Let's help the Marlins ... by gimleteye

Such a sad story about the terminally poor fan attendance at the games of the Miami Marlins in today's Herald. Professional baseball's lowest attendance team. It's a black Eye On Miami.

On the other hand, we warned county and city commissioners who voted for the worst stadium deal in professional sports history. But nooooo. We knew that the lure of luxury suites and free parking was too much for county and city commissioners. Now? Poor Marlins! Poor Miami Herald!

So, we implore Eye On Miami readers to oome to the rescue. Help us volunteer suggestions how to improve attendance at Marlins' games.

Here are my top five incentives to induce Miami citizens to get their tickets punched for proof of attendance.

1) Attend ten Marlins' games and get one free ticket to the Miami Heat.

2) Attend one Marlins' game and get free parking in Miami for one year. Call it a "twofer".

3) Attend five Marlins' games and get a "certificate of attendance" from FIU that could be used as a resume builder.

4) Attend fifteen Marlins' games and get either a) a free Jet Ski or b) a ten year waiver on your auto registration tax.

5) Attend three Marlins' games and get a date to hunt pythons in Everglades National Park with Carl Hiaasen or bonefish with Gimleteye in Biscayne National Park.

More on the Miami Marlins ... by gimleteye

Would new ownership change the Miami Marlins' dismal attendance record?

Earlier this year, Jeb! Bush surfaced as the name brand of a partnership expressing interest in the professional baseball team. Apparently, the Bush consortium made a very significant offer that was turned down.

I expect that the current management cannot squeeze expenses and paying baseball fans for too much longer. That game is in the late innings.

Judging from reader comments, there are a fair number of fans who believe that changing ownership will bring paying customers back into the seats. Others believe that Miami only backs its winners, like the Heat.

The thinking goes: if the Marlins were owned by and lead by Hispanics and began to win, that the seats would fill and the Marlins' fortune reverse.

I wouldn't bet on that outcome. First of all, there is the traffic; it is meant to break the spirit on any baseball game day. Second, do Hispanic demographics support a rise in attendance if the ownership changes?

Knowing the extent to which the Miami economy is supported by investors who only spend a few weeks of the year in Miami, I doubt that attending a Marlins' baseball game rises to the level of a sure thing.

Where are the voters when it comes to throwing out of office those elected officials who supported the taxpayer funded ballpark and gave its owner the right to profit when the team is flipped? Turned off.

The Marlins Stadium: why the stain is indelible ... by gimleteye

The public apathy for the Miami Marlins made network news (again) last night, with a NBC Nightly News segment on the team's decision to close the upper deck of the new stadium because so few people are going to the games.

Back in the 90's, I had a spirited discussion with then Herald editor Tom Fiedler about the stadium. He was of the prevailing, "build it and they will come" school for a downtown Miami ballpark. My point of view was that overdevelopment and poor planning, combined with demographics, argued against any audience traveling on Miami roadways that had already driven them to distraction with long commutes.

A decade of experience trying to attract volunteers to mid-week meetings to be civic activists informed my perspective. It was no stretch of imagination to believe, then, that even if Miamians could afford to bring their families to baseball games mid-week, or weekends, that the horrendous traffic patterns would defeat the purpose. Nearly twenty years later I feel the same way about the Heat arena (and broken promises) and the Performing Arsht Center.

The Miami Herald could not be enlisted to support or even to give inches to illuminate this point of view. Lackluster leadership and the prospective value of its downtown real estate was too important to yield to a discussion about the havoc wrought by all those land use zoning changes by Greenberg Traurig, that national law firm that built its foundation converting farmland and wetlands to suburban sprawl.

It's the sprawl, and the platted subdivisions carved out for powerful campaign contributors and builders' lobbyists (LBA), and the failure to adequately invest in planned transit that has taxpayers and citizens choking on the costs of growth. The land use pattern of ring suburbs balkanized communities and inhibited the formation of civic involvement and civic pride.

