By the Coral Gables Gazette editorial board
Mayor Vince Lago’s proposal to appoint Deputy City Manager Joe Gomez as Coral Gables’ permanent city manager, effective Jan. 8, 2027, is both surprising and unsurprising. Gomez is a logical successor: he already helps run the city, knows Coral Gables and has worked closely with the current commission. What is more unexpected is the process. Lago has previously advocated for a national search when choosing a city manager. This time, he is asking the commission to accept his recommendation.
That does not make Gomez the wrong choice. But it makes the way the commission reaches that choice worth examining.
“Mr. DCM” as Lago calls him is a capable administrator with extensive municipal experience. He has more than 47 years of experience as a civil engineer and has held leadership positions in municipal infrastructure and government operations, including at the Florida Department of Transportation and Miami Beach. He has been Coral Gables’ deputy city manager since February 2025.
Gomez unquestionably represents a measure of continuity and has current City Manager Peter Iglesias’ blessing. As deputy city manager, he already oversees infrastructure projects and the city’s Development Services, Parking and Mobility Services, and Public Works departments. He is familiar with the Mobility Hub, City Hall renovations and other major initiatives already underway.
There is nothing inherently wrong with continuity.
But continuity is not, by itself, a sound hiring process.
The city manager is not the mayor’s employee. The manager is appointed by the entire commission and serves as Coral Gables’ chief executive, carrying out commission policy while overseeing the city’s day-to-day operations. That is a job deserving more than an apparent foregone conclusion.
And there is no obvious need for the commission to make it one Tuesday.
Lago’s resolution would not make Gomez city manager until Jan. 8, more than four months from now. At the same meeting, Commissioner Melissa Castro is sponsoring a competing resolution directing the city to conduct a formal national executive search.
A national search ultimately may not be necessary. A meaningful selection process certainly is.
The commission itself has repeatedly made that argument.
In February 2024, after Iglesias was fired, Lago sponsored and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson co-sponsored a resolution calling for an executive search for the next city manager. Both later voted against the surprise appointment of Amos Rojas, who was hired as a non-agenda item without such a search. Castro was among the three commissioners who voted to appoint him.
The issue surfaced again in May 2025, when the commission rehired Iglesias. Lago said the plan was for Iglesias to stabilize the city while Coral Gables conducted a national and local search for his eventual replacement. Castro criticized the commission for having “preached about a national search.”
Gomez is an experienced administrator already working inside City Hall and known to the commissioners who would appoint him.
The principle the commission has repeatedly invoked remains relevant: choosing the city’s chief executive deserves a discernible process.
That matters even more because the person chosen will inherit a city facing potentially enormous financial challenges. If voters approve the statewide homestead-exemption amendment in November, Coral Gables projects losing approximately $5.7 million in property-tax revenue in fiscal 2028 and $11.4 million in fiscal 2029.
The next city manager will have to manage that problem.
So why not interview Gomez publicly, as a candidate for the job?
Ask him how he intends to manage those reductions while maintaining the level of service Coral Gables residents have come to expect. Ask about trash collection, tree trimming, parks, infrastructure and public safety. Ask what he would cut, what he would protect and what he would change.
Ask whether he believes the city should continue its current approach to development and major capital projects. Ask where, if anywhere, his management approach would differ from Iglesias’. Ask what his priorities would be during his first year in the job.
And because Lago’s resolution would also approve Gomez’s salary and benefits package, commissioners should publicly discuss his compensation and how it compares with that of managers in comparable cities.
Those questions matter because appointing Gomez would extend the city’s current administrative direction well beyond any single commission.
If Gomez serves a few years, he could be working for a substantially different group of elected officials. Lago is seeking his final consecutive term as mayor this November. Even if he wins, the city’s administrative leadership should be chosen with more than today’s political alignment in mind.
The manager must be able to work effectively with the entire commission and with future commissions whose priorities may differ from those of the one making the appointment.
The prospect of stability is certainly welcome after the revolving door Coral Gables has experienced at the city manager level in recent years. After Iglesias’ controversial dismissal in 2024, the city went through several changes at the top before Iglesias ultimately returned.
A stable city manager is preferable to another round of upheaval.
But stability is the outcome Coral Gables should seek, not an excuse to short-circuit the process used to choose the person responsible for providing it.
Gomez may ultimately be the right choice. The commission may interview him, examine his record, discuss his vision and conclude that a national search would produce no better candidate.
But it should actually do those things.
There is no apparent need to settle the question Tuesday. Lago’s own resolution would not put Gomez in the permanent job until January. That gives the commission something Coral Gables has too often lacked during its recent turmoil at the top: time.
It should use it.
The city has spent several years searching for stability in the manager’s office. It should not confuse ending the search quickly with getting the choice right.
NO ONE LAGO SUPPORTS. We do not need another puppet for the King