Miami Gardens-North Miami Beach water feud boils over as county ‘follow the law’ vote nears

A long-simmering fight over the rules and rates for water delivered from North Miami Beach to Miami Gardens boiled over again last week, this time at Miami Gardens City Hall, where recently approved discounts were rebuffed in favor of a call to “follow the law.”

North Miami Beach Mayor Michael Joseph appeared at the Miami Gardens Council’s meeting Wednesday to share what he called “an olive branch, or in this case, olive trees,” touting a new relief plan he said would directly help Miami Gardens customers who receive service from his city’s Norwood Water Treatment Plant, which sits inside Miami Gardens’ bounds.

North Miami Beach this month approved a 10% discount on water bills — up to $100 per year — for customers who qualify for certain homestead exemptions, including seniors, permanently disabled veterans, deployed service members and surviving spouses of first responders and veterans killed in the line of duty.

Joseph also highlighted a separate, prorated credit of up to $50 annually for customers who enroll in automatic bill payment and reminded residents of his city’s We Care to Share program, which helps customers in both cities who struggle to pay their water bills.

“Though we serve different cities, we are united by the people we serve and share,” Joseph told members of the Miami Gardens Council. “I look forward to continual partnership and respect.”

Miami Gardens Mayor Rodney Harris responded courteously, saying he would “love the opportunity to sit with (Joseph) at another date (to) further our discussion about partnerships.”

Joseph replied, “One thousand percent. I look forward to that.”

The tone shifted when Miami-Dade Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, the immediate past Mayor of Miami Gardens and the county’s most prominent political antagonist of North Miami Beach over its water policy, stepped up to the podium.

Sarcastically noting that Joseph had promptly left the meeting after delivering his remarks as “just tragic,” Gilbert thanked him in absentia for coming to speak about the water rate issue before blasting the relief plan as a paltry solution to a protracted imbalance.

For nearly two decades, he said, Miami Gardens has fought to bring “water fairness” to residents served by North Miami Beach’s utility, NMB Water, all while the service provider skirted state statutes by levying surcharges without an interlocal agreement authorizing them.

“So we’re clear, the law as it stands right now — that’s been the law for two decades — it says that if they’re going to provide water outside of their city limits, they have to have an agreement with the (recipient) city,” Gilbert said. “That means they couldn’t arbitrarily charge 20% surcharges any time they wanted to.”

He then dismissed the new North Miami Beach discounts as doing little more than giving residents “possibly back $150 of your own money that they’ve been taking (at a rate of) around $4 million a year, I’m told, from the residents of Miami Gardens into their General Fund to support their policies (and) all the stuff they want to do for their residents.”

Gilbert urged residents to attend an Oct. 9 County Commission meeting for a final vote on his ordinance, which he said “basically says this: Follow the law, or the county has the ability to tell you what to do.”

“I will not yield. I will not negotiate. It is the law right now,” he said. “You’d be an absolute fool to negotiate against something that’s the law right now that they’ve been breaking for two decades.”

Harris punctuated the point — “Longer,” he said — and later told Gilbert, “You have our support, definitely.”

Gilbert was indirectly referring to different sections of Florida Statutes. Chapter 180 permits cities like North Miami Beach to provide water outside their boundaries and charge different rates for out-of-city customers, including surcharges, but specifies that those outside rates must be “just and equitable” and applied uniformly to all outside customers.

One city generally can’t exercise governmental powers inside another without legal authorization. The usual, legally clean way to do so is under Chapter 163 through a written interlocal agreement, which must outline the agreement’s duration, purpose, management, funding and how it may be terminated.

Miami-Dade’s charter also gives the county regulatory control over water and sewer, so it can condition approvals on interlocal agreements.

Last week’s confrontation revived a dispute that has ricocheted through courts, the Legislature and County Hall.

In 2018, Miami Gardens sued North Miami Beach over water surcharges tied to the Norwood plant, which is owned by North Miami Beach but stands within Miami Gardens’ bounds. Last year, North Miami Beach agreed to pay $9 million to close out the case.

During the 2025 Legislative Session, Sen. Shevrin Jones and Rep. Felicia Robinson, both of Miami Gardens, passed legislation to allow an up to 25% surcharge for out-of-city water service — unless the plant is physically inside the recipient city, in which case the provider must charge the same rates it charges its own residents.

Joseph argued in a May Miami Herald op-ed that the measure would strip his city of roughly $5 million annually and represented “government overreach,” pointing instead to Miami Gardens’ own 10% utility tax.

Gilbert, in separate articles, countered that North Miami Beach’s surcharge proceeds flow into its general fund, not the water system, citing the city’s bond disclosures, and called the practice “a simple story” of “one community taking advantage of another.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis ultimately vetoed the bill in July, faulting the measure’s narrowly tailored language that applied only to the two cities.

“It’s not the role of the state to referee such a dispute,” he wrote. “Municipalities should be encouraged to resolve these disputes locally.”

Gilbert’s proposed local “fix,” which he filed in late August, would set minimum standards for any municipal water or sewer utility operating outside its city limits in Miami-Dade. Under the ordinance, the utility must submit its terms and conditions for those customers to the county’s Water and Sewer Department and, if it imposes surcharges, provide annual documentation showing the surcharge money is used to operate and improve the water system.

Utilities that don’t comply could face $500 fines per violation and other remedies. And if the violations persist, the county could eventually take over the utility’s regulation and operation under its home rule authority.

Gilbert framed the measure as an enforcement and transparency tool, and a way to end what he has repeatedly labeled “taxation without representation.”

North Miami Beach officials oppose the ordinance, warning it runs counter to the Governor’s advice that the two cities should solve the issue and could preempt the city’s newly approved relief while intruding on municipal home rule.

“(Gilbert is) making a permissive state statute mandatory. His ordinance is saying, ‘If you don’t have this agreement, we’re going to go after you,” Joseph said Tuesday. “He’s preempted by the state, and he’s trying to use the county and its resources to come after us with guns blazing.”