The public response to the Miami Marlins, "how much more do you think we are going to pay?", has an answer -- you won't hear on network news. Even if you give us tickets for free, we are not climbing back into our cars after commuting an hour and a half to spend another hour and a half driving to the stadium and back. It is too bad Norman Braman can't be turned to this point of view, because he is so right on other parts of the message.

Taxpayers will spend more than $2 billion dollars to retire the public debt while Loria will fly away from Florida on his private jet with tens if not hundreds of millions in profit when the team is sold.

How The Marlins Stadium Deal Has Changed South Florida

Earlier this month, WLRN hosted a special routable, "Foul Ball! The Future of the Marlins in Miami". I stumbled on the re-broadcast in a Sunday afternoon hour slot. You need to listen to it. Too bad WLRN doesn't engage other sacred cows along the same line. (I'd start with: Big Sugar, poisons people, poisons the Everglades, and poisons democracy.) In particular, Norman Braman makes excellent points along the lines of common sense lacking in our elected officials; especially those who supported this stinker.

I predict the public WILL VOTE AGAINST the Dolphin stadium deal because the well has been poisoned. Public good will for subsidies of wealthy sports team owners evaporated, and although the hustlers and insiders in county government are still firmly in place, feasting at the table of subsidies: the Dolphins turkey will not fly. Not all the huffing, puffing, and threats of Superbowl fortunes vanished will change what happened. Listen.

Like the Marlins, the Miami Herald lost the trust of its subscribers ... by gimleteye

A story in the Sunday Miami Herald polls Marlins' fans and notes the deep mistrust and sense of outrage, anger, and abandonment at the Miami Marlins.

This new-found indignation mainly serves to draw attention to the paper's own complicity for the Marlins' stadium deal that will cost billions over the lifetime of the underlying debt. The deal will also deliver an enormous windfall for the Marlins' owner, Jeffrey Loria, when he decides to flip the team to new owners.

During the latest change in the paper's position on the Marlins, we pointed out (along with fellow blogger Bill Cooke at Random Pixels http://randompixels.blogspot.com/2012/11/did-miami-herald-aid-jeffrey-loria-in.html), the tracks of the Herald's past, full-throated support for the stadium deal.

Herald executives are inclined to attribute the paper's dwindling readership to the proliferation of no-cost, internet-based sources of news, but it occurs this Sunday morning that its readers are as turned off by the newspaper as baseball fans are, of the Marlins.

The Herald's best work is tied to investigative reports that bloggers cannot perform (or might, if they were paid). It opens one's eyes, can lead to Pulitzers, and trigger change. But too often, the Herald seems to disdain its readership or paper over readers' complaints, just like the Marlins.

The newspaper's underlying financial difficulty, through which reporters and staff have been both cut to the bone and required to take monthly "furloughs", provide a convenient excuse for the newspaper's owners and executives; as if to say, their memories are as short as their readers'. Take the failed reportage of the US Century Bank fiasco, for example: a story of insider-dealing that cuts to the heart of the Miami power structure including the big downtown law firms that have mightily profited by wrecking our quality of life, plowing subdivisions into cheap farmland and wetlands. Or the front page story trumpeting an outlier public opinion poll by Mason Dixon that had Romney up by five points when a simple Google search would have turned up the real story. (Read the NY Times 538 Blog analysis of public opinion polls during the election, here.)

Selling the consumer short puts the Herald on the same side of the ledger as the Miami Marlins. We can't solve that problem, but we hope the Herald does.

And speaking of revisionist history: the Miami Marlins and the Miami Herald ... by gimleteye

What more is there left for the Miami Herald to write about the Miami Marlins, except to say "we are sorry for supporting a team that clearly did not deserve a half billion dollar investment by taxpayers."

The last place team recently dumped its payroll: "With revenue falling short of projections, Loria decided to end the franchise's brief era of big spending."

Miami is so dispirited by the Marlins, that the chatterboard on the Herald website -- often receiving hundreds of posts from online readers -- went dark on one letter posted as Marlin's con job."

