Miami-Dade County Mayor looks at opportunities and challenges ahead

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Transcription:

Chip Barnett (00:03):
Hi, and welcome to the Bond Buyer podcast live from Miami. I'm Chip Barnett and today I'm here in Florida with my guest, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. She's a lawyer and the social worker who has served as a mayor since 2020 and is mayor. She oversees a government that has more than 28,000 employees, which serve about 3 million residents, and she manages an annual budget of about $9 billion. Previously, she was a County Commissioner. Madam Mayor, thank you for being with us today.

Daniella Levine Cava (00:32):
Thank you. It's great to be with you.

Chip Barnett (00:35):
What do you think is the greatest opportunity that Miami-Dade County is facing over the next few years?

Daniella Levine Cava (00:42):
Well, we are definitely discovered. I call ourselves paradise rediscovered. During the pandemic, when most places were closed up, we were still relatively open. You could be outdoors all year long. And so along with the incredible challenges of the past two years, we have these great opportunities and our economy, for example, has been ranked as among the top recovered economies in the country. And so we are focusing on making sure that the economic boon benefits all of our residents. We want this to be an economy that works for everyone. Clearly tech has driven a lot of this. We've become a global tech hub. We have companies moving here from not just all over the country, but all around the world. And we are a global hub, so we've got a lot of startups, a lot of scale-ups, and we want everyone to know that we've got talent right here and we want that talent pipeline to go to these good jobs in the new economy.

(01:42)
And finally, on infrastructure, we know that we have aging infrastructure like everywhere, and we have focused a lot on bringing dollars to build up new infrastructure like world class transit. So we have a very ambitious transit development program, but also our roads and bridges and things that need shoring up and transforming a lot of septic, old septic systems to sewer and making sure that we are not polluting our Bay with runoff and fertilizers. And while the seas are rising, we are making sure that we're building for the future against higher seas and more extreme weather.

Chip Barnett (02:24):
Miami-Dade is definitely on the move, but let's flip that around and I'll ask what you think the county's greatest challenges are going to be in the near term.

Daniella Levine Cava (02:33):
I have to start with climate change because while the whole world knows about this, we are uniquely positioned for higher sea level rise and for more extreme weather events and also heat. While we're not the hottest by temperature, we are in the United States the place with the most days of extreme heat. That's the combination of temperature and humidity. We also have stronger storms, sea level rise, the storms bring even higher seas, so that leads to increased flooding. We have focused a lot on the environment. It's a key component of why I ran for office. We are doing our part to reduce carbon worldwide. We've got ambitious net zero goals. Also I mentioned about the transfer of our septic to sewer, renewable energy projects anything that will make us good stewards for the future of our envirnment.

Chip Barnett (03:32):
How's the business climate in the county today?

Daniella Levine Cava (03:35):
Yeah, it's very good. Well honestly, it's led to a huge problem. Every opportunity does have a flip side, in this case, housing affordability. So we have so many people moving here for these new jobs, these new businesses. And oftentimes these folks have more cash and they're taking up the housing, making it even less affordable. The prices have gone up by a third or even a half and driving a lot of our local workforce out of the market. If we don't have housing for our workers, then we cannot sustain that growth. So business is truly good and we're rushing to catch up on housing. I've been really focused on building more housing so we can increase the supply and reduce the demand.

Chip Barnett (04:21):
Oh, that sounds great. How has that been been working so far?

Daniella Levine Cava (04:24):
Well, it's been very innovative. I have to say, in this year's budget of $10 billion, starting October 10, fully half a billion is dedicated overall to housing, and part of it is $85 million in new dollars for new programs. Everything from helping buildings that are older that need to renovation to renovate and then maintain affordability for 15 years, last dollar for affordable or workforce housing, that the prices have gone up because of supply chain issues. And we get them the last dollar so they can get those units to market. We're also paying landlords to bring down the cost of rent so that people can afford it. And eviction prevention, we've got federal dollars — it's called the Emergency Rental Assistance Program or ERAP. We've gotta be one of the most effective in the country and taking those dollars, giving it to landlords, they have to pay their bills too. But the renters have fallen on harder times. The prices have gone up and we're able to prevent let's see, so far it was about 23,000 households from being evicted.

