Sources say Art Noriega could join the Inter Miami Freedom Park team
Miami Commissioner Manolo Reyes tried last week to prohibit any city executive from taking a job for two years with any entity he negotiates a big deal with as the city’s top executive.
Reyes didn’t name names, but the obvious target of his failed motion is City Manager Art Noriega, who las malas lenguas say, will get a fat six-figure gig with the Inter Miami soccer people if/after he negotiates the sweetheart deal Miami Freedom Park lease on the city-owned Melreese golf course.
No wonder they’re getting such great terms!
Rules exists already for the electeds and the department heads, said City Attorney Victoria Mendez, referring to Article 5 of the city code, or the conflict of interests section (which Ladra is surprised even exists). As it reads currently, she said, department directors and/or their designees as well as any city employees on a selection committee who recommend a contract award of $500,000 or more are restricted from “receiving compensation or employment” from the contractor for two years after leaving the city. And it only applies to procurement, Mendez said.
Read related: Premature and postponed: Miami Freedom Park deal not ready for vote
Reyes wanted to amend it to add executives and real estate transactions.
And just who is negotiating the biggest real estate deal the city’s ever seen?
The Miami Freedom Park lease agreement was supposed to come before the Miami Commission last week after being rescheduled already once. It is now delayed until April. Mayor Francis Suarez had to pull it back because it’s just not ready. Outside counsel hired by the city at a cost to protect taxpayer interests — at a cost of $3 million so far — say there are too many issues that are unresolved. They counted 28. Among them are:
- The cash security deposit went from $8 million to $3.5 million and may be in the form of a letter of credit.
- A $12 construction escrow deposit was eliminated entirely.
- Rent is based on the lower of two appraisals.
- Appraisals are from 2018.
- Annual rent increase is capped at 4%.
- No penalty for late payment.
- Full rent does not begin until the stadium is completed and the per annum rent increases do not begin until the year after.
And there are a lot more very legal terms that are far better for the Jorge Mas and David Beckham team than they are for the city. Who in their right mind would agree to such terms, even to put it in draft form? Well, maybe someone who is angling for a juicy job with the other side.
“It’s not the people who are working on the contract. It’s the one who has the final recommendation on the contract,” Reyes explained, adding that it would bring more transparency and accountability to big decisions. He practically begged his colleagues and went to great pains to not name Noriega as the perfect example.
“Let’s say we are analyzing a contract for whatever, to manage the marinas or whatever,” he told his colleagues, using a project that is on hold for reference, “and there is an individual…he is or she is the main negotiator for how much we can get, how much the city is going to get, the terms and all of that. And that person recommends this management company and quits this job and goes to manage the marina. You think that’s right?”
Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla — who basically got Noriega the city gig — withdrew his second to kill the motion. “I never have the assumption of nefarious motives of people,” The Dean said, and didn’t laugh out loud. “I don’t know if people are motivated by corruption.”
Yes, he does.
Said Reyes: “That’s not corruption. That’s business.”
That’s Miami.
The senior commissioner said he had seen it happen before — citing a senior administrator that left the city after negotiating the Hyatt development the first time around — and he just wanted to protect residents. “What I am doing is placing a condition of employment here that the city is first, that the city is more important than any of the benefits they can get from a city customer,” Reyes said.
“What we don’t want is a direct line between influencing a contract and getting a job.”
It’s happened at the county level, too. Recently, residents were up in arms about Jack Kardys involvement in the Plan Z privatization development of the Rickenbacker Causeway after helping craft the request for proposals as the Miami-Dade parks and rec director. Another example is Alice Bravo, the former county transportation director who violated the rules when she lobbied the commissioners on an airport contract last Fall. And way before that, former County Manager George Burgess went to work for Becker Poliakoff after leaving Miami-Dade.
Read related: Alice Bravo fined by Miami-Dade ethics board for lobbying on airport contract
But it’s not just about lobbying the commissioners. As the chief operations officer or development director at Miami Freedom Park, Noriega would have access to city employees for permitting and engineering.
Diaz de la Portilla complained loudly, adding that he doesn’t think it’s fair even to state legislators, who have to follow the two-year prohibition, either. He also said that it was easy to go around it by promising a job two years and one day after the administrator in question leaves the city.
“To limit people’s ability to make a living in a legitimate way, whether you can advocate, whether lobbying, no matter how good it sounds to the public, to me it’s not the right thing to do,” Diaz de la Portilla said.
“We are taking a category of people and limiting their employment after the fact. There’s an implication of guilty before proven innocent,” he said. “What if that person is the most competent person to do that particular job and they happen to be hired or somebody pursues them or recruits them because they have knowledge in that particular field. Why not?”
He said public employees “are giving up a lot of money when they could work for someone else for the private sector.”
When asked his opinion at the meeting, Noriega — who did not return calls and texts from Ladra — let out a soft sigh. He said that his position was excluded from the legislation that holds electeds to the two-year ban precisely because every contract or agreement that is worth $500K or more goes through his office.
“You would literally preclude me from working for anyone that has done any contract of any size here,” Noriega said.
He told the commission it would not be a problem for him, but that the next city manager could challenge it in court.
While Reyes didn’t get a second, Commissioner Joe Carollo said he wanted to talk to the city manager and city attorney to possibly bring something back to the dais.
“I want to see if we can word something that will protect the city.”
Commissioner wants to stop Miami city manager from selling out for a juicy job added by Ladra on
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