Former mayor, commissioner and lobbyist vie to be Key Biscayne’s next mayor

Three longtime Key Biscayne residents are vying to be the village’s next mayor — but first they need to make it to the November ballot.

“It’s the first true battle we’ve had for how we’re going to operate as a village,” Mayor Mike Davey told the Miami Herald. He was elected mayor in 2018 and will reach the two-term limit.

The four-mile-long barrier island, which is home to fewer than 15,000 residents, faces three pressing issues heading into this election cycle: the threat of rising sea levels; the fate of the Rickenbacker Causeway, which is the only road connecting Key Biscayne to the mainland; and the frayed relationships with the county and the city of Miami — with the proposal to set up a temporary homeless camp on neighboring Virginia Key causing the most recent rift.

As one of the few cities in Miami-Dade County with its own police and fire departments, Key Biscayne ranked 18 in safety this year out of 143 Florida cities.

“I need to tell you that the village is now at a crossroads,” candidate Joe Rasco, who is backed by Davey, said at a recent debate. “We have major challenges ahead.”

The last time Key Biscayne held a primary election for mayor was in 1998, Key Biscayne’s Islander News reported. Rasco won that election. His term ended in 2002, and now he’s one of three longtime village residents vying for the seat.

Three candidates are on the ballot for Key Biscayne’s mayoral primary race:

• Katie Petros, 54, senior financial analyst for Pilot.com, former member of Key Biscayne Village Council (2016-2020)

• Fausto Gomez, 68, former lobbyist, president of Key Biscayne Condominium Presidents’ Council

• Joe Rasco, 68, Virginia Key Advisory Board chair, former director of Miami-Dade County’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, former Key Biscayne mayor (1998-2002)

Petros, senior financial analyst for private accounting site Pilot.com, is hoping to return to the Village Council after four years as a council member from 2016 to 2020.

Gomez, president of Key Biscayne Condominium Presidents’ Council, is the only candidate who has not held elected office before. But the former lobbyist is familiar with local politics, having had clients that included Key Biscayne, Coral Gables and Miami Beach.

The candidates attended their second mayoral debate on Aug. 9 at Crossbridge Church, hosted by the Key Biscayne Community Foundation, the Key Biscayne Chamber of Commerce and FirstService Residential

Among the issues discussed was the future of the Rickenbacker Causeway, which is owned and operated by Miami-Dade County. Gomez proposed transferring the causeway to the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority; Rasco disagreed with that idea, but said it needs to be made clear to the county that the toll dollars belong to the causeway.

All three candidates opposed Miami-Dade’s effort to turn over the Rickenbacker to a private developer that would use higher tolls to fund improvements along the roadway. Those include rebuilding Bear Cut Bridge, roadway improvements designed to avoid traffic tie-ups along the causeway, and creating new biking infrastructure modeled after the “Plan Z” blueprint submitted by a potential development team led by Miami architect Bernard Zyscovich. The plan emerged partly in response to cyclist deaths on the causeway. Earlier this year, the county commission scuttled the competitive bidding process for the plan, which had strong opposition from Key Biscayne for not focusing more on improving traffic.

Petros, who said in a previous debate that she was a victim of a hit-and-run crash on the causeway, noted that it is worthwhile to educate the community about what the proposal actually entails, because “there may be a solution that looks very similar to Plan Z.”

“We don’t have to have a knee-jerk reaction,” she said. “It doesn’t reduce any lanes and it separates cyclists ... I think what our community was most upset about was the concept of the privatization, as well as the fact that there was a cone of silence and it came out of nowhere with a surprise.”

All three candidates agreed that rising sea levels and extreme weather events pose an existential threat to the island. Gomez said raising roads is a good option, but “not the panacea.” Rasco supported burying utility lines and pressurizing pumps, but said the financials underlying those projects are still being determined. Petros is also in favor of burying utilities, but said it’s not certain that pumps are the answer. She added that raising the roads too high puts homes at risk of flooding, and that more studies are necessary.

The candidates criticized the city of Miami, as well as Miami-Dade County. The latest point of contention was the city of Miami’s proposal for a temporary homeless encampment on Virginia Key.

“Key Biscayne has tried to be a wonderful partner to everyone,” Gomez told the Herald. “But, in the process of being a wonderful partner, I think the external entities have mistaken being a wonderful partner for, frankly, being a weak pushover.”

Rasco, who helped fight for incorporation of Key Biscayne, described a resentment that dates back to 1992 when Hurricane Andrew ravaged the Miami Marine Stadium on Virginia Key.

“The City of Miami has never been a good partner to Key Biscayne. They are constantly giving the village of Key Biscayne a raw deal,” Rasco said at the debate. “When they brought Ultra [Music Festival] to us, remember the image of the kids going down the bridge, walking home on the Rickenbacker? Then we had the boat show. And then the latest installment has been the homeless encampment, which I strongly oppose.”

Gomez said that at the top of his to-do list during the first 100 days as mayor, if elected, he would, “Protect our village from the external threats that we are facing. Protect our village from the city of Miami.”

He said Key Biscayne was “blindsided” by news of the Virginia Key homeless proposal, pointing blame at Rasco, who chairs the Virginia Key Advisory Board.

Rasco said the city did not give the board a heads-up on the proposal, and that it is yet another example of Key Biscayne getting a “raw deal” from Miami.

“Key Biscayne needs to decide its own fate,” Rasco said, “and collaborating with Miami-Dade County is a very good start to having that seat at the table.”

Petros proposed extending an olive branch.

“I think we need to think of ourselves as part of a larger entity,” she said. “Today we need to work with the people across the bridge, and we need to understand what Virginia Key and what the Rickenbacker Causeway means to Dade County residents, and City of Miami residents.”

“We get to look at the water every day when we come to and from our homes,” Petros added. “Many of those residents go once a week, and that is their beach.”