Fresh off his trip to Paris and Marseilles, France, our jet-setting Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Mr. Giveaway” Gimenez is meeting early this morning with one of David Beckham‘s Miami soccer team investors to, presumably, talk about a stadium again.
But why?
According to sources and published reports, Team Beckham is looking at two sites for a possible soccer stadium — and neither are on county land.
Read related story: Miami-Dade to woo Beckham back with temp soccer site
One is adjacent to Marlins Park in a potential partnership with the University of Miami, which aims to bring the Hurricane games back home from SunLife Stadium. All that land is owned by the city of Miami, which could just lease it outright. The county has nothing to do with it.
The second location, as reported by The Miami Herald’s Doug Hanks, are some privately-owned properties in Overtown. That means that this is not public land either. And, since Overtown is still in the city of Miami, any zoning changes or plan reviews and approvals would have to go through the Miami Commission. The county has nada que ver.
So why is the mayor still trying to be the one who makes this deal happen?
The meeting with Marcelo Claure — at the Water and Sewer Department, of all places — is listed on the mayor’s public calendar on the county’s website. It comes about a month after Gimenez met with Beckham, Claure and other interested parties, including UM President Donna Shalala at the Coral Gables campus about a potential joint football/soccer stadium.
“At this time, Miami-Dade County has no role,” Stephanie Severino, one of the mayor’s many spokespeople, told me after that first meeting. “Mayor Gimenez is supportive of bringing Major League Soccer to Miami-Dade County and will assist in the effort if and when there is a role for the County to play.”
Ladra thinks Gimenez is making an effort to make sure there is a role for the county. This is potentially a multi-million dollar land deal. You know he doesn’t want to give up on a piece of that. He’s like a toddler sticking his hand in the cookie jar.
Read related story: Xavier Suarez draws plans for Little Havana soccer stadium
A year ago, proponents of a waterfront soccer stadium on county land threatened that Beckham would take his ball and his rights to a professional team and go play in another sandbox if we didn’t give him the water view he wanted.
Nobody knew then that he meant a few miles inland.
The best thing about this 180-degree turnaround was that the county now has nothing to do with it. But, apparently, Gimenez either (1) still has a man crush on Beckham or (2) wants to claim that he was the one who brought soccer to Miami.
Don’t hold your breath, Carlitos. You never gave much thought to Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado while you had all those secret, behind-doors meeting with Beckham for not one but two Miami sites that were really not yours to offer.Don’t expect him to suddenly call you into the loop.
And not just because his daughter is now the only declared mayoral candidate challenging your 2016 reelection. Ladra suspects Regalado would not be eager to call Gimenez into the discussions anyway.
“The plans that are currently being discussed do not need him to be involved or to participate,” Regalado told Ladra a couple of weeks ago, when it was just the Marlins Park site that was being considered. “He can meet with whoever he likes but he has to go through us to do anything.”
Ladra says the city cuts the middle man and deals directly with Beckham. Why not?
Regalado said he would want to hold a public referendum on the issue. The Marlins stadium financing is still a sore point for many county voters, but particularly in Miami, which lost a beloved-if-crumbling institution that was The Orange Bowl.
That’s where UM’s involvement comes in handy. Not only would the school’s partnership make the land tax free, but it will also make it an easier sell to the Miami voter. The referendum campaign would be about bringing the Hurricanes home — and it would succeed.
Nobody needs Gimenez to come in and mess it up again.
Carlos Gimenez tries to hang on to a piece of soccer stadium added by Ladra on
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