The One Miami-Dade political action committee chaired by Miami Commissioner Keon Hardemon‘s lobbyist aunt collected another $88,700 in December — and more than half of that came from Jorge Mas who wants to build a $1 billion mega mall and hotel complex disguised as a soccer stadium on the Melreese Golf Course.
At least $52,200 worth of contributions made to the PAC in December are tied to Mas, and his 
companies and employees, according to the latest campaign report, filed earlier this month.
Hardemon also got at least $4,000 in donations to his own personal campaign account last month from Mas family members and an employee who was likely strongly encouraged to write a maximum $1,000 check.
This looks and sounds and smells like an investment. And Ladra suspects its just a down payment. The January report will be filed in about two weeks. It’s not because Mas — who has never given so generously to Hardemon before — suddenly supports the commissioner’s agenda. It’s likely so Hardemon supports the Mas agenda.
Hardemon already voted in favor of the putting the Miami Freedom Park project or the lease of Melreese Golf Course property for a “soccer stadium” on the ballot in 2018. He joined Commissioners Joe Carollo and Ken Russell while Commissioners Manolo Reyes and Willy Gort — who has since been replaced by Alex Diaz de la Portilla — voted against it.
Read related: Closing Melreese is political drama to benefit soccer mall developers
This was after his lobbyist tia and PAC chair, Barbara Hardemon, was hired by InterMiami FC — which was trying to get the 
proposed lease of city land on the November ballot — to set up a meeting between her nephew and Jorge and Jose Mas at a Casablanca restaurant last July. These meetings are now called “meet and greets” by the new director of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, which investigated a complaint that some of the partners’ 11 lobbyists — not counting Mayor Francis Suarez, who was actually their biggest and loudest cheerleader — did not register correctly because they only registered to lobby for one entity when there was another one, Miami Freedom Park LLC, they did not register for. Turns out, you don’t have to register for meet and greets, which are really political hook-ups where secret and sweet deals are cooked.
Keon Hardemon could not be reached and did not return several phone calls and texts over the course of several days. At one point, on Tuesday the 21st, he texted that he would call “within the hour.” Ladra is still waiting.
Sources say that Barbara Hardemon was paid $20,000 for the lunch hookup in July. So if $20,000 is the price for a ticket to lunch with the commissioner, what does $56,500 buy?
Commissioner Hardemon is running for county commission this year to replace the termed-out Audrey Edmonson but he doesn’t have to qualify until the first week in June. That means he will likely still be on the city dais in May when the Mas brothers and partner David Beckham are expected to bring their lease proposal with all the details to the commission for a vote. Ladra thinks we already know how Keon Hardemon is leaning. And it won’t be to request proposals and a competitive process.
Read related: Miami commission should kick no-bid soccer shopping center out of Melreese
The last time we heard about Miami Freedom Park, because they could come back with something different, it was going to have 600,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and 
entertainment, 400,000 square feet of office space, 750 hotel rooms, parking garages with 3,750 parking spaces, 23 acres of soccer fields and a soccer museum (a soccer museum?), a skate park, a playground and open green space.
Oh, and a a 25,000-seat stadium. That’s right. It’s for soccer, for a team that also built a stadium in Broward County, where they are going to play the first few seasons before coming back down here.
Uh huh. Riiiiiight.
The soccer stadium is only the way this conglomeration of partners could weasel their way into a mega million real estate deal on public land that reeks of pay-to-play. But there are all kinds of things still in the air that could make the deal better for Miamians.
Certainly the lease payments that the Inter Miami group has proposed are too low. What do we get in participation rent? And maybe they can build much needed affordable housing? Instead of 600,000 square feet of more retail and restaurants, maybe a third of that can be used for workforce housing. Maybe they can preserve more of the green space. Maybe, just maybe, commissioners should open it up to competitive bidding and see if anyone else has a better idea for the biggest piece of green space the city of Miami has left.
Would $56,500 make Keon Hardemon think twice about making any of those demands?
Keon Hardemon’s PAC collects mucho money from Mas and soccer partners added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
