When elected officials want to make it easier to sell off public land, it’s usually not about efficiency. It’s about opportunity — for someone.
And it’s usually not the public.
The Miami City Commission last month voted to put a referendum on the November ballot so that the sale or lease of city-owned land can be executed with a simple four-fifths vote on the dais. Right now, any sale or lease of public land has to go to a public vote. But this change would allow four people to sell public land. No public vote would be needed. So the right the public has today to approve or reject any property deal would be taken away.
This is becoming a habit with these commissioners.
Read related: Miami-Dade Judge: Miami Commission can’t cancel election without public vote
This proposal to ease restrictions on how the city can sell or lease non-waterfront public land was proposed by City Manager Art Noriega, not a city commissioner because that would be political suicide. But none of them pulled it for discussion, so the resolution was approved without a single question raised.
What properties would be affected? Which properties would be off-limits, besides waterfront land? Who determines “fair market value”? Who is waiting in the wings, ready with an offer?
There was even the ballot question attached to the July 24 reading:

“SHALL THE CITY CHARTER BE AMENDED TO ALLOW THE CITY COMMISSION, BY A FOUR-FIFTHS VOTE, TO APPROVE THE SALE OR LEASE OF NON-WATERFRONT CITY-OWNED PROPERTY WHEN FEWER THAN THREE PROPOSALS ARE RECEIVED AFTER PUBLIC NOTICE, PROVIDED THAT OTHER SAFEGUARDS, INCLUDING FAIR MARKET VALUE AND VOTER APPROVAL FOR WATERFRONT PROPERTY, REMAIN IN EFFECT?”

