An attempt to ground the long-delayed Airport City project at Miami International Airport failed Wednesday after 
commissioners tied in a vote that asked the administration to come up with a list of alternative uses in 60 days.
But the true, deep, dark motivation for the motion — made by Commission Esteban Bovo, who originally wanted to toss out negotiations with Odebrecht USA altogether and start anew — reared its ugly head when Commissioner Javier Souto basically said Cuban Americans had built Miami and that they should be respected.
See? Odebrecht USA is a subsidiary of the Brazil-based parent company that does business in Cuba and won the chance in a competitive process in 2010 to lease parcels at Miami International Airport to develop a hotel, restaurants and shops, as well as possibly a gas station, dry cleaner and pet hotel/kennel.
And Bovo can talk blue in the face about the negotiations starting four years ago on a plan that was conceived in 2008 in a bigger footprint than what is available now in a different economic climate where we can get better terms today, yadda yadda — the real problem here is the firm’s ties with Cuba.
Even they know that. Even Pedro Munilla of MCM Construction — which came in number two for Airport City negotiations — and his lobbyist Armando Gutierrez, who were in the chambers nodding their heads in agreement as Souto spoke, know that.
Related related content: Delayed Airport City project battle brews at Miami-Dade
“The issue is not the company in itself,” Souto began to say in one of those long-winded, twisted monologues that clearly show, no matter how much you like him, that the former Senator’s time on the dais is done. “The issue is what decisions the company has made in the last years that really bothers and goes to the heart of this community.
“It really bothers and hurts a lot of people,” Souto said, ignoring the instructions of the county attorney’s office that this secret underlying motivation was not to be openly discussed, since the Supreme Court ruled that this can’t be a local issue. “Over 65% of the people here are Latin. Out of the Latin people, the prevalent community is the Cuban community. If you don’t know that, you don’t know where you are.
“We don’t need anymore exacerbation of feelings. We shouldn’t fool around and play around with the feelings of the community,” Souto said, then preceded to play around with the feelings of part of the community by saying, basically, that people forgot Miami was un campo 56 years ago, before the Cubans got here en masse.
“What was Miami? And what is Miami today? It is because of the Cubans who came here,” Souto said, ignoring several attempts by Chairwoman Rebeca Sosa — who could see the downward spiral — to interrupt him.
But it was too late. El gato was out of the bag.
“Black folks built this community,” Commissioner Dennis Moss shot back.
“I resent that,” Moss said. “We have a diverse community. Everybody plays a role in the community. Everybody pays taxes… To have this attitude that ‘I control everything,’ to me, is offensive.
“At the end of the day, that’s part of what’s wrong with Miami-Dade County,” Moss said. “It’s not about being fair. It’s about power.”
Moss had wanted to present another, way different resolution that would have asked the mayor to move forward with the finalization of negotiations with Odebrecht. He was denied the ability to make that motion by Bovo calling the four-day rule, which requires resolutions to be part of the public agenda for at least four days.
Earlier, Moss had pointed out that Odebrecht had not violated any laws or rules and that the county was ready to move forward because, an assistant county attorney answered him, the lease agreement was “substantially completed” and just needed minor language clean up.
The commissioner also brought up the 305 Pizza debacle — another county bid process that went awry after the county decided, nah, we don’t want to offer that area of the airport — and said that this is no way to do business.
“We said never mind,” Moss said. “And now we’re trying to say never mind again. What kind of message are we sending to the business community?”
Sosa, when she wasn’t trying to smooth out the ethnic ripples, seemed to be selling the idea of starting over — or at least delaying the current negotiations with a new set of parameters. “It was the former manager that started this process seven or eight years ago,” Sosa said, repeating what was apparently one of the message points: That this is an old deal.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a procurement process that has taken eight years to get,” she said, adding that she wanted a traffic study to see how the development might affect nearby neighborhoods “after soooooooo many years.” Her dramatic flair. Not mine.
“We can sit here and say it started before the mayor,” said Commissioner Barbara Jordan, who should have listed all the things that the county is still working on that started before the mayor. “But we did this,” she reminded her colleagues, because the directive to start negotiating for uses that would bring MIA revenue was discussed and approved by the commission.
“I hate to think that the slowdown is political,” Jordan said, hitting the nail on the head.
Indeed, Moss asked about negotiations that were begun around the same time to develop parcels at Tamiami Kendall Executive Airport. While those talks are finished, the county is “not ready to move forward at this time,” staff told him. Wonder what the hold up is over there.
Bovo continued to insist that the rationale for his resolution was to get a bigger, better deal. “They offered us more money because there are other offers out there,” he said, referring to a re-negotiation that got the county $15 million more.
He said Airport City no longer exists because it has been scaled back so much. He called it “Airport Neighborhood.”
“I’m willing to wait a year or two or three or four, whatever it takes,” he said, about getting a better deal. Because staff had already told commissioners it would take about three to four years to negotiate a new agreement.
