Politics
Broward’s municipal elections — who’s running, and what’s at stake
Voters in more than 20 Broward County municipalities will weigh in on mayoral contests, fill Commission and Council seats, and decide dozens of ballot questions in the Nov. 3 General Election.
All in all, 23 of the county’s 31 cities, towns and villages have something on the ballot, with more than 100 people running for 42 contested posts.
Several races were decided before a single vote could be cast. Others were disrupted in various ways. A Judge struck one candidate over residency requirements, while a sitting Vice Mayor elsewhere is campaigning while facing domestic battery charges.
There’s much more, of course; it’s South Florida, after all.
Early voting runs Oct. 19 through Nov. 1.
Here’s what’s on the ballot:
No City Hall seats are at stake in Coconut Creek, but five proposed charter amendments are on the ballot:
— Referendum 1: Would clarify when the charter’s references to “days” mean calendar days and when they mean business days. It would also confirm that the City Manager’s and City Attorney’s salaries are set by the City Commission.
— Referendum 2: Would bar the Mayor and City Commissioners from simultaneously serving as an officer on a homeowner or condominium association board inside the city while holding office.
— Referendum 3: Would scrap the charter’s automatic five-year expiration of unspent appropriations and instead let the City Commission decide each year, during the budget process, which appropriations to abandon. The city says the current rule undercuts long-range financial planning.
— Referendum 4: Would exempt the Land Development Code, Comprehensive Plan and related ordinances from the referendum process, create a procedure for validating the form of a petition or ordinance, and set a method for resolving conflicting charter amendments approved by voters.
— Referendum 5: Would require a charter review every six years beginning in January 2030, rather than every five years, so the cycle lines up with scheduled elections. The city says the current timing often leaves a review board’s recommendations waiting for a ballot.
Cooper City Commissioners Jeremy Katzman and Lisa Mallozzi would have faced voters if anyone had qualified to run against them. None did, so they won four more years by default in Seats 1 and 2, respectively.
Still, three proposed city charter changes are on the ballot:
— Referendum 1: Would allow the annual salary and benefits of the Mayor and City Commissioners to be set by ordinance, with the salaries and benefits never to exceed those of the lowest-paid full-time position in the city.
— Referendum 2: Would eliminate a referendum requirement for city borrowing and bond issuances.
— Referendum 3: Would require the remaining City Commissioners to appoint a qualified successor by majority vote when a seat goes vacant, with that appointee serving until the next November election in even-numbered years. The charter now requires a Special Election, which the city says costs more.
Ten candidates qualified for three races in Coral Springs, while a fourth contest never made the ballot after Commissioner Shawn Cerra drew no opposition for Seat 2 and was automatically re-elected.
The mayoral race pits incumbent Scott Brook against a man who sits near him at City Hall.
Brook, a family law and estate planning lawyer, held the city’s top job from 2006 to 2010 and returned through a 2019 Special Election after Mayor Skip Campbell’s death.
He faces Commissioner Joshua Simmons, a former high school teacher and mental health professional who became the city’s first Black Commissioner in 2018 and its first Black Vice Mayor in 2020. He’d be its first Black Mayor, too, with a win this year.
Five candidates are running for Commission Seat 3, which has been empty since Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer was shot and killed in a domestic violence incident April 1. The winner will serve the remaining two years of her term.
The candidates are:
— Marly Metayer, the late Vice Mayor’s mother and a registered nurse who spent more than three decades in mental health and hospice care. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, she’s running to continue her daughter’s focus on behavioral health.
— Bill Capplis, a police officer who has spent 26 years with the Coral Springs Police Department, including in its community involvement unit, and has said his outreach work brought him into regular contact with the late Vice Mayor.
— Erick Nyatenya, a military veteran, former police officer and cloud computing engineer who is pitching a “smart city” agenda built on data-driven decisions.
— Terry Ann Williams Edden, a civil mediator with a background in accounting and education who served as legal redress chair of the NAACP’s Broward branch and worked at the State Attorney’s Office from 2015 to 2024. She ran for the Florida Senate in 2008, 2020 and 2022, and for the Broward County Commission in 2014.
— Kohy Holmes, a financial aid administrator and project engineer who has served in the Florida State Guard.
