mayor don slesnick
re-elected to four-year term
Coral Gables
Ringing Endorsement
Mayor and Incumbents Re-elected
By Cynthia Archbold
Mayor with voters Judy and Jim Greene, who say the FOP phone messages “made us angry.” Photo by Cynthia Archbold.
Most people who live in Coral Gables like the city just the way it is, according to Tuesday’s voting results, re-electing the mayor and two incumbent commissioners by large margins.
On Tuesday night, at the Biltmore Hotel, about 200 supporters cheered as the results came in: victory for Mayor Don Slesnick, who won a fourth term, taking the election with 57 percent of the votes over opponents George Corrigan and Richard Namon.
Corrigan, a former Coral Gables mayor who was backed by the Fraternal Order of Police, won 34 percent of voters, while Namon’s share was 9 percent.
Slesnick’s fellow incumbents, Commissioners Chip Withers and Bill Kerdyk, also easily won four-year terms over political newcomers.
Withers beat Dr. Omar Pasalodos with 62 percent of the vote, and Kerdyk defeated John Gottshalk with 79 percent of the total.
“The police protests backfired.”
Turnout was higher than usual for a Coral Gables mayoral election, but still low — 4,842 out of 26,327 registered voters, or 18 percent.
Yet this election involved more controversy than any other in the past six years, partly due to the city’s feud with the police union, whose leaders are still bitter over an unresolved contract dispute. The FOP, which supported Corrigan, aggressively attacked the mayor and city manager with an alarmist telephone campaign to residents. Police also demonstrated at one of Slesnick’s fundraising gatherings held at a restaurant, blocking the entrance, chanting, carrying anti-Slesnick signs, marching, yelling at guests not to support the mayor and blowing whistles into their ears.
“The police protests backfired, and they came across as unprofessional.” says Enrique Lopez, a Slesnick supporter. “They tried to scare people and it turned them off.” He says Slesnick has always been “a classy campaigner.”
“Don Slesnick is a dollar and cents guy. He’s also a people guy,” says longtime supporter Glenda Hayley, who is director of international education and exchange programs at the University of Miami, explaining why the mayor’s supporters remain decisively loyal. In fact, they gave $205,000 to his campaign - almost triple the amount of his last re-election war chest.
Even the recently healed rift with the University of Miami didn’t seem to dent support for the incumbent mayor and commissioners. Outspoken UM President Donna Shalala didn’t support any of the candidates, but she disapproved of the city’s handling of negotiations over the university’s development plans. However, UM’s get-out-the-vote drive only drew 157 voters to the polls, and the majority favored Slesnick, Withers and Kerdyk.
Yet Slesnick took nothing for granted and was still campaigning to the end, making stops at UM and other polling spots late in the hot and humid afternoon.
It was the first time the mayor has faced opponents since he was first elected in 2001.
When the results came in, Slesnick says he was “relieved.”
He says he had to campaign hard during a time of nasty political adversity in Coral Gables. But no matter what the election outcome, Slesnick says he felt good about keeping his campaign message positive while “we were under constant attack by the FOP and by the Coral Gables Gazette.”
Now that he has been re-elected he will serve four years instead of two, since voters doubled the mayoral term in 2005 through a referendum.
First on Slesnick’s agenda is settling the contract dispute with the police union. “That isn’t going away,” he says.
Gables Police say they don’t feel they should contribute 5 percent of their salary to the pension fund, as the city’s firefighters and city employees unions do.
“We can’t afford the pension plan as it is,” Slesnick says.
The mayor goes on to say the law allows the city to hold an impasse proceeding to end the dispute, ultimately empowering the City Commission to set the terms of the contract.
“If the police won’t cooperate, it may force our hand to overhaul the whole system,” Slesnick says, possibly changing all employee pension fund benefits. He says one scenario could be switching to the Florida Retirement System. “It’s not what we want to do. But every day we wake up and our choices are more limited.”
At the same time, trimming the overall budget, possibly by cutting some personnel, is also in the back of his mind, Slesnick says. The city has hired consultants to analyze income projections and possible financial shortfalls.
But cost-cutting and slashing services are secondary to completing major projects now in the works, including redesigning and beautifying Miracle Mile, expanding service and routes of the Coral Gables Trolley and completing the Coral Gables Museum.
On Friday Slesnick, Withers and Kerdyk will be sworn into office at City Hall to serve in jobs they say are full-time, despite not being lucrative: The mayor earns $32,000, commissioners $26,000.
Is it worth it? Slesnick says yes. “I ran because I wanted to continue my service to the city. Frankly I am thrilled.”
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