Thursday, Feb. 07, 08

The Great Divide

Beach officials say ending business exchange program with China wasn’t personal, but private entities are not so sure

By Ben Torter

Miami Beach Commissioner Jerry Libbin and former Mayor David Dermer led a delegation to Beijing, China, in 2006.

As Miami Beach commissioners recently learned, the words they choose in public meetings don’t just vanish into the air with their breath. They can have unintended consequences.

After throwing out sharp rhetoric against China’s poor human rights record and comparing the next host of the Olympic Games to such regimes as Iran and Fidel Castro’s Cuba, the Miami Beach City Commission voted Jan. 16 to end a city-endorsed cultural and business exchange program with China. The most outspoken critic was Commissioner Jonah Wolfson, who announced that just as he would never travel to communist Cuba, he would never travel to China because of its repressive government.

The decision to end the program angered many in the local business community. People were more upset by the commission’s sharp language, viewed by many as an insult to the Chinese, and the dramatic comparisons to Cuba and Iran than the idea that the private sector would be better suited to run the program.

How to best move the China program to a private entity like the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce was further discussed at a Miami Beach Neighborhood Affairs Committee meeting on Jan. 30. Commissioners toned down their human rights attacks and explained that their previous comments were misconstrued.

“Chinese people are welcome in this city,” Wolfson said.

Commissioner Jerry Libbin, the man behind the China program, contended that the only way to prevent the Chinese from getting the wrong message would be to keep the cultural exchange program at City Hall.

“The comments and subsequent vote of the commission on the 16th of January have been construed by many in the Chinese community, both domestically and internationally, as an insult, and I firmly believe that this issue demands from our elected officials a well-thought-out and reasoned plan, not a motion that is made emanating from an emotionally charged discussion item,” Libbin said. “I believe the proper thing to do is to recommend to the commission that we reconsider our vote taken on Jan. 16 and that we form a task force to make recommendations on how the city of Miami Beach can best benefit from the expected tourism boom from China.”

He referred to a couple of articles in the Miami Herald’s business section in the days prior to the meeting. One story quoted Chinese Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, who visited South Florida last week and spoke at Florida International University. “Arts are arts, and human rights are human rights,” he said. “I don’t think they should be mixed up. I think the majority of the community would like to see exchanges of this nature proceeding without being interrupted on any sort of political grounds.” FIU opened a hospitality school in the Tianjin province of China in 2005.

Other business community leaders, including Beacon Council head Frank Nero, China Latin American Trade Center Executive Director Joe Chi and Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association President and CEO Stuart Blumberg objected to the commission’s handling of the situation.

Reacting to the negative impressions in the community, Wolfson raised his voice and lashed out at Libbin, accusing him of blowing the issue out of proportion in the media.

“That really is your doing in trying to defend a public slush fund to take lavish trips out of the country,” Wolfson said.

Libbin called Wolfson’s accusation “outrageous.”

The cultural-exchange program between China and Miami Beach got off the ground in early 2006 when Libbin led a delegation of 25 to Beijing, China. He was joined by then-Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer and members of hip-hop dance troupe Scratch and Burn. Libbin took a second delegation to Shanghai in November, accompanied by a New World Symphony quintet that performed at the Shanghai International Arts Fair. A group of Chinese delegates also visited Miami Beach.

The exchange was funded by private donations, but the money was kept in the city’s coffers to reimburse such people as Libbin for their associated expenses. It took the time of city employees from the finance department and secretaries who coordinated trips. The city’s communications department produced a 30-minute video of the trip to China and the Chinese delegation that visited Miami Beach, which played hundreds of times on the city’s television access station, Channel 77.

The debate over how much staff time was or wasn’t used for the program set aside, Mayor Mayor Matti Herrera Bower raised other ethical concerns.

“The appearance of a conflict of interest, the appearance of the city asking for money, I have a problem with,” Bower said.

Regardless of appearance, Wolfson maintained that the core reason he pushed to move the program to the private sector is responsible government; he said city resources must be used for policing neighborhoods, fixing roads and other essential items.

“I don’t think that this is a fair and wise investment of our taxpayer dollars,” Wolfson said.

Other commissioners agreed with Wolfson that city resources shouldn’t be used to run a tourism program, especially during this time of forced budget cuts.

“It wasn’t my intention to discourage Chinese tourism,” Commissioner Deede Weithorn said. “I was just uncomfortable with using taxpayer money.”

Libbin disagreed.

“Fixing potholes is important, but so is promoting tourism,” Libbin replied.

Chinese citizens have new money and freedom to travel. U.S. Commerce Department records show that 320,450 Chinese visited the United States in 2006 — a number that’s expected to reach 579,000 by 2011. On Dec. 11, an agreement was signed between China and the United States that allows U.S. companies in China to market group tourism to the United States.

Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce Chairman Sandy Horowitz said he was “disappointed in the overall thought process of the commission.” Miami Beach’s biggest industry by far is tourism, and he said he feels the city should be willing to use city resources to benefit tourism.

“I hope this is not symbolic of the commission’s sensitivity to other business opportunities,” Horowitz said.

Wendy Kallergis, president of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce, told commissioners that the chamber would work diligently to take over the program if asked, but that the damage had already been done.

“The rhetoric that flowed from this room in recent weeks toward China served only to embarrass those very leaders and this city who seized initiative on behalf of our community when they created and led this program,” said Kallergis, who traveled to China with Libbin. “We are very concerned about the damage done to this relationship between those Chinese institutions and the city of Miami Beach.”

William Talbert, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, said he too would like to take over the program.

The commission will take a second vote on moving the China cultural exchange program out of City Hall on March 12.

Comments? E-mail ben@miamisunpost.com