FIU's bully battle vs Youth Fair keeps costing us plenty

There have been a few recent volleys in the battle for the public land that is now occupied by the Dade County Youth Fair and dearly coveted by Florida International University for it’s much-ballyhooed expansion plans.

None of them really matter, since The Fair has no intention of moving and we are still where we were six months ago. But the most recent memo from Mayor Carlos Gimenez made Ladra laugh out loud.

Gimenez — who has already invested waaaay too much time and attention on what should be a private matter between two non-county entities — said one of the holdups is costs. Seems the county can’t get a guarantee from FIU that it would pay any legal costs and repercussions resulting from the court battle that would result if the county breaks its lease.

And yet nobody is talking about what this entire exercise in futility has cost the taxpayers already? Is FIU using taxpayer dollars — even from the state, that’s your money ladies and gentlemen — to pay for the multiple feasibility studies, to pay for the drawings of what their expansion might look like on land they do not yet control, to market this idea to the public and pay lobbyists and publicists and the president to meet with politicians and get them on their bandwagon? The latest fools are the Homestead City Council members, who couldn’t fall all over themselves fast enough to welcome a Youth Fair — just outside city limits, of course, and the county’s preferred location — and only because it came with an FIU created and managed agricultural lab on county land that has been slated for economic redevelopment since Hurricane Andrew.

Here’s an idea, FIU and Miami-Dade: Do the agricultural lab thing anyway. Don’t hold it hostage to The Fair deal.

But even if the state money is still put away in a drawer somewhere to be found later, and despite the mayor saying that Miami-Dade was not going to pay for any of the relocation costs, the talks about it are already costing us.

It’s not like Gimenez and his key adviser, Michael Spring, are working so hard on this deal on their own time, right? Instead of spending their taxpayer-paid man hours on improving the services and resources for all of Miami-Dade residents, these two — and other county staffers, probably — have arguably spent far too much time already trying to bully The Fair (on behalf of FIU) into moving to another location. The Fair has already repeatedly said that they are not interested in any of the locations presented, although they are intrigued by the notion of sharing the space with the university — an option that, curiously enough, does not get the attention it deserves, despite Commissioner Juan Zapata‘s angry letter at the mayor for even considering such a thing (more on that later).

Yet we’re still having meetings and scouting locations? The last of many meetings Gimenez has had with FIU president Mark Rosenberg was the Monday after 14 people were shot over the weekend. You’d think he’d have better things to do.

“The property is our property but this is principally an issue that needs to be worked out between FIU and the Fair,” Spring told Ladra before the holiday break. “I suppose you could call us facilitators.”

Is that really the mayor’s job? Facilitating a private business proposition? Is that what we elected him to do?

Spring says it’s not too much of his time. “We are not devoting internal resources to any organization,” he told me. “We are reviewing their assessments. I’m a pretty busy guy. Both FIU and The Fair do a good job of summarizing their points.”

But since Spring makes $232,600 a year, some might think that ten minutes is too long, especially since they keep on offering properties that The Fair’s executive board has passed on because their economic adviser has told them it will kill their business.

Ladra knows that an expansion at FIU is good for both the economy and the community, providing more educational options for our youth. But so are a lot of things. So was the Miami Dade College push for a referendum for a tax increase — something left to the voters here, and which may have also passed with 65% — and you didn’t see the mayor “facilitating” that. We didn’t commit much time to making sure that happened. In fact, I don’t remember him promoting it at all. He went to Tallahassee a year earlier, however, to lobby for public dollars for the Dolphins stadium’s “best deal ever.”

So why is Gimenez so hell bent on making this happen? Don’t believe for a minute that it’s a voter mandate. The mayor and FIU know very well that the referendum that passed in 2014 with 64% approval was a political ploy to pressure The Youth Fair and Expo people into moving. It’s a marketing tool. The ballot language was specific about two things: allowing FIU the same variance waiver given currently to The Fair on park land and not costing the county a dime. Ooops. I hope one out of two is good enough.

No, it’s not the vote. Because when did a voter mandate matter to Carlos Gimenez, who ignored the will of … well, look at that, the same 64% of the people who voted for the Pets’ Trust Initiative in 2012. Well, maybe he will defend himself because 64.88% voted for the FIU waiver, while only 64.47% voted to save animals.

Mandate, schmandate.

So what’s the real reason? Maybe it is the people who would benefit from the expansion vs the massive spay and neuter program suggested by the Pets’ Trust Initiative, which would lower the cost in subsequent years?

On the one hand you have selfless activists and innocent animals who would benefit from the Pets’ Trust Initiative. On the other you have, you know, the FIU board members on his friends and family plan and the many businesses in the Latin Builders Association who regularly contribute to his campaign.

That’s the only difference I can see.

Carlos Gimenez, Dade County Youth Fair, FIU

FIU’s bully battle vs Youth Fair keeps costing us plenty added by Ladra on January 3, 2016
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