As expected, there are going to be a plethora of PACs pitching a yes vote on three controversial city of Miami ballot questions to voters — and, so far, nothing on the “vote no” side.
Joining the strong mayor initiative and stadium park retail center initiatives, which are getting all the attention, is also a question about a 99-year lease on the city’s Miami Riverside Center administrative building that nobody really knows anything about (more on that later).
These important referendum questions on the Nov. 6 ballot are being pushed and promoted by someone or other. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez for the first two, and Jorge Mas and David Beckham and Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo on the soccer stadium for starters. These people and others who will profit from these measures will use PACs to push the yes vote.
Read related: Miami Commission should kick no-bid soccer shopping center out of Melreese
So far, there doesn’t seem to be any “vote no” PACs forming. And isn’t that usually the case? That’s why getting it on the ballot is so important to these special interests. Once it’s going before voters, it’s just a sales job.
We already know about Miamians for an Independent and Accountable Mayor’s Initiative, which spent practically all the $275,000 it has already raised since launched in March to get the strong mayor petitions signed and the question on the ballot. This PAC also has a website at strongmiami.com to promote the measure. Ladra is pretty sure we have not heard the last from them.
But there are at least three other PACs for the November election that have appeared in just the last six weeks.
Two of those committees came on board last month.
Building Miami’s Future filed Aug. 10 for the vague purpose of “Special Referendum Election in the City of Miami.” But we know it’s the MRC question because the only contribution so far is for in-kind polling data by FredrickPolls valued at $14,000 and paid for by Adler Development Group, which wants to redevelop the city-owned property into a mixed-use complex with four towers. This PAC has Steven Brownstein as the chairman, Tina Spano as treasurer and Morgan Sirlin as deputy treasurer.
Read related: Mayor Carlos Gimenez clan involved in Joe Carollo lawsuit vs strong mayor
Accountable Miami PC filed Aug. 24 with the equally vague purpose of “Miami ballot issues” and has already collected $11,000 from banker Leonard Abess, Sergio’s CEO Carlos Gazitua and attorney Juan Mayol. Daniel Milian is the chairman. Political CPA Jose “Pepe” Riesco is treasurer and Jeannine Miranda is deputy treasurer. Ladra bets it’s a pro strong mayor PAC, seeing as how more accountability is the presumed outcome.
Another PAC turned up just last week.
The transparently named Miami Freedom Park Political Committee filed its documents with the city on Sept. 17 for the purpose of  “advocating for a Local Referendum amending the City charter.” Pablo Alvarez is the chairman, and Riesco and Miranda again as the CPAs.
That’s at least four PACs so far — there could be more registered at the state level — that will be vying for your attention, urging yes votes on the strong mayor, the MRC lease and the soccer stadium retail complex.
The poor no vote side never gets any organized money — except maybe, in this case, we just might see some against the strong mayor question coming from Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo or Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez or both.
Ladra will keep an eye on these PACs and any others that may form in the coming weeks so we can figure out who is investing in these three ballot questions and how much — and why.
This post was not paid for nor approved by any committee for anything.

