The Once and Future City Manager: An Interview with Peter Iglesias

Peter Iglesias is considered by experts to be among the most competent Coral Gables city managers to hold the position, which he did from 2018 until last year. An engineer by background, he successfully ushered in the Miracle Mile/Giralda Plaza Streetscape project and the construction of the Public Safety Building where police, fire, and emergency services are now located. He also took the city paperless with new Enterprise software, and refurbished the 417 Biltmore Way Building so that all city development services (permitting, inspections, code enforcement, etc.) could be located in one place.

Despite objections and pleas from a cavalcade of community leaders, he was abruptly fired last year by Commissioners Ariel Fernandez, Melissa Castro, and Kirk Menendez, who replaced him with retired federal marshal Amos Rojas, Jr. After the election of Richard Lara to Menendez’s commission seat, Iglesias was re-instated by Lara, Mayor Vince Lago and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson.

CGM: How did it feel when you first returned?

Iglesias: I got such a warm reception from everyone… This is a tremendous team that wants to get things done, and that’s what they told me, we’re glad you’re back, because we’d like to get things done. And that’s what we’re going to do.

CGM: What do you consider your top accomplishments in the past?

Iglesias: The new Public Safety Building, and the one-stop shop for development services. Also, we have become extremely strong – probably among the top five cities in the country – from an IT perspective. We moved strongly into technology, becoming a small city that works like a big city.

CGM: What is the status of City Hall? Is it safe? Will it be restored?

Iglesias: The building is approaching 100 years of age and it has some issues, like most buildings. But we moved back into City Hall [after a Fernandez/Castro/Menendez order to evacuate the building was reversed by the new Commission]. Is it dangerous? I work here and I am not suicidal – this building was very well built. But we haven’t done major work on it in almost 100 years, so it needs a tune up.

CGM: What’s wrong with it?

Iglesias: The biggest issue is water infiltration from the windows. These windows leak like a sieve. So, the major problems that we have are on the perimeter, where we’ve had a lot of window leakage. We’re looking at new window system to correct that.

CGM: What is the plan?

City Hall will be vacated for the restoration work. We will be working on the Minorca garage [next to the Public Safety Building], getting offices set up there for the commissioners, for the parking department, for HR, and now the [county] tax collector. That space should be done by the end of the year, after which we can begin work on City Hall.

CGM: What are your future priorities?

Iglesias: We are adding additional 5G poles, which were made in Germany but which we adapted for our city – we actually designed them to be hurricane resistant. And so now those poles are being placed in various areas and will give us a lot of information, including traffic information and camera imagery… I guess the term would be operational awareness.

CGM: What else?

Iglesias: We fell behind with the new fire station [on Sunset Drive] which had a few construction issues. Now, we’re trying to get it done by August or September of this year…. We’re also looking at the permitting process, to improve that process as much as possible, especially now that we have gone paperless. We are currently looking at that as we speak.

CGM: Any final thoughts?

Iglesias: I’ve lived in this city for almost 50 years. It’s the city I love, and coming back is very special…. Morale is now sky high, and it’s been fantastic to return to the privilege of leading this team.