the closing hours of the filing period and who ran against Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson in April 2025, and Jackson “Rip” Holmes, a Miracle Mile property owner, fixture at Commission meetings and perennial candidate.
In Commission Group 4, incumbent Melissa Castro faces Nestor Menendez. Castro, who owns a permitting services company, won the seat in a 2023 runoff and has frequently voted against Lago on major items.
Menendez has served on the city’s Transportation Advisory Board, Planning and Zoning Board and Charter Review Committee, and resigned his Planning and Zoning post earlier this year to run.
In Commission Group 5, Gonzalo Sanabria and Nikki Whiting are competing to replace outgoing one-term Commissioner Ariel Fernandez.
Sanabria, a real estate investor who sits on the Planning and Zoning Board, has run for the Commission twice before, in 2009 and 2011, and previously served as Vice Chair of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority.
Whiting, a university fundraiser and the youngest candidate in the field at 33, has served on the city’s Property Advisory Board and Communications Committee.
She caught the political bug early, interning with the Republican Party of Florida and working as press secretary for former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen before taking Communications Director jobs with Gov. Ron DeSantis, U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez during his time as Miami-Dade Mayor and the Florida Department of Health.
Cutler Bay
Four candidates are running to succeed term-limited Mayor Tim Meerbott, and two of them already sit on the Town Council.
Robert “B.J.” Duncan, who has held Seat 1 since 2018, is term-limited from seeking his seat again. He directs operations for Florida International University’s College of Communication, Architecture and The Arts and chaired the town’s Education Advisory Committee before his election.
Suzy Lord, who holds Seat 2 and was named a 2024 Miami-Dade County “Woman of Impact,” must resign her seat to run.
Also in the race is Ricardo De Melo Gomes, a licensed builder who studied architecture in Europe and has lived in the town more than two decades. He is married to Brook De Melo Gomes, who challenged Lord for Seat 2 in 2024 and now serves on the town’s Education Advisory Committee.
The fourth candidate is tech and entertainment entrepreneur Clint Rodriguez, who is running a bilingual campaign under the slogan, “Same Town. New Chapter.”
The race for Council Seat 1, which Duncan is vacating, drew three candidates: Ricky Fernandez, James Richie Hawkins and Mary Ann Mixon.
In the race for Council Seat 3, incumbent Richard Ramirez faces Rene Gomez. Ramirez took the seat unopposed in 2022, succeeding term-limited Council Member Roger Coriat.
Doral City Hall. Image via Facebook.
Doral
In the race for Council Seat 2, incumbent Council Member Maureen Porras, an immigration lawyer elected in 2022, faces Fernanda Gomes.
Porras won the seat on Mayor Christi Fraga’s slate, but by early 2024, she was voting against Fraga and had become leader of the Council’s opposition faction.
Gomes is campaigning on public safety, government transparency, small-business support and mobility messaging.
Pedro Espinosa and Gustavo Garagorry are competing for Council Seat 4, which term-limited Vice Mayor Digna Cabral is leaving.
Espinosa, who is campaigning as “Peter,” is running on promises of improving public safety, responsible management of city resources, supporting residents and their families, and emphasizing local economic development.
Garagorry, a business consultant, joined City Hall in 2014 as a legislative analyst and spent about eight years as a legislative aide to former Council Member Pete Cabrera. He now presides over the Venezuelan American Republican Club.
El Portal
In the race for Mayor, incumbent Omarr Nickerson faces George Alvarez. Nickerson, a Miami-born educator and lecturer who holds a doctorate in international studies, was sworn in last year as the 71st President of the Miami-Dade League of Cities.
Incumbent Council Member Anders Urbom, the panel’s newest member, drew three challengers for Council Seat 1: Kerby Altidor, Edna Edelman and Thomas Pulliam.
In the race for Council Seat 2, incumbent Council Member Charles Winters faces Ashley Lucio and Eddie Odabachian.
Velvet Connally and Denise White are competing for Council Seat 3, while Danny Rojas and Nick Schmidt are running for Council Seat 4.
Those two races fill vacancies left by outgoing Council Members Anna Lightfoot-Ward and Darian Martin.
Hialeah
In the race for Council Group 2, interim Council Member Luis González faces Mariana Chavez.
González, 55, sat on the Council from 2005 to 2017 under Mayors Julio Robaina and Carlos Hernandez. He lost a 2019 race to Jesus Tundidor, but was appointed to Tundidor’s seat in January at the urging of Mayor Bryan Calvo after Tundidor resigned to run for Mayor.
Chavez was 20 and the youngest candidate in the field when she ran unsuccessfully for the