A Miami Herald columnist now writes, "People in Miami had begun to wise up about the time their new baseball stadium was being completed and Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria wanted them to shell out $10,980 for some wine so he and his buddies could celebrate."

That is not true. When was it not clear to Miami taxpayers, the deal was meant to enrich the two owners Jeffrey Loria and David Samson? At any time they can walk away from their heist of the public treasury with hundreds of millions, leaving Miami taxpayers sucking air from the exhaust of Loria's private jet.

The Herald might come clean with readers: its publishers and top executives were the big boosters for a new Marlin's stadium in downtown Miami in the early 2000's.

Here's writer Dan LeBatard in 2005 and needs no further commentary: "This is only the most underappreciated team in modern-sports history. That’s all. And there’s plenty of blame to go around, stretching from a wretched fan base to politicians who couldn’t get a stadium done even with the Marlins paying for so much of it. Hispanic fans — or alleged fans — should be especially ashamed because we claim this to be the sport of our people..."

Leave it to a breath of fresh air to arrive from China. The only piece its creators miss: Miami voters keep returning the incumbents who approved the deal to office.

Manny Diaz: Busy rewriting history ... by gimleteye

Manny Diaz has a new book heralding his "vision" during two terms as mayor of the city of Miami: a time when growth-on-steroids, fueled by funny money, made nearly every politician in Florida act as though they had scored a touchdown from their own end zone. Certainly the Growth Machine and all its components were on their feet cheering all the way. And why not? They were billing hours and taking commissions like there was no tomorrow.

The former mayor resembles the Miami Marlins, the professional baseball team that can find a silk purse in any sow's ear. Both Manny Diaz and the Miami Marlins are like the 19th century entrepreneurs who put lamps on the Florida coral reef, steering sailors in the dark to promise of safe passage, then when the ships wrecked claimed the ship's contents as their own.

On a cheerier note this Friday, take a look at the best football goal of the year in Europe. During a recent friendly match, Zlatan Ibrahimovich playing for Switzerland Sweden single-handedly beat England with four goals; the first time a player against England had ever scored so many goals in one game. Zlatan is surely the most entertaining giant to ever play professional football who behaves like a Greek god and plays like one often enough to be credible. Maybe on retirement he should move to Miami and run for mayor. This was the last of the four:

Gimleteye: Don't cry for the Marlins

Honestly, how could the Miami Herald critique the Miami Marlins and Jeffrey Loria without mentioning that the $525 million retractable-roof ballpark -- three fourths financed with public dollars -- is owned by the Marlins; making this a no-lose deal for Loria. The time will come when Loria makes a small fortune liquifying his investment made with the help of Miami and Miami-Dade politicians. When that happens, Miami Dade voters will be inhaling fumes from Loria's private jet as it taxies to the runway and flies away.

Gimleteye: "Who could have predicted that the cool Miami Marlins stadium would look out of place so soon?"

I'd nearly missed Linda Robertson's question in a recent Miami Herald column, "Marlins' high hopes crumbling away." (Sept. 22, 2012) But I will answer it, anyway.

On the Marlins Stadium, the Performing Arsht Center, and other pending monuments to vanity, Eye on Miami feels like the smart kid who regularly raises his hand when the teacher asks, who has the answer? and then pays for it later in the school yard. In our case what that means is that the views we express on this blog, where there are no advertisers calling to complain to the publisher about "negative" stories, rarely make it to the Herald.

"Who could have predicted that the cool landmark (ie. baseball stadium) would look out of place so soon?" (Hand goes up.) We did.

I recall a conversation with Tom Fiedler long ago. Tom was the former managing editor of the Miami Herald. A great guy and, for the record, a much more talented writer on politics than newspaper manager. We bumped into each other in a bus on Key Biscayne, from the general parking lot out to the Lipton tennis tournament in the late 1990's. It was so long ago Roger Federer wasn't even famous yet.

