Miami’s Joe Carollo grabs Ultra Music money for Bayfront Park slush fund

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Is there another no-bid deal for his wife’s friend?

The Ultra Music Festival this year was a resounding success, according to all accounts.

The city got much fewer complaints from downtown residents about the noise and trash left by the crowd of more than 150,000 people over a three-day weekend. The ingress and egress were much more orderly. There were fewer arrests, Miami Police said. Miami paramedics treated fewer people.

“I went to Ultra and I had a great time,” said Miami Commission Chairwoman Christine King.

But Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo still managed to get his colleagues to vote unanimously to cancel the agreement that Ultra’s presenter, Event Entertainment Group, has for the next year, so he can negotiate a new deal — maybe even a four-year agreement — through the Bayfront Park Management Trust, which Carollo controls as the chair.

Why? It’s all about the money, honey.

Read related: Competing dog sculpture installment paints Joe Carollo’s pet park as pricey

“If, my God, we are the ones that negotiated the contract, it is the Trust that is handling it, those dollars should go to the Trust,” Carollo said about the $2 million the event producer pays the city every year.

He wants it for his slush fund.

“We have expenses coming in to Bayfront Park that we don’t know what it will be. The fountain is one. We don’t know what it is really going to cost us,” Carollo said, referring to the broken Mildred and Claude Pepper Fountain, named for the late congressman and his wife, which has been bone dry since at least 2007, probably earlier.

“I want to hire more people for the maintenance of that park, so that park can look as good as it can,” he said (read: create more botella jobs). “It’s not only the central park for the city of Miami, it is the central park for the county.”

And maybe he wants to give another million dollar no-bid deal to another one of his wife’s friends’ projects — like those ugly dog and cat sculptures for Maurice Ferre Park that he rammed through the Trust’s board of yes men and women in March of last year.

Read related: Bayfront Park board member resigns on Joe Carollo’s $1 mil no-bid giveaway

Because this gives him at least $2 million more a year — so $8 million plus — to do what he wants with.

Don’t worry, commissioners. Carollo promised to return any extra monies not needed to maintain Bayfront Park back to the city — like the $3 million from reserves he once gave to the city. He forgot to mention that $3 mil went to the employee pension on an election year.

Why did he give that to the city when he’s so thirsty for these $2 mil? Couldn’t he have used it to fix the fountain?

Why does Ladra have a feeling there won’t be any more surplus?

Commissioner Manolo Reyes wasn’t thrilled with (1) losing the money for other parks and (2) cancelling an agreement that had already been reached. He said he would only vote for it if the contract for the next year was left as is, with the same terms, and Carollo renegotiated after that.

He said he would, but he doesn’t have to. Because in the same breath, Carollo talked about negotiating a four year plan — “so we get this headache out once and for all and not go through this baloney every year” — which gives him the option to renegotiate the terms. He has these people over the barrel now and likes to consider himself an expert negotiator. He’ll risk losing the festival to try to get something more out of them.

“My intentions are to bring this contract back like it always does, like every other contract within the Trust. Otherwise why do you need a Trust? Why do you need a CRA? Why do we need a DDA,” Carollo asked rhetorically, referring to the community redevelopment agencies and the Downtown Development Authority, each of which manage their own transactional agreements.

“Does the city tell you how to handle your money at the DDA or the CRA? No it doesn’t,” Carollo said, clearly and openly admitting the money grab.

Read related: Miami commissioner cleans house at Omni CRA after his crony is kicked out

“This is not about wanting to throw Ultra out or play any games with Ultra,” Carollo said. “I don’t know why Ultra is so important that it has to be done differently. Bayfront Park is being punished.”

Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who has been kissing Carollo’s culo for some months now, said what was important was who was negotiating and that the city should get more.

“Ultra does not pay enough,” he said. “We have to start acting like business people, not governments anymore.”

Um, what happened to public servants?

ADLP also hinted that the terms will change: “They need certainty,” he said about the organizers. “A four-year deal is better than a one-year deal. If you want to play in Miami for the next four years, you have to pay the price.

“You may be able to negotiate a better deal.”

  Joe Carollo, Ultra Music Festival