Jesse Scheckner
Two incumbent Sweetwater Commissioners are headed back to City Hall after winning re-election by landslides.
With all seven precincts reporting and mail-in-ballots counted at 7:42 p.m. Tuesday, Commission Vice President Isidro Ruiz had 68% of the vote to defeat former Commissioner Jose Guerra and keep his seat representing Group 5.
Meanwhile, Group 7 Commissioner Reinaldo Rey won 65% of the vote to repel a challenge from Rolando Mendez.
On Election Night, Sweetwater had 9,601 registered voters. Just 1,280 of them (13.3%) voted.
Ruiz and Rey will again be sworn into office Wednesday alongside Mayor-elect Jose “Pepe” Diaz and Commission President Saul Díaz, both of whom won unopposed in late March.
The city’s other Commissioners include Idiana Llanio, Jose Marti, Ian Vallecillo and Marcos Villanueva. All elected officials in Sweetwater serve four-year terms.
The two races for the Sweetwater Commission this year were clashes of candidates with some similar proclivities. All included photocopies of their concealed firearm permits with their campaign documents.
In terms of funding, there was a disparate gap that favored the incumbent in each race.
Ruiz raised $14,000 to win a second full term in City Hall. For those gains, the 44-year-old fire equipment salesman leaned heavily on real estate and construction businesses.
Guerra, a 66-year-old fellow Republican who works as a driver for Conviva Care Centers in private life, amassed a comparatively paltry $2,200, mostly self-given, for his bid this year — his second attempt to regain elected office since losing his seat to Vallecillo in 2015 by just 90 votes.
He’s since remained involved in the city’s politics, running unsuccessfully for the Commission in 2021 and serving on its planning and zoning board.
Rey ran to keep the seat he gained by appointment in September 2020 following the resignation of former Commissioner Sophia Lacayo, who left office the month prior after pleading guilty to perjury.
A 33-year-old Republican who works as an electrician, Rey enjoyed the best fundraising of the four candidates actively running, collecting nearly $36,000 through his campaign account and political committee, Building a Brighter Tomorrow.
That included a $10,000 donation from Jose “Pepe” Diaz’s political committee, We the People PC; $5,000 apiece from real estate developers CREI Holdings and Global City Development, $3,000 from Orion Oil and $1,000 from the Miami Association of Realtors, Dade County Police Benevolent Association and the political committees of Miami-Dade County Commissioners Kevin Marino Cabrera and Anthony Rodriguez.
Mendez, a 53-year-old CT scan supervisor at Jackson Health System and the only no-party candidate running, raised just $2,300.
Half was from his own bank account, with the remainder coming through contributions through Venmo and GoFundMe.
Jose “Pepe” Diaz will begin his second stint as Mayor of Sweetwater, a city founded in the 1930s by Russian circus dwarves and incorporated in 1941 that spans some 2,200 square miles in West Miami-Dade.
He was Mayor there from 1999 to 2003, when he won a seat on the Miami-Dade Commission. He left the County Commission last year after reaching term limits. At the time, he led the Commission as Chair.
Diaz, a Republican, told Florida Politics in March 2022 that he “would love” to again be Sweetwater Mayor, one of just a few strong Mayors in the county, a position granting him powers and responsibilities of a City Manager in addition to serving as the city’s figurehead.
“I’m honored to have been elected without opposition as the Mayor-elect of my hometown,” he wrote on Twitter March 24 after qualifying ended. “I look forward to continuing to serve the residents of this beautiful city and begin to work on the issues that affect our everyday life. Improving our city’s public safety, transportation, financial stability, parks, resurfacing and beautifying our streets are some of my priorities.”
By the time Diaz won, he’d raised $119,000 through his campaign account and another $22,000 through his political committee, which has added another $43,000 since his victory and held another $610,000 in carry-over funds.
Sweetwater has its own police department, nearly 6,300 residential housing units, 600 businesses and one bank.
Of the city’s 19,000 residents, more than 95% are of Hispanic origin and close to 74% were born outside of the United States. Roughly 14% of residents in the city, whose median household income is $46,000, live below the poverty line.