Meanwhile, Odebrecht is ready to go. Ladra was told they can break ground in August.
That is, if the community doesn’t blow up with this ugly us versus them, Cuban versus black thing. Again.
Commissioner Xavier “Mayor Sir” Suarez maybe saw the writing on the wall and became nearly overwrought with emotion. The first Cuban-American mayor of Miami — the one who took the streets during the Arthur MacDuffie riots — expressed a deep disappointment in the ethnic split that came up and said that he never would have been elected without the support of the black community. He said he “loved” the former senator and got along well with Moss and did not like to see this ugly dispute. He seemed to choke back tears.
But when it came time to vote, Suarez was among those who voted against Bovo’s Cuba-tainted measure, despite Souto’s pleas. With him: Commissioners Jordan, Moss, Jean Monestime, Audrey Edmonson and Bruno Barreiro, who amazed many when he broke from the Munilla/Gutierrez chains to vote, technically, against them.
Those who voted for the resolution with Bovo were Sosa, Souto, Vice Chair Lynda Bell, and Commissioners Jose “Pepe” Diaz and Sally Heyman.
Commissioner Juan Zapata was absent for the vote. He had to leave early because he had a family medical emergency. But despite the fact that he voted with Bovo in the finance committee — after first amending the resolution so it would not scrap the plan entirely — Zap likely would have made the vote 7-6 against requesting a fresh look at the project.
Earlier in the meeting, Zapata asked about a $4 million expenditure for police vehicles that was on the agenda. Most of it was for Ford vehicles for patrol cars but some of the funds were going to Pembroke Motors in Pembroke Pines and Zapata asked what model vehicle that was for. Dodge, he was told.
“Chrysler,” he asked, just to be sure.
Yes, he was told.
“Yeah, Fiat,” he said, sorta under his breath, referring to the car company that last year secured full ownership of Chrysler.
And that has dealerships in Cuba.
Airport City coup fails; but true colors (Cuba) revealed added by Ladra on
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[…] you can expect Cuba, too, to become an issue in the Congressional race for district 26 and maybe, because of the Airport City thing, at the county level (more on that […]
This is all so silly. Cuba is a gnat on the ass of a giant global economy. If you don’t know how a global economy works, maybe they shouldn’t be on the commission or living on the largess of the taxpayer.
What if the company did business with Apartheid South Africa? Would that make a difference? Please. Who the hell are you kidding? Or what if they had ties to the PLO? With the murders in Venezuela, the thousands of dead in Cuba, we should expect better from our elected officials. Let the company continue with Castro. How about a good ole AMMERICAN COMPANY?
I build more of Miami than both these clowns put together and I say a pox on both their houses. I’ve been in construction for 40 years and built everything from single family homes to TV stations and stadiums using every nationally of sub contractor, architect and engineer in the hemisphere. BTW at the beginning of the tunnel project? Everybody was speaking german.
In all that time I’ve never seen either these two do a day of real work, always “serving” in some public sector or non profit, pontificating about shit they know nothing about (who gives a shit what you did before in Cuba Soto… and Moss? What exactly did you do before? Hope that incorporation thing goes through so you can be a small town mayor or all you got left on the horizon is one little county pension..
And if you want to know who REALLY build Miami, and who history will remember it was none of the above, read Les Standiford’s “last train to paradise”
When Odebrecht made the business decision to do business with governments such as Cuba, shareholders and owners have telegraphed to the world the corporate culture of that business. The issue becomes fair game for future contracts in other places of the world. This is not unique to Odebrecht.
Odebrecht cannot have it both ways and it should’ve expected the scrutiny and additional transaction costs that come from engaging with a state sponsor of terrorism, corrupt, and well-documented human rights abusers. The future leaders of Cuba, I hope, will keep this in mind when doling out lucrative re-construction contracts.
By the way, the litigation of the port deal matter has been interesting; Odebrecht brought it upon themselves. And I wholeheartedly support it. However, folks want to demonize Odebrecht but say nothing about the airlines that keep taking people to Cuba. Or the airlines that pay flyover rights to Cuba, rather than spend some more fuel by go around. Or the folks who take yachts to Mariel and other ports in Cuba for weekend jaunts. I could go on.
As for the Miami politics, take a step back and breathe. I moved from Miami in the early 1990s, so possibly I’m a little out of touch with things; however, last I checked, we’re all Americans. This business of “Miami era un pueblo de campo” when my relatives arrived is true, but that is also true of many other communities around the state and the nation during that time. Americans of Cuban ancestry have been extremely successful. OK. What’s the next goal?
Miami, focus on the things that unite, not divide. Miami proves that the regime was wrong, and you were right. Live in the future, not the past. Your best days are ahead. Do something good with it. This quibbling, well, you’re giving Dave Barry a lot of ammunition for another novel. Which, come to think of it, may not be a bad thing.
