Winners and losers on Dolphins stadium strike-out

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Naturally, we all know the bigget loser in today’s defeat of the Miami Dolphins stadium modernization bill in the Florida House is Stephen Ross, who had hinged getting the roof and some fancy upgrades for his very own SunLife Stadium on using public dollars and creating a new revenue stream for himself.

Indeed, he had invested close to $6 or $7 million on it.

Ker-plunk.

And the big winner is the integrity of the process, which did not bend over to the shotgun marriage pressure and financial grease applied to this endeavor, which was manipulated at worst and terribly handled at best.

The ka-ching was stopped.

But there are other winners and losers in the wake of this controvesial modernization deal gone from bad to dead because of their association to and/or with the proposal, which would have increased the bed tax on the mainland by one penny and provided $379 million the Dolphins ower over a period of 30 years.

Let’s look at the winners first:

• Car mogul Norman Braman showed that he may not have the muscle to change the makeup of the couny commission here, but that perhaps he can influence lawmakers 481 miles away.
• State Reps. Carlos Trujillo (R-Doral), Michael Bileca (R-Pinecrest) and Jose Javier Rodriguez (D-Miami/Key Biscayne) because they were vocally opposed to it early on and — maybe Trujillo more than anyone — led a fight keep the bill from the light of day.
• Miami-Dade Democratic Chairwoman Annette Taddeo Goldstein. Her early opposition mark her as a real leader, uafraid to take on uncomfortable positions, even as members of her own party — including Sen. Oscar Braynon II, who sponsored it, and Miami-Dade Commissioner Barbara Jordan — were supporting it. It also positions her for another run for public office.
• Commissioners Esteban Bovo and Xavier “Mayor Sir” Suarez, whose bold and independent streak and publicly stated distaste for this pulic money for private billinaire scam early on should help give them major cred moving on. Not that Mayor Commissioner Sir needs cred.
• The people of this community, of this state, who will not lose millions of dollars in state sales rebates that can go to education or police or other higher priorities.
• Hotels in Hialeah and Homestead, who would have seen the penny tax increase even though they would not likely have seen increased business due to the stadium events.

The obvious losers, besides Stephen Ross and his now-weeping team of lobbyists and outreachers,  are:

• State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez (R-Hialeah), who struck out in the first year of his last term by making welfare for a billionaire his highest priority and showed that, despite the chair title, he can’t really lead the Miami-Dade delegation, which was sorely split on the issue and which ultimately may have killed his bill.
• State Sen. Oscar Braynon II (D-Miami Gardens) who looked like a little boy that had lost his mommy when he came out of House Chambers Friday after begging Speaker Will Weatherford, to no avail, to bring up the bill. “Bleak,” is what he called the prospects. That’s what his next election cycle might look like also. Bleak. He is much more vulnerable now.
• Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who negotiated an “unprecedented” agreement that will never see the light of day, now. But the ramifications of the last three months — and his about face and public defense of yet another stadium deal on the backs of taxpayers — may come back to bite him at campaign time. I can see the motto already: “This is not the mayor Gimenez we elected.”
• Lobbyist Ron Book. How can such a high-priced mouthpiece, one of the most powerful if not the most powerful lobbyist in Tallahassee, fail on such an important piece of legislation? From all accounts, the Dolphins people were intensely optimistic about their chances down to the wire. Did Book misrepresent their gamble?
• Jorge Arizurieta, H.T. Smith and other mouthpieces who were paid by the day to push the pro-stadium propaganda who may not be able to cash in on the full potential ka-ching now that the party at the moneytree is basically over. Smith, at least, would have gotten $6,000 for his efforts in May. One can’t help but wonder if he gets docked now.
• Local TV and radio outlets that would have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising from the Miami First campaign which has already been good for the printing, mailing and lobbying economies.

The main losers are all future stadium and Big Sports owners who have to tred lightlier in the future when it comes to renovating their private facilities on the public dime. Or maybe not go there at all.

The main winners are all of us voters and residents of Miami-Dade, who will not get fooled one more time.

  Carlos Gimenez, Carlos Trujillo, Dolphins stadium, Eddy Gonzalez, Jose Javier Rodriguez, Norman Braman, Stephen Ross