As Mayor of North Miami Beach, I am committed to upholding the independence, integrity and functionality of our local governments. These important values have recently come under attack by Rep. Fabián Basabe.
Last week, Basabe bullied Bay Harbor Islands’ Town Council into removing Town Attorney Joe Geller, putting politics over people.
This episode started with a letter from Basabe demanding that the Town Manager place the matter on the Council’s agenda. When that did not happen, he appeared in person and pressed the issue.
The removal came despite Geller’s record of service, his current role as a Miami-Dade School Board member, and legitimate arguments, including from several Council members, that the vote should have waited until Geller returned from a preapproved personal leave.
This degree of intrusion into local government employee decisions strikes at the heart of our county’s Home Rule Charter. It sends a chilling message that state legislators can intervene with threats to withhold funding or legislate preemptively if local officials do not comply.
Miami may be closer to Havana than it is to Tallahassee, but the lesson is the same: Political commands from afar are not welcome in our communities.
As Mayor, I must resist the creeping centralization of power that jeopardizes core responsibilities like public safety and job creation. North Miami Beach and every municipality across South Florida must remain empowered to make its own decisions, accountable to the people we serve, not to partisan political whims from a faraway Capitol.
To Basabe, I urge restraint. Public governance and civic trust are constructed at the local level. When the state legislature uses its influence to bypass democratic, local processes, it undermines both efficiency and accountability.
Tallahassee has no business dictating whom we hire, nor should it be allowed to leverage its purse strings to punish municipalities that choose their own path.
South Florida’s communities are dynamic and diverse. We deserve a political environment where local leaders, not just state legislators, set priorities for quality of life in our municipalities.
As a community, we cannot stand for legislative overreach dressed up as concern.
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Michael Joseph has served as the Mayor of North Miami Beach since November 2024 and was a City Commissioner for six years prior. A lawyer, he is a member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Florida League of Mayors, National League of Cities and African American Mayors Association, among others.
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