There is not much to add to the excellent analyses by Michael Putney in the Miami Herald today and to Michael Lewis' in Miami Today. Both detail the economics and reasons for the County Commission to reject the Marlin's stadium deal. But here are two things to think about. What opportunities have been missed by local governments skewing their energies, time and taxpayer dollars to the Marlins professional baseball team? This is an obsession of the "old economy".
Mired in the worst economic crisis since the Depression, we can safely leave professional baseball at home plate. There are bigger fish to fry.
County Commissioner Pepe Diaz is quoted in the Herald, saying he supports the stadium because of "jobs". Shame on him. Where are long-term jobs: that's where the energy of government should be focused. Not 'one-off' construction projects that don't support economic activity.
Secondly, think about this "deal" as if it were being pitched to an outside investor; say a sovereign nation that has money to burn. It would get thrown out the window in a heartbeat. The only conceivable justification for the Marlin's deal is that it serves a public purpose. It's nonsense we can't afford.
5 comments:
Miami-Dade and City of Miami Commissioners,
Your votes Friday, the 13th of February, on an enormously expensive stadium will either keep Miami-Dade shacked to decades of bad decisions or you can set us on a bold new course.
Miami-Dade County, in the opinion of many, is a prime example of how residents have been isolated and indeed segregated from one another, brought about by public and private leaders and ordinary residents repeatedly making decisions and investments in private transportation over public transportation, private back yards over great public parks, private schools over public. We have recently added tens of thousand of affordable and luxury housing units in Miami and in unincorporated areas with no regard to green space. I am sure there are other examples of how private trumps public opportunities.
Every year we are becoming an area more defined by the gap between people who have and people who have not. We all have been conditioned to choose private over public as the better choice. This is not isolated to Miami-Dade but we have a long history of these decisions. This is not how great cities are built or rejuvenated.
Great cities of any size are where ordinary people, poor or rich have a sense of ownership and pride in the public realm they experience on a day to day basis in their immediate neighborhoods. It is very obvious our County and certainly the City of Miami fall far short in all of these areas compared to great cities, many of which do not have professional sport teams, but yet are great.
We are making some small progress in creating better neighborhoods, but we need to focus on upgrading hundreds of neighborhoods in which residents
can take pride in 365 days a year, not massive projects dedicated to improving the bottom line of private enterprise.
We are at a crossroads. Your vote for the stadium will commit so many dollars to more privatization and place so much strain on local tax payers, that you will make it impossible for any future Commissions to make any real progress toward creating great neighborhoods.
Commissioner Sanchez, you are running for Miami Mayor with the slogan of Neighborhoods First. You are aware, as I have brought it to you attention
several times, that in the last required review of the Miami Neighborhood Comprehensive Plan, residents in four of five commission districts, said they needed more parks. It is no wonder, because 85% of Miami parks lie along Biscayne Bay and most of that lies on the not very accessible Virginia Key, where we segregated Black residents and tourists.
I find it inexcusable how you, full well knowing that your constituents need more parks, have not jumped at the chance to hold public meetings to determine the best public use of the Orange Bowl site. No such meetings have been held. Can you not envision Miami's Central Park in the heart of Little Havana, perhaps with some mixed use and a movie complex to serve residents every day of the year?
What could the cost of a stadium (500 million dollars and counting) provide in terms of truly public realm improvements which would bring more tourist to Miami-Dade and keep them here longer, while also benefiting the local population?
Look at investments like landscaping Bicentennial Park and some of our other major parks, to keep tourists here longer. My out of town guests want to see and experience green on their visits from the frozen north. A new stadium paves premium public space.
In my opinion, we need to attract major hotel chains to build under $75 a night rooms. Such rooms will attract more tourists and that price range will create longer stays. The City of Miami needs twenty parks to live up to their Parks Master Plan. Why not use some of the tourists tax dollars to purchase one and two acre parcels of land around Miami and make part of these parcels available to hotel chains to build rooms renting for under $75 a night and landscape the balance of the property to serve the local population? Put parking under the parks. This would be a 365 day a year win for tourists, local restaurants, residents and permanent job creation. Community swimming pools could be an added bonus to these new park and hotel complexes and might even be self supporting!
Yes, of course we need to upgrade our convention facilities to attract business we are turning away.
If you dare hold public meetings, many more ideas would be generated to bring overnight tourists to our area.
Even if you make the most difficult decision to move toward the
foundations of greatness in our neighborhoods over continuing down the tired course of more privatization, will we have the tourist tax dollars for any of this?
Below is an email I received today from a friend who is the typical visitor to the Miami area. He is a tech professional making about eighty thousand dollars a year who lives in Manhattan. I hope you find it sobering. I did.
Steve Hagen, Miami
"Call me Ishmael"
I think that's how you should start your next post Steve.
Audrey Edmonson: Don't do it!
No to the Marlins Bailout!
Do not let the taxpayers be put on the hook for $2 bil.
Can someone please answer this important question. After stadium is built, how many full time jobs will exist at the stadium and how many jobs generated by outside vendors in Miami-Dade because of the stadium. Give me a number so I cna judge if this si a good or bad deal.
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