The Miami Beach Convention Center. Photo by Erik Bojnansky

For decades, entrepreneurs have been making a fast buck selling Miami Beach to credulous, star-struck hordes. From Carl Fisher’s bathing beauties and Rosie the Elephant to SoBe Life Water and the South Beach Diet, delusions of paradise sell.

The thing is, the city of Miami Beach got left out of most of the action. That is about to change. Local government is going corporate. The city is in the midst of an effort to quantify the potential value of its Miami Beach brand.

The idea for this germinated in 2003, shortly after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg created the New York City Marketing Development Corporation to make money off the NYC name. Soon after, NYC signed a (somewhat controversial) mega deal to make Snapple its official drink.

“If New York can have it, so can Miami Beach,” quips City Manager Jorge Gonzalez. “The only question is what kind of drink is the right fit? Is it the apple martini or Coke?”

I’m thinking it’s anything with Bacardi in it, but I’m a sucker for the home team. What kind of assets are we talking here? Well, the list isn’t done yet (this is expected sometime in the next few weeks), but one big one is the Miami Beach Convention Center. It might make sense, Gonzalez posits, to allow a company to paint its logo on the roof. It wouldn’t be visible from the street, but the thousands of tourists flying in and out of Miami International Airport every day couldn’t miss it.

Other assets could include parks, lifeguard stands, even the Miami Beach brand. “We could have an official suntan product, official in-line skates,” Gonzalez speculates. “Miami Beach has 13 million visitors a year. We’re one of the few cities that can do that.”

It’s not so far-fetched. The city of Miami Beach has already done such marketing deals in limited cases. For instance, the Dog Bar sponsors the poop bags provided at the city’s dog parks. And, this spring, the city’s lifeguards and firefighters will be sporting brand-new uniforms, courtesy of IZOD.

Assistant City Manager Hilda Fernandez showed me some of the outfits, examples IZOD shipped to the city from places like Los Angeles County and Disney World. They were made of cool, breathable fabrics guaranteed to make our rescue personnel look hot.

I asked Gonzalez whether the city’s scrappy firefighters union demanded input on choosing outfits that didn’t make their butts look big. “Well, actually, yes,” he laughed. “Not that, but they wanted to make sure we didn’t use 100 percent cotton, or that they wouldn’t end up looking like NASCAR.”

No danger. The IZOD logo will be barely noticeable. The sponsorship means that not only will the lifeguards and firefighters have better-quality shirts, shorts and pants, but that the city will save about $100,000 a year on uniforms. And, once the things catch on, the city plans to hawk T-shirts and hats to tourists coming through town.

The city is looking to “diversify its revenue streams,” which, given the tax-lowering mood in Tallahassee these days, seems like a good idea. But just how far could the city take this marketing notion? Are we talking about branding Lincoln Road?

Could a bail bondsman sponsor a police car? Could Shaq sponsor the police department? Could Comedy Central sponsor commission meetings? Why stop there? Judging by all the e-mails sent to voters in the days leading up to the Nov. 20 runoff, I would swear that Simon Cruz’s mayoral campaign was sponsored by the nightlife industry (at least David Grutman, Tommy Pooch and Michael Capponi). If this means future meetings will be held at Cameo, with an open bar, then the future is bright for more civic participation.

“We’re gonna have some fun with it, but not go overboard,” Gonzalez says, shooting down all my brilliant ideas.

Myles Gallagher, president of The Superlative Group, which is developing the asset inventory for Miami Beach, said the city won’t approve such nutty marketing schemes because the company is also helping it develop a sponsorship policy that will ensure the city gets the most out of its name, without overcommercializing itself.

The Superlative Group has done this sort of thing for other public entities, such as the Chicago Park District; the London Zoo; Tacoma, Washington; and even, heaven help them, Miami-Dade County. The fact that we haven’t heard anything about the county’s big soft-drink sponsorship deal likely means that MIA-contract syndrome squelched that brief moment of lucidity.

Anyway, once the list is in, the city will take a look and then decide which opportunities to pursue, if any. Gallagher says there are several that look good. “We’ve discovered some pretty valuable assets you have that aren’t being taken advantage of,” he offers.

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Poor Mary Barzee Flores. The Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge has been the target of the weirdest excuse to get a judge removed from a case to hit the local court in some time.

Back in 1999, one Robert Seitz filed a lawsuit against two women, Broward County, an insurance company and a bank, in connection with a car crash. The case went through eight years and many judges before landing in Barzee’s court.

When Barzee denied Seitz’s motion to continue the case, he filed a motion this past September to force her recusal. The motion, both salacious and pitiful, became the talk of the courthouse and even hit the Internet.

In it, Seitz claims Barzee won’t give him a fair shake because of something that happened in 1983, when both were students at the University of Miami. Seitz says that he ran into the future judge at a frat party. “Then, Miss Barzee was more than a little inebriated …” he writes, claiming she led him into a secluded room, “and began what later resulted in fellatio and resulted in the plaintiff screaming so loud that he was later told that he may have set off an alarm in a parked car outside.”

Seitz further explains that the alleged act was interrupted, and she rebuffed “attempts to follow up on this liaison later that week.”

Barzee could not legally comment on it, but did provide her omnibus order in response. Her order notes that Seitz didn’t file his motion until her judgment, months after she received the case. “Regarding the specific allegations of a ‘prior relationship’ between this Court and the Plaintiff, the allegations are untrue. This Court will not comment further upon that which does not exist.”

Edith Osman, a former president of the Florida Bar, expressed outrage at Seitz's attempt to rattle Barzee. “It incenses me that you have people like him who can try to delay and obstruct justice by trying to use the fact she’s female and respected to embarrass her with a story that's not true. He wouldn’t say that about a male judge. She's a very principled, well-regarded judge.”

I also called up civil litigation attorney Robert Seitz and he too was happy to comment. “It’s not me!” he exclaimed. “It’s a different Robert Seitz. I have to keep explaining this. Judge Barzee is a great judge!”

Seitz the civil attorney said he got some negative attention a few years ago when the other Robert Seitz was convicted of stalking and harassing his ex-fiancée, former television reporter Jilda Unruh. Seitz spent time in jail for stalking her and later allegedly mailed a list of her prescription medications to lots of people she’d covered, and made sure local media knew about it too.

I actually remember this because I wrote about Unruh’s battles with the local teachers union a couple of times for the Miami New Times. Seitz e-mailed several vicious letters to the paper, often under fake names, that included inappropriate personal information. Frankly, he came across as a bitter, delusional looney-toon.

In another nutty filing, from a year prior, when the case was under a different judge, Seitz claimed that a defense doctor once attempted to stick pushpins in his penis to “determine the sensitivity.” Well, at least the fetish is consistent.

I wasn’t able to locate the real Robert Seitz in time for my deadline. Perhaps that’s for the best.

Comments? E-mail letters@miamisunpost.com.