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Easy to see this coming...
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/2...g-florida.html
Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado asked the city attorney Thursday whether the city can reopen its contract to build a $100 million parking garage for the Florida Marlins' new stadium in Little Havana.
The mayor's pitch: To secure a more favorable return for Miami amid reports that the baseball franchise profited handsomely while securing hundreds of millions of dollars in backing from city and county governments.
The city is on the hook for the parking sites, its end of the $642 million plan to build a 37,000-seat, retractable-roof stadium set to open in 2012.
Regalado, who voted against the stadium deal while a commissioner, cited leaked financial reports from the sports website Deadspin.com that show the team turned a $49 million profit the past two years.
Citing those numbers, the mayor now wants the city to receive 100 percent of the advertising revenues from signs that would adorn the garages. The deal now calls for a split.
``If the answer is in the negative, what recourse do we have to expose those who misinformed the commission and public during a public hearing?'' Regalado asked City Attorney Julie Bru. There was no word Thursday on when the city attorney would reply.
The mayor's question comes a day after Miami-Dade Commissioner Rebeca Sosa asked whether county administrators could reopen the Marlins deal and get the team to contribute more to the stadium. Sosa voted in favor of the stadium deal.
Team President David Samson, who spoke with Sosa, said, ``I think she understands a contract is a contract.''
In March 2009, Miami and Miami-Dade commissioners ratified an agreement with the Marlins that called for a lion's share of the project to be bankrolled with public money.
The city will contribute about $125 million for the garage and infrastructure improvements; the county's end is about $362 million; the Marlins would spend $155 million, with $35 million of that a loan from the county to be repaid through rent payments of a little more than $2 million a year.
The city gave the ballpark footprint to the county to avoid a yearly property tax bill, and the county would own the facility. Most revenues generated from the stadium would go directly to the Marlins.
The mayor's pitch: To secure a more favorable return for Miami amid reports that the baseball franchise profited handsomely while securing hundreds of millions of dollars in backing from city and county governments.
The city is on the hook for the parking sites, its end of the $642 million plan to build a 37,000-seat, retractable-roof stadium set to open in 2012.
Regalado, who voted against the stadium deal while a commissioner, cited leaked financial reports from the sports website Deadspin.com that show the team turned a $49 million profit the past two years.
Citing those numbers, the mayor now wants the city to receive 100 percent of the advertising revenues from signs that would adorn the garages. The deal now calls for a split.
``If the answer is in the negative, what recourse do we have to expose those who misinformed the commission and public during a public hearing?'' Regalado asked City Attorney Julie Bru. There was no word Thursday on when the city attorney would reply.
The mayor's question comes a day after Miami-Dade Commissioner Rebeca Sosa asked whether county administrators could reopen the Marlins deal and get the team to contribute more to the stadium. Sosa voted in favor of the stadium deal.
Team President David Samson, who spoke with Sosa, said, ``I think she understands a contract is a contract.''
In March 2009, Miami and Miami-Dade commissioners ratified an agreement with the Marlins that called for a lion's share of the project to be bankrolled with public money.
The city will contribute about $125 million for the garage and infrastructure improvements; the county's end is about $362 million; the Marlins would spend $155 million, with $35 million of that a loan from the county to be repaid through rent payments of a little more than $2 million a year.
The city gave the ballpark footprint to the county to avoid a yearly property tax bill, and the county would own the facility. Most revenues generated from the stadium would go directly to the Marlins.
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