The new mayor-elect of Miami Lakes is town Councilman Josh Dieguez.
Dieguez won with 2,238 votes, or 56.13%. Former Vice Mayor Tony Fernandez won 1,749 votes, or 43.87%, per the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections website.
It was a tough loss for Fernandez. Both candidates did a lot of walking and knocking on doors.
“I’m doing well,” Fernandez said after the county said votes were completely reported. “I did my best. It wasn’t in the cards, but you know, on to bigger and better challenges.”
He didn’t know what is next for him, politically.
“I’ll continue to be involved in the community and continue to serve and give back in whatever capacity that I’m useful to the town,” Fernandez said.
Dieguez said Wednesday, “It feels great to be the mayor of the town I grew up in. It’s a real honor and a dream come true. I’m looking forward to use that time to focus on the things that make Miami Lakes special and will focus on infrastructure and constituent services."
The results are unofficial until the Canvassing Board certifies the election in a few days.
The mayor’s role in Miami Lakes is largely ceremonial. The town manager is the chief administrative officer and reports to the council and carries out its policies, per the town charter.
The candidates’ platforms were similar: Each wanted low taxes, a strong police force and well-maintained sidewalks and trees. They both pointed to their past council experiences as examples of their leadership abilities.
On Tuesday night there were just 489 votes between Dieguez, 35, an attorney with his family firm Dieguez & Associates, and Fernandez, 39, owner of Layer 8 Solutions, an internet services business.
Dieguez was in the middle of his second term when he decided to run for mayor.
Dieguez will nominate his replacement for council Seat 4 to fulfill the two years remaining in the term, and the council will vote on that candidate.
A swearing-in ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. on Dec. 10 at Miami Lakes Town Hall, followed by a special call meeting at 6:30 p.m. when the newly installed council will choose a vice mayor, among other duties.
The council members are:
--Angelo Cuadra Garcia, 63, who works in road and bridge construction and won council Seat 1 on Nov. 5;
--Incumbent council members Ray Garcia, 52, a businessman, in Seat 2 and attorney Bryan Morera, 33, who has his own firm and holds Seat 6.
--In the Aug. 20 Primary Election, two council seats were decided when no one opposed candidates Juan Carlos (J.C.) Fernandez, 53, a Realtor and part owner of a Keller Williams Realty franchise who won Seat 3, and lawyer Steven Herzberg, 35, a partner at Vazquez & Associates, who won Seat 5.
After the Nov. 5 election, Dieguez won 7,320 votes, or 46.6%; Fernandez won 6,593 or 41.97% and Yuniett Gonzalez came in third, with 1,795 votes or 11.43%.
Turnout was good, perhaps because it was also a presidential election: of 21,001 registered voters in town, 15,708 votes were cast, or 74.79%.
For the Special Election on Nov. 26, turnout was just 18.93%, the county said. It listed a slight increase of registered voters in town to 21,093, and only 3,993 ballots were cast.
Runoff Election Day was a sleepy Tuesday in town. Tired campaign volunteers struggled to stay engaged as few voters arrived to take their pamphlets. Schools were closed for a vacation week. Residents had perhaps traveled or were preparing for Thanksgiving.
The candidates had urged voters to cast their ballots by mail, and a majority of them did: 2,159 were mailed, versus 1,828 votes cast at the polls, the county reported.
Special elections and runoff elections can be expensive for the town’s budget. After former Vice Mayor Carlos O. Alvarez surprised residents by resigning in the middle of his term, a Special Election was held this year on April 9 to fill his seat. None of the five candidates won more than 50% of the votes; a runoff election was held on April 30. Bryan Morera won 56.51% of the votes and he will serve until November 2026.
That special election on April 9 cost $37,950.41; the runoff election on April 30 cost $36,312.38, Town Manager Edward Pidermann said Tuesday. The cost of Tuesday's runoff election was not yet known.
At Miami Lakes Middle School on Tuesday afternoon, educator Kristin Hayes said if it hadn’t been a day off for her, “it would have been a huge inconvenience” to get home in time to vote by 7 p.m., for the second time in a month.
“But it is what it is, and we have to exercise our right [to vote],” Hayes said.
Negative campaign literature, with Fernandez and Dieguez accusing each other not being strong on public safety, among other complaints, arrived in mailboxes during the past two weeks. Hayes said the mailers didn’t sway her. She declined to name her choice but said she chose the same candidate as she did on Election Day.
She said former Mayor Manny Cid “got the community together. Any time I had a problem, he emailed me back within hours. I felt he was very humble and accessible.”
Cid backed Fernandez in the mayoral race.
Hayes would like to see the new council and mayor be responsive to constituents and expects them to be, given their previous experience as elected officials.
Therese Helms, a retired clinical social worker, said she chose Dieguez on Election Day and again on Nov. 26.
“I was tossing back and forth, back and forth, but I feel like [former Miami-Dade County Mayor and town resident] Alex Penelas is backing him, and I liked him from way back,” Helms said. “I don’t particularly like [former Mayor] Manny Cid and I didn’t like the connection there with Tony. I just didn’t like [Cid’s] way of doing things.”
She said the candidates are both nice men who care about Miami Lakes.
“Hopefully they can both work for the town,” Helms said.
A nearly 40-year resident, she wants the new council to “watch growth so that it doesn’t become like Miami, with big towers. It’s going to grow, definitely, but [they should] watch how they manage that. You pay a big price with the quality of life, with more congestion, parking, and you lose that small town feeling here.”
Helms said a runoff election was “kind of a waste. If it was clear, one was over the other, why do this?”
Still, she said, “It wasn’t that big of a deal to me [to vote again] and you have to safeguard the election, and for it to have integrity.”
Chris McArthur voted at Miami Lakes K-8 Center because his usual polling place at the Miami Lakes United Methodist Church was closed for the runoff election, a switch that he said was not an inconvenience.
The town charter rule requiring a candidate to earn 50% of ballots cast to win office “should stay in effect,” McArthur said. “You should have the majority of the votes.”
McArthur said he voted for Dieguez, “for his longevity on the council and most of his votes.”
He wants the new council to prioritize public safety, to continue improvements to stormwater drain infrastructure and to control traffic.
Bob Madden and Charlita Madden also cast their ballots at the school on Northwest 67th Avenue.
“I don’t think we should have had a runoff,” Bob Madden said. “It’s kind of a waste of time, money.”
“We voted for Dieguez,” he said. “I watched the debate with [moderator] Alex [Penelas]. I thought it was very interesting. [Dieguez] seemed to be good for Miami Lakes, to me.”
He called the town’s $1.625 million settlement this year with former Mayor Michael Pizzi “the most important thing,” a decision that Dieguez supported and Fernandez opposed.
When Pizzi was mayor, he was a subject in an FBI investigation. After a jury found in 2014 that Pizzi was not guilty of conspiracy to commit extortion and bribery, he sued the town, seeking to pay more than $2.5 million to his lawyers. Reimbursement of a public official’s legal fees is allowed in Florida.
The Pizzi settlement ended a decade of negotiations, court cases and legal bills for the town. The payments are spread out over three fiscal years and will end in January 2026.
“I think Dieguez cares about the city and the improvements,” Madden said. “I’d like them to clean up Miami Lakes, clean our sidewalks, trim our trees a little bit better, take care of our streets which are a mess right now, [they need] paving.
“[Paving of front yards] should be stopped,” Madden said. “All these new driveways, there is no place for the water to go except for our lakes. And the lakes, as most of us know, are just a big bathtub. All the water goes into the lakes and the lake rises, and eventually we’ll have a 1,000-year flood.”
The council will hold its first meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall on Jan. 21, 2025.