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Of course it’s a mega retail shopping complex. You didn’t think it would be just a stadium, did ya? For soccer? Where’s the fun (read: money) in that?
Well kept secret details of the long-awaited plan to turn Melreese Golf Course, the only golf course owned by the city of Miami and a historic gem, into a mega retail destination with shops, offices and restaurants, plus a 700-room hotel, have come out only in recent days, since the item is coming before the Miami Commission Thursday. And people are actually surprised that only a tiny, little bit of the plan includes a 25,000-seat soccer stadium?
This ain’t about a public venue for Kendall families to go to major league soccer games, something we all want. This is about a sweetheart deal public land grab. This is so David Beckham and his new Miami partners, which include Jorge Mas and the Mas family, turn it into a $1 billion, 73-acre complex with 600,000 square feet of retail and restaurants, 400,000 square feet of office space and at least 3,700 parking spaces that have a business plan all of their own.
Read related: Lawsuit to shed light on soccer stadium deal, land taken by eminent domain
It’s bigger than Brickell City Center and might have once been deemed the largest shopping complex ever imagined, except for that mega mall in Northwest Dade.
Except that this is smack in the middle of our gridlocked Miami-Dade, right next to Miami International Airport.
That’s only the first reason not to entertain this silly idea — at least for now. Until we have some of the stupid smart plan solutions in place, there is no reason to add this many trips to our already busy 37th Avenue.
But there are other reasons. How about that it’s a no-bid deal given to a bunch of insiders with connections to City Hall? How about the fact that the details about the shopping center on steroids was kept secret from everybody until the last minute? Even Beckham and co — who were just kidding with their plan to build the stadium in Overtown — know it’s a tough sell.
What else do we still not know?
Proponents will say that this is an economic win with a guaranteed paltry $3.5 million a year in rent to the city and $44 million or so a year in tax revenue. All they want is the chance to bring this to voters.
Read related: Carlos Gimenez’s own land for/near new soccer stadium
But that’s not entirely honest. All they really want is a chance to bring a slick, shiny multi-million dollar campaign to convince voters that this is in their best interest. They are going to use words like Freedom to tug at the heart strings and might even conjure Cuban exile royalty ghosts and what their wishes might have been if he was alive today. They are going to go all out, balls to the wall. If you think the FIU campaign to get the Youth Fair land lease referendum passed was something special, get ready for the campaign of your lives.
To them, “taking it to the voters” is basically a yes.
Because the opposition will not have the money that the developers making millions on this sweetheart real estate deal have, so there won’t be a slick campaign for the no vote. That will all be grassroots. And, probably, hopefully, viral. But still, it will be an uphill battle against the better funded side.
The city of Miami is selling itself and its citizens cheap if it allows this to even go to a public vote, knowing full well what that means. This is nothing more than a no-bid contract for a bunch of political insiders who are trying to take advantage of us. The way the development is unfolding, the land is worth way more than $4 or $5 million a year. Which is why some people have urged the commission to open the golf course up to bids — make it a competitive process and see what others might pay to do the same thing.
Read related: King Petty Carlos Gimenez gets goofy over soccer stadium
Beckham et al don’t want that. Because they can’t compete. That’s why they’re flying in all kinds of cheerleaders today and have to plan a tailgate party by soccer fans to try to sway the commission.
Don’t believe the hype. Take a step back and let’s look at this with time and more input from the community.
Ladra has heard that two of the five commissioners are already against the plan. That includes Willy Gort, whose district includes Melreese. Here’s hoping that third vote is off the fence today on the right side.
This is not the plan to take to voters if they ever want to convince us to do anything with public land for a stadium. Keyword: Stadium.

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Thank the political gods that millionaire Miami pioneer heir Bruce Matheson also smelled something fishy about Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s special no-bid deal to sell a county-owned parcel in Overtown to the Beckham United group that wants to build a soccer stadium there.

Matheson — who has the money and gravitas that comes from a track record of fighting Big Sports — filed a lawsuit last week to stop the sale of the property at 684 NW 7th St., used by the county’s water and sewer department as mostly a storage depot for equipment, to David Beckham and his business partners. They want to put it together with other adjacent parcels they have bought so they can build a stadium for a promised but as-yet unexisting professional soccer team. And the county commission approved the sale for $9 million last month.

The crux of the lawsuit is that the county should have issued a request for proposals for the property once the property was deemed surplus, and that the commission should then have chosen the highest paying bidder, as state and county laws require.

Because, after all, the process is not supposed to be rigged to benefit any particular person or soccer star. And the mayor of the county isn’t supposed to arbitrarily put a property on surplus all of a sudden to benefit the father of his campaign fundraiser.

That is what happened, folks. This property was not on the surplus list already. In fact, the 7 and 7 building — as it is known among county employees because it’s on 7th Avenue and 7th Street — was getting ready for renovations to remove asbestos. Furthermore, Ladra has been told by a couple of different sources that the county is looking to buy or lease another property so it can house the overflow of equipment and trucks — as well as staff parking for a nearby facility — that are at the 7 and 7 building now.

But the property was curiously put on the surplus list after the Beckham group purchased an adjacent lot owned by Chris and Tom Korge and Barry Goldmeier, father of Brian Goldmeier, who makes a great living raising campaign funds for Gimenez and his allies. That 1.37 acres, purchased in 2006 for $1.3 million went for $6.2 million to Beckham. But it is arguable that it wouldn’t have sold at all if the county land, which is three adjacent acres needed for the stadium site, wasn’t suddenly made surplus with a wave of the mayor’s magic wand. Remember, Gimenez signed a letter of intent to sell the land in December of 2015. The subpoenas that come with a lawsuit may tell us whether or not he was pressured or convinced to put the property on surplus so he could sell it cheap, like the mayor did with the land up in Northwest Miami-Dade that was subsequently bought by the American Dream Mall.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez’s pals own land for/near new soccer stadium

Matheson’s lawsuit states that the county sold the land based on an old appraisal — before adjacent land sales — and at $69 per square foot, when the lot next door was purchased by Beckham’s group for $103 a square foot.

Talk about a sweetheart deal. Such a deal that Matheson said he would buy it himself at that price. I bet a lot of people would.

