Here is our Q&A with Mike Sansevero, who is running for Mayor of Wilton Manors.

Why are you the best candidate for Mayor?

I have a fresh vision for Wilton Manors, based on innovative new ideas developed through community involvement over the 19 years I have lived in the city. The current Mayor has been in office for 24 years and has no new ideas, and in addition, has been responsible for the lack of development, infrastructure problems and rising tax rate. We have a budget crisis and a police department crisis. We need to turn the page. 

I have been running an issues-oriented campaign, and have proposed many new initiatives regarding things like workforce housing, public art and fiscal oversight. I have the financial and legal skills to navigate the tough landscape we face in the next couple of years to clean up the mess left by the current mayor. Most businesses on Wilton Drive support my candidacy because they are frustrated with the way the Mayor has dealt with them.  

Residents face three tough years coming up, and it will take someone with strength and analytical skills to navigate us through the budgetary crisis left by this Mayor. Wilton Manors also needs a mayor with a strong voice on behalf of residents when any constituencies come under attack, such as the cultural war attacks on the LGBTQ community.  Our Mayor has not provided such leadership, and I will be a strong leader on behalf of Wilton Manors.

What are your qualifications?

I have been a resident and stakeholder in Wilton Manors for the past 19 years, with a lifetime of public service and volunteerism that makes him ideally suited for the office of mayor.

I graduated from Hofstra University majoring in mathematics, and after obtaining a law degree, was recruited by the most prestigious Wall Street law firms, handling complex mergers, acquisitions and securities transactions. After 9/11, I decided to move to Wilton Manors to live a freer and more open lifestyle. I am also a licensed realtor.

In New York, I was elected to my local Board of Education, serving two terms, including as President. In Wilton Manors, I served two terms as a member of the Community Affairs Advisory Board, with three years as its Chair. I was able to deliver programs and policies on behalf of the City Commission that enriched the lives of Wilton Manors residents. With my fellow Board members, I spearheaded the drafting of the city's diversity policy.  

I have been an active member of the Wilton Manors Business Association and am always striving to promote our local businesses. In 2019, I put together a public art project to fund and display art sculptures around the city, starting with Wilton Drive. You may have seen the orange slices, "Slices of Heaven," and other pieces. 

As a regular attendee at City Commission meetings, I have voiced my views on several important issues facing Wilton Manors residents, and I am now prepared to act on these views and ideas to move Wilton Manors forward.

Is affordable housing an area of concern? Is there anything a city as small as Wilton Manors can actually do about the problem?

Wilton Manors has yet to provide any housing units that would be deemed affordable for our workforce, the workforce that is necessary for our local businesses to operate and remain in Wilton Manors.

Scott Newton every two years runs for office and promises workforce housing but does nothing about it. I will actively pursue solutions. Adequate housing for workers who make $15 to $30 per hour is increasingly hard to find due to a combination of factors, including aging housing stock and rising construction costs. The lack of affordable workforce housing not only makes it difficult for these workers to save money and get ahead, but it also makes it difficult for communities like Wilton Manors to attract the businesses that need these employees and to keep them in business here.

Wilton Manors has an Affordable Housing Trust Fund, but it only has $40,000 in that account. We do not have the financial ability to build housing. However, Wilton Manors does own property, and one property in particular in my opinion is ripe for workforce housing, that being 2100 N Dixie Highway, which is called The Municipal Complex, and is nothing more than a storage yard. It is almost 3 acres. My position is that one of those acres could be developed with affordable workforce housing units. It sits along the train tracks on the other side of the Metropolitan. There are no single-family homes anywhere near. It is in the Transit Oriented Corridor, which means we can put more density on the property.

My view is that Wilton Manors can be a market participant, meaning, while we cannot afford to build on that property, we can partner with a private developer to offer a land lease on the property. There are firms that specialize in these public-private partnerships that can help us structure a deal.

I would propose that the units be rented with priority to workers at businesses in Wilton Manors. This helps the workers, and it helps the businesses attract workers and to keep their business here in Wilton Manors.

As Mayor, I will pursue this and any other viable proposals to once and for all build some units, and not just political talk in order to get re-elected!

List your top issues of concern.

1. Responsible Spending and Economic Growth. 

The city has not pursued a responsible course of planning for the economic viability of Wilton Manors, through a lack of development and growth and poor spending decisions.  The Financial Advisory Board has been critical of our budget process as not being thorough and not providing for strategic financial planning. With my financial background, I would take measures to establish a better budget process which is also more open and transparent to the residents in order that we do not repeat the 10% tax increase that the current Mayor has proposed for next year. We face at least two more challenging years due to the lack of new revenues notwithstanding several new development projects, none of which put a shovel in the ground yet. We need the new tax revenues from these proposals to cover our budgetary shortfalls. New development should have been approved years ago.

2. Public Safety.

The Wilton Manors Police Department has been experiencing a crisis with officers leaving the force for pay or moral reasons, which has led to many vacancies in our force. We must never revisit the current situation where there are nine inactive positions, which despite denials from the Mayor, does put a strain on policing and can have an adverse effect on public safety, which is a big concern of our residents.

3. Preserving Our Culture.

Wilton Manors over the last 25 years has developed a style and culture quite unique. A big part of that culture is the LGBTQ community, and that community has concerns that this culture will somehow be dissipated with gentrification and housing prices. The Mayor must stay very aware of maintaining this culture and take any and all steps to preserve it. One of my proposals is to establish a Legacy Business Program to recognize those businesses that form the core of our City and represent our culture.  Wilton Drive is the hub and many of our LGBTQ businesses are valued and must remain here.