The City of Miami’s Department of Real Estate & Asset Management (DREAM) manages an estimated $17.5 billion real estate asset portfolio, which includes 513 properties, 139 million square feet of islands, three marinas of over 1,300 boat slips, moorings and dry racks, retail malls, hotels, office buildings, multifamily buildings, theaters, stadiums, parking garages, historic properties, long term ground leases, upland and submerged lands.
The resolution states that these “recommended revisions will promote the efficient, transparent, and fiscally responsible management and disposition of City-owned non- waterfront property, particularly in instances where market interest is limited.”
What does that mean? It sounds like bureaucratic fine-tuning — but Miami doesn’t have a good track record when it comes taxpayers’ assets. This looks like another loophole in the making, just waiting for the next sweetheart deal to slip through.
Right now, in addition to going to a public vote, the city has to advertise the property and get at least three bids before approving a deal. That’s called competition. That’s called transparency. That’s called giving the public a shot at knowing who’s trying to buy public property. And for how much. And for what purpose.
This change? It says, “Nah, don’t worry about all that.” Fewer than three proposals? As long as it hits “fair market value” and gets a four-fifths vote from the commission, it’s a go.
Read related: Miami commissioners vote to negotiate sale of historic Olympia Theater
Let’s be honest: This is like hanging a “for sale” sign with invisible ink. The average taxpayer won’t see the deal until it’s done, the price is locked, and some lucky friend of a commissioner or mayor is already picking out floor samples.
There is talk that this could be related to the future sale of the Miami Police headquarters property downtown. It could also open up the floodgates on unsolicited offers to redevelop a number of public housing buildings.
Sure, the city says this doesn’t apply to waterfront land. Miami voters still have to approve the sale or lease of any waterside property. For now, anyway. Because everyone knows how these things evolve. First you carve out a little exception. Then you find a way to stretch it. Then you say, “Well, it worked fine for inland properties, soooo…”
Next thing you know, a former park becomes a condo tower, and the public gets a press release and a commemorative plaque.
Proponents are going to say there’s nothing wrong with getting the public to vote on this. But then they’ll spend millions to fool the voters into thinking it’s a good idea.
Ladra thinks it’s a bad idea. Not because she hates streamlining — but because she knows exactly who benefits when public oversight gets called red tape.
And it’s usually not the public.
The post The city of Miami wants to sell your public land with no public vote appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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As promised in the last couple of weeks, Miami-Dade Commission Chairwoman Audrey Edmonson moved Wednesday to block development of a Cuban Museum of History or anything else on the last few remaining slivers of vacant waterfront land downtown behind the AA Arena.
“The residents want this because this is one of the last pieces of waterfront property left undeveloped,” said Edmonson, who also promised to find a site for the Cuban museum organizers had hoped to build there.
But is she protecting public land or the arena operators’ spill-off parking and event-staging area?
According to the resolution that passed unanimously and is now headed to the full county commission, Parcel B, as the 2.76 acres plot of land between the arena and Biscayne Bay is called, would be preserved as an open space park for an increasing number of downtown residents to enjoy Frisbee, family picnics and pick-up soccer games. It would be renamed Don Paul Plaza after the late longtime advocate of open, green, public spaces.
Wait a minute. Plaza? A plaza is not a park. A plaza is, well, a public square or marketplace in most U.S. cities and also could mean a shopping center here. So what gives?
Read related: Mayor, Miami Heat bait and switch to ‘better deal’ for who?
It seems part of the deal includes allowing Basketball Properties Ltd, which operates and manages the American Airlines Arena, to continue to use at least part of Parcel B for overflow parking and those big trucks that need to come in for concert equipment and catering on an “agreed-upon” number of days. The resolution only prohibits any “permanent vertical structure,” which means that temporary trailers are a-okay. In one version of the park renderings, according to an inside county source, there is a designated space for up to 70 cars and staging vehicles.
Ladra guesses that loose soccer balls and wayward Frisbees could be a liability on agreed-upon days.
The American Airlines Arena was built by the Miami Heat organization on the former Florida East Coast property that was purchased by the county in 1998 after voters approved a referendum in 1996. A key point of the Heat campaign back then was a promise that part the property would be turned into a waterfront open space park. This condition– as well as a youth academy that has also not materialized but which Edmonson seems to forgive — was a crucial deal breaker to many county voters. Campaign insiders from that former Mayor Alex Penelas period have been quoted as saying that it was a key strategy message to get the Anglo votes.
After failing to produce a park — or, rather, realizing that it would cost $6 million to repair the seawall — the Heat gave the land back to the county in 2003, but continued to lease it for extra parking and staging at special events. That way, we taxpayers were responsible for the wall, but the arena operators — who continued to rip us off by inflating expenses to reduce participation rent — could keep using the land as needed.
Parcel B sprung back into the news in 2014 when became embroiled in Plan B for international soccer star David Beckham‘s desired Miami MLS franchise stadium, which, if you remember, just had to be waterfront and just had to be in the downtown — two requirements since abandoned. After the first location scouted at the Port of Miami was scrapped, the Beckham group proposed filling in the boat slip between Museum Park  and the arena to create space for a waterfront stadium. That idea was nipped in the bud by then Mayor Tomas Regalado of Miami, which owns the boat slip.
Months later, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez was instructed by the commission to negotiate with the Cuban Exile History Museum board to lease the land, and county staffers began drafting a 55-year lease was that would provide public land only at a ridiculous price and no other subsidies.
Read related: Picnic in Parcel B ‘park’ defies county stance, Heat padlock
In 2015, activists with the Urban League, Emerge Miami and other groups basically took over the property and staged a picnic protest — complete with a sign naming it Dan Paul Park (not plaza). There were areas that had been paved over for a street race and the lot was padlocked when the activists first arrived.
Fast forward three years when, as recently as last February,  the commission instructed Gimenez to enter into a license agreement with Basketball Properties Ltd. as the manager and operator of the American Airlines Arena, “for its use during agreed-upon days of the property commonly known as Parcel B for parking and staging for arena events.” They didn’t want to keep asking for permits every time so they got a license.
The county started installing grass and trees in the lot.
Then in June of last year, the 55-year lease for the Cuban museum was briefly on the draft agenda, but — even though renderings for the museum include park space — it was pulled because there was not enough support and because the museum board failed to raise enough funds for construction.
And maybe because their renderings did not include overflow parking and event staging space for the arena? (Editor’s note: Commissioner Esteban Bovo has reported that the Cuban Exile History Museum design did accommodate the arena’s need for overflow parking and a staging area.)
Read related: Heat’s sweet Parcel B parking deal causes commission clash 
Who is Edmonson really representing? In 2015, when another commissioner suggested that the Heat and anyone else who wanted to lease the land pay market rates with a fee schedule for different events, Edmonson balked, intimating that because the waterfront property is in her district, it’s her say.
On Wednesday, she also proposed and passed an ordinance — which is much stronger as an actual law as opposed to just an expression of the desire, which is what a resolution is — that requires a two-thirds commission vote for any future private development of waterfront land.
Doesn’t that mean the plaza isn’t permanent? It can be undone with a two thirds vote? Are we right back where we started?

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