Deal tied to public corruption case vs commissioner
Miami City Commissioners could revoke on Thursday the 2022 license agreement giveaway of a public park to the private Centner Academy, a quid pro quo scam that got former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla arrested on 12 felony public corruption charges, including bribery and money laundering.
The resolution — sponsored by ADLP’s replacement, Commissioner Miguel Gabela — has been deferred twice, but is unlikely to be delayed again.
Commissioners will be encouraged to scrap the shady deal by a crowd of parents from the iPrep Academy’s Parent Teacher Association who want them to go back to the old plans the city and Omni Community Redevelopment Agency had for Biscayne Park, which included the relocation of the public magnet school on the surface parking lot. The agreement, which had been developing since 2017, would include the trading of that lot and perhaps others for 21 acres of Miami-Dade School Board properties which the Omni CRA could then use to build affordable and workforce housing, some of which could be earmarked for teachers.
While the owners of The Centner Academy like to say that the old plan allows for some “mystery high-rise” to be built at Biscayne Park, the reality is that the workforce housing would likely be developed at one of the other properties.
Read related: Sweet deal giveaway of public city park to school could and should be reversed
The commission might also be moved by the fact that Miami-Dade School Board members voted unanimously Wednesday to support the resolution in an item brought by Member Dorothy Bendross Mindingall and then co-sponsored by everyone. The school district is expected to send staff to the city meeting Thursday to express their support and answer any questions commissioners might have.
This might be what sways Commission Chairwoman Christine King, who is considered the swing vote on the resolution that needs a supermajority, or four/fifths vote, to pass. Commissioner Manolo Reyes will likely vote with Gabela and the other newly elected commissioner, Damian Pardo, because he voted against the original 2022 item for the license agreement. Commissioner “Loco” Joe Carollo is expected to be the lone hold-out.
King did not return a call and text from Political Cortadito. But las malas lenguas say that Bendross Mindingall and several parents reached out to King and, after it was explained to her what the previous school board proposal was — she apparently had no idea — she is now open to revoking the license agreement.
Both she and Reyes might want to know what the city’s legal liability is, but the sponsoring commissioner was arrested for the deal so it must have some legitimacy issues.
“What Ms. King wants is to see the support from the community. She wants to hear from us,” said Stephanie Lera, a parent of twins at the iPrep and a District 5 voter who plans to speak at the meeting Thursday. “We are really hoping that the city does the right thing.
“The key difference between the two plans is that the iPrep deal has been in the works as early as 2017 and the whole way the other deal was constructed was not the correct way, with no bidding,” Lera told Political Cortadito. “Let’s start on a clean slate and do things the right way with no bribing, no money laundering to push the deal under the table.”
Pardo has publicly supported the measure.
“We want to revoke this license because we want to open up this process to a fair bidding process for this space and for what can be contemplated in the area,” said Commissioner Pardo said in a video posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter. He explained that the iPrep relocation was the original plan, under then-Commissioner Ken Russell because the Omni CRA and the park are in the District 2,.”
“When the project was moved over under the leadership of Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, everything changed,” Pardo says in his video. “Miami Dade schools were cut out and it was a no bid process.”
Well, of course they were. They didn’t pay Diaz de la Portilla more than $300,000 in campaign contributions, food and booze and hotel accommodations. That was the Centners, through their in-house counsel Bill Riley. Ultimately, the quid pro quo was discovered and both Riley and ADLP were arrested on public corruption charges.
Like Ladra said after the first time it was deferred — this is a no-brainer. Not just because it was a dirty deal. But because it is also a really bad deal for the city.
In April of 2022, Diaz de la Portilla convinced his colleagues to unanimously approve a license agreement with the Centner Academy that allows the school to build their sports facility on Biscayne Park across the street, at 150 NE 19th St., and “provide programming.” This is paid programming. The Centner Academy, where tuition can peak at almost $30,000, would need to make up their promised $10 million investment and then share 50% of revenue from said programming and concession sales with the city, using the other 50% for maintenance and security — but only for the first 10 years.
In exchange, they would allow the public to use a third of the park. Under the license agreement, the private school — which made news during the COVID-19 pandemic after it demonized the vaccine — will get to use 33% of the park exclusively all the time and another 33% exclusively for select hours.
