As Thanksgiving draws near, we suppose that in some quarters there will be special thanks for Miami International Airport.
No dairy ever had a cow that milked so profusely, no tree ever yielded a golden harvest as the airport has for lobbyists and the politically connected.
The partial parade includes Sergio Pino, who used his grip on airport concessions to bankroll housing starts, Alex Penelas, former Mayor of Miami Dade county, Chris Korge and Rodney Barreto, Courtney Cunningham, Barbara Carey Shuler, Art Teele, Pedro Reboredo, and Natacha Seijas—their banner reads: the tree exists to be shaken, the cow lives to be milked.
Some are now developers pushing single family homes into wetlands, piling burden atop existing residents and taxpayers, meekly spread-eagled in traffic as their lives pass by.
It occurs to us, that certain arrangements between airport lobbyists and their clients are on-going, based on contingency fees and percentages of gross business.
The Miami Herald reports today that the cost for the airport reconstruction has ballooned to more than $6 billion. We wonder, are cost over-runs at MIA the gift that keeps giving, and giving… and giving to powerful lobbyists?
We don’t know for sure, because time after time the county commission has refused to require that lobbyists disclose contract terms with clients doing public business. A shame.
The memory of political corruption at Miami International Airport makes us gag.
Today’s story says that the North Terminal—that’s the American Airlines terminal—scheduled to be completed in 2010, “will now cost $2.66 billion, up from $1.94 billion, airport projections show.”
But the original cost projection for the North Terminal, approved by the county commission, was NOT $1.94 billion. It was just over $1 billion.
Here is more than twice the shame: you will never read in the Miami Herald the salient question, just how wise was it for the county commission to bet its airport fortunes on American Airlines?
We're not sore, only because we have to wait forty five minutes to claim our baggage on every American Airlines flight that brings us home.
The cumulative losses for the airline industry, in just the past five years, is more than $14 billion.
We guess it makes perfect sense to throw $6 billion, or $3 billion for the North Terminal, to chase an industry that is one fuel crisis from bankrupcy. Don't you just love this business?
What would Miami be without American Airlines, the company that forced its employees to cough up $1.8 billion in pay and benefits concessions in 2003 while executives richly rewarded themselves with stock and options, whose parent company lost $861 million in 2005.
Well, enough of this niggling negativity. Who are we to pour bad milk on the steaming tarmac of our fine airport? Happy Thanksgiving, Miami!
3 comments:
This Blog is going to be a history of all the waste in Miami. When we forget we can go back to all your posts and see where the money has gone. Maybe the Herald should read your blog before they ever endorse another county commissioner. Thanks for the Airport waste profile. Forgot about that one.
How come the Herald got the $1.94 billion number wrong? And why aren't they be called on it?
A slight correction on "original" cost projections for AA's terminal at MIA: in the early 90's, when Rick Elder was forced out as Aviation Director because he wanted AA's terminal in the middle of the airport and they insisted on being the first airline people saw when entering the terminal, the cost was $500 million for the whole shebang. The county commission was lobbied heavily to allow American to manage the construction instead of the airport, because it would allegedly lead to the project being completed on time and within budget. The commission approved it, and we all know how that ended up. Angele Gittens lost her job as Aviation Director because she kept saying the county should take the project back from AA because of the cost overruns. It was only a matter of months after her firing that the county did take the project back.
Sayhoss
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