Higgins rolls out her first team — and Miami, this is not City Hall as usual

Miami’s Mayor-Elect Eileen Higgins has barely picked out her office chair and she’s already doing something unheard of in the Magic City: surrounding herself with grown-ups. Competent ones. With résumés.
On Friday, Higgins announced her incoming chief of staff and the transition team that will guide her first 100 days — and, folks, Ladra did a double take. No campaign cronies, no political strays, no future defendants. Not a primo in sight.
Instead, she’s surrounding herself with people who actually know how to run things. Which, after the Carollo-Sarnoff-Suarez clown car years, feels almost radical.
Read related: Eileen Higgins goes into Miami City Hall with a fire extinguisher and a smile
The new chief of staff is the old chief of staff, Higgins’ longtime right hand at the county, Maggie Fernández, otherwise known as the adult in the room. If you know how the commissioner operated at the county — quietly competent, forward-thinking, very un-Miami — Maggie is a big part of that.
Fernández isn’t just another insider. She’s a fixer, the good kind — the one who makes government work without needing her name on anything.
Born and raised in Miami to Cuban parents, she has nearly 30 years of experience across local government, sustainability, public policy, and community engagement. She knows capital projects. She knows climate resilience. She knows public works. And most importantly in this city, she knows how to wade into the bureaucratic swamp without drowning or coming out smelling like, well, swamp.
Fernández says she plans to bring “energy and joy” to City Hall. Ladra will happily settle for “competence and no FBI raids.” But joy sounds nice, too.
The other big news is that Carlos Migoya will be among her advisors. The head Jackson Health has 40 years of banking experience before that and was the Miami city manager from late 2009 to early 2010, swooping in to fix a major budget crisis, balancing the city’s books by cutting costs and reorganizing. But he is not a hero to labor unions, who have protested his cuts at the nations’s largest public hospital many times.
Migoya, who makes more than $800,000 a year as Jackson’s chief executive office, is coming to help the new mayor for free, as is the rest of the volunteer advisory team.
Higgins has said she wants to do a wide search for the next top dog in Miami, even though las malas lenguas keep saying that Miami-Dade Chief Operating Officer Jimmy Morales or former transit and public works director Alice Bravo are going to get the post.
Read related: Furloughs proposed, then scrapped at Jackson in the midst of COVID19
The rest of the transition team is not that expected but still very un-Miami-looking. It’s a who’s who of people who make Miami run — not the ones who usually run Miami into the ground.
Let’s look at the roster:

Gepsie Morisset-Metellus — the Haitian community’s North Star, co-founder of Sant La, admired across all neighborhoods and political lines.
Jose Bermudez — business and government affairs pro (lobbyist) with influence across construction, banking, and policy shops. He was also special assistant to Gov. Rick Scott in his first term, special advisor to former Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer. In 2018, he was appointed managing director of Governor-elect Ron DeSantis’ inaugural team. In this role, he organized and executed events in advance of the January 2019 Florida gubernatorial inauguration. He may be the biggest surprise.
Matt Haggman — innovation evangelist, former Knight Foundation Miami director, and one of the people who helped make “tech in Miami” mean more than “a guy on Brickell with a laptop.”
Terry Murphy, Ph.D. — ethics and good-government whisperer and longtime OIG veteran. If Higgins wants to clean up the swamp, Doctor Murphy knows which mop to use where. Alcaldesa, he’s a keeper.
Marta Viciedo — planning, transit, resilience expert and the civic brain who helped create the Better Bus System — which some love and some hate — when nobody else had the guts.
Michele Burger — Miami Beach operative, policy planner, and climate brain who’s worked on everything from culture to infrastructure.
Rebecca Fishman Lipsey — president of The Miami Foundation and philanthropy powerhouse, responsible for shaping half the city’s nonprofit ecosystem.
Tina Brown — Overtown champion and CEO of OYC Miami, who tripled program reach and built a massive community facility without drama, indictments or ribbon-cutting scandals.

This isn’t a political reward board. This is a governance team. Yes, Miami, we are all adjusting. This is a different kind of mayor for a very tired city.
Higgins keeps repeating that her goal is simple: “Get City Hall working for the people of Miami.” Sure, lots of people say that.
But Higgins is backing it up by forming an advisory circle of people who know how to read budgets, manage projects, and look at ethics as something other than a punchline.
Read related: La Gringa Eileen Higgins makes history with Miami mayoral election victory
After years of chaos — commissioners screaming at each other, secret deals, FBI subpoenas, public records games, personal vendettas, the whole enchilada — Miami voters finally chose someone who ran on boring competence.
And guess what? She’s delivering boring competence. Miami might not know what to do with this.
Higgins says her transition team will shape a “bold, practical agenda” focused on affordability, public safety, infrastructure that doesn’t crumble in the rain, and a government that’s transparent, ethical, and responsive.
Honestly, the bar is so low at City Hall right now she could trip over it.
But if Higgins pulls this off, Miami might actually see a City Hall that fixes things without drama — instead of breaking things with drama.
With Maggie Fernández as Chief of Staff and this transition crew behind her, Higgins seems poised to run a grown-up operation — the total opposite of the last generation of mayors who treated the city like their personal group chat.
Is Ladra skeptical? Always. It’s part of the charm.
But this lineup is serious. Competent. Not for show.
And maybe — maybe — Miami finally voted in a mayor who intends to govern instead of grandstand.

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