Busy week for Miami, with Baywalk Greenway, Melreese and redistricting – Political Cortadito
Readers of Political Cortadito are going to get sick of the city of Miami this week. That’s because the commission has four back-to-back meetings over three days — including the much-anticipated no-bid, 99-year deal for development of the Melreese golf course.
The dates on the dais begin Wednesday with a special meeting to establish the Miami Baywalk Greenway along Biscayne Bay. It passed last month on first reading with only Commissioner Manolo Reyes dissenting.
The ordinance would designate and recognize the Baywalk Greenway as a linear “public-private” park, which has been built in segments over the past 20-plus years. Last year, the city voted to join all the segments and give it one unifying look.
“The Miami Baywalk Greenway along Biscayne Bay is to be located on public lands and, as described herein, on private lands,” the item on the agenda says. “Public rights-of-way may be included within the Baywalk Greenway, but not part of the City’s park inventory.”
That’s so some of the land is still taxable. But public access shall be provided to the bayside promenade — the width of the entire waterfront setback — for the whole stretch along Biscayne Bay from the city limit at about Northeast 87th Street to the southwestern city limit at North Prospect Drive.
“I’ve been working on this for six years… trying to create different ways to get it finished,” said Commissioner Ken Russell of District 2, where the Baywalk Greenway is located.
Read related: Closing Melreese is political drama to benefit soccer mall developers
The next day, there’s a regular commission meeting with a pretty full agenda of land use and zoning amendments, park grants for a bunch of kayak launches, a code amendment on conflicts of interests (I know!) and a resolution on a city charter amendment, for the August primary ballot, to allow 4/5ths of the commission to waive competitive bidding and enter into a lease with Riverside Wharf for city-owned property on the Miami River.
Oh, and the conceptual design for Morningside Park. That’s all.
Maybe. Commissioners may defer Morningside Park again. Because there’s a special meeting within the regular meeting that is supposed to start at 2:30 p.m. (read 4 p.m.)
That meeting is to consider the no-bid, 99-year deal for Miami Freedom Park, a retail/hotel/restaurant complex with a soccer stadium planned for the Melreese golf course. A 100-page lease that commissioners will not have gone through will, no doubt, be presented by Mayor Francis Suarez, whose only job, apparently, is to push crypto currency and this real estate deal disguised as a stadium (more on that later).
Jorge Mas, who owns the InterMiami soccer team with David Beckham, painted a pretty picture in an op-ed last week that doesn’t mention all the shortcomings and unresolved issues (more on that later).
But, just in case people don’t buy his “transformative” pitch, Mas also donated to political action committees for commissioners Joe Carollo ($25,000) and Alex Diaz de la Portilla ($50,000), the latter of which has his community meeting on the redistricting Monday evening, so he’s going to be tired and crankier than usual by the end of the week.
On Friday, the commission will have to get together again to consider giving final approval to the redistricting map that’s been drawn, which, among other things, cuts Coconut Grove into three districts and puts Carollo’s $2.2 million Morris Lane house into D3 so he can protect it from lawsuits.
Read related: Miami redistricting cuts Coconut Grove into three rather than add districts
By then, they should be at each others’ throats.
Doesn’t it seem that the Melreese vote and redistricting — two things that have proven to be somewhat controversial — are purposely jammed together so that nobody can focus too long on any one of them?
Miami Freedom Park is coming up more than three years after voters passed a referendum to negotiate the deal. Since then? Nada. Residents certainly haven’t had a chance to weigh in. The referendum passed in 2018 was to allow the manager to negotiate. It doesn’t mean Miamians have to accept a hotel and restaurants as what gets developed with the stadium.
And the March 11 deadline on redistricting is not set in stone. It won’t cost the city anything to extend it because they don’t have any election coming up. Carollo’s hard deadline is a false one. And it’s worth the time to get it right. The current maps prepared by consultants already has some voters feeling disenfranchised and uprooted — and these are districts they have to live with for the next 10 years.
Maybe one of those meetings should be postponed until next week. That way, everyone can get a little rest. And time to read that mammoth lease that, as of two months ago, still had 28 points of contention, according to the city’s outside counsel (more on that later).
So much more on all of this later.
