Jesse Scheckner
Miami Beach Commissioner Laura Dominguez has an opponent: fellow Democrat Robert Novo III, a former high-level city staffer who is pledging to challenge the local political establishment and promote accountability at City Hall.
A 32-year-old former Chief of Staff to no-party Mayor Steven Meiner and legislative aide to state Rep. Fabián Basabe, whose district encompasses Miami Beach, Novo said recent City Commission decisions that favored developers over residents spurred his candidacy.
“This city doesn’t belong to politicians who pass contracts to their friends or push policies designed to benefit the connected few,” he said in a statement.
“It belongs to the residents who built it, the residents who work for it, and they’ve been ignored for too long. I’m running to change that.”
Born in Miami to Cuban immigrants — his father arrived on an Operation Peter Pan flight while his mother’s family fled Europe to Cuba after her grandfather escaped the Holocaust — Novo holds a master’s degree in international business from Florida International University, where he also earned bachelor’s degrees in public administration and international relations.
He owned and operated a business called Techshield Security Systems from 2019 to 2023, state records show, after which he served as an aide to Meiner — then a City Commissioner — for about a year and a half until mid-December 2023, when he resigned after being arrested following a dispute with an ex-girlfriend.
Novo originally faced charges of robbery by sudden snatching and battery, with his ex-girlfriend saying he got physical with her and grabbed her phone when they met to exchange belongings. In a police report the Miami Herald obtained, the woman accused Novo of pushing and kicking her during the altercation — details Novo said video he recorded during the incident disproved.
The charges were later dropped and the case was dismissed. Novo successfully expunged his record in May, court and state documents he provided to Florida Politics show.
In 2024, he joined the legislative team of Basabe, a Republican who faced two since-dismissed complaints of sexual harassment and battery from former employees who later sued him. Basabe denied any wrongdoing and was re-elected in November.
Novo’s platform centers on increasing transparency and oversight into Miami Beach spending, reforming city contracting with developers, protecting neighborhoods from overdevelopment, improving public safety, advocating for education and family services, and stabilizing the city’s affordable housing inventory.
He said his experience gives him insight into residents’ struggles and pledges to run a “clean, integrity-driven campaign” that eschews the “negative methods” of communication that so frequently characterize elections.
“The truth is enough,” he said. “The people in power have had their chance, and they failed. It’s time for leadership that shows up for residents, not just headlines.”
Novo’s challenge to Dominguez, 53, is based on both strategy and policy. Unlike two other City Commission races, the one for Dominguez’s Group 2 seat previously had no other person running. But he also disagrees with her on key city matters.
Novo criticized Dominguez’s record, accusing her of supporting every developer giveaway, from height and floor-area ratio increases to developer-friendly land use regulations. He also took umbrage with a political consultant whom he described as “the same lobbyist driving overdevelopment that’s tearing our city apart.”
“This is not public service,” he said. “It’s politics for profit.”
Dominguez secured her seat in 2022 through a Special Election to finish the term of her late partner, Mark Samuelian. She has since led initiatives to convert transient properties into residential spaces, advance resiliency efforts and worked to eliminate wasteful government spending, her campaign said.
Her campaign website lists nearly 60 accomplishments, including her sponsorship of measures to roll back alcohol sales in certain parts of the city to 2 a.m., expand a noise-reduction and environmental pollution ban, back LGBTQ initiatives and revise local code enforcement to reduce the cost of compliance.
So far this election cycle, Dominguez has secured endorsements from unions and progressive organizations such as AFSCME Local 1554, Ruth’s List Florida, Equality Florida Action PAC, SAVE Action PAC and the Miami Beach Fraternal Order of Police.
Dominguez’s campaign has raised more than $261,000 through her campaign account since she filed to run in late February. Novo filed to run July 14, after the last quarterly reporting deadline, and won’t have to report any campaign finance activity until Oct. 10.
Miami Beach’s elections are technically nonpartisan. The city’s General Election is on Nov. 4.
