#BecauseMiami: A Miracle Has Happened
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Who is running for mayor of Miami in 2025?
All of them. Value surge! Truck's up 3.9%! That's a great offer. I know. Sell? Sell. Track your car's value with Carvana Value Tracker today. Former Miami City Commissioner wants to be the city's mayor. About an hour ago, Ken Russell filed the paperwork at Miami City Hall, setting the stage for him to run for mayor in November 2025. Current Mayor Francis Suarez has termed out. Russell won a seat on the City Commission in 2015 and left City Hall in 2022. Corruption in Miami government, he insists, has to be rooted out.
Ken Russell is what the Miami Herald is calling the first prominent candidate to formally enter the 2025 City of Miami mayoral race. Also, there's a first time for everything. He's here with us live in studio. I'm shocked. Also a last time for everything, Roy.
I would not be shocked.
To be fair, he might very well be the first of the prominent mayoral candidates to join us on this program. But he was the commissioner of District 2, which we are in right now, presently. District 2 generates over 70% of the revenue for the entire city of Miami, which is then, of course, spread out to all of the other four districts. Bravo! That's socialism, Roy. That's what that is. Nonetheless, this has often been the most significant, obviously powerful, obviously wealthiest district. It consists of Coconut Grove, of Brickell, of downtown. I think parts of Edgewater. It's been redistricted, but it's basically up the coast, which is where the money is. And Ken Russell and I, like a lot of elected officials in this town have had a longstanding adversarial relationship.
Yeah, Roy is doing sign language. Is that a diplomatic way of putting it? And I'll say this, that we don't hang out a lot. But since going back to 2018, two out of the last three times we had met publicly publicly kind of one-on-one-ish or like getting together, ended in shouting matches. There was alcohol in between. As I recall. I yell sober, too. But I get very passionate and worked up about issues. And I think the origin of my beef with you would have to be the Mel Reese, Inter-Miami, Beckham boondoggle, where you were the swing vote, the deciding vote,
Why is Ken Russell's mayoral campaign controversial?
both in 2018 to put the item on the ballot for referendum, and then again in 2022 to give a 99-year no-bid lease on the city's largest contiguous piece of property, its largest, what was then a green space, then the only public golf course in the city of Miami. And... What was the basically the largest real estate deal in the history of the city? And we've kind of come full circle in a way because Mel Reese appears to be in that deal with Jorge Moss and David Beckham and Inter Miami appears to be why you're running in the first place. Is that accurate?
Yeah.
Well, first of all, thanks for having me here. You're welcome. I can't imagine there's a lot of politicians that come rolling through, and I don't know why. But when I heard that you wanted me on to endorse my mayoral campaign live on the show, I couldn't resist, and so I'm here, and I really appreciate that. So thank you for this time. To be honest, he thought this would also be the last day of his campaign, potentially.
And to be fair, he was good enough to risk that to come on. It's been one week, so put me out of my misery. But I, no, but my beef was I thought this was a bad deal. And I always say with these, what they call public-private partnerships, that a contract is only as good as the willingness of the parties to enforce that contract. We can have the same conversation we had back in 2018.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Who is running for mayor of Miami in 2025?
0:56–3:38
2
Why is Ken Russell's mayoral campaign controversial?
3:38–5:50
3
What is the Mel Reese Inter-Miami deal?
5:50–14:14
4
How did Ken Russell defend his vote on the stadium deal?
14:14–18:57
5
What were the consequences of the Mel Reese stadium vote?
18:57–21:40
6
Why is the Miami government facing criticism?
21:40–29:01
7
What role does corruption play in Miami politics?
29:01–1:05:23
Speakers
7 identifiedMore from The Dan Le Batard Show
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