Damian Pardo would give electeds direct control
Apparently the problem at the scandal-plagued Bayfront Park Management Trust is that there aren’t enough politicians running it.
Miami Commissioner Damian Pardo has resurrected a two-year-old ordinance that would effectively turn the Trust’s governing board into a miniature City Commission — five elected officials making up five of its seven members, with the other two appointed exclusively by Pardo.
The ordinance, which comes before commissioners on first reading Thursday, would reduce the Trust’s board from nine members to seven and 
install all five city commissioners as voting, ex officio members. The only two civilians left on the board would both be appointed by the District 2 commissioner because Bayfront Park is in Pardo’s district.
The full commission would then choose the Trust’s chair.
In other words, commissioners would sit as the Bayfront Park board, make decisions as the Bayfront Park board and then, when necessary, vote on those same matters again as the City Commission. Kinda like the CRA situation.
What could possibly go wrong?
The proposal would represent a complete political takeover of the agency that controls Bayfront Park and Maurice Ferré Park — two of downtown Miami’s most valuable public waterfront spaces — and negotiates multimillion-dollar agreements with powerful private interests like Ultra Music Festival. And the timing could not be more suspicious.
Read related: Fight at Bayfront Trust meeting ends in criminal charge vs board member
The ordinance has been collecting dust since 2024, when Pardo first proposed it. It has been deferred, continued and indefinitely deferred over and over again — at least six times, according to the legislative history. At one point, Pardo was the only commissioner to vote against postponing it.
Then it went back into City Hall’s bottomless drawer. Until now.
The measure is suddenly alive again just weeks after another spectacular display of dysfunction at the Bayfront Park Trust: Executive Director 
Raul Miró resigned, an emergency meeting descended into confrontation and the agency’s management, spending and cozy relationships with outside interests again came under public scrutiny.
Qué casualidad.
The Trust has been stumbling from one controversy to another for years.
Under former Commissioner Joe Carollo, who chaired the agency for years, there were allegations of questionable expenditures, weak financial controls, missing documentation, payroll irregularities, noncompetitive contracts and public resources used for political purposes. There was also that infamous $1 million dogs and cats sculpture park because apparently every troubled government agency needs expensive public art while the paperwork goes missing.
When Commissioner Miguel Gabela took over as chairman, he promised reform, audits and investigations. He positioned himself as the man who would clean up Carollo’s mess.
But before long, Bayfront Park’s newest management began looking an awful lot like the old management.
There are new questions about spending on consultants, public relations, drones and other invoices that sometimes seemed to describe more political promotion than park management. Downtown Neighbors Alliance President James Torres repeatedly called for an independent investigation and suggested the Trust should be dismantled altogether.
Read related: Bayfront Park’s new management looks a lot like the old management in Miami
Then there’s the, um, generous treatment of Miró, a longtime political operative with close ties to Gabela who got the job over more qualified applicants and whose salary jumped from roughly $150,000 to $255,000 — a raise of about 70% — without the kind of public salary analysis or serious discussion one might expect before handing someone an extra six figures in taxpayer money.
So, government reform with a BMW-sized pay raise. Got it.
After Political Cortadito reported on the raise, Gabela announced that Miró would take a pay cut. Then Miró resigned amid the latest round of chaos, and questions about a political action committee he heads getting Ultra money, leaving behind an agency with more questions than leadership.
Meanwhile, the Trust approved — or helped push through — a breathtaking 20-year agreement to keep Ultra Music Festival at Bayfront Park. 
Gabela was instrumental, busting the contract up into two 10-year pieces to get support from his colleagues on the controversial deal.
It was only after the approval that Political Cortadito and The Miamian found out about payments from Ultra and its lawyer to two PACs connected to Gabela.
Oh, wait, maybe that’s the ticket. Did Pardo see a way to raise funds for his own PAC? And everyone will support it because they will also have new revenue streams.
Read related: Miguel Gabela’s D1 counsel runs PAC that got $50K from Ultra Music Festival
Residents who live around the park have complained for years about noise, traffic, street closures, construction and losing access to their public park before and after the three-day festival. Earlier this year, residents said they were limited to a single Sunshine meeting on the proposed deal after an Ultra attorney indicated that Pardo did not want additional meetings.
That is particularly relevant now. The same commissioner who allegedly wanted to limit the public discussion surrounding a 20-year Ultra agreement now wants direct control of the board that oversees Ultra’s home.
And not just a seat at the table. Pardo would be one of five commissioner-trustees, would select the board’s only two non-politicians and — because the park sits in his district — could wield disproportionate influence over the agency.
This is being sold in the ordinance as a way to “ensure alignment with the city’s strategic objectives” and provide “greater representation of residents within the impacted City District.”
Translation: Put City Hall directly in charge and let Pardo pick the residents who represent.
The proposed structure would also eliminate the broader at-large representation that currently exists. Under the existing code, each commissioner 
nominates one Trust member, the commission appoints four members at large and a commissioner serves as chair.
Under Pardo’s rewrite, commissioners themselves take five seats. Pardo fills the other two. That is not community representation. That is political consolidation.
And it comes at exactly the moment when residents have been asking for more independence, more transparency and more scrutiny of the Trust — not more direct control by the same politicians whose campaigns and political committees benefit from people doing business around the parks.
Event Entertainment Group, which produces Ultra, contributed $20,000 to the political committee Advance Miami. Sandra York, another donor connected to the Bayfront orbit, contributed another $30,000 to the same committee.
Those donations may be perfectly legal. They are also precisely why the public should be nervous about putting the politicians themselves in charge of the Trust.
Read related: Miami locks in Ultra Music Festival at Bayfront Park with 20-year contract
The ordinance raises a pile of questions that should be answered before Thursday’s vote.
Would commissioners be allowed to vote as Trust members on contracts and then vote again on related matters as commissioners? Would they 
have to recuse themselves twice if there is a conflict? Who would supervise the executive director? Who would approve salaries? Would the Commission be investigating itself when the next questionable expense or contract surfaces?
What happens to the current trustees? Why do both citizen appointments belong to Pardo? Why not one appointment from a downtown residents organization and another from a parks or environmental group?
And why now?
If the Trust is so broken that all five commissioners must personally take it over, perhaps the better question is whether the Trust should exist at all.
Some critics have already suggested dismantling the agency and returning its duties to the city’s regular parks department, where contracts, payroll and expenditures would theoretically be subject to the same oversight as other city business.
Instead, Pardo’s proposal preserves the separate bureaucracy while putting politicians directly on top of it.
It does not eliminate the Trust. It captures it.
The ordinance is only on first reading Thursday, so it would still need another vote before becoming law. Mayor Eileen Higgins could also veto it, although four commissioners could override her.
But the first vote will show whether commissioners really believe the answer to years of political interference at Bayfront Park is even more political interference.
The commission meeting begins at 9 a.m. Thursday at City Hall, 2900 Pan American Drive, and can also be seen live on the city’s website as well as on its YouTube channel.
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