Christina Crespi's exit from the Miami DDA is finalized. The "time theft" allegation and severance negotiation Plat Street covered in Issues 4 through 6 ended with her departure and a severance package. Michaeljohn Green is serving as acting executive director while the DDA searches for a permanent replacement. That search is where the story picks up a new complication.

Maggie Fernandez, until recently the top political and governmental aide to Miami-Dade Mayor Eileen Higgins, left that role in mid-August and is reportedly a candidate for the DDA post, according to Miami political blog Political Cortadito. Fernandez has relevant background: county manager's office, sustainability and urban planning circles. The resume is not the issue. The process is.

A board four scandals into a rough year hiring a mayoral aide, rather than running an open national search, is exactly the kind of governance shortcut Plat Street's readers should be watching for. The Wynwood arrest (Issue 2), the audit coverage (Issue 3), the "time theft" and severance (Issue 4), and the broader governance breakdown (Issue 6) form a pattern. Each of those stories was, at its core, about a board whose oversight mechanisms did not catch a problem before it became public. A director hire made without a competitive process, from a pool defined by political proximity rather than a national candidate list, would extend that pattern rather than break it.

The alternative is straightforward. The DDA board can run a public, competitive search: retain a search firm, post the position, interview a shortlist, and make a selection from a candidate pool that includes people who have run downtown organizations in other cities. That process takes longer and produces a less predictable outcome. It also produces a hire whose legitimacy does not depend on the political winds of the moment, which is the thing a board in Miami's position should be optimizing for.

Source: Political Cortadito, August 17, 2026; Political Cortadito, June 4, 2026.