Three candidates are running to succeed Simmons in Seat 4: Jeff Adelman, a board-certified personal injury trial lawyer; Jennifer Levi, Chair of the Chabad Friendship Circle Parent Committee and a member of the city’s Accessibility Advisory Committee; and Tristan Celestin, who believes his work experience in lobbying, research and finance in Washington will be a boon for the city.
Six candidates are running in an at-large race for a pair of two-year terms on the Dania Beach Commission. Each voter can pick up to two candidates in the race, with the top vote-getter becoming Mayor, succeeding Joyce Davis, while the runner-up becomes Vice Mayor, succeeding Marco Salvino.
The candidates are Maoz Druskin, an Israeli-born entrepreneur and writer campaigning on public safety and support for local businesses; Diana Fahmie, who works in real estate and promises to protect the city’s charm and coastal areas; Aaron “A-1” Hollis, a crime-prevention nonprofit founder; Kevin Johnson, who holds a doctorate in business administration and sports administration from St. Thomas University and works at Florida Memorial University; Colman Ryan, a small-business owner and President of the Dania Improvement Committee; and Kristof Von Anderson, an Army veteran and construction management pro.
Davie Council Member Daniel Alfonso won re-election unopposed in District 2, but the Town Council’s four other seats are up for grabs, and two candidates have drawn law enforcement attention since the race began.
In the race for Mayor, Judy Paul is defending a job she’s held since 2009. Under her leadership, the municipality has taken more than 200 acres out of development for the creation of a wetlands park and farm park.
Her challenger, Jackie Rocha, is a trucking company owner running on a promise to impose term limits on local officials and oppose overdevelopment.
Vice Mayor Michelle Whitman faces two challengers in District 1: Lains Love Albert and Heloise Giraldo.
The most turbulent race in town has been for the Council’s District 3 seat. Its current occupant, Susan Starkey, is trying to fend off three challengers, two of whom have made news for not-so-fortunate reasons.
One challenger, restaurateur Toula Amanna, came under scrutiny last month after Florida Politics reported about a Facebook comment under her name telling residents they needed “the courage to pick up guns and fight in public … against the forces that ruin” America.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office has confirmed it is investigating the post, which Amanna blamed on deep-state hackers in Deerfield Beach.
Jordan Nelson, who is running on a platform prioritizing government accountability and infrastructure, was arrested by Davie police late last month on three counts of driving under the influence, including DUI with property damage, after a crash into a guardrail and utility pole.
He has pleaded not guilty.
The fourth candidate, Stephen Korka, is a musician who describes himself as having a sense of humor that is “very sarcastic, vulgar and borderline offensive,” though not mean-spirited. He opposes overdevelopment and wants to keep the millage rate flat if Amendment 3, a proposed constitutional amendment that would significantly increase homestead exemptions, fails.
In District 4, incumbent Marlon Luis faces civil engineer Alex Barr and therapist Roxana Milan.
Luis, a general contractor, is a longtime civil servant, having been elected to the Town Council in 2007 and previously serving on Davie’s Planning and Zoning Board, Economic Development Council and School Advisory Board.
Barr, who has worked for the Florida Department of Transportation, Broward County and several municipalities, won a Florida TaxWatch “Productivity Award” for a railroad-crossing deterrent system that Brightline and Tri-Rail later adopted. He’s running on responsible development, traffic mitigation and preserving the district’s agricultural character.
Milan, who also owns a local courier and logistics business, is campaigning on infrastructure improvement, long-term planning, public safety funding and preserving Davie’s equestrian character and open spaces.
No elected seats are on the ballot in Deerfield Beach, but nine charter questions are — the product of the city’s first comprehensive charter review in roughly two decades.
The city is labeling them by letter, not number. They are:
— Amendment A: Would rewrite the charter for style, clarity and consistency, stripping outdated newspaper, audit and paper-check references and conforming provisions superseded by state law.
— Amendment B: Would replace the charter’s lengthy “metes and bounds” description of the city’s corporate limits — assembled over decades and now out of date — with a map maintained by the City Clerk. The city’s actual boundaries would not change.
— Amendment C: Would raise the residency requirement for candidates from six months to two years of continuous residency, citywide for Mayor and within districts for Commissioners, except where non-residency resulted solely from redistricting.
— Amendment D: Would move Commission elections from March of odd-numbered years to November of even-numbered years beginning in 2028, canceling the March 2027 and March 2029 elections and extending the current Mayor’s and Commissioners’ terms by roughly 20 months. Future terms would remain four years.
