Miami Dolphins stadium tax grab redux — another bad deal

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This is beginning to feel like a recurring nightmare.

In his desperate attempt to find a taxpayer bailout for the team he apparently overpaid for, Stephen Ross — one of the richest men in the U.S, according to Forbes — is going on his third try for subsidies from Miami-Dade County.

Mayor Carlos Gimenez — who apparently never met a rich sports team owner he didn’t want to help out financially — met with Ross on the 29th floor of County Hall Friday and is said to be working over the weekend on an agreement that would fork over millions of dollars in tourist bed taxes to the Dolphins’ owner for games and events that he is already having.

Ladra thinks Ross is jealous of Micky Arison, the richest man in Florida, who just got a sweeter-heart deal from the county, which gave away millions of dollars in future profits. One bad turn, however, does not deserve another.

How dare the mayor even consider giving a billionaire $200,000 for a Jay Z concert or $400,000 for a soccer match or even between $3 million and $5 million for a Super Bowl that Ross was going to have anyway? Is Gimenez on drugs? Or is this another kind of high?

Gimenez calls it “incentive.” But, frankly, I think the money they make on the event itself should be incentive enough.

And wouldn’t this set up a terrible precedent ? Wouldn’t Arison, the richest man in Florida, want kickbacks from the county for bringing One Direction to the AmericanAirlines arena? Why not give the Homestead Motorsports Complex tourist tax dollars to bring a country singer to perform? Maybe even La Covacha would qualify for tax subsidies of their little dance hole in Doral when they bring Gilberto Santarosa? After all, the owners of La Covacha might be struggling financially a little more than Stephen Ross or Micky Arison.

They should not get one red cent of our money. Especially now that we know that tourist bed taxes can go to county parks and libraries and, if we get creative with that instead of with the stadiums and arenas run by the richest men in the state, maybe other stuff.

Let’s hope the third time is not the charm.

First, Ross went after close to $300 million in tourist bed taxes last year through “an unprecedented deal,” Gimenez called it, that died in the state legislature who refused to even hear the bill that addressed it.

Then, he and Gimenez floated around the idea that Ross would stop paying about $5 million annually in property taxes. Gimenez called that the “best possible deal” for the county.

Friday, the mayor told CBS 4’s Jim Defede that he wasn’t necessarily wrong then. “I’m just more right this time.”

Well, mayor, maybe you should keep trying. Who’s to say you won’t be “more right” next time?

  Carlos Gimenez, Dolphin stadium, Miami Dolphins, Stephen Ross