News this week about soil contamination found by an environmental study at the Melreese golf course near Miami International Airport — which developers want to turn into condos, offices, a hotel, shopping complex, restaurants and, oh yeah, a soccer stadium — was not a complete surprise.
In fact, the head environmental official in Miami-Dade says the levels of 
arsenic, lead, barium and other pollutants found are not only what they’d expect from a public golf course built over an ash field of a former incinerator. Lee Hefty, director of the Miami-Dade Division of Environmental Resource Management also told the Miami Herald it was overall lower than what is found at other county sites.
So it was a surprise when the city manager quickly closed the golf course and Mayor Francis Suarez used some frightening language to applaud the decision.
“There’s no indication that anyone’s been exposed to any harmful chemicals,” 
Suarez said in a video statement somehow prepared quickly and released hours later. “But based on the new information that we received on the toxicity levels yesterday, it’s imperative for the safety of our residents to immediately review the findings that we have seen to determine whether, for the health and safety of our residents, the park should remain opened or closed.”
Sounds a bit extra. Exposed. Imperative. Toxicity. Intentional drama.
It’s more suspicious because Suarez — who hasn’t returned a call from Ladra since his failed strong-arm mayor craziness — has been the head cheerleader on Miami Freedom Park since he first announced the secret deal last summer. He convinced the commission to put a referendum on the ballot so that voters would allow a development on public land without the req
uired competitive process and has since been a regular groupie at Team Inter Miami events, like the one announcing Heineken would be the official beer. It’s like he’s part of the developers’ team — not part of the residents’ team.
There are really only two possible reasons to close the golf course — and both are backhanded political ploys that only bolster arguments that Suarez is the unregistered and unofficial lead lobbyist for the Mas group.
Read related: Miami commission should kick no-bid soccer shopping center out of Melreese
The first would be to intentionally cause the property value to depreciate just 
as the developers get ready to present a proposal for their Miami Freedom Park, a mega commercial real estate complex disguised as a soccer stadium. Preliminary talks had the millionaire Mas group paying a paltry, falta de respeto $3.5 million a year in rent for the $1 billion project. Maybe they want a lower property appraisal to justify that figure. Ladra can’t believe they would try to offer something lower. But maybe they would, to make $3.5 suddenly look like a windfall.
The second reason would be to delay the proposal until after the November election, so that there is a new commissioner in the solid “no” seat now held 
by the termed out Willy Gort, right, whose District includes Melreese. Many political observers believe the Mas group has a horse in that race. They would be political fools not to.
Right now, they have until Sept. 16 to present their proposal for developing their mega complex. Commissioners Gort and Manolo Reyes are likely to vote against it, as they have expressed deep concerns about both the project and the secretive, no-bid process by which it was conceived. Commissioners Keon Hardemon and Ken Russell — who may have finally drawn a real challenge (more on that later) — have been supportive.
Commissioner Joe Carollo, who was initially very gung-ho on it — mostly because he had an axe to grind with the First Tee operator Charles DeLucca — might be changing his mind to a negative, according to some City Hall sources. His beef against DeLucca, who is old and reportedly ill, isn’t as important any more as his beef against Suarez and Gonzalez.
Jorge and Jose Mas, partners with David Beckham et al on the Inter 
Miami soccer franchise, hired EE&G for the environmental impact study as part of their no-bid 99-year lease proposal. The anticipated clean-up costs were part of the discussion last summer — with the developers promising to pay them.
There could be a third reason to close the golf course. This gets rid of the First Tee operation for at-risk kids earlier and without much fanfare.
Read related: Two-faced mayor Francis Suarez wants to kick kids off Melreese
Because how much you wanna bet that they can start building part of their mega commercial complex as they mitigate? And how much you wanna bet that the portion of the property with the most toxicity is where they had planned the soccer stadium will go?
After all, they’re already planning to start their first couple of seasons at Lockhart Stadium in Broward, where the group tore down the historic structure to build a modern stadium and training facilities without a real estate deal or hotel or shopping mall. Imagine that.
And how much you wanna bet they will play much longer in Broward than they said they would?
Closing Melreese is political drama to benefit soccer mall developers added by Ladra on
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