— Amendment E: Would eliminate the requirement that voters approve any sale, gift, trade, transfer or lease of city-owned real property worth more than $750,000, letting the City Commission approve those deals instead.
— Amendment F: Would require the City Commission to appoint a Charter Review Board in May 2035 and every 10 years after, with five voting members and five alternates making non-binding recommendations.
— Amendment G: Would strip from the charter floor-area-ratio limits and mixed- and accessory-use restrictions for property east of the Intracoastal Waterway, leaving them to the Land Development Code. The charter’s 45-foot commercial and 55-foot multifamily height caps and the bar on rezoning to commercial would stay.
— Amendment H: Would remove three charter restrictions on the city’s main beach parking parcels — the minimum 10-by-20-foot space size, the 15-day annual cap on significant commercial use and the ban on counting those public spaces toward another property’s parking requirement.
— Amendment I: Would require a four-fifths City Commission vote for any future move to transfer, contract out or consolidate police or fire services to another government, special district or Sheriff’s Office. A simple majority suffices now.
Broward’s largest city has one seat in play, a Special Election in District 1 to fill the two years remaining on the term of Commissioner John Herbst, who resigned in May, citing a reframing of personal priorities after his brother died.
Two candidates running to succeed him may be familiar to voters.
Educator Heather Moraitis held the seat from November 2018 until mid-2022. She’s the wife of former Rep. George Moraitis, who made an unsuccessful bid for Congress this year.
Her priorities are public safety, infrastructure, economic growth, environmental resilience, education and improving Fort Lauderdale’s quality of life.
John Rodstrom, a lawyer and business owner, serves on the Executive Committee of the Salvation Army Board of Advisors and is a former member of the city’s Budget Advisory Committee. He’s also the son of a past Fort Lauderdale Commissioner and Sunrise Mayor.
His “Ten Commitments to Fort Lauderdale” includes fiscal responsibility and government accountability, affordability, parks and greenspace, public safety and services, responsible growth, mitigating traffic while improving public transit, and combating homelessness.
A third name will appear on the ballot, but its owner stopped running.
Garry Smyth, Vice Chair of a Margate-based substance abuse recovery nonprofit, ended his campaign last month after reporting arose on his past legal troubles.
Voters also face 10 charter questions touching 21 sections of the city’s governing document:
— Amendment 1: Would require candidates to be registered city voters at the time of qualifying and to have lived in their district — or, in the Mayor’s case, the city — for a full year beforehand, proven with at least five of 10 specified documents. It would also move the Vice Mayor designation and the oath of office to the first Commission meetings after an election.
— Amendment 2: Would require every candidate for Mayor or Commissioner to file compliance documentation with the Clerk, who would confirm it was submitted but not judge whether a candidate is qualified.
— Amendment 3: Would delete the charter’s mechanism letting any registered city voter file an affidavit challenging a candidate’s eligibility at the canvass, leaving such fights to the courts.
— Amendment 4: Would stretch the notice required for a special Commission meeting from six hours to 72, with an emergency exception, and would delete a provision shielding special meetings from challenges over how they were called.
— Amendment 5: Would overhaul how classified employees pick their representative on the Civil Service Board, cutting a second employee vote, letting the top five nominees form the nominating committee outright and replacing the two Commissioners who certify that election with two committee members.
— Amendment 6: Would split the “acting City Manager” title in two, creating an interim Manager named by the Commission after a departure and an acting Manager chosen by the sitting Manager during a temporary absence. It would also repeal the charter’s default newspaper notice requirement and extend the charter’s tiebreaker — a random draw conducted by the City Attorney — to a tie among any number of candidates, not just two.
— Amendment 7: Would revise five sections governing how the city disposes of property, replacing competitive bidding, notice and appraisal-floor requirements for land sales with a four-vote resolution finding the sale serves the city’s interest, defining “public purpose” for the first time, adding appraisal and viability reviews for long leases at the tenant’s expense, and narrowing residents’ petition right to leases longer than 50 years.
— Amendment 8: Would extend an existing unanimity requirement for park land deals to license, concession and facility-use agreements lasting more than a year.
— Amendment 9: Would create a charter position of Police Chief appointed by and reporting to the City Commission rather than the City Manager, with Commissioners setting the salary by resolution. Current Chief William Schultz would become the first appointee without a search.
