Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner unveiled his new committee appointments for 2026, and there’s a commonality among them: no women Chairs.
In all three of the city’s Commission committees, which are appointed solely by the Mayor and composed exclusively of City Commission members, men hold the top post.
That’s despite three of the Commission’s six non-Mayor members being women.
On the Land Use and Sustainability Committee, Meiner elevated previous Vice Chair David Suarez to Chair and demoted prior Chair Alex Fernandez to Vice Chair.
He did the same with the Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality of Life Committee, where Fernandez rose from Vice Chair to Chair, and Laura Dominguez switched to Vice Chair.
Only on the Finance and Economic Resiliency Committee did last year’s arrangement remain the same, with Joseph Magazine keeping his Chairmanship, with Suarez staying on as the panel’s second-in-command.
Commissioner Tanya Bhatt holds membership posts in two of the three committees and is an alternate member for a third, in which Monica Matteo-Salinas — who won election to the City Commission in December — serves as a member.
Florida Politics contacted Meiner, Bhatt, Dominguez and Matteo-Salinas for comment, but received no response by press time. We also reached out to Lynette Long, who chairs the Miami Beach Commission for Women, but she did not immediately respond.
Suarez said by text that he doesn’t believe Meiner’s appointments have anything to do with gender.
“Commission committee assignments rotate and are based on merit and experience, and suggesting otherwise leans into a false narrative where none exists,” he said. “Women have long chaired committees — both Commission committees and other City committees — and continue to serve today as chairs and vice chairs on both.”
Magazine said he looks forward to continuing his work leading on economic resiliency.
“Given my long financial background in the private sector and our success in the last two budget seasons, I’m happy to be appointed Chair again,” he said. He declined to comment on other appointments.
Fernandez said he is proud of the record he built as Chair of the Land Use and Sustainability Committee, which secured critical exemptions from the 2024 Resiliency and Safe Structures Act, helped preserve architectural design standards under the Live Local Act and modernized historic preservation regulations, among other accomplishments.
“Serving as Chair of the Land Use Committee was something I was proud of and I will continue to be proud of the committee’s record of accomplishments during my tenure,” he wrote in a statement that did not touch on the women-as-Chairs subject.
Last year, Dominguez and Matteo-Salinas each defeated opponents who participated in a campaign event for Meiner also attended by one of the officers who questioned resident-activist Raquel Pacheco at her home last week after she wrote disparagingly about the Mayor on Facebook.
The visit has since made national headlines.
