Classic Alex

Not wanting to appear opportunistic, Penelas was quick to state that his push to find public money to finance a new stadium had absolutely nothing to do with the momentum of the Marlins winning the World Series. 

A.C. Weinstein
Columnist         

Three of the best columnists in Florida, the Miami Herald’s Carl Hiaasen, Jim Defede and Fred Grimm, have all expressed their opposition to public money funding a new baseball stadium at a yet to be identified site in downtown Miami. There are higher priorities for those tax dollars, the columnists say. This writer agrees.

But the Herald editorial board, as usual, sees it differently. They believe the proposed stadium should be subsidized with your tax dollars. That divide at the Herald is similar to the growing chasm inside county government.

Leading the charge for the stadium is Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas, whose goal is to wheel away from Miami Beach the 50 million convention development tax dollar revenue stream currently earmarked to be spent on what it’s named to do: develop the Miami Beach Convention Center into a more competitive facility.

A number of Miami-Dade Commissioners, including Jimmy Morales, Betty Ferguson, Katy Sorenson and Bruno Barreiro see it differently. They have joined Miami Beach and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau in strong opposition to using those public dollars for a stadium. They too say there are more important priorities.

The bureau’s executive committee passed a resolution on October 30^th to support those tax dollars staying on line for the convention center. Long time supporter of the convention center and one of the strongest advocates for its expansion, Stu Blumberg, president of a Miami Beach-based hotel association, was a dissenting minority vote on the committee. Blumberg is now siding with Penelas’ vision for a new stadium.

Not so in Miami Beach. At a special meeting on October 31^st, the Miami Beach Commission expressed its unanimous support for those public dollars to be spent on the convention center. State Representative Dan Gelber D-Miami Beach attended the meeting and stepped up to the plate to support the sentiment of both the bureau and commission.

Here’s the deal: Back in April and May of 2001, the City of Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County entered into an inter-local agreement concerning the future use of the convention development tax, a public revenue stream that’s generated in most part from events held at the convention center.

Within the inter-local agreement, those tax dollars will be allocated to improve and expand the convention center if a solid financing plan is not pledged by the county to the Marlins for a new stadium by December 1st, 2003.

With nary a whisper of a new stadium deal during the past two and a half years, and tourism leaders all touting the need for the convention center to be more competitive with other destinations, such as Broward and Orlando, it appeared the convention development tax was on its way to boosting the convention center, the region’s number one economic generator.

The key, according to tourism, business and government officials, is to have a state of the art facility that will attract the Microsoft level of conventions. Even the bureau’s recent study called for a larger and more adaptable convention facility. On January 23^rd, the county commission even adopted a resolution amending the City Center Redevelopment Plan to include the convention center expansion project.

Dollars have already been spent on plans to expand and improve the convention center, which also fits into Miami Beach’s vision with the New World Symphony expansion, improvements to the Botanical Garden and a much-needed, new parking facility to service Lincoln Road.

And then, along came Penelas. The county mayor jumped on the most unlikely scenario of all, the Marlins winning the World Series. Penelas seized the momentum of the Marlins’ fan euphoria to launch an 11^th hour campaign to use those public dollars earmarked for the convention center to finance a new stadium.

There’s no specific financing plan in place or even a site for the proposed stadium, yet the county commission lock-stepped behind Penelas and voted to pledge a grand total of 73 million tax dollars to the Marlins. Penelas is eyeing the revenue from the convention development tax as one component of that pledge.  

Not wanting to appear opportunistic, Penelas was quick to state that his push to find public money to finance a new stadium had absolutely nothing to do with the momentum of the Marlins winning the World Series. It was classic Alex. And the termed-out mayor did it with a straight face, to boot.

With the inter-local agreement’s December 1st deadline fast approaching, Penelas is well aware that there would be no time to structure a financial deal for any stadium. Instead, Penelas just urged the county commission to pledge uncertain money into an empty deal, and to tamper with the inter-local agreement with Miami Beach by extending the existing Dec.1st deadline to March 15th. The other party in the signed inter-local agreement, the City of Miami Beach, was all but ignored in the decision-making. 

Of course, Penelas would now like Miami Beach to go along with that deadline extension, which would then give his county government until March 15^th to come up with a financing plan that could catapult those 50 million tax dollars across the bay to Miami.

Miami Beach’s administration and legal department disagree with how Penelas and his county commission majority are defining the criteria of a pledge and also their attempt to roll over the inter-local agreement. What Penelas is banking on, however, is his ability to get four members of the Miami Beach Commission to agree to extend the inter-local agreement’s December 1^st deadline to March 15^th.

Without that extension, it’s likely those tax dollars will stay in Miami Beach. But sources inside Miami Beach City Hall seem to believe that, in spite of the commission’s pre-election commitment to place the needs of the convention center first, Penelas already has three commissioners on board to go along with the extension.