Kick Ass (40 page)

To hear Grand Prix boosters tell it, the winos of Bicentennial Park are the urban equivalent of the Viet Cong. Apparently the only thing to dislodge them is a Porsche bearing down at 140 miles per hour.

In defense of plowing the park, supporters recited all the nasty things that have happened there since it opened in 1977. Rapes, murders, muggings, assorted corpses. No wonder hardly anybody goes there.

Some cities would’ve taken a slightly different approach to these problems. Some cities might have opened shelters to get the winos off the streets. Maybe put more cops in the park, installed brighter lights, improved the parking, added tennis and racquetball courts. Bulldozed that stupid San Juan Hill of a berm that blocks the bay from the boulevard.

Other cities might have done more to save the park, but what Miami did was to give up, and give it away.

It’s true that for two whole weekends the Grand Prix draws thousands of fans to downtown Miami, which is swell if you happen to own a hotel or parking garage. It’s also true that the TV coverage gives the city lots of valuable exposure, providing the sun is out.

And it’s true that one of the prime missions of the Grand Prix is to make some bucks for Ralph Sanchez. Nothing wrong with that.

But carving up the park?

I guess the city commissioners couldn’t help themselves. They saw this luscious hunk of bayfront not making money, just sitting there being a park, and they couldn’t stand it. The shakes set in, then drooling; an uncontrollable urge to bulldoze. Apparently shrubbery was not the kind of green that Bicentennial Park was meant to sprout.

The giveaway occurred so swiftly that critics have questioned its legality. The city’s staff says everything is proper because the racetrack technically is a “park amenity.”

A country mile of four-lane blacktopsome amenity. What does that make the Palmetto Expressway, a national shrine?

The Indy races to put Metro in debit dust

July 18, 1986

First there was Hands Across America. Then Farm Aid II.

Brace yourself, South Florida. Now comes Ralph Aid II.

In a heartrending gesture of charity, the Metro Commission is considering bailing out auto racing impresario Ralph Sanchez with $5 million over 10 years.

In return, Sanchez promises to give the county 17 percent of the “adjusted gross income” from his Indy races at Tamiami Park.

What a deal. Except for one glitch: The Tamiami event lost money last year. A ton of money$1.3 million, according to Sanchez.

On a similar note, this season’s Grand Prix, held at the mutilated Bicentennial Park, lost $652,000that, after getting a $350,000 subsidy from the tourist tax.

Isn’t government wonderful? Used to be that when a private entrepreneur couldn’t turn a profit, he or she was doomed to a cold fate. Going out of business, it was called. Used to be that the idea was to take in more money than you spent.

Apparently this isn’t always possible when you’re trying to put together a “world-class event,” whatever that might be. Costs add upyou know, little things, like $23,500 for your lobbyist’s new Mercedes-Benz.

Can’t have a world-class event without a world-class lobbyist. God knows what Ron Book would have gotten if the Grand Prix had actually made moneymaybe Sanchez would’ve sprung for a Rolls.

The architect of the latest giveaway is County Manager Sergio Pereira, whoinvoking the Miss Universe Pageant Boondoggle Theoremsays the TV exposure makes the road races worth every nickel, tourist-wise. Pereira selflessly took it upon himself to review the ledgers of the Tamiami affair, and concluded that Sanchez needs help.

Right now he gets a piddling $100,000 a year for the Indy race. Pereira wants to increase the stipend to $500,000 annually for the next decade. What a guy, and what a grand gift at a time when Dade’s economic condition is so bleak!

It seems like just last week that Pereira asked for property tax increases of 12 percent in unincorporated neighborhoods.

It seems like just last week that he proposed raising water and sewer rates, and cutting funds for meals for the elderly.

And it seems like just last week that the cost-conscious county manager declared an urgent need to wipe out the Dade Consumer Advocate’s Office, as well as the Fair Housing and Employment Appeals Board. Citizens, he said, would simply have to go elsewhere with their job and housing discrimination complaints.

Pereira computed that these last two budget items would save the county a whopping $303,000 next year. Why, that’s almost enough to pave another park and put in a race track.

The question is, would anyone show up?

Contrary to rosy press reports at the time, only half the expected crowd turned out at Tamiami, according to Sanchez’s own estimate. We may never know the true attendance because, he says, he didn’t bother to use the turnstiles for two days.

Such casual bookkeeping doesn’t seem to disturb Commissioner Barry Schreiber, content with Sanchez’s assertion that “we fill hotel rooms.” Others, such as Commissioners Bev Phillips and Clara Oesterle, have expressed serious doubts about Pereira’s plan.