— Amendment 10: Would establish the same arrangement for the Fire Chief, currently Stephen Gollan.
Two Hallandale Beach Commission seats are up, and both incumbents face challengers who have run before.
In the race for Seat 1, Mike Butler is defending the post he won in 2022 with 40% of the vote in a four-way race.
Matthew Mickens and Viktor Vaynshteyn each hope to supplant him.
Mickens, who holds an associate’s degree in paralegal studies and volunteers through his church, took 30.7% in a 2024 run for Seat 4 against Commissioner Michele Lazarow. Vaynshteyn, a Ukraine-born construction pro, ran for Seat 3 the same year, taking 23.6% against Commissioner Anabelle Lima-Taub.
Commissioner Joy Adams, a longtime resident and business owner, is seeking a second term in Seat 2. Cheryl “WhoDat” Robinson, a lifelong resident and self-described “FreeDem fighter” whose campaign website lists four quotes attributed to her, including “I’m the felon that’s yelling,” is challenging Adams. She hopes to make history as Hallandale Beach’s first Black woman Commissioner.
This year’s ballot includes races for half of the six district seats on the Hollywood Commission.
The first is for District 1, where incumbent Commissioner Caryl Shuham is departing after winning a four-person race for the Broward County Commission in August.
Three candidates are competing to succeed her: Itzhack Feldman, lawyer Brian Paruas and Cat Uden, a senior field representative for conservation group Oceana.
Feldman, a repeat District 1 candidate, is a noted community activist who operates Hollywood Beach TV, a social media channel that covers events, weather and local happenings.
Paruas has collected endorsements from local police, firefighter and municipal employees unions, which highlighted his post-9/11 service as a federal air marshal and Homeland Security agent, and his work as a legislative aide in the Florida Senate.
Uden, a Leadership Hollywood graduate, has served on city and county advisory committees. Shuham has named her as her preferred successor.
Districts 3 and 5 will each get a new Commissioner to replace Traci Callari and Kevin Biederman, respectively.
District 3 drew two candidates: small-business owner Alex Recio and entrepreneur David Raskind.
In District 5, Adam Roberti faces Erin Marvasti.
Two referendums are also on the ballot:
— Referendum 1: Would require a five-sevenths Commission approval for city property leases of 20 years or longer, including renewals, and voter approval for sales or leases of 50 years or longer, including renewals, involving city-owned parks, golf courses, recreational facilities, designated historic properties or properties east of the Intracoastal Waterway.
— Referendum 2: Would authorize the city to sell or transfer beachfront property north of the Dania Beach Pier to Broward County for conservation.
A lot is happening in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. The Mayor and Vice Mayor are running against each other for the town’s top job, two of the Commission’s seats are contested and voters face eight ballot questions.
At the top of the ticket, Edmund Malkoon, proprietor of Malkoon Real Estate, is seeking another two-year term as Mayor on a record of fiscal stewardship.
Vice Mayor Randy Strauss, a lawyer, hopes to deny him. He’s campaigning on a promise to protect the town’s building height limit, keep taxes low and fix parking.
In District 1, Commissioner Theo Poulopoulos faces Howard Goldberg, while in District 2, Justin Bartholomew and Patrick Ferguson — whose brother, Michael, is running for a House seat — are competing for the seat Strauss is giving up.
Voters will also weigh in on an octet of proposed charter changes:
— Question 1: Would give the Town Clerk more time to certify citizen petitions, extending the deadline from 20 to 30 calendar days for initiative petitions and from five to 10 business days for petitions to repeal or amend an ordinance.
— Question 2: Would change the Mayor’s term from two to four years and cap service at two terms rather than three, effective with the November 2028 election, aligning the Mayor’s limits with Commissioners’. Term limits for combined service in both offices would rise from 14 to 16 years, and anyone serving as Mayor-Commissioner immediately before November 2028 would be credited with one term.
— Question 3: Would let a former Mayor run for and serve as a Commissioner after leaving the Mayor’s seat, provided the person remains within the charter’s maximum term limits. Commissioners may already run for Mayor at the end of a term.
— Question 4: Would allow the Commission to appoint a qualified person to fill a vacancy in the Mayor’s seat or on the Commission, even if that person would otherwise have to take a two-year break in service.
— Question 5: Would write the Town’s existing northern and southern Commission district boundaries — unchanged since 2004 — into the charter, including the dividing line at the portion of the Village of Sea Ranch Lakes fronting the Atlantic Ocean, with the map maintained by the Town Clerk.