That’s worth repeating for more clarity:
The school will build a “sports dome” at the 3.7 acre park for its own physical education classes and sports activities. One third of the “public park” will be off limits to residents or anyone outside the school community all the time. One third of the park will be open to the public at all times. But only two thirds of the park will be available to the general population after school hours, when they have the paid programming for the neighborhood kids.
Three thirds of the public park will not be available to the public, ever. Is it a quasi-public park?
“What we would like to see happen with this transaction is open it up again and have it benefit public, not private schools,” Pardo said. “By not having gone through with the original transaction, we gave up the opportunity to have added enrollment in one of the county’s best public schools.
Read related: Miami’s Alex Diaz de la Portilla arrested on corruption, pay-for-play park deal
“We also gave up the opportunity for more affordable housing, more workforce housing. All of these things are desperately needed in the urban core. It just makes sense.”
Ladra also expects the Centners to orchestrate another full-court press with parents and scripted supporters in green shirts telling the commissioners to keep the agreement in place. They may say something about a $10 million donation to the city — but that’s not exactly true. It’s the minimum they have to spend on the construction of their sports dome.
“This is not a charitable donation,” Pardo said. “It is not a gift. In fact, this is a pirate investment in a private family business. An investment which will depreciate over time and actually leave very little value at the end, right at the time that the city of Miami would take over management, funding and operation of a climate-controlled, domed park which it has no experiencing in managing.”
At the first meeting, the Centner parents’ message was all pearl-clutching, “Oh, but the heroin needles! I don’t feel safe!” Now, they’ve turned to making it all a battle between the private school and the iPrep Academy, which is unfortunate. Pitting kids against kids.
A new website for the school, publicparks4everyone.com — which sounds suspiciously similar to the Public Land for Public Schools campaign led by the iPrep parents — is spreading misinformation about the old project, which had not yet been approved or even officially preferred, but was contemplated to include the relocation of the public charter school, and also provide the Omni CRA with school board land to build additional housing or redevelop in some other way. On a myths vs. facts page, the Centners — who also post a self-aggrandizing video on there — try to make it look like the iPrep is the devil and the private school is the saving grace that will bring this park back to life.
The surreal narrative makes it seem as if the iPrep is going to pave over the park. The real facts are that the iPrep relocation, as envisioned, would be on the surface parking lot, not on any of the Biscayne Park green space that would be occupied by the Centner’s ballyhooed sports “dome,” which is really a semi-cylinder. Don’t they have math teachers over there? The other examples are equally laughable.
“Myth: The vast majority of the sports complex will be reserved for just Centner Academy. Fact: Centner Academy will have access to two-thirds of the park Monday-Friday, during the hours of 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. At all other times, Centner Academy cannot occupy more than one-third of the park. At NO time, either during school or otherwise, will the public be prohibited from using the park. The public will have access to this park at all times.”
Yeah, the public will have access to one-third of the park at all times. And they forgot to say that one-third will never be accessible to the public. And that third third? Is that only accessible after 3:30 p.m. if users pay a $30 pickleball fee or whatever? Which leads us to the next Centner lie.
“Myth: Money generated from sports activities on the park will profit a private entity. Fact: Money generated from sports activities, ex. field and court rentals, is all collected by the city, creating an additional source of revenue for the City of Miami!”
The real fact is that the agreement calls for the city to get 50% of the proceeds of programming and concessions (and isn’t it after the private school recoups its initial $10 million investment?). The Centners must use the other 50% to maintain the facility, according to the agreement, but only for 10 years. After that, it could fall on the city’s shoulders and they get to keep that 50%.
Also, part of the agreement discusses a farmer’s market held on the property to sell the products the Centners grow and package at their Regener8 farm and the many events — including 12 three-day events — that they will be allowed to have at the park, sharing only 25% of the proceeds with the city.
Ladra could go one by one, debunking or politifacting each of their fake “facts,” but this post would get even longer than it already is. Instead, just read the agreement and see that they are all mistruths or convenient half-truths because the Centners have a financial interest in this deal.
That’s why nowhere on their website do they mention that the commissioner who made this happen was arrested on 12 public corruption felonies for taking a bribe from their attorney, who probably did not get the $300K out of his own bank account. Ladra still doesn’t know why the David and Leila Centner were not charged along with Diaz de la Portilla and Riley.
Said Pardo: “In the end, this is a no-bid, tainted transaction that puts monied interests above the interest of the residents.”
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