Michael A. Hepburn PHOTO COURTESY OFFACEBOOK

By David L. Snelling

Miami- Saying public corruption has ravaged the city of Miami, Michael A. Hepburn is seeking to root out deceit.

Hepburn filed paperwork to run for mayor in 2025 and faces a tough battle to become the first-ever Black top elected official for the city of Miami.

Also running for mayor are current Commissioner Manolo Reyes, former city commissioners Ken Russell and Alex de la Portilla, Maxwell Martinez, Ijamyn Joseph Grayand June Savage.

City Commissioner and former mayor Joe Carollo said he may run as well.

Hepburn, who unsuccessfully ran for a commission seat in 2021, said he’s ready to put an end to the political turmoil at City Hall and restore residents’ faith in elected officials.

“Career politicians have failed us,” Hepburn said. “We need real leadership, and we need to restore faith and trust in our political process. We cannot continue to operate the same way we have done in the past, with less than 14% of our registered voters here in the City of Miami participating in municipal elections.”

In addition to fighting corruption, Hepburn, a Miami native, said his campaign is focusing on enhancing public safety, improving resilience to sea level rise and extreme heat and building more affordable housing.

Hepburn was raised by a single mother and graduated high school where he played football, baseball and ran track and earned the Miami Herald Silver Knight Award.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Florida International University and served in junior executive roles for the NFL.

Hepburn worked as a senior project manager for Fortune 500 companies, college institutions and non-profit organizations.

Russell, who vacated his seat to run for Congress in 2022, also said he plans to tackle corruption, which he said has been plaguing Miami for years.

“The city of Miami is bad enough that you’d wonder, who would want to be the mayor?” Russell told the Miami Herald. “It’s like, who would want to be the captain of the Titanic?”

In a statement, Russell said he wasn’t mulling reentering politics until Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced a proposal to ensure the entire $20 million parks contribution from the Miami Freedom Park soccer stadium developers could be spent exclusively on a public park attached to the soccer stadium site.

Russell said the plan was different from what he voted for in 2022 when commissioners narrowly approved the billion-dollar soccer stadium deal.

He filed two Florida Bar complaints against Suarez and former City Attorney Victoria Mendez last month, accusing them of misconduct over the city’s stadium deal ordinance.

The Florida Bar dismissed the complaints last week.

Since he left office, Russell has been a lobbyist but has kept a close eye on Miami politics, especially since the latest alleged corruption involving Carollo and de la Portilla.

In 2023, a federal jury awarded $63 million to two Little Havana businessmen who accused Carollo of using his power to harass them after they supported his reelection opponent.

According to the complaint, William Fuller and Martin Pinilla claimed Carollo directed police and code enforcement to raid their businesses to search for code violations.

The six-member jury awarded $8.6 million in compensation and $25.7 million in punitive damages to Fuller, as well as $7.3 million in compensation and $21.9 million in punitive damages to Pinilla.

Russell testified in the civil rights lawsuit and taxpayers paid Carollo’s legal fees, estimated at $2 million, according to the Miami Herald.

In Carollo’s latest legal challenge, two former city of Miami officials filed a whistleblower lawsuit in federal court against the commissioner after they claimed they were forced out.

They accused Carollo of using taxpayers’ money as chair of the Bayfront Park Management Trust for personal uses and city commissioners subsequently booted him from his leadership role.

In 2023, de la Portilla was arrested and charged with alleged bribery and money laundering and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended him from political office.

He was able to run for his seat but lost the election to Commissioner Miquel Angel Gabela.

Prosecutors later dropped charges against de la Portilla.

Suarez also came under scrutiny for engaging in alleged business conflicts including sponsoring city contracts for applicants who were clients at his law firm, Greenspoon Marder, which specializes in corporate and real estate transactions.

In addition, in 2023, the Florida Ethics Commission opened a probe against Suarez and a complaint suggested he did not disclose travel gifts worth over $100 including paid flights and VP seating at the 2022 MIAMI Grand Prix and the 2022 World Cup.

Suarez claims to have repaid all the expenses of the gifts reportedly coming from Inter Miami CF owner David Beckham, who Suarez was seen with in his luxury box at the World Cup, and who is a registered lobbyist for Miami Freedom Park.

The commission dismissed the complaint in 2024.

In 2023, Suarez was the focus of a federal investigation after Location Ventures, a real estate development company, told investors it paid Suarez $170,000 to push a development project in Coconut Grove.

In addition, Suarez has faced allegations of potential impropriety in relation to this $10,000 per month in compensation for consulting services, received from a property developer who does business in the city.

Suarez has publicly denied that this work presented any conflict of interest.

“My issue is with a system that perpetuates a cycle of bad elected officials making bad decisions and empowering bad people,” Russell said

Hepburn said voters must elect the right people in political office to avoid corruption.

“Civic organizations, neighborhood associations, and political activism groups, cannot continue to wait until right before the election to educate voters,” said Hepburn. “We need to cultivate civically engaged communities.”