— Question 6: Would rewrite the grounds and process for forfeiting office, tying disqualification to the charter’s list of qualifications and requiring ethics removals to rest on a final Florida Commission on Ethics order after all appeals. The change would also require a licensed medical professional’s certification or a court order to establish incapacity, let the Commission excuse absences by majority vote, and excuse the Commission from voting where another governmental authority has already mandated removal.
— Question 7: Would adopt Florida’s general laws governing municipal elections, push the deadline for the town’s annual financial audit from six to nine months after the close of the fiscal year and allow legal notices to run on publicly accessible websites, where state law permits.
— Question 8: Would make technical and housekeeping fixes, consolidating conflicting candidate-residency language into the charter’s elections article at the existing six-month standard, correcting outdated Florida Statutes citations and clarifying that the extra months officials served when the Town moved its elections from March to November don’t count as a separate term for term-limit purposes.
Over in Lauderhill, population 74,500, the Mayor and Vice Mayor face challenges.
Mayor Denise Grant, a former law firm operations director who joined the City Commission in 2018 and became Mayor last November, is running to keep Seat 5 at City Hall, citing falling crime and a voter-approved general obligation bond.
Her lone opponent is public administrator Pauline Ricketts, who is running on an affordability and generational turnover agenda. If elected, she wants to convert vacant properties into income-tiered affordable housing through the Lauderhill Housing Authority.
Meanwhile, three candidates are challenging Vice Mayor Richard Campbell for Commission Seat 4, and recent legal troubles have made him more vulnerable.
Campbell was arrested Aug. 31 on counts of simple domestic battery and tampering with or harassing a witness, victim or informant. The second count is a felony.
He has denied the allegations and called the case a political smear ahead of the election. The case is not decided.
Three women are running to supplant him: Christian academy Dean Jalecia Mack, healthcare finance and operations pro Madline Noel and small-business owner Mary Smith, who also works as an assistant professor at Lynn University, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Seven candidates are competing for two four-year City Commission terms in Margate, Broward’s 14th-largest municipality by population.
A third contest was settled in June, when Michael Marquez won Seat 1 unopposed, becoming Vice Mayor Anthony Caggiano’s successor-in-waiting.
In a race for Seat 3, Mayor Antonio Arserio is seeking a third consecutive term, the maximum Margate allows, against three challengers, all of whom say they want residents to have better access to City Hall: telecommunications engineer Jonathan Kraljic, small-business owner and community advocate Mindy Lee, and education professional Sloan Robbins, who has served on the city’s Planning and Zoning Board.
Seat 5 is open because Commissioner Joanne Simone is term-limited, and three people are running to replace her: former Commissioner Le Peerman, nurse and past Arserio challenger Theresa Booker, and Nina Culver, who founded the group Margate Neighbors and is making her third run at City Hall after seeking Seat 5 in 2022 and Seat 1 in 2024.
The mayoral race is the only local contest on North Lauderdale’s ballot, alongside five proposed charter changes, after incumbents Vice Mayor Mario Bustamante and Commissioner Luke Lewis won re-election unopposed in June.
Mayor Samson Borgelin, who joined the Commission in 2016 before winning the mayoralty in 2022, is running on his budgeting record and a lien clemency program for qualified homeowners.
Two challengers — healthcare financial specialist Tosha Chambers and lawyer Willnae LaCroix — aim to deny Borgelin another term.
Chambers is running on a platform prioritizing youth investment and building pathways to college or vocational training after high school, while LaCroix said that if she’s elected, she’ll seek a line-by-line budget review and an audit of all city departments.
The city’s referendums, based on a Charter Review Commission report delivered in December, are:
— Referendum 1: Would swap “Council” for “Commission” throughout, recognize the existing single-member district election system, correct references to state law and the Broward County charter, allow notices by website posting instead of newspaper publication, and make technical changes.
— Referendum 2: Would extend the charter’s attendance requirement, and its potential penalty of forfeiting office for four consecutive unexcused absences, to Commission workshop meetings.
— Referendum 3: Would move authority over hiring, firing and supervision of the City Clerk and Deputy City Clerk from the City Commission to the City Manager.
— Referendum 4: Would bar the Commission from waiving a requirement that the City Manager live in Broward County within six months of being hired.
