Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez may still enjoy a majority approval rating — with 53% of respondents saying they thought he was doin
g an excellent (11%) or good (42%) job at the county, according to a recent pool.
That’s not bad. But it’s not really good either, considering that there is a 4% margin of error, he may be actually have the approval or favorability of less than half the voters.
But an even greater majority of 55% think he’s too beholden to lobbyists and special interests, and is being led by them rather than by the best interests of the county and taxpayers in his multiple, multi-million-dollar deal negotiations Only 27% believe he is negotiating in our best interest.
The poll by Amandi & Bendixen — done in partnership with and first published by The Miami Herald — also indicates that this sense that “lobbyists and special interest are exerting too much influence over the mayor” comes from all three major ethnic groups and all three political parties in the county.
So how can he have a 53% favorability? How can only 30% say he’s doing a mediocre (19%) or poor (11%) job?
Especially when 65% of black voters and 60% of white Anglo voters said the mayor was acting on behalf of these special interests? Hispanics, where he has the most support, also think that he’s too close to lobbyists by 52%. Among the parties, the Dems are
the most concerned, with 59% saying these special interests exert too much influence over Gimenez.
“These are the disturbing figures,” Amandi told Ladra.
Michael Hernandez, a spokesman for the mayor, said that Gimenez was not concerned with polls, but that the 30% unfavorability was of more concern to him.
The same respondents — 400 voters interviewed by phone in a three-day period last week — were asked about the three different stadium deals that Gimenez has been juggling for the past several months. And voters seem concerned about all three.
While they are split evenly on the Miami Dolphins proposal to pay for their own upgrades in exchange for the county paying fees for events that they would already have — with 46% each in favor and opposed — they were less approving of the proposal for a soccer stadium downtown and of the deal struck last week with the owners of the Miami Heat for operation of the arena.
On the soccer stadium proposed for a waterfront site at Museum Park in downtown Miami, a boat slip they would have to fill in, the public was split 45% against and 43% for, with 12% undecided. Not a huge margin. The opposition is much higher among white Anglo voters, at 64%. While Hispanics are more excited about soccer (duh!) with 52% saying they were in favor and 40% saying no. Blacks only had a 44% disapproval rating, but that is likely because they are the most undecided, with 18% saying they had not made up their minds.
Soccer is also more popular among younger generations, which is why those respondents aged 18 to 49 were in favor of the boat slip site while those 50 years old or older were against. And that is bad news for former footballer and Major League Soccer franchisee David Beckham, who has been campaigning hard for a downtown waterfront site, because the proposal has to go through a public referendum vote — probably limited to the city of Miami (and where are the geographic figures) — where older voters show up more than young ones.
How much you wanna bet they end up in Little Havana at the old Orange Bowl site?
But on the new Heat agreement — where the county is getting a secure $1 million a year payment but paying out between $6.4 million and $8.5 million over the next 20 years — there was a wider margin: 53% of t
he respondents said they were against the deal while 38% were in favor. Again, the white Anglos drive the numbers up, with 66% opposed to the new agreement. But even Hispanics didn’t like this one, with 51% opposed and 40% in favor.
Amandi told Ladra that the poll was significant because it marks the first time that someone takes the public pulse on important issues that have been controversial subject matter in the media for months.
“Many decisions are made that have great impact on the community at large, and often the community at large does not get to weigh in on them,” Amandi said Tuesday morning. “The poll is almost acting as a check in the process, so that they can’t say the public opinion was not taken into consideration.”
Well, that’s optimistic. Commissioners can and will still claim ignorance. After all, they do it so well. They just might not be able to say it with much authority. And Ladra’s got to admit, she wishes the poll was done before they voted 10-2 — Commissioner Xavier “Mayor Sir” Suarez was the only one who made any sense — to approve the “much better deal” for the arena that really may only be better for Micky Arison, the owner of the Miami Heat, and his lobbyist, none other than Jorge Luis Lopez.
Related story: Mayor, Miami Heat bait and switch to ‘better deal’ for who?
Naturally, because this poll steps on a lot of toes, there are going to be critics.
Lopez — who thinks he’s a pollster now becaus
e of his Sunday email surveys that he likely manipulates to his benefit — says the Bendixen & Amandi poll is flawed because it didn’t tell the people called that the team would likely leave without this deal. Say what? Is anyone buying that line of crap? Nobody except Lopez has ever said that — well, the mayor said it four or five times and a few commissioners, like Commissioner Jean Monestine, repeated it at the meeting last week where they gave the richest man in Florida the sweetheart deal on a silver platter.
Those are just scare tactics since the Miami Heat really can’t go anywhere else. They are as much Miami as we are Heat.
And I would point out that the poll could also have said that the county potentially missed out on millions of dollars in future profit sharing.
Lopez told the Herald that his own internal polls show differently. What polls? Why haven’t they shared their numbers?
Because that’s complete nonsense, that’s why. Unless Lopez is talking about his Sunday Surveys that he’s taken to do via his email list — not exactly a scientific sample.
Beckham’s people, too, were quoted as saying that the poll question lacked. They wanted it to include the fact that the soccer stadium would be built completely with private money. Okay, but if they added that then they’d have to add that Beckham and his investors floated an unacceptable — and frankly insulting — $500,000 a year rent on the tax-free property while seeking millions in sales tax subsidies from the state.
But we can’t get so nitpicky, otherwise these poll questions could read like a book.
Still, Ladra might suggest to Amandi that he add another question to his next poll about Lopez and the undue influence he seems to have at County Hall. I might phrase it like this: “Do you think that lobbyist Jorge Luis Lopez, who is at County Hall almost every day and traveled with the mayor last year to see the Pope, should have his all-access pass revoked?”
Poll: Mayor Carlos Gimenez is too comfy close to lobbyists added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
