Voters to decide 3 Miami commission races. Here’s what you need to know – NBC 6 South Florida

November 1, 2023November 1, 2023 Admin

Residents in three districts in the City of Miami will be voting on who will represent them on the city commission next week.

Miami Districts 1, 2, and 4 are up for grabs in the Nov. 7 election.

District 1

The most interesting election is in District 1, where suspended Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla is trying to win back his seat.

Diaz de la Portilla was arrested in September after he was accused of accepting $245,000 in exchange for voting to approve construction of a sports facility. He has pleaded not guilty.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Diaz de la Portilla, who is a fellow Republican, after the commissioner’s arrest.

The seat, which represents Flagami, Allapattah and parts of Little Havana, has been vacant pending the outcome of the election.

Diaz de la Portilla is a former state legislator and was elected to the city commission in 2019. He faces four other candidates in the race.

One of the other candidates, Francisco “Frank” Pichel has also been recently found himself on the wrong side of the law.

Pichel was arrested in October for allegedly threatening a man with a gun during an argument over campaign signs.

Pichel is a former City of Miami police officer and has previously run for the Miami City Commission but lost.

In 2021, while Pichel was a candidate for Miami mayor, he was arrested in the Florida Keys for allegedly impersonating a law enforcement officer. Those charges were later dropped.

Miguel Angel Gabela is a businessman who has served on the City of Miami Zoning Board. Gabela has run for the commission seat before and lost to Diaz de la Portilla in 2019.

Mercedes “Merci” Rodriguez is the only woman in the race. Although she’s a political newcomer, Rodriguez is a longtime Miami-Dade County employee who has also served on Miami’s Planning Board, the Miami River Commission, and the Bayfront Park Management Trust.

Marvin Tapia is also a political newcomer. Tapia, a business investor, is the chairman of Miami-Dade County’s Hispanic Affairs Advisory Board.

District 2

A total of eight candidates are vying for the District 2 seat, currently held by Sabina Covo.

Covo won the seat in a special election in February, where 13 candidates vied for it after Ken Russell resigned from the seat to run for Congress.

Multiple candidates from the special election are once again running for the seat, including James Torres and Eddy V. Leal.

Also running are Michael Castro, Gabriela Chirinos, Alicia Kossick, Damian Pardo, and Christi Tasker.

District 2 covers the eastern part of Miami, including Virginia Key, Coconut Grove, Downtown and Brickell, and north into the Edgewater and Morningside neighborhoods.