Miami Herald Get Your Act Together. Guest Blog by EyeonMiamiHerald

I was getting used to the Herald's sloppy habits of late.  There isn't an edition that doesn't have editorial and copy errors ranging from completely wrong words to misspellings (in the era of spell-check I find this especially frustrating).  But what I cannot accept is the Miami Herald staff being so lazy that they cannot be bothered to search their OWN archives for stories on the subject they're editorializing.

Case in point:

In the Herald editorial from this Wednesday: "Appraiser Throws a Curve Ball",  they wrote as though the County Property Appraiser's announcement that tax would be due for the parking garage for the Marlin Stadium was not to be expected by the City of Miami. The paper went so far as to actually call for changing State law to help the City of Miami undo their own bumbling, inept negotiation that put taxpayers on the hook for the $2 million tab for the parking garages.

But anyone who has been paying attention to similar private/public arrangements (or read the Miami Herald in the past) would have known that this move by the Property Appraiser was expected.  That's why the City took the step to transfer the Orange Bowl site to the County in the first place.

Miami Dade County, unlike the City of Miami, is exempt from taxation for profit-making ventures like the Marlins Stadium or the American Airlines Arena.  No doubt, that is why the savvy Marlins' attorney put such language deflecting any tax obligation in their contract in the first place. To call this a "curve ball" caused by the change to an elected Property Appraiser is not only patently false, but ignores recent history and the Herald's OWN news coverage.

The Homestead-Miami Speedway is a prime example of a long-standing dispute over private enterprise on city property having to pay property taxes.  Homestead has complained loudly for years - practically since the track was built in the mid-1990s - that they are paying the County taxes for the racetrack.  A quick look at the Property Appraiser's database shows that their tax bill for 2011 was more than $500,000.

This includes the vacant land around the track owned by the City used for parking.  The other spill-over parking areas are owned by the racetrack, and as a private entity those properties are taxed as well.  This was information that I unearthed in two minutes as a readily available public document.

I recall many stories on the subject in the Miami Herald over the years.  I'm pretty sure the Herald has access to their archives without having to pay themselves for the articles.

It gets better.  With a quick search of the Herald archives I exhumed this recent tidbit from August 29, 2011: "South Miami settles to end IRS investigation".

What was this investigation about you ask?  The Miami Herald reported that the IRS and the SEC were investigating a parking garage built for a commercial project using municipal tax-free bonds.  The City settled with the IRS but the SEC investigation remains open.  Sound familiar?

So the Herald simultaneously calls for changes in State law to get the City of Miami out of a jam of their own making while not knowing the history or potential consequences of such a change. Wouldn't the change proposed by the Herald, in fact, create a precedent that would lose the County much needed revenue not only at the Orange Bowl but from other venues, such as the Homestead-Miami Speedway?