Miami Beach Vice Mayor Steven Meiner and Michael Góngora, a three-time Commissioner, are on a collision course for the city’s top office Tuesday.
They were the largest vote-earners in the city’s General Election earlier this month, when they left behind former Rep. Mike Grieco and Bill Roedy, a former MTV executive who dropped almost $3 million on the race.
But neither secured a large enough percentage of the vote to win outright, pushing the two men — separated by 2 percentage points representing 242 votes in the election Nov. 7 — to a runoff.
The biggest issues for Miami Beach voters this election cycle are public safety and overdevelopment. In the past three years, Miami Beach has imposed curfews to curb violent disorder in the city’s nightlife hotspots after several shootings during Spring Break. There’s also ample concern of new construction in the city and the potential replacement of historic areas and buildings with new structures that, while more resilient, may be incompatible with the character of the neighborhood.
Meiner, a no-party candidate, is a 52-year-old enforcement lawyer with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He won his City Commission seat in 2019. Born in Brooklyn and a Miami Beach resident since
