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The courthouse has an arbitrary price tag of almost $370 million. So what’s a $10,000, $15,000 or a $25,000 contribution from the big law firms — as if there were categories of bronze donors, and silver and gold– if this is where they will be working? Especially if it is what the judges want? 
Happy judges make for happy cases, no? Ladra has been criticized for it, but I venture to say that there could be bribes hidden in these contributions and nobody would ever be the wiser. Or at least a wink, wink, nod here and there.
Read related story: Miami Dade: ‘Trust us with $400 mil for new courthouse’
Building Blocks For Justice, a PAC with a seriously misleading name, is overwhelmingly funded by attorneys. Eugene Stearns, who is one of the public spokespeople for the effort, has given $50,000 through his law firm. He must be a platinum club member. But Stearns, or his law firm, is also suspected at one point to have represented All Aboard Florida, which owns the downtown lot where the courthouse was originally envisioned.
So is he really doing this for the legal community and the courthouse users? Or is he doing it for his client? Someone’s gotta ask. ‘Cause $50K is a lot of ka-ching and these contributions to PACs are sometimes seen as investments on which donors expect a return.
And another thing that is quite noticeable is the number of attorneys with the same address giving $1,000 individual donations. Ladra has been told by more than one person that these lawyers are getting shaken down — either by other lawyers or judges who call and innocently bat their eyelashes. “You will help us, right?”
It is amazing to me that judges, whose rules about campaigning even for themselves are so tight, would be allowed to make a pitch for this tax increase for their own little Taj Majal. Especially a $400 million blank check without any plan or location in mind or detail on where the money would go. Hasn’t a line been crossed here?
There is one big difference between the two efforts.
Ladra is pretty certain that the FIU question is going to pass. That investment is a better risk. It is expected to pay off. There has been no opposition to it at all. The Youth Fair people didn’t even mount an ounce of PR for themselves. And while I don’t think that Friends has necessarily proved their case, and I still believe that the only reason for the question is to pressure the Youth Fair to move under less than optimum conditions, it’s not a tax.
Read related story: Courthouse tax debate — scare tactics vs. common sense
That courthouse bond referendum, which is a tax, is going to fail. 
You can tell from the pulse of the community, but I have also heard that it is polling badly. And you can almost see the desperation rise uptick by uptick in lobbyist Jorge Luis Lopez‘s tenor as he defends the referendum and his own reputation (more on that later). But after the attorneys spend probably more than $2 million in the end, maybe as much as $3 million, they will have fallen flat on their, um, briefs.
And, considering that the county has set aside $100,000 for asbestos remediation, I’m sure it’s a safe bet that $2 million would have fixed a lot of mold and mildew issues as well at Cielito Lindo.
Maybe the attorneys should have considered a private fundraising drive instead of a PAC to push a tax. They could call it Building Bricks of Justice and put donors names on decorative bricks — bronze, silver, gold.
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Two ballot questions cost promoters $2.5 mil — so far added by Ladra on
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