Name: Angelo Castillo
Age: 64
Website: angelocastillo.com
What distinguishes you from most of your opponents?
The council/manager form of government has a reputation for being elitist in nature and not populist. Yet I have succeeded in working in that environment by being a populist, which requires communicating and providing constituent service effectively and consistently. My ability to communicate in English and Spanish has been and continues to be of essential importance in a city as diverse as Pembroke Pines. However, my experience in government, earned over an almost 40-year career as an executive at the federal, city, state and county levels and as a successful non-profit CEO, has given me the perspective to help make good choices for Pembroke Pines. I thrive in the environment of bringing people together to help decide the best directions to pursue for their own communities. There is what I consider to be a reluctance to embrace populist approaches in government in favor of the more traditional, frankly easier but by no means more effective, top-down management style. My ability to bring people into a room, present and study a problem, and come out with a solution that works and is widely acceptable has been a consistent strength throughout my professional career. I’m a believer in planning and management by objectives. I believe in the planning adage “we count the things that matter, or the things that matter don’t count.” Not everyone has the confidence to be held accountable in those ways, but I thrive on it. On every issue I tackle, I ask myself: What direction does this need to go, and how do I align the power structure involved to yield practical goals and results? Then, I work backward from that general place. These skills have served me well throughout my life and will help me serve as an effective mayor.
During my time in public service, I have prided myself on being accessible. Whether responding to a phone call or email from a constituent or engaging on social media, I have never been afraid to discuss issues – even if they’re controversial. My positions aren’t always easy or politically convenient, but they’re rooted in research and a desire to do the right thing. My willingness to take positions and defend them has garnered me respect from voters, even when they disagree with me.
As mayor, I will remain accessible to residents, business owners, and stakeholders in Pembroke Pines. I will continue to seek the best solutions to our challenges, even if the best solution requires innovative leadership.
List in reverse chronological order, starting with the most recent, colleges and universities attended with years of attendance and degrees held.
Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, 1997, Certificate in Community and Economic Development.
New York Law School, 1987, Juris Doctor
Wagner College Graduate School of Business, 1984, MBA Finance
Wagner College, 1981, BS, Economics and Business Administration
List in chronological order your work history for the past 15 years.
I retired from full time work in 2019 and serve as a city commissioner full-time. I will serve as mayor full-time and seek no other employment.
Broward County Sheriff’s Office, 2013 to 2019. Executive Director of Administration, Executive Director of Strategic Planning, member of the Sheriff’s command staff.
Broward House, Inc., President and CEO, 2003-2012
Have you ever been a party to a lawsuit, including bankruptcy or foreclosure? If so, provide details and disposition.
I have not.
Have you ever been charged or convicted of a misdemeanor or felony, including an adjudication of guilt withheld? If so, provide charges, dates and terms of sentence.
I have not.
If a proposed regional incinerator is not the right answer to the region’s long-term waste disposal needs, what is?
It is perhaps ironic that today’s preferred waste disposal methods – burning or burying trash – are precisely the same as those practiced at the dawn of human history. The difference, of course, is that increasingly, science and technology have equipped us to confront this issue more effectively. We know that burying trash to the extent we have over the last few centuries is bad for the land, air, and water we consume and, consequently, our health. We can also deduce that despite the assurances of government agencies that incinerator smoke is relatively harmless, few feel assured and have reason to doubt the long- and short-term health and environmental wisdom of increased and widespread incineration, as we are seeing in Florida. Commingled trash and recycling, including plastics, are routinely hauled to Broward incineration today, which is not a good approach. Alternatives are in effective use, both nationally and internationally, that we learn from and import. As an example, pyrology of organic trash – not plastics – is a decidedly safer process to convert trash into fuel (in either a liquid or pellet form) without burning. Building a plastics recycling plant in our region capable of producing products that the government and the public can use, utilizing our own plastic waste, is the indicated approach for plastics, and we are too long delayed in making that happen. Metals, wood, cement and drywall, most cardboard, and the ever-shrinking use of paper all have existing recycling markets. Glass can be ground down into sand and reused in various ways.
