MIAMI (WSVN) - Daniella Levine Cava will become Miami-Dade County’s first female mayor, and she celebrated the historic win by helping communities in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood and in Miami Beach.
On Tuesday night, Levine Cava received 54% of the votes while Esteban Bovo received 46% of the votes.
“I am grateful to the voters of Miami-Dade County!” Levine Cava said after she won.
The following morning, Levine Cava participated in drive-thru food distributions in Miami Beach and Wynwood, hoping to create a better relationship between the county and city leaders within Miami-Dade.
“Unfortunately, the relationship between the cities and the counties has not been one of collaboration and respect, so I’m going to change that, and this is my signal to do this on day one,” she said.
Levine Cava was joined by other local leaders including City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and City of Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber.
“This is an important moment,” said Suarez. “It’s a unifying moment for our city.”
“We’re getting along,” said Gelber. “We’re working together, and we’re going to make sure that the community rises under our new mayor’s leadership. She called and said the first thing she wanted to do after the election was come to some food drives, and that’s what a mayor should be doing. That should be the very first thing a mayor wants to do.”
“I said throughout this campaign that I was gonna push the reset button on relations between the counties and the cities,” Levine Cava said.
“We are going through these terribly difficult times, and it doesn’t necessarily require a woman, but I do bring compassion, collaboration, a spirit of true listening, and I do think that’s why I was elected,” said the mayor-elect.
Levine Cava said she will work closely with other local leaders to work through the issues the county is currently dealing with.
“Collaboration is my middle name, that’s what I’ve done for a lifetime,” she said. “I’ve built coalitions. It will be no different. It will just be at a level that we’ll make sure that we can get the results that we need countywide. I also said that my middle name is collaboration, and you’re gonna see that, and you see it on day one.”
Levine Cava said one of the first things she will do is appoint a chief medical officer to overlook the COVID-19 crisis in South Florida.
She will be sworn into office in two weeks.
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