Miami is blessed (?) with both a city government and a county government. So there is a Mayor of Miami-the-city and a different Mayor of Miami-Dade-the-County. I live in Coral Gables, just south of Miami-the-city, but inside Miami-Dade County.
All this is a warmup to introducing this video from Mayor TV, an initiative to get big-city Mayors to talk about the issues that they think the Presidential candidates should be addressing. One of the first to participate is Manny Diaz, Mayor of Miami-the-City.
Not being a constituent, I don't follow Manny Diaz as closely as I do Carlos Alvarez, but I think he did a good job in this video. Apparently, this is characteristic, at least if this complaint from a local columnist in 2005 is to be believed:
Speaking as a columnist, I can say that Manny Diaz has been an absolute disaster as mayor of Miami. As Diaz's first term in office draws to a close and he quietly raises funds for his re-election campaign — a campaign in which he has yet to draw an opponent — it's hardly an exaggeration for reporters to deem his administration as having presided over the worst state of affairs at city hall in three decades. In other words, Miami is finally beginning to resemble a properly functioning municipality instead of a punch line.
For folks trying to live, work, and raise families here, this turnabout is nothing short of miraculous. Our local press corps, however, has grown accustomed to a steady diet of headline-grabbing corruption indictments, dire financial crises, and incidents of bizarre personal behavior better suited to a junior-high playground than an organ of government. And so the prospect of four more years of Manny Diaz is chilling. After all, chronicling the rise of competence never won anybody a Pulitzer.
Did I mention that Mayor Diaz has a JD from the University of Miami School of Law?
best, of the local blogs is 
