Raquel Regalado, Cindy Lerner run it back for District 7 seat on Miami-Dade Commission

Images via the candidates.

Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado and former Pinecrest Mayor Cindy Lerner are having a rematch.

Four years ago, Regalado beat Lerner by 1,301 votes — a 1.2% margin — to take the panel’s District 7 seat.

Now they’re competing for the spot again. A third candidate, public schools police officer and real estate entrepreneur Richard Praschnik, is running too.

Regalado, a former Miami-Dade School Board member, has several advantages. As the incumbent, she can point to her accomplishments at County Hall to bolster her re-election effort. As a Republican serving in a nonpartisan post, she enjoys cross-aisle support from county and municipal officials.

She also carries a war chest five times the size of Lerner’s, having raised more than $1 million this cycle.

Lerner, meanwhile, boasts state-level experience, having served in the Florida House from 2000-2002, and a strong record of environmental work, including the creation of an emission-reduction program and free local transit service in Pinecrest.

During her time as the village’s third Mayor from 2008 to when she reached term limits in 2016, she chaired the National League of Cities’ Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee and won “Municipal Elected Official of the Year” honors from the U.S. Green Building Council’s South Florida chapter.

If elected, she vows to “fight for honest, ethical government, to take meaningful action on sea-level rise and flooding, and to be a voice for the residents of (District 7) — not developers, lobbyists and corporate polluters.”

Lerner, 70, said she wants to fight corruption throughout the county, improve county infrastructure to better handle sea-level rise, expand transit with more Metrorail lines and a fully electric Metrobus fleet, and keep the Everglades free of additional development.

A lawyer by training, Lerner has been criticized over the years for her temper, so much so that she included a clip of a particularly testy Pinecrest Village Council meeting she led in her campaign launch ad.

“At public meetings, there were heated debates, and at times I did lose my cool,” she said. “But these days, I don’t know about you, but I can’t read the news without getting angry. Corruption, influence peddling, self-dealing, selling out the Everglades to big developers, breaking promises and betraying our communities — I am angry, and I’m fed up. We all should be.”

The Everglades comment is an indirect knock against Regalado, who voted in November 2022 to override Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s veto of legislation expanding the Urban Development Boundary (UDB) so a 379-acre industrial complex could be built just west of Biscayne Bay near Homestead.

It marked the first expansion in nearly a decade of the UDB, which is meant to safeguard agricultural and vulnerable lands from residential and commercial encroachment. Regalado originally opposed the move, but switched her vote after developers increased the amount of wetlands they would buy and donate to offset the project’s impacts.

Regalado, 50, suffered backlash from the vote. She was Miami-Dade Commission Chair Oliver Gilbert’s first choice for Vice Chair in December 2022, but was passed over by her peers after Democrat Danielle Cohen Higgins, who verbally sparred with her over the UDB vote, nominated Republican Commissioner Anthony Rodriguez instead.

The UDB vote is hardly emblematic of Regalado’s environmental agenda. She has led a push to accelerate septic-to-sewer conversions in the county and backed several water improvement initiatives. Halfway through her term, she’d already filed scores of items encompassing everything from using auxiliary dwelling units to provide more affordable housing to an ordinance mandating autism and sensory training for county employees.

Recently, she teamed with Levine Cava on an effort to close the Miami Seaquarium, which for years has faced complaints from animal rights groups and citations for lease violations.

A self-professed workaholic and policy wonk, Regalado is lawyer, radio host and professor at St. Thomas University. She sits on the Board of Directors of intercounty commuter service Tri-Rail and chairs the County Commission’s Infrastructure, Operations and Innovations Committee.

She grew up in politics. Her father, ex-Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, is now running for Miami-Dade Property Appraiser.

Among her endorsers this cycle: Democratic Miami-Dade Commissioner Kionne McGhee, Republican Pinecrest Mayor Joseph Corradino, Democratic South Miami Mayor Javier Fernández, Republican Key Biscayne Mayor Joe Rasco, and nine union and advocacy organizations, including the South Florida PBA and South Florida AFL-CIO.

If re-elected, she vows to continue championing neurodiversity inclusion — her two children are on the autism spectrum — while fighting for environmental resilience and economic development. She wants to do more to support first responders, reduce taxes and help seniors. Further advocacy for green infrastructure is also on her to-do list.

Praschnik, a 28-year old Republican, sits on a Miami-Dade zoning appeals board and chairs the Kendale Homeowners Association’s public safety panel.

If elected, he plans to improve public safety, enhance education standards and community engagement in schools, support responsible zoning that allows development while preserving neighborhoods’ existing character, and lowering toll fees, property taxes and the county gas tax.

He also opposes any additional UDB expansions and has criticized Regalado for her support, along with a majority of the County Commission, of a now-stalled plan to redevelop a District 7 golf course into a 550-home complex.

With just $23,000 raised since he entered the race 13 months ago and far lower name value than his two opponents, Praschnik’s odds of winning are slim.

More likely, according to a February analysis by MCI Maps, is that Lerner again takes Regalado to a runoff.

District 7 covers Pinecrest, Key Biscayne, portions of Coral Gables, South Miami and Miami, including the neighborhoods of Coconut Grove and Virginia Key, and the unincorporated neighborhoods of Kendall and Sunset.

The Miami-Dade Commission is a nonpartisan body, as are its elections. If no District 7 candidate scores more than 50% of the vote in the Aug. 20 Primary to win outright, the two top vote-getters will compete in a runoff culminating in the Nov. 5 General Election.