Tom was an unabashed enthusiast for a downtown stadium, along with the rest of the Herald brass. The idea had been percolating and Tom had written in support. I told Tom, my view was that Miami had better things to spend its money on. Like reorganizing Bayside Market and the waterfront to create some kind of durable urban fabric, or, wastewater and water projects that were obvious, glaring black holes.

We know how that turned out. Is anyone surprised that Miami Dade has violated the terms of its 1990's era settlement agreement with EPA to clean our waters? (This would be a good place not to raise your hand.)

Now taxpayers owe Billions and are sitting with a cool billion in debt on various monuments that are poorly sited and scarcely deliver on the promise the harmonious civic life that the cement and steel Growth Machine demanded.

On the other hand, there is Miguel Cabrera, bless his soul: .330, 44 homers and 139 RBIs.

Cabrera has been the AL's best hitter since leaving the Marlins in a trade after the 2007 season. Now he is the first Triple Crown winner since Carl Yaztremski. One of the points of view we regularly express at EOM is that what Florida does best is destroy value. But I'm not going to draw that analogy with the Cabrera trade.

I used to have a baseball card of Yaz and somewhere lost it along the way.

The same will be true of these bone-headed commitments of tax payer dollars. Behind them are a thousand controversies, protests, petition writing, and imploring by civic activists. These stories are largely unwritten and unpublished by the Herald and other mainstream media as they happen. The perpetrators (also called 'winners'), elected or lobbyists, will do their time in the public sector, pay bills and mortgages, perhaps for homes and houses they should not have bought and could not reasonably afford, piling hunger into the void. Robertson writes of the dismal scene unfolding in Little Havana, "The City of Miami made ham-handed attempts to recruit upscale restaurants and retail to its parking garage storefronts in a neighborhood where such businesses made no sense. They remain empty." Duh.

"Hindsight is 20-20", says Robertson, perhaps anticipating or nodding our way. But this where we get to raise our hands again: in the big picture, decision makers use the same excuse.

Having a critical view that draws an analogy between the Miami Marlins and our wider, community issues is not a case of backseat driving or Monday morning quarterbacking. It is also not strictly negativity. To know where you are going, you have to understand the past.

Of inconvenient truths, this one stands out. It may also account for the words left unsaid at the recent presidential debate on the economic crisis: "We could have seen it coming." Some of us, did.

Miami Marlins: Back to empty seats? By Geniusofdespair

These pictures were taken June 29th at the Phillies vs. Marlins Game. The Philadelphia Phillies' Carlos Ruiz is the number 1 batter in the league so this isn't a "B" game. Now that all the hoopla is over, are we back to empty seats at the Miami Marlin's Stadium?

What idiots we were to pay for this...and we will be paying it off for quite some time.

Florida Marlins: Broken Promises. By Geniusofdespair

Natacha Seijas wrote a bizarre letter to the editor in the Miami Herald about the Marlins and her very good friend Norman Braman (NOT). Her letter is below (hit read more, thank you reader for sending it).

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/25/2767795/sitting-it-out.html#storylink=cpy

Let's look at this blast from the past from Natacha Seijas, doesn't sound like she was liking the Marlin's deal all that much just a few weeks before she voted in favor of it. Not for the reasons you would expect: That it was such a BAD DEAL for us the taxpayers. Not a word about that. Note how her concerns are mostly related to the Unions...the one group that supported her to the end, even supplying lawyers to fight her recall.

Do you think Seijas REALLY paid for that seat in the 13th row:

See Natacha's Letter...

Opportunity Knocks: Eyeonmiami recommends to throw the first pitch at the Miami Marlin's Stadium ... by gimleteye

April 3, 2012
Mr. David Samson, President
Miami Marlins

Dear Mr. Samson,

Readers of our blog, Eyeonmiami, have conducted a inside-the-foul line, spirited debate on who should be selected to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day to commemorate the new stadium, backed by taxpayers and the best deal for private owners of a professional sports team in the United States.

We believe that many deserving names on our web post have played roles and have roles to play in the inaugural season of the new stadium. But our final recommendation comes from left field.