Chip Barnett (05:31):
Okay. We'll be right back after this important message. And we're back talking munis with Miami-Dade County Mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, you know, took office during one of the worst health crisis over in a hundred years. How's the county faring after the pandemic?

Daniella Levine Cava (05:51):
Yeah, I'm very proud of our response. I came in into Mayor's office, as you say, in the height, but as County Commissioner before that, we were coming up with plans and I wanted to be more aggressive. So as Mayor, we became the part of the state that was most involved in public health issues. And we're still the only place in the state now offering access to vaccines and tests for anyone and visitors and residents. So that has been a huge benefit. And we were able to, unfortunately we did lose people and people became very ill, but we had the highest rate of vaccination in the state, so we were very aggressive about it. And my Office of Emergency Management or department is focused on not only hurricanes, but also immigration issues, health issues, everything that really requires a coordinated response.

Chip Barnett (06:48):
Can you talk a little bit about public education? I know this has been important to you. What's the state of the public school system right now?

Daniella Levine Cava (06:54):
Yeah, so here in Florida, our school system is separate from county government, so there's a school board in every county. But we coordinate we have a wonderful new superintendent who is really interested in collaboration. We are working with him to put together a jobs pipeline strategy, working also across other organizations to really provide the skilled workforce that these jobs businesses require. So working collectively, we're going to make sure that as part of a new initiative, we're calling Future Ready, it's our economic development plan, that we fuel the pipeline for those jobs that we bring our small businesses in as well. Because we are still a small business economy and we want everybody to purchase locally. We want them to understand that we have creativity grit hard work, diversity right here in our community.

(07:55):
And finally, innovation. So we are now transforming our economy. There's tech in all things, and we are at the forefront of things like blue, green tech, climate tech, resilient tech, FinTech, and we wanna be sure that we especially again, support locally that creativity, not just those who come, which we welcome, but also our local inventors and entrepreneurs. And as well that we help our small business ecosystem to be more innovative. I just came from the launch of our virtual Strive 305. So Strive 305 is our platform in live in person, but also virtual, to bring all these small businesses into the new age with on demand classes from a variety of sources, coaching, mentoring, very exciting. We've already helped 5,000 businesses and our goal is 70,000.

Chip Barnett (08:48):
Wow. That's great. That's really impressive. Do you have any last thoughts for our listeners today about the county, about maybe even municipal bonds? <laugh> Because I know the Seaport did very well with their bond deal.

Daniella Levine Cava (09:03):
Yes. Well, thank you for mentioning that. We were bond deal of the year at our port for a phenomenal bond deal. And our airport and our seaport, clearly large economic engines, they are booming. Our airport, when you combine freight and passengers is the ninth busiest in the world. And it's number one for international travelers in our country. And our freight has gone way up at the port as well. Cruising, of course, coming back. And we're going to shore power, so this will be the first in the Southeast of our major cruise companies have agreed to plug in their boats. So that'll be, excuse me, their ships. That will be in 2023.

Chip Barnett (09:46):
That sounds great. Do you have any last thoughts for our listeners today?

Daniella Levine Cava (09:49):
We just want people to come on down, enjoy the beautiful weather, our diversity, our culture, our beaches, our natural environment, the Bay and the Everglades. And while you're here, if you get sand in your shoes and you decide to stay, we welcome you too.

Chip Barnett (10:05):
Thank you very much. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, thank you very much for being here with us today. And thanks to our listeners for this latest Bond Buyer podcast live from Miami. For the Bond Buyer, I'm Chip Barnett and thank you for listening.