Souto and his jowly stupidity need to go. He has always been a worthless windbag. Get rid of this senile buffoon once and for all.
It seems to me WE ALL BUILT THIS COMMUNITY, not just groups of Cubans at Souto put it or Blacks as Moss put it. WE ALL BUILT IT!
Now return the power to the people and abolish this strong Mayor form of government so that we as a County can move on.
Pre-European contact of Miami Dade County
The earliest evidence of Native American settlement in the Miami region came from about 12,000 years ago. The first inhabitants settled on the banks of the Miami River, with the main villages on the northern banks.
The inhabitants at the time of first European contact were the Tequesta people, who controlled much of southeastern Florida, including what is now Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and the southern part of Palm Beach County. The Tequesta Indians fished, hunted, and gathered the fruit and roots of plants for food, but did not practice any form of agriculture. They buried the small bones of the deceased with the rest of the body, and put the larger bones in a box for the village people to see. The Tequesta are credited with making the Miami Circle.
European contact of Miami Dade County
Juan Ponce de León was the first European to visit the area in 1513 by sailing into Biscayne Bay. His journal records that he reached Chequescha, a variant of Tequesta, which was Miami’s first recorded name. It is unknown whether he came ashore or made contact with the natives. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his men made the first recorded landing when they visited the Tequesta settlement in 1566 while looking for Avilés’ missing son, shipwrecked a year earlier. Spanish soldiers led by Father Francisco Villarreal built a Jesuit mission at the mouth of the Miami River a year later but it was short-lived. After the Spaniards left, the Tequesta Indians were left to fend themselves from European-introduced diseases like smallpox. By 1711, the Tequesta sent a couple of local chiefs to Havana, Cuba, to ask if they could migrate there. The Cubans sent two ships to help them, but Spanish illnesses struck and most of the Indians died.
The first permanent European settlers arrived in the early 19th century. People came from the Bahamas to South Florida and the Keys to hunt for treasure from the ships that ran aground on the treacherous Great Florida Reef. Some accepted Spanish land offers along the Miami River. At about the same time, the Seminole Indians arrived, along with a group of runaway slaves. The area was affected by the Second Seminole War, during which Major William S. Harney led several raids against the Indians. Most non-Indian residents were soldiers stationed at Fort Dallas. It was the most devastating Indian war in American history, causing almost a total loss of population in the Miami area.
After the Second Seminole War ended in 1842, William English, re-established a plantation started by his uncle on the Miami River. He charted the “Village of Miami” on the south bank of the Miami River and sold several plots of land. In 1844, Miami became the county seat, and six years later a census reported that there were ninety-six residents living in the area. The Third Seminole War was not as destructive as the second one. Even so, it slowed down the settlement of southeast Florida. At the end of the war, a few of the soldiers stayed.
The Birth of Dade County
Dade County was created on January 18, 1836, under the Territorial Act of the United States. The county was named after Major Francis L. Dade, a soldier killed in 1835 in the Second Seminole War, at what has since been named the Dade Battlefield. At the time of its creation, Dade County included the land that now contains Palm Beach and Broward counties, together with the Florida Keys from Bahia Honda Key north and the land of present day Miami-Dade County. The county seat was originally at Indian Key in the Florida Keys; then in 1844, the County seat was moved to Miami. The Florida Keys from Key Largo to Bahia Honda were returned to Monroe County in 1866. In 1888 the county seat was moved to Juno, near present-day Juno Beach, Florida, returning to Miami in 1899. In 1909, Palm Beach County was formed from the northern portion of what was then Dade County, and then in 1915, Palm Beach County and Dade County contributed nearly equal portions of land to create what is now Broward County. There have been no significant boundary changes to the county since 1915.
The second-costliest natural disaster to occur in the United States was Hurricane Andrew, which hit Miami early Monday morning on August 24, 1992. It struck the southern part of the county from due east, south of Miami and very near Homestead, Kendall, and Cutler Ridge (now the Town of Cutler Bay). Damages numbered over $25 billion in the county alone, and recovery has taken years in these areas where the destruction was greatest. This was the costliest natural disaster in US history until Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf region in 2005.
Name change to Miami Dade County
On November 13, 1997, voters changed the name of the county from Dade to Miami-Dade to acknowledge the international name recognition of Miami. Voters were acting pursuant to home rule powers granted to Dade County, including the ability to change the name of the county without the consent of the Florida Legislature. The change in name also addressed a source of public dissatisfaction with the name “Dade” which was chosen to honor of Francis L. Dade, who had been killed in the Dade Massacre in the 1830s. The Dade Massacre did not occur in South Florida, but rather, in the West Central part of the state, in present day Sumter County, Florida, near Bushnell. There is also a Dade City, Florida, which is closer to the site of the massacre.
(Wikipedia)