4. Leadership.

A Mayor should have the qualities of a leader, and I find that lacking in our current Mayor. I have proposals for the betterment of Wilton Manors, which I will present to the Commission for consideration. The current Mayor has none. I will resist and oppose any attacks on the LGBTQ community or any other community that might come from the Governor or any other group. The Mayor of Wilton Manors is symbolic of a leading LGBTQ community in America, and there is a responsibility that comes with that position and status.

The police pay crisis is solved (for now). However, a similar crisis is looming with city staff, which is paid less than their counterparts in many Broward County municipality. How can the city retain staff without breaking the bank?

Public safety is critical. While the police contract was revised to increase pay, it does not resolve the crisis of nine inactive police positions on our force of 32 uniformed officers. These nine uniformed officer positions, two of which are frozen, are not on the streets yet pending training which could take up to a year for the other seven positions. Salaries should have been adjusted years ago to avoid the crisis in the Wilton Manors Police Department. 

The growth of the budget for operating City Hall and its staff has outpaced the population growth of our city and the increase in tax revenues. We need to be realistic about how much government we can afford as a small city. We need to retain our best employees, but we might also need to evaluate staffing needs for some operations.  There may be some operations (like IT payroll processing or landscaping) that can be outsourced, including to private companies or other cities. Weston has done this and reduced its staff by quite a bit. This could be cost effective to those operations and allow us to retain our core employees by providing a more competitive compensation package with the savings that result from outsourcing. Our Financial Advisory Board noted that sometimes the issue with staff is not completely about compensation, but often about how their input is valued by management as part of a team seeking solutions to city issues rather than as employees with assigned tasks.

Do you believe Wilton Manors should continue to grow or retain its roots as a bedroom community? What’s your vision?

Our single-family neighborhoods will remain intact and not change from my perspective. Interestingly, contrary to trends in other Florida communities, Wilton Manors has not grown in population over the last 24 years. According to US Census data, there were 12,691 residents in 2000 and there were 11,395 in 2024. To avoid massive tax increases on our residents, who are dealing with rising costs from every direction, we need to not only control expenses, but also find more revenue. Aside from increasing property valuations, we have not increased our tax base much over the tenure of Scott Newton, who has been in office since 2000. Other than Wilton Station and the Metropolitan, there has been no growth in Wilton Manors. We should have recognized that we would be in this financial crisis years ago and modified our building and zoning codes and encouraged some modest development in our transit-oriented corridors, which can handle higher densities without encroaching our single-family neighborhoods.  A hotel was needed many years ago, and I was a proponent for a boutique hotel on the Drive for the last six years. Although plans are now in the works for both a hotel and some mixed-use projects, no shovels are in the ground yet, and we will not receive the benefit of increased tax revenues for at least three years. And even after these new projects are completed, our population in Wilton Manors is not likely to be any higher than it was in the year 2000. In terms of further development, the Westside has felt neglected and has been wanting redevelopment of some of the rundown properties that exist among corridors such as Andrews Avenue. I would like to develop a more detailed plan for our Westside with input from the neighborhood association.

How can the city showcase diversity despite the edicts and mood from Tallahassee?

Reaching out and involving under-represented communities is an important goal, and one that is not fully realized by the current Mayor and commission. As a member of the Community Affairs Advisory Board for four years, with three years as Chairman, I was tasked with developing a definition of diversity for Wilton Manors, and proposed steps for achieving diversity. Unfortunately, the Mayor and commission have not made great inroads yet, and we have more work to do in this area. Another thing the Community Affairs Advisory did was to introduce two new recognition honors for outstanding individuals and businesses, one for Hispanic Heritage Month and one for LGBTQ History Month. CAAB also brought back PrideFête, which is the Caribbean Pride Festival celebrating the many Caribbean cultures and peoples. Diversity can be found in art, and I have been a huge proponent of public art and art in all forms, which allows all constituencies to showcase their culture and viewpoints. As to edicts, it is important for the Mayor of Wilton Manors to have a strong voice in resisting edicts that attack any of our residents, which is something that the current Mayor has not done well, instead surrendering to those edicts.

Our sewage system is at the mercy of Fort Lauderdale. What can the city do, besides searching for and fixing leaks, to keep the streets clean and residents from paying higher utility bills?

I have witnessed sewage discharging onto our streets in Wilton Manors, at NE 26th Street and Andrews Avenue and at NE 21st Court and Wilton Drive. This is totally unacceptable, and it has been going on for several years, even though Scott Newton has promised every two years that he is on top of our infrastructure upgrades.  Wastewater discharge is occurring as a result of many years of neglect and deferred maintenance, and Newton must be held accountable since he has been sitting on the commission over the last 24 years. He has also been part of past commissions that have raided the Utility Fund by taking $15 million out of the fund and spending it elsewhere even though these funds were supposed to be used to upgrade infrastructure. Discharge occurs due to a few reasons, including aged systems and climate change causing increased flooding. Flooding leads to overcapacity creating inflow and infiltration of the pipes which cause sewage discharge. 

Other than seeking funds from sources other than taxpayer dollars, we can encourage better management of stormwater using green infrastructure, such as rain gardens, permeable pavement, and green roofs to encourage rain to soak into the ground, which will help mitigate sewage overflows caused by rainwater.

Approving new development can also help provide money to address the aging infrastructure, through impact fees on developers that can, for instance, be used to upgrade things like Lift Stations which enable sewage and wastewater to flow more effectively to a treatment center.