— Referendum 5: Would rename the Charter Review Commission the Charter Review Board, expand it from five to 11 members, have the City Commission designate its Chair and Vice Chair, and guarantee the Board meeting space and equipment.
Four candidates are competing for two Oakland Park Commission seats in an at-large race in which voters cast two votes each. The Mayor’s post rotates annually among Commissioners.
Steven Arnst, the current Mayor, served on the Commission from 1993 to 2001 and 2003 to 2011, then ran in every election from 2013 until he won again in 2022 — by 40 votes, after a recount.
Commissioner Tim Lonergan, a former Mayor, is a healthcare business professional who was elected in June to the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Executive Committee.
Candidate Chris Fischer, a real estate agent and former sports anchor, was elected President of the Corals of Oakland Park Neighborhood Association in 2020 and has served on the city’s Planning and Zoning Board.
David Anderson is the fourth candidate.
No Commission seats are on the Pembroke Pines ballot, but two proposed city charter amendments are:
— Referendum 1: Would move municipal elections from March to November of even-numbered years and shift the annual Vice Mayor selection to the first meeting in December. Passage of this measure would also extend all five current Commissioners’ terms by about eight months.
— Referendum 2: Would lower the Commission vote threshold for hiring and firing the City Manager from four-fifths to three-fifths approval of the panel.
Broward’s only strong-Mayor city will decide whether to keep its incumbent or hand the job to the Council President, who once filled in for him. Aside from that contest, there’s just one Plantation Council race on the ballot after incumbents Erik Anderson and Denise Horland won re-election unopposed.
Mayor Nick Sortal, a former Sun-Sentinel journalist now in his eighth year as an elected official, is running on a record of having passed the city’s first millage-rate reduction in nearly a decade, implementing police body cameras, opening North Acres Park, creating a city stormwater team and launching a University of Plantation program that teaches residents about city operations.
Council Member Tim Fadgen, a lifelong Plantation resident and third-generation accountant, is campaigning on a platform prioritizing fiscal responsibility, resident engagement and transparency. He served as acting Mayor in 2024 while Sortal was on medical leave.
Fadgen’s run leaves the Council’s Group 4 seat open, and two candidates have qualified to seek it: Aston Bright, a captain and Public Information Officer with the Plantation Fire Department who has twice won the city’s “Firefighter of the Year” honors; and H. Wayne Clark Jr., an Army veteran and lawyer who has served on the Small Business Advisory Committee for Broward County Schools, among other community involvements.
Four of Pompano Beach’s five City Commission seats are at stake Nov. 3. It would have been five, but a Broward Judge disqualified Commissioner Darlene Smith’s lone opponent last month after reviewing evidence showing the man, Delvin King, had repeatedly moved in and out of the district he hoped to serve.
In District 1, Commissioner Audrey Fesik is seeking another two-year term, but faces a challenge from Realtor Keriann Worley, who is campaigning on a smart development, pro-small business, resident-feedback-friendly platform.
The race for District 2 has three candidates, including incumbent Rhonda Sigerson-Eaton, who is defending the seat she won in 2018. Her opponents include veteran Freddy York, who is running with a focus on responsible spending and core city services; and Brandi Zabadal, President of the Pompano Beach Highlands Civic Improvement Association, who has made workforce housing a central issue.
In District 3, Vice Mayor Alison Fournier faces Tom McMahon, who previously held the seat and is attempting a return.
And in District 4, Commissioner Beverly Perkins is up against ex-Lauderdale Lakes Commissioner and former Rep. Patricia Hawkins-Williams, who is campaigning on inclusion and the cost of living, and Mary Phillips, who promises to provide $5,000 to registered taxpaying homeowners to build prefabricated “granny sheds” she believes will improve housing affordability.
No Town Council seats are on the ballot in Southwest Ranches, but one proposed charter change is.
The referendum, if passed, would raise Council members’ monthly pay from $1,000 to $1,500 and the Mayor’s monthly compensation from $1,250 to $2,000 while allowing annual cost-of-living increases tied to inflation, capped at 3%.
Two Sunrise Commission seats are up, and both incumbents are Florida League of Cities “Home Rule Heroes.”
In Seat C, Commissioner Neil Kerch, a lawyer and former Broward Assistant Public Defender first elected in 2013, is seeking another term after returning to the panel unopposed in 2022.
