Miami

Land of Confusion

Questions and drama stop $5 million payment to county

By Erik Bojnansky

To vote or not vote on sending a $5 million check, that was the question … that made a Miami city commissioner get up and leave Monday’s Community Redevelopment Agency meeting.

At issue was whether the CRA, which is governed by Miami City Commission members, needed to approve a resolution allocating funds to Miami-Dade County to pay for the bonds used to construct the $446 million Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. The transaction would enable the county to use convention development tax funds to partly fund a future $515 million baseball stadium for the Florida Marlins.

To answer the question, Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones, also the chair of the CRA, held a closed-door meeting among herself, CRA Executive Director James Villacorta and City Attorney Julie Bru on Tuesday. The outcome of that meeting was not apparent at deadline.
But until that question — and others regarding future legal challenges and the baseball stadium — are resolved, the check that was supposed to be in the county’s hands by March 31 will be held back.

Spence-Jones said she wanted to clarify the CRA’s position. “My concern in all this is there is a serious breakdown in communications,” she said Monday.
Commissioner Tomás Regalado, though, believed Monday’s actions prevented the public from questioning the transaction. When Spence-Jones and Commissioner Joe Sanchez moved to take the funding resolution off the CRA agenda, Regalado left the meeting in protest. That meant a quorum was lost and no official action could be taken.

“I figured that the people of the CRA deserve a public hearing, an explanation as to why the CRA is cutting a check for $5 million,” Regalado said. He also questioned why two different legal opinions were issued by the City Attorney’s Office as to whether a disagreement about who would provide services for the future stadium, the city or the county, could affect what is being called the Baseball Stadium Agreement, or BSA. One opinion said it could; another said it wouldn’t.

Since at least the year 2000, the Miami CRA has voted to funnel $1.4 million a year in property taxes to the county for the performing arts center bonds, even though the payment was required under a previous interlocal agreement between the city of Miami and the county.

But Bru, who was anointed Miami’s new city attorney in March, decreed that voting was not necessary. Bru said the city of Miami already agreed to hand over $1.4 million, plus 35 percent of the property taxes collected within the Omni Redevelopment Area, approved by the county and city of Miami on March 3. The county would use those funds to help pay off the construction debt of the center, which is located within the Omni redevelopment district. The arrangement frees up convention development tax dollars that the county could then use to fund the construction of the Marlins stadium.
“I don’t think there was any need for further authorization,” she said.
Villacorta said he didn’t get a clear answer from the City Attorney’s Office until the meeting started. “I just needed confirmation from the law department that all conditions have been met and the payment was due,” he said.

Villacorta asked Assistant City Attorney Gail Ash Dotson three questions: Did the city and the county have a binding Baseball Stadium Agreement? Would a county and city turf war on who will provide fire and police services for the stadium affect that agreement? Was the CRA required to make a payment to the county?

Dotson answered yes to all three, especially in regard to “recent events concerning police and fire services to be provided at the proposed stadium.”
“Yes, to the extent that police and fire services for the city and the county were given a time line in which to resolve any issues involving the same,” Dotson wrote.

But at Monday’s meeting, Bru distributed a March 28 memo marked “revised.” Also authored by Dotson, the new opinion said the police and fire disagreement would not affect the agreement, just its implementation “The BSA [Baseball Stadium Agreement] is a binding agreement,” she wrote.
Bru claimed the March 18 memo was not approved by her. “The [March 28] memo comes from my office and is signed by myself,” she said. “The bottom line is that the agreement is already executed.”

Regalado, though, said the Florida Marlins stadium is hardly a done deal. Besides the conflict between county and city police and fire unions, there’s also the lawsuit filed by car dealer Norman Braman challenging the validity of the entire $3 billion “global agreement” that would use public tax dollars to create an underwater tunnel for the Port of Miami, Museum Park on what is now Bicentennial Park, a streetcar system through Omni and Edgewater, and a Florida Marlins Stadium. Regalado said if the stadium deal collapses, there is nothing obligating the county to return the tax dollars to the CRA.
“What I’d really like to see happen is that we are told everything,” Regalado said. “What are the consequences if the stadium deal collapses? ... How can you not discuss $5 million in the public arena?”

“Their [Miami’s] city attorney hasn’t read all the documents,” said Stanley Krieger, general counsel for Braman Management. Krieger said the CRA can’t expand its financial contribution to the performing arts center without amending Omni’s redevelopment plan. “What they are doing is refinancing the bonds that will not alleviate slum and blight in the Omni district,” he said.
Krieger added that Braman was “contemplating filing additional [legal] actions.”

Spence-Jones said she also wanted to discuss Regalado’s concerns with Bru and Villacorta. Most of all, she wanted better communication between the CRA and the City Attorney’s Office.
“There is confusion,” she said Monday. “I don’t know what is going on between the departments. There is too much head-butting going on.”