A new political action committee led by Miami activists announced Tuesday the launch of a citizen-led petition to amend the city’s charter, “aiming to create a more representative, accountable and transparent local government.” The petition proposes three changes that would go to voters: holding city elections in even years, expanding the size of the city commission, and adding fair district guidelines.
“We all deserve real representation in government. Too often, our neighborhoods and residents go unheard,” said Mel Meinhardt, a lead organizer for the Stronger Miami PAC and co-founder of One Grove Alliance — which formed in the wake of the illegal and invalidated 2022 redistricting of Miami that cut Coconut Grove into three districts. 
“Voters should choose politicians, not the other way around,” Meinhardt said in a statement. “This amendment will reduce political corruption by ensuring districts are not drawn to benefit any specific party or candidate — a fair redistricting system that accurately represents our city.”
Read related: Coconut Grove residents are ignored as Miami carves up D2 in redistricting
A federal judge already ruled in favor of the ACLU and a group of Grove residents who sued after the redistricting and has ordered the city to establish a process, which should include a committee, for redistricting in the future. This petition, Meinhardt told Political Cortadito, would ensure that the mission of that process and committee is to draw fair districts and not gerrymander for partisan or other reasons, like keeping incumbents in office. “It gives the committee direction,” he said Tuesday.
The PAC was filed its paperwork with the city clerk March 28 and is chaired by another Miami activist, Anthony “Andy” Parrish, another redistricting critic who served on the city’s planning and zoning board.
To get the proposed charter changes on the on the November ballot, the PAC needs to have 26,000 signed petitions by sometime this summer. That’s a hard haul. A coalition of groups — which includes Engage Miami, One Grove, and Florida Rising — are getting members to collect signatures.
The petition also aims to divide the city into nine smaller districts, rather than the five there are now, and move the election from odd years to even years that coincide with the state and national elections, to both reduce city costs and increase participation. These changes would make the city government more representative and elections more accessible, the activists say.
“In the 2023 elections, fewer than 16,000 people voted in a city of nearly half a million,” said Rebecca Pelham, executive director of Engage Miami, in a statement from the PAC.
“This means a very small number of people are making important decisions that impact everyone in the City. We need a system that genuinely represents all of us so residents have a real voice,” Pelham said. “Moving city elections to even years when other statewide elections are held will encourage more people to participate in local elections and be involved locally.” 
There’s a question about whether or not this would extend the terms for the electeds who are there when the change comes. It seems that it would. But the activists don’t know about that. And there might be some backroom movement on the commission, anyway, to get that change of year on a ballot as well, but before the November election, to extend the terms of the mayor and Commissioner Joe Carollo (more on that later).
The smaller districts could also drive up turnout because they not only put elected officials closer the constituents they serve, but also create a dais that is harder to influence because three votes are easier to buy than five.
“The solution to the pollution is dilution,” Parrish told Ladra, using a tried and true environmental slogan to describe the Miami political climate. “We definitely have pollution,” he said.
He wold go even further, requiring each commissioner to work out of a district office. “Instead of having them all at Melreese, which is where they are going,” he said, referring to the former Melreese municipal golf course that is going to become a real estate complex with soccer stadium and a new city administration building in it.
Meinhardt said it was illogical that the city has not changed its representation since it was founded 100 years ago, while the population has exploded. “It’s only getting acceleratingly worse,” Meinhardt said. “I looked around the country for best practices. We’ve got like 90,000 citizens for every commissioner. The average in well-run cities is more like 40,000.”
Read related: Miami should have more commission districts for fairness, not fewer of them
Ladra advocated for more districts two years ago when the redistricting kerfluffle led then District 1 Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla to suggest eliminating districts completely.
Miami is the 43rd-largest city in the U.S., according to the 2020 Census, and the core of the nation’s eighth-largest metropolitan area. But cities of comparable size normally have more districts and more electeds.
Atlanta has a population of 498,715, or just about 30,000 more people than Miami. But Atlanta has 15 city council members — 12 elected in districts and three at large. Long Beach, California, just a little smaller than Atlanta and a little bigger than Miami, with a population of 466,742, has nine district council members. The city of Oakland, which is a little smaller than Miami, with 440,646 residents, has seven district council members. The city of Tampa, pop. 384,959, also has seven districts.
Esto no le conviene a los politicians who are there now. They like having the influence that comes with being one of three votes.
That’s why this is a citizen-driven initiative — because the electeds would never go for this. In fact, Ladra fully expect a campaign against it.
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The city of Miami commission meeting Thursday is a doozy.
There are agenda items on two potential ballot questions — one strengthening term limits and another setting up a redistricting committee — on the extension of the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency, the establishment of a needs assessment for the Allapattah CRA, a $135 million Parrot Jungle/Watson Island transaction, controversial amendments to the construction noise mitigation ordinance and the appeal of a historic preservation board decision that declassified the historic designation for part of Miami First Presbyterian Church to make way for an 80-story residential high rise.
Pace yourselves. Ladra expects there to be hours of public comment.
The noise waiver ordinance, alone, is expected to draw a crowd. It has not been significantly changed since the 1980s, said Commissioner Damian Pardo, who is sponsoring the amendment, which would expand the hours of permitted construction operations and make other changes to the construction noise mitigation process that critics have said are beneficial to developers.
Pardo said the amendments are “resident-led” and add protections.
“Our noise ordinance update tackles illegal and excessive noise in our communities. This initiative puts noise waivers under a magnifying glass — ensuring that activities requiring them meet higher standards of transparency and accountability,” the commissioner posted on Instagram.
“It’s about identifying bad actors early, protecting our neighborhoods, and making sure our communities remain places where people can live and thrive in peace,” Pardo said. “And while there are those people using dog whistles to build their profile, political ambitions or readership, we encourage residents to contact us, work with us productively and provide their feedback in order to create policies that serve our residents.”
There are increased fees for violations, a tougher process for applicants and an easier process for city staff to revoke a waiver or permit, he said. But critics worry that it also allows staff, not the city manager, to provide a waiver or a permit and that repeat violators will be let off the hook.
“And the kicker? Pardo claims this came from residents — yet most neighborhoods oppose it,” said DNA Vice Chair James Torres, a onetime D2 commission candidate. “The DNA wasn’t consulted, and he ghosted reporters when pressed for answers. Community quality of life is on the line.”
Pardo should withdraw this and concentrate on passing his very important referendum for the November election, which would ask voters if they want to extend term limits, creating “lifetime” limits for electeds who have already served two terms in that same position. He has said it is not to target his colleague on the dais, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, a two-time former mayor who has threatened to run again, though he hasn’t filed. But it would affect Carollo’s possible aspirations.
Read related: Voters in Miami may get to strengthen term limits and ban political retreads
In fact, it could change the dynamics on the commission for years to come, blocking people like former commissioners Frank Carollo, Willy Gort, Keon Hardemon and Marc Sarnoff from running for the same office again. Frank Carollo has already filed to run for commission in District 3, where he served twice before.
In a city like Miami, where recycling is usually about campaigns and not the environment, this is huge.
The other proposed ballot question for a proposed charter amendment that would prohibit the redrawing of City Commission districts with the intent to favor or disfavor a candidate or incumbent, establish a Citizens’ Redistricting Committee to draw districts after each Census and when required by law and provide a process for the naming of such a committee and getting its proposals to the city commission.