Miami is the Magic City. And our recommendation to throw out the first pitch belongs to the kushed out inventor of the Magic Flight Launch Box. The Magic Flight is a hugely popular vape kit, like the Miami Marlins. It is "a tiny little vaporizer that's powered by a rechargeable battery, and over the past couple months the stoner device has been blowing up." Like the stadium deal pushed through local elected officials, "it delivers an incredible hit without any of the smell and real easy to conceal."

Here is the best reason to select the inventor of the Magic Flight Launch Box to throw out the first pitch: "The idea was just there," says the inventor and they've gone through Hell and back to make it happen." Snap. If that doesn't describe what the Marlin's team accomplished, what does?

On the reddit thread started by the inventor of Magic Flight, one reader observed, "If people would take the time to look at conversations like this, and realize that smoking trees is not a drug, but a channel that draws people from all over the world together simply to enjoy a plant, this world would be a much better place." And because this is also true not just for our quality of life but professional sports stadiums too, we recommend the first pitch be thrown by the inventor of the Magic Flight Launch Box (available at Amazon.com).



Sincerely,

Eyeonmiami

Still Time To Comment! The Eyeonmiami Who-Should-Throw-The-First-Pitch Contest !!!

The enthusiasm for the Miami Marlins Stadium and opening day is soaring on this blog! Civic pride abounds. There is still time to voice your opinion; who should throw out the first pitch on opening day of baseball season at the new taxpayer financed / private Miami Marlins Stadium. Nominate your candidate, here! (Based on the most creative reason, we will send a letter of request to Miami Marlins management this afternoon.)

Update: Fact points toward former County Manager George Burgess throwing out the first pitch. Emotion points in two cultural directions. One, to have the first pitch thrown by a shallow celebrity. Two, to have the pitch thrown by a has-been celebrity. If you differ or disagree, or want to further comment: time is running out! David Samson is waiting for Eyeonmiami's recommendation!

Marlin's Stadium Exhibition Game. Guest Blog by Barry White

Barry White, a Marlin's fan, reported back from opening day - The New York Yankee's (team I care about) Exhibition Game:

The Marlin's Park seems to be perfect. Beautiful, easy access, plenty of bathrooms and concession stands, good variety of food. It's a gem. They did it right, as much as it might hurt to say it. And using Metro Rail and the Shuttle from Culmer Station was a piece of cake. We've got a world class winner here. You must compliment all who brought it in on time, and maybe on budget. I have not heard about cost over runs. Now lets cheer on the fine fellows on the Marlins. Win or lose, they always give it their best. Go Marlins!

I was most interested to see what the retractable roof looked like from the inside.

Another view of roof.

David Samson, Miami Marlins, rags on Miami ... by gimleteye

Funny, the tempest in a teapot over David Samson's condescending comments to a Beacon Council breakfast, focusing ire on that radical voice of the left: Miami Today publisher Michael Lewis. According to reports, Samson didn't have much good to say about Miami politicians (we don't, either) or Miami voters or Norman Braman (whose response in the Herald was to flick off Samson's comments like a fingernail expressed against a mosquito). Michael Lewis tried to wage a battle of the facts of the awful, horrendous deal that Miami politicians permitted, saddling taxpayers with the largest share of a privatized professional sports stadium in the United States. Who cares? There is a simple way for Miami residents to respond: don't go to the stadium. It is how I feel about the performing arts center, unfortunately. Although I've tried to enjoy the place this year, the sordid facts of mis-spending, mis-allocation of resources, and such rise like the little bit of vomit that gets stuck in your throat (cf. Jim Defede). The PAC has the charm of a Marriott Hotel Conference Center. So there you have it. I'll buy a ticket to the Miami Heat when the owner and the county fork over the public park promised when that deal was done. And I'll go to Marlin's Stadium when Eyeonmiami is assigned private parking and suite like the county commission.

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?

Feds open SEC probe of Miami Marlins ... by gimleteye

Is US Century Bank, next?