Ladra thinks the lawsuit will shed light on many irregularities in the process. We will get a full vetting of the history of this property and find out things that Gimenez certainly didn’t want us to know.

Like the fact that this parcel was originally taken by the county in 1971 through eminent domain proceedings against the Canada Dry Bottling Co., which was paid $60,445 for the land and moving costs, and a few other property owners, according to Miami-Dade Circuit Court records (case nos. 69-12503, 69-15943 and 69-16872). J. C. Devine Company, an Ohio corporation, owned one of the lots taken through eminent domain for $225,979. Eric and Fay Manville owned a third parcel with Minnie Barnett Johns and Chauncey and Estelle Walden. Manville was paid $21,940, Barnett $28,325 and the Waldens got $24,650 for their losses.

Records show that the court allowed Dade County to take these lands from these private land owners through eminent domain “for the public purpose of urban renewal contemplating the clearing and redevelopment of a slum area.”

Apparently, the county felt that using the lot as an overflow station for trucks and backhoes and excavating equipment for most of the past 45 years was “urban renewal.” In light of the use its had, then certainly a stadium may be more in line with that public purpose of redevelopment.

But so would a park. Or affordable housing. Or an artists’ co-op space. Or a tech start-up hub. At the very least, shouldn’t there have been a conversation about what to have there? The lawsuit seems to have opened the door for that chat. Better late than never.

Mike Hernandez, the mayor’s mouthpiece, has already blasted the lawsuit (like he blasted the Skyrise Miami lawsuit and we saw how that went). His comment in the Miami Herald story, as always, targets the messenger in an obvious attempt to change the narrative. “It’s apparent that Mr. Matheson hates professional sports,” Hernández said, referring to the man’s fight to keep the Miami Open tennis tournament at Crandon, public land his family donated to the county, from expanding and privatizing the park.

“He’s doing his best to drive out the Miami Open from Key Biscayne, and now he hopes to block Major League Soccer from coming to Miami,” said Hernandez, who is an extraordinary spin doctor and is taking the side of Big Sports against the Joe Public. Notice he did not even address the procedural irregularities. Because it’s easier to create a boogie man and make it about that than it is to defend the lack of transparency and due process in this administration.

Read related story: King Petty Carlos Gimenez gets goofy over soccer stadium

The county will say that Beckham got the no-bid deal, approved by the commission last month, in exchange for a package of community benefits that include hiring locals and salary requirements. The problem is that those things have become common requests of any developer coming to town asking any kind of variance or site plan approval and commissioners certainly could have offered the same opportunity for others to bring those same benefits to the table.

Also, to comply with the requirements of eminent domain, at least some of the proceeds from that sale, we believe, have to go to some kind of urban renewal project in the neighborhood. Not to the lease or purchase of an additional property to take the facility’s place (because it wasn’t really surplus to begin with).

Wouldn’t a bidding war — or even just selling it at true market value — benefit the taxpayers of Miami-Dade? Especially at a time when the mayor is saying we have no money for light rail and, in fact, cutting transit services and hiring only a net gain of 12 new officers for 2.5 million people? Wouldn’t a full conversation about options for “urban renewal” on this property benefit the people of Spring Garden, who are afraid the stadium will break their quality of life, and really everybody?

Of course it would. Yes, yes and yes. But there was never an honest conversation about options because this was rushed through. Hurry, hurry! Mr. Beckham needs this to get his team. Mr. Beckham needs this vote to get his financing. Hurry, hurry!

Also, by the way, a judge is not the only one that can stop this stadium or slow it down if she or he rules in favor of Matheson, who lives in Spring Garden (and thank the political gods he does because that gives him standing in court). The county commission may have to revisit the sale it approved June 6 anyway, regardless, because of a requirement — imposed by Commissioner and DUI ducker Jose “Pepe” Diaz, channeling the Godfather — that county cops be hired for overtime inside the facility. The city of Miami has an issue with setting a precedent on a private facility hiring county officers for OT rather than city cops.

Gimenez already publicly said that he could renegotiate the deal to address that issue. But if the county can undo the police OT requirement that means they can likely undo more. Maybe all of it? At the very least, they can try to get a better deal for the taxpayers they are supposed to represent. Or a better project.

Commissioners are always saying that they wish they could rewrite the Marlins stadium deal and here is a chance to rewrite the soccer stadium deal. They could open it up to proposals and let the highest bidder win. If the best use and highest bidder happens to be the soccer stadium, then so be it.

If not, then they’ll know they did the right thing.

Oh, who is Ladra kidding? It’s going to take a judge. Thank the political gods for Bruce Matheson.