The commission Tuesday basically has to instruct City Attorney George Wysong to come back with the ballot language for the November election because this public referendum was part of the settlement agreement that the city reached last May after several residents and organizations sued in 2022 over the last time the districts were redrawn, saying that the districts were gerrymandered to favor partisan incumbents. Which it was.
But the item still should produce some interesting discussion — or bloviating from a particular commissioner (read: Carollo).
Several people from the public will likely speak to support the appeal of the declassification of the historic designation given to Miami First Presbyterian Church, which hopes to sell the back lot to developers who want to build an 80-story high-rise. There is a lot of opposition and the president of the Brickell Homeowners Association president wrote the commissioners to support the appeal (more on that later).
The items on the CRAs are interesting because there are three of them and two that seemingly compete. A resolution to expand the Omni CRA into Allapattah, sponsored by Commissioner Miguel Gabela, may be withdrawn, and probably will be if another resolution to accept and approve a “finding of necessity” to establish Allapattah’s very own CRA is passed first. That needs assessment states the areas to be “slum and blighted” and establishes the need for an Allapattah CRA with the prosed boundaries of SR 112/Airport Expressway to the north, I-95 and NW 7th Avenue to the east, the Miami River to the south, and NW 19th Avenue to the west.
Read related: Compromise may be reached at Miami commission on Omni/Allapattah CRAs
Then maybe the long-awaited Omni CRA life extension — needed to complete several projects in the pipeline and held hostage over the Allapattah situation for months — will finally pass. It is also on the long agenda, sponsored by Pardo, again.
Ladra hopes that this is the last time these two communities are pit against each other. At least on this.
The item on the Watson Island property seems pretty important, too. It would authorize the city manager to sell 5.4 acres of city-owned property near Parrot Jungle Island to developers for $135 million to develop residential and commercial uses, “and to return the balance of the property to the city for use as a new public waterfront park to be constructed by the developer.”
Also on the agenda is a memorandum of understanding with the management organization of The Underline’s “investment, operations, programming, maintenance, and management,” which would also authorize the city manager to spend up to $8.7 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year from the general fund, and a gazillion other things that seem pretty important.
It seems almost certain that several things will be withdrawn or deferred early on, which happens with some frequency and often leaves speakers in limbo after they’ve made plans to be at City Hall for a particular item.
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Another lawsuit is filed by a candidate in District 1

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Commissioner Joe Carollo is suddenly living outside his district

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Scolded for having passed a racially gerrymandered redistricting map and forced to start over after a federal judge threw it out, Miami city commissioners passed a new map Wednesday that, basically, doubled down on the gerrymandering and looks a lot like the old map.

This time, it’s blatantly political.

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DEVELOPING STORY: If you can’t beat them at the polls, draw them out of your district.

That’s what’s happening in the city of Miami at today’s special meeting to redraw the new district maps that were tossed out by a court after several organizations and residents sued over gerrymandering (more on that later). The new map proposed by consultant Miguel DeGrandy cuts a corner of 17th Avenue off District 1 — about three homes, including the one where Miguel Angel Gabela, who is running against incumbent commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, has lived in for more than 20 years.

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