Centner Academy pulls out of shady Miami deal to take over public park

Warning that he was going to “drop a bomb,” David Centner did just that Thursday when the owner of The Centner Academy with wife Leila told Miami commissioners that, in light of the massive opposition, he was no longer interested in building a sports dome for his private school’s students on the public, taxpayer-owned Biscayne Park.

First, he had to hear speaker after speaker blast the way the shady deal was hatched — two people were later arrested for public corruption in connection with the 2022 licensing agreement — and the Centners campaign of misinformation and outright lies about their intentions and a previous plan that included Miami-Dade public schools and affordable housing.

This time, the big guns came out: School Board Members Dorothy Bendross Mindingall and Lucia Baez-Geller, and Superintendent Jose Dotres each went to the podium to express their support for the revocation of the licensing agreement so that they could resume talks about the previous plan, which accomplishes more. The previous day, the school board had passed a resolution supporting Commissioner Miguel Gabela‘s item and directed school staff to start talking details with the city.

“It’s unusual for the board to take a position on other governing bodies’ legislation,” Bendross Mindingall said. “But we feel strongly that this is in support of families and children.”

Centner must have read the writing on the wall.

“We’re pulling out,” he said, which is an interesting choice of words since the community was getting screwed with the deal, which stunk soooo bad it is the crux of a criminal conspiracy case against former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, arrested in September on 12 felony charges including money laundering and bribery in connection with more than $300,000 in campaign contributions and food and booze and hotel accommodations from the Centners through their attorney, Bill Riley.

“It’s surreal that we are fighting so hard to give this money to the city,” Centner said in between other public speakers, most of whom were there to support the revocation of a license agreement that gave him and his wife the green light to build a $10 million sports complex on the park land and share proceeds from programming and concessions with the city.

That is either some world-class gaslighting or evidence of unchecked mental illness. The Centners were not giving anything to the city. They were taking a public space to use for their own needs for their private school across the street, where tuition starts at $30,000 a year, by building a giant air-conditioned sports dome with tennis courts, a soccer field, lockers and seating and more inside, oh my. They said it was for everybody’s use, but they were going to charge people for programming and sell concessions and their farm products at “farmers’ markets” and have 12 events a year.

That’s when it would probably be open to the public: from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Sunday and during the 12 events a year — for a $30 entrance fee, of course.

Dressed in pink t-shirts — which outnumbered the green t-shirts in support of the shady deal — were parents of students at the iPrep Academy, a public magnet school downtown, who urged the commission to revoke the sweet and tainted deal because it had sidelined a prior proposal to relocate the unique K-12 school to the surface parking lot at the park. Not the green space, mind you, as the Centners and supporters claimed. A parking lot. This previous plan would double the public school’s enrollment capacity in a growing urban core — competition for the Centners — and activate 21 acres between the city, the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency and the Miami-Dade School Board to get affordable and/or workforce housing as well as more than $400 million a year to the city in taxes.

That’s more than a $10 million “gift” with strings attached.

David Centner said he had tried to talk to the school board and iPrep parents about perhaps building their school on one of the other multiple properties the couple owns in the downtown. “I got kind of a big yawn,” he said, adding that the debate on the deal, which began when the newly-elected, reform-minded commissioners were elected, had taken a toll.

“Along the way, we’ve been defamed and trolled and demonized for trying to do the right thing,” Centner said. “Most people here won’t even look me in the eye.”

Um, maybe that’s because you bribed a commissioner to get your hands on a public park?

That’s when he said he was abandoning the project because of “too much harassment.” Seriously?

In the next breath, Centner said, “We’re reasonable people, though,” and went on to suggest that he might still get involved or submit a proposal if there’s an open bidding process. What a concept!

“There’s enough new information about the process that maybe we should reexamine this,” Centner said. “I’m okay with this. You know, we’re still open to improving the park. [But] we’re not interested in spending $10 million on a domed sports park.”

And, with that, he just proved that it wasn’t a charitable donation, after all. Those usually come with no strings attached. This was an investment in a future business enterprise, despite all of a visibly emotional Leila Centner’s scolding for not appreciating what they were trying to do, all for us, the little people.

The Centners have also repeatedly said that they are innocent of any wrongdoing in the criminal case against ADLP. But later Thursday, we learned through an exclusive Miami Herald story that the lucky couple got immunity from the whole bribery case after they cooperated with the investigation and provided testimony in separate hour-long interviews three days before Diaz de la Portilla and Riley were arrested.

You don’t get immunity if you didn’t do anything wrong. Looks like they weren’t so innocent. Cue Britney Spears.

The city commission still voted unanimously to revoke the agreement. They only needed four votes to reverse the 2022 decision, but Commissioner Joe Carollo — who tried his hardest all through the meeting to help the Centners, advocating for supporters to show a propaganda video — could see the same writing on the wall and decided he didn’t want to be on the losing side of the vote.

Also it was a moot point, since the Centners had already pulled out.

recall, Vince Lago

Centner Academy pulls out of shady Miami deal to take over public park added by Ladra on March 14, 2024
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