Miami Commissioners approved a $2.5 billion budget Saturday after almost zero discussion and a weekend public hearing that lasted about two hours.
They call it a $1.5 billion budget, but that’s just for operating expenses. The capital projects budget is almost another $981 mil.
Anyone who thought the outrageous and over-the-top $500 million Plan Z proposal for the privatization of Rickenbacker Causeway was dead in the water might want to look again.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez wants to resurrect the public land grab.
After very little public comment, a pep talk about trust and courage from the mayor, a long and fiery homeland-type sales pitch from the developer, hours of haggling by Miami city commissioners and what looked like near fisticuffs between two of the electeds, the owners of the InterMiami soccer team got the green light to build the controversial Miami Freedom Park, a massive real estate complex disguised as a soccer stadium on the largest piece of public land in the city.
City Hall was packed mostly with attorneys and team boosters who seemed summoned to the meeting by the proponents, who called this an “unprecedented” deal. (And didn’t we hear that about the multiple Joe Robbie stadium proposals?) There were a few speakers opposed to the deal, but not in the numbers expected. The room erupted in cheers and applause after the agreement — modified “on the fly” — was approved 4-1, with Commissioner Manolo Reyes voting no.
Controversial scooter program could be reconsidered
The image could not be more poetically appropriate.
Here he was, the fabulous Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, standing in front of TV cameras and the world, perfectly manicured eyebrows in place, fancy Bitcoin branded sneakers on like a rock star rapper, calling our city the capital of capital and the future of finance — while making strong man poses for a gazillion photos with a shiny, 11-foot, 3,000-pound metal bull.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who was absent throughout the entire controversial redistricting process in the city, has decided he will not veto the politically self-serving and gerrymandered new map passed by the commission that divides Coconut Grove in three.
A statement issued by his spokeswoman, Soledad Cerdo, made it seem as if he didn’t veto it because he felt it would have been overturned.