He faces Evelyn Bryant and Emoni McGregor, a high school science teacher who wants to strengthen city services, improve education access and boost neighborhood sustainability and safety.
In Seat D, Deputy Mayor Jacqueline Guzman, who became the first Latina elected in Sunrise when she won in 2020, faces small-business owner Niccole Pazos, whose platform includes improving public safety and accessibility.
Two Tamarac Commission races remain on the ballot after Mayor Michelle Gomez won re-election unopposed. One of them is a rematch.
In District 2, Morey Wright Jr. is defending the seat he won in 2022, when then-Commissioner Mike Gelin gave it up to run for Mayor against Gomez and lost. Now, Gelin wants it back.
Wright, an entrepreneur and tech consultant, has advocated for public education, public safety, senior services, lowering the cost of living and preserving green spaces since taking office. He is the creator of the Tamarac Scholars Program, which has awarded more than $1 million in student scholarships.
His platform offers more of the same, touting other accomplishments including keeping taxes low, increasing policing, creating a small-business grant program and establishing a program to provide residents with monthly financial assistance.
His predecessor, Gelin, the founder of Gelin Benefits Group, is running on a promise to protect seniors, support small businesses, strengthen public safety, back smart development and make city finances more transparent.
In District 4, incumbent Kicia Daniel is running to keep the seat she won in 2022, when she outpaced second-place candidate Carol Mendelson. Mendelson is her lone challenger this November.
Both are education professionals — Daniel has been a public school principal, while Mendelson is a retired Broward School Board administrator.
Half of West Park’s four Commission seats are on the ballot while the panel remains split by litigation, with two Commissioners suing the Mayor, City Attorney and City Manager over claims they’ve been blocked from placing items on the agenda and voting.
One of the plaintiffs is defending her seat: Katrina Touchstone, a clinical pharmacist whose city bio page says she holds a doctorate in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences from Florida A&M University.
Her challenger for Seat 1 is Derrick Jones Jr., a fellow Florida A&M graduate (political science and public administration) who has worked as a county legislative analyst and in federal and nonprofit public service. He’s running on a promise to address housing unaffordability and improve access to public services.
In the race for Seat 2, incumbent Brandon Smith, a former Vice Mayor with more than a decade of public service experience, faces Jajuan Burton, an Army veteran, software engineer and youth advocate.
Two Weston Commission seats are open, and the incumbents in both are leaving.
For Seat 3, Patricia Bernardini and German Melo are competing to succeed Byron Jaffe, who has served on the panel since 2017.
Bernardini, who founded a mental health nonprofit last year after working as a cargo transportation executive, previously ran for the seat and helped organize residents against a proposed park-and-ride facility at the city’s entrance.
Melo is a former federal economic crimes investigator who now works as Vice President of International Business Development and Strategy at the Central and Eastern European Trade Center.
And in a race to replace outgoing Commissioner Mary Molina-Macfie, Navy veteran Jaime Herrero faces longtime local government pro Alfredo Ortega, who served as Chief of Staff to two Doral Mayors and worked as a community liaison for that city’s Police Department.
Scott Newton is leaving his job as Wilton Manors Mayor, but he doesn’t aim to go far; he’s one of four candidates running in an at-large contest for two City Commission seats.
Three candidates are running to replace him:
— Commissioner Paul Rolli, a finance professional who was first elected to the panel in 2018 and has served as Vice Mayor. His platform focuses on infrastructure, growth and public safety, and utilizing artificial intelligence to improve how Wilton Manors delivers city services.
— Former Commissioner and Vice Mayor Julie Carson, a real estate professional who served from 2010 to 2020, during which the city made national news when it became the second in the country to seat an entirely LGBTQ governing body. During her tenure, she championed transparency and ethics in government and advocated for seniors, children, people with disabilities and members of the transgender community.
— Jerry Fisichelli, a retiree and newcomer to city politics.
For the two at-stake Commission seats, currently held by Rolli and Don D’Arminio, voters can cast two votes each.
The candidates are Newton, D’Arminio, Angelo Burgos and Manish Kalra.
One charter question is also on the ballot. If approved, it would strip the Governor of the power to fill vacancies if every Commissioner, including the Mayor, is removed from office, instead allowing the City Manager or Assistant City Manager to appoint a Mayor and two Commissioners who would appoint two more Commission members. The interim Commission would then call a Special Election if more than 180 calendar days remained in the unexpired terms.
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