(graphic credit: Harry Emilio Gottlieb)

Link to Miami Herald story.

My Soap Box Today: The Marlins' require bilingual applicants at job fair. By Geniusofdespar

 Juan C. Martinez, the Marlins’ director of multicultural marketing, acknowledged that with the team’s Spanish-speaking base, seeking out bilingual job candidates this week was a priority. The job fair’s website said the same Tuesday morning. - Miami Herald

 

We are ALL paying for the stadium Juan! I thought it interesting that the Marlins' Job Fair participants were required to be bilingual and that doesn't  include CREOLE. That eliminates large segments of our Miami Dade County population. Commissioner Barbara Jordan rather than just commenting against the practice, in the Herald today, should have gone down there and watched the show and beat her drum. Because they took bilingual off their website doesn't mean it will change the policy. The Black commissioners who voted for the stadium let the Marlins' screw their community twice over: 1) Pay for the Stadium, it will provide jobs 2) Just not for you. The Commissioners could have asked how many jobs would be bilingual before approving the deal. I bet most jobs are part-time too. Did we ask about that ahead of time County Commissioners?

Spanish is not taught in the early years in the schools which hurts the non-Hispanic students' chances of learning Spanish and some Haitians are already trying to master English. Have the Marlins and the Commissioners ever heard of Job Spanish? I don't speak Spanish but I held a job for a year in Puerto Rico because I learned the words I would need at that job. People rarely ask you probing questions at a ballpark:

Where are my seats?
Popcorn?
Where is the bathroom?
Where is the Exit?

You don't have to be bilingual for most jobs within the stadium. Give the hires a Spanish class for the vocabulary they are likely to encounter. My sister knows nurse Spanish... I know bar Spanish -- it is done all the time. Some of these supposedly 'bilingual' people in stores and in other places in Miami hardly have a grasp on English. In Doral I had to ask 3 people at a McDonald's for 'decaffeinated' coffee.  Let's try to help everyone work not just some segments of the population.

Miami New Times hits home run on new Marlin's Stadium fraud ... by gimleteye

New Times writer Tim Elfrink writes, "Six lies about the Marlins stadium" in this week's edition. "Stealing Home" reminds what a valuable function the New Times serves our community. Watching the stadium rise, and knowing that it is primarily a shining landmark for political corruption, is a daily reminder too. Let's hope that Miami Dade voters get the point that candidate for mayor Julio Robaina was a supporter of the stadium. That's what cost Carlos Alvarez his job.

Hialeah Julio Robaina Speaks in Favor of Marlin's Stadium. By Geniusofdespair

(Link to Video)

Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina speaks in favor of the Florida Marlin's deal on March 23rd 2009 at the Miami Dade County Commission Meeting. He is campaigning, to replace Carlos Alvarez, saying he didn't support the ballpark with the expensive retractable roof.

Only 3 Mayors did support the new stadium: Hialeah Julio, Mayor Manny Diaz and Mayor Carlos Alvarez. Even though there are at least 35 cities in Miami Dade County -- Hialeah Julio Robaina was the only Mayor to go down to the County Commission to speak in favor of the stadium deal except for Manny Diaz, who helped mold the deal. Robaina, now campaigning, is saying that he was against the stadium. Shame on you Julio, the tape doesn't lie. And, yes in his "Straw Poll" the citizens did want the Marlins to STAY in Miami. Were the taxpayers' financial obligations part of that straw vote? I think not.

Julio in his testimony doesn't address the enormous amount of money involved or the debt we would be incurring or how this project will impact taxpayers for years to come. In fact, he doesn't say anything or ask about the finances at all. Instead he focuses on an obscure promise by the Marlins to help the youth with playing fields or something else youth oriented in Hialeah (not clear)...all on our backs - the rest of the County, of course (see video below). He surely has ignored the big picture, saddling taxpayers with debt. He is not County Mayor material in my view. Expect his campaign (or his PAC) to have Marlins' funding.

(Link to Video)