I hope to encourage discussion along these solution-oriented lines and to allow the Broward Solid Waste Authority to develop what I hope will be a promising long-term plan before I lend my approval to Pembroke Pines joining that authority. I believe the plan should come before people are taxed for it. Not the other way around. More burning is most assuredly not the answer, and I oppose building more incinerators. The approaches seem upside down to me at present. Rather than burning or incinerating only that small amount of trash we cannot reuse responsibly, we are burning almost all of it — many millions of tons — and recycling very little. That must be turned around, and I will be a vocal supporter of that approach. This is a big part of why the Sierra Club endorsed me over my opponents. They trust, respect and support my views on this very important question.
Broward County’s plan to close and “repurpose” schools is certain to affect Pembroke Pines. What should be the city’s goal on this issue?
First, let’s deal with why we have fewer kids, resulting in schools being built. When I moved to Broward in the mid-1990s, the issue was overcrowding of schools. Fast forward three decades later, we have too many schools and not enough kids. Why?
First, housing costs are so out of range against starting salaries for young adults that many are forced to continue living with parents, sometimes into their 30s. That’s an unhealthy prospect for starting families. Second, salaries are so low that too few can afford families, even if a couple are both working. At the root of the “fewer kids” phenomenon are the socio-economic factors that have for too long gone unaddressed – building decent, affordable, community-embraced starter housing for young adults (seniors and many families need it also) and a lack of outcome oriented economic development planning bringing the kinds of higher paying jobs into Broward that our residents need. Other factors include the ever-growing use of technology in education, which is heading toward a horizon of needing fewer classrooms.
That said, as some schools close, the smartest way to repurpose them is to convert those school properties into community-embraced affordable housing. I have been in early discussions with school board members about this and believe an approach can emerge where they put up the land, and our city can then develop it into affordable housing units, as we have the proven experience to do. The school district will want to house teachers there first, understandably. The balance of the units should be offered to residents from the city in need of starter, family or senior housing. It should be uplifting in every respect, in sharp contrast to the stereotype of affordable housing. It should be attractive; there should be amenities like a pool and clubhouse, kid parks, security at the entrance, perimeter security, and very well maintained just as the existing Pines affordable units are run. Bond finance combined with free land from the district and some grant assistance can pay for the construction, and the debt service can be offset by rents collected. Pembroke Pines has used this model to build our existing portfolio of 800 city-owned and operated affordable units, and we understand how to make that success happen again. This can happen if the school district is reasonable in their discussions. They may, of course, opt to sell their surplus properties and retain the revenues. This is entirely their choice to make.
Assess the strengths and weaknesses of City Manager Charlie Dodge.
The city manager is approaching nearly 50 years with the city. He is the undisputed dean of city managers in our state. His wealth of knowledge about Pembroke Pines and his sense of history is unique. He has directed teams that have produced one of South Florida’s leading cities. Pines is in constant high demand as a city in which to live, raise a family, do business, shop, dine, recreate or retire. He has been creative and innovative in the past, not just in his role as city manager but also in his role as superintendent of the Pembroke Pines Charter School system, which is the largest and best-rated municipally run charter school system in the nation.
The city is at a pivotal moment in our history as we shift gears from a city constantly consumed with westward expansion to one essentially built out – a maturing city facing new urban challenges. Traffic, waste management and recycling, affordable housing, growing crime, the strain of residents wanting lower taxes at a time of inflation of costs, flooding caused by an increase in rainfall – all of these are on the minds of our residents and businesses. We have some aging buildings, communities too, and parks needing repair. We have police and fire personnel demoralized because of compensation compared to other regional leading cities. Pension systems are in financial stress.
The measure of any CEO is the ability to harness collective efforts around strategic plans that achieve goals, to effectively implement those plans, to effectively communicate those efforts to their boards and stakeholders, to innovate past hurdles, and to produce results. Our city manager has lived up to that standard; though he is not as effective in communicating as I would prefer, he is not as enthusiastic in embracing comprehensive planning as I would prefer. However, he has been innovative and largely effective.