Miami’s Ralph Rosado aims to kill the Bayfront Park Trust for Joe Carollo

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The Miami Commission is moving forward with a plan to kill off the Bayfront Park Management Trust — which is currently being investigated and audited after allegations that Commissioner Joe Carollo misused its funds — because, you know, actually fixing something is way too boring when you can just burn it all down and call it “reform.”

The item is up for second and final reading Thursday and the subject of a sunshine meeting Tuesday night at the Olympia Theater, which is safe from redevelopment by a charter school company but only for now (more on that later).

Commissioners already gave it first reading approval in a 3-2 vote last month that surprised exactly no one who’s been paying attention, because it is newly elected Commissioner Ralph Rosado‘s IOU or thank you gift to Carollo, who poured close to $1 million from his political action committee into making sure Rosado won the June special election in District 4 to replace the late Manolo Reyes.

Rosado said the Bayfront Park Trust is not being run “optimally,” and been plagued by decades of dysfunction and infighting. “It has generated more than its fair share of controversy and has run its course,” he said, calling the Trust a “political football.”

How original, Ralph. Did Joe give you that one? Because there is no way that this is not a favor to him.

Rosado’s District 4 is as far away from Bayfront Park as you could possibly get in Miami. What does he know about the Bayfront Trust history and operations if it’s not what Joe told him? Nada. He didn’t campaign on this. And it’s actually something that Joe already tried but failed to do in February, one month after he was accused of mismanaging the Trust.

Coincidence? Please. The abolition of the Trust is the political football — passed from Carollo to Ralph.

It couldn’t be more obvious that this is a political back-scratching.

Read related: Ralph Rosado’s payback to Joe Carollo: Abolish Miami’s Bayfront Park Trust

This wouldn’t be an issue if the Bayfront Park Trust had not been wrestled away from Crazy Joe and given to Commissioner Miguel Gabela after two former employees said they were forced to resign when they raised concerns about questionable transactions that indicated Carollo used its funds as a personal political piggy bank. The allegations, worth repeating, are that Carollo, who was chairman of the Trust for more than seven years used/misused the Trust’s funds, among other things:

• to pay for his own political ventures
• to support Carollo’s District 3 Political Office
• to pay and overpay Carollo’s political allies
• to overpay Carollo’s District 3 Social Media provider
• to overpay for a 2007 Vet mobile that was never used and that had a suspicious and seemingly untraceable past
• to pay for Carollo’s Holiday Party

Only now that these things have come to light and he is no longer chair has Carollo suddenly decided that the Trust, which was súper important before, is superfluous. Check.

An investigation and forensic audit into the financial discrepancies will reportedly continue, even if the trust is chucked. But Joe “Not My Fault” Carollo will still succeed in having muddied the waters: The Trust must have been the problem, not him, because the commission got rid of it.

Ladra, too, is tired of watching Carollo and Gabela slap-fight over the sandbox. Well, not really, though she understands how some people might be tired of it. But Rosado’s solution — to take the park’s business, budget, issues and management and put it under the city manager’s purview — does not sound better. Nothing says fiscal transparency like the Miami city manager’s office, am I right?

Rosado also floated the idea of having the park managed under a “conservancy” — which sounds fancy until you realize it’s like rebranding a mess as an “experience.” And conservancies are about land acquisition and preservation, not managing assets.

Also, Gabela is just getting started on making the changes at the Trust that would put in the required guardrails so nobody else can abuse it like Carollo did. He practically begged for more time to get the job done.

“I’ve been there four months. We have done a l0t of positive things,” Gabela said. “I just want to right the ship.”

Commissioner Damian Pardo — whose District 2 includes the downtown — agreed and said that the Trust was finally making strides and that residents were finally being heard. He said that there is a master plan in the works, which makes sense, and that the money generated by Bayfront Park activities — like the Ultra Music Festival — should not go into the city’s general fund.

Read related: Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo and the Bayfront Fountain of corruption

The debate turned into another shouting match between Carollo and Gabela, who at one point offered to resign to save the Trust because he said it was all a political power grab. And — though he has a point — because he loves to play martyr.

Refreshing her referee role, King tried to make it seem like this wasn’t a political hit job. “It’s not that Carollo did a bad job and it’s not that Gabela is doing a bad job,” King said — which is sort of like saying, “This isn’t a dumpster fire, it’s really just a very enthusiastic barbecue.”

King joined Carollo and Rosado to vote to abolish the Trust. She said it was a distraction causing too much fighting on the dais.

Tellingly, King, Carollo and Rosado were all absent Monday evening during the re-grand opening of the renovated Bayfront fountain , which was Carollo’s crowning jewel. Mayor Francis Suarez was there. So were Gabela and Pardo.

The Bayfront Park Management Trust was created in 1987 to manage Bayfront Park — and later Maurice Ferré Park — with some independence, community input and, well oversight. Even though that last part did not seem to work well recently.

Now, according to Rosado and friends, that independence is inconvenient. Better to “streamline operations” (read: consolidate power) under the manager, because what Miami really needs is less oversight. Am I right?

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