One Sports Facility Too Many? by Geniusofdespair

It is not as if we haven't been here before with a sport's edifice. This one was going to revitalize Overtown! Where is the collective memory? We built the $52,500,000 Miami Arena in 1988. Its attendance figures today are at -39.3%. This, and other Miami-Dade boondoggles, brings us to Rebecca Wakefield’s article in the Sunpost, Years of government waste, fraud and mismanagement give little cause for confidence in future mega-deals. She begins with:

“I’ve never thought of Chuck Rabin as a funny guy, but the opening line of his Miami Herald story about the stadium deal last week had me in stitches. “In the end, the decision by Miami-Dade County commissioners to move forward on a new ballpark for the Florida Marlins won approval on the basis of a single word: trust.”

How can you read that sentence knowing anything about local government and not laugh?”

Wakefield also says:

"But we have a handful of people with their hands on the public purse who believe in this thing, based on “trust” and whatever piece of the action or glory each was told he or she would get. So they approved a complicated, nebulous deal for $619 million without caring to understand the pitfalls hidden within it.

For instance, the agreement fails to address where the millions for infrastructure improvement around the stadium will come from. There’s also an unresolved turf war between city and county cops over who gets the gravy of working stadium events off-duty. Not to mention the many ways in which the Marlins assume very little risk in making this venture successful."

I look at the Miami Arena today and say to myself: "What a waste of money." Will I say that tomorrow about the Marlin’s Stadium? Probably.