Miami Lakes Mayor Manny Cid filed Friday to run for Miami-Dade County Mayor.
Cid, 39, is term-limited for the town office. His service will end in November, 2024.
The county mayoral primary election will be held Aug. 20. Election Day is Nov. 5.
On Friday afternoon, Cid called his campaign “extremely bold and forward thinking for the future of our county.”
Cid declined to comment further, teasing an upcoming press conference on Tuesday, for which details such as location had not been finalized.
Cid joins Alexander Otaola, a conservative commenter who appears on YouTube, and Miguel “El Skipper” Quintero, who are also trying to unseat incumbent Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
In March, Levine Cava, an attorney, launched her reelection campaign for a second term.
Since then, Cid has spoken to various media outlets about his ambition to hold the highest office in the county.
In a previous story in The Miami Laker, Cid said he was also considering runs for elections supervisor or tax collector.
First elected to the Miami Lakes town council in 2012, the council chose Cid as vice mayor in 2013. He was elected mayor in 2016 and 2020.
Miami Lakes has a council-manager form of government where Town Manager Edward Pidermann is chief administrative officer.
Cid is a enthusiastic cheerleader for the Town of Miami Lakes, celebrating on social media the town's infrastructure improvements, ribbon cuttings to inaugurate new businesses and interviewing prominent residents on his 305 Vox Populi podcast.
Cid calls himself the "working class mayor." He undergoes beauty and health treatments to promote salons and companies and joins the cook line at new restaurants, all documented in photos and videos and put on the internet.
In March 2022, Cid accelerated negotiations with the City of Hialeah and Miami-Dade County to open the bridge over Interstate 75 at Northwest 170th Street.
As a lawsuit was ongoing and the county approved opening a second bridge at Northwest 154th Street, the parties agreed to open the northern span and keep Northwest 154th Street closed for a decade.
Some residents opposed the opening of the northern span, fearing it would bring more traffic along Northwest 170th Street into town from new housing developments in western Hialeah.
Hialeah officials celebrated from their side of the bridge when it opened in August 2022 and traffic began to flow east. Cid did not attend that event.
Cid’s political experience includes seven years as a senior legislative aide in the Florida House of Representatives, according to his biography on the town’s website.
He is a co-owner of the Mayor’s Café in town. He is also a guest lecturer at Horeb Christian School in Hialeah, where he coaches basketball.
Cid holds an Associate in Arts degree in Political Science from Miami Dade College, a Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Leadership from St. Thomas University and a Master of Arts in Ethical Leadership from that school.
He is married to Melissa Cid and is the father of three children. The family resides in Miami Lakes.