Since the races are partly bankrolled by the city of Miami, Dade County and the state of Florida, taxpayers might be interested in details about the bottom line, which currently is red. Call us nosy, but we’d sure like to see the books before donating another half a million bucks.

Next week the county’s finance committee will consider whether or not to set aside its fiscal worries, dig into your pockets and give generously to this sporting cause.

Considering his track record with the county commissioners, it’s no wonder that Ralph Sanchez is back at Government Center, a pit stop in more ways than one.

Track developer now charity case for Homestead

August 1, 1993

For those wondering how long it would take the new Metro Commission to start throwing money away, the wait is over: $20 million for auto racing in Homestead.

The 111 vote came last Tuesday at midnight, when public attendance was conveniently at a minimum. It brought to $31 million the total that Grand Prix hustler Ralph Sanchez has charmed from the county commission since October.

It’s his biggest jackpot ever. Who needs telethons when you’ve got such softhearted politicians? Sanchez and Homestead City Manager Alex Muxo had no trouble selling the outlandish proposition that South Dade’s hurricane recovery should be anchored by a private racetrack, to be used for only three or four major events a year.

Behind-the-scenes players included two longtime Sanchez cohorts, lobbyists Ron Book and Sergio Pereira. Pereira is an old hand at frittering public funds. As county manager, he once spent $9,400 on a new desk.

The Sanchez giveaway comes from a sports tax on hotel beds. Muxo raided the same kitty before; the result is an empty $12 million baseball stadium. Now Homestead wants racing, even though Sanchez’s track record is an 11-year skid of red ink.

While claiming his races are a hit, Sanchez remains mysteriously dependent on the dole:

” 1985. Despite receiving more than $1 million in public subsidies, Sanchez says his races lost more than $2 million. Nonetheless, he manages to find the money to pay for a new Mercedes-Benz for his lobbyist, Book.

” February 1986. Ralph Aid I: Miami paves Bicentennial Park into a grand prix track. The city also gives Sanchez $250,000, plus an interest-free loan. That’s added to the $800,000 he’s already gotten from the county and the state.

” July 1986. Ralph Aid II: Sergio Pereira, then county manager, decides Sanchez needs more. He proposes a $5 million bailout over 10 years. The Metro Commission pares the handout to $200,000 a year, plus a $368,000 payment for “unexpected” costs.

” 1987-1988. Still itchy, Pereira and Sanchez hatch a scheme for Metro to buy out Sanchez’s operations, and move the races to the Opalocka airport. That nutty idea costs taxpayers $300,000 in consultant fees. The plan is dropped when Pereira quits as county manager, after he’s caught lying about his secret involvement in a land deal.

” 1992. Miami gives Sanchez his customary $200,000, plus $300,000 in fire and police services. Not enough! He wants to move the Grand Prix to Munisport, a toxic dump in North Miami. Residents protest, saying they’d rather have a quiet dump than a noisy racetrack. Sanchez turns to Homestead …

And Homestead is ripe for the picking. Flattened by the storm, vacated by the Air Force, jilted by the Cleveland Indians, the city is frantic for a boost.

Disguising Ralph Relief as hurricane relief worked brilliantly. Commissioner Larry Hawkins played everything but the violin, and Sanchez got his racetrack without putting up a penny. The public got a $20 million lube job.

Like the ballpark, a track will bring temporary construction jobs to South Dade. But after it’s built, then what? For all but a few weeks each year, the place won’t draw flies, much less tourists. (Muxo says Homestead police might use the new track for training, making it the world’s most expensive driver-education course.)

If the Grand Prix can’t turn a healthy profit on prime downtown bayfront, Sanchez stands no chance in the distant fields of South Dade.

The only winners in this deal are the taxpayers of Miami, who will be spared their annual $500,000 bailout of Ralph’s party. Now he is Homestead’s charity case.

Let Lipton thrive or fail on its own

July 25, 1990

Another brainy idea from the county manager: using a tourism tax to build a tennis stadium on Key Biscayne.

Yes, folks, the happy Lipton giveaway continues. In his zeal to keep the International Players Championships at Crandon Park, County Manager Joaquin Avino wants tax dollars used to help pay for a permanent $16.5 million stadium.

This is the very same stadium which, only a few years ago, promoter Butch Buchholz had promised to build with private funds. Not a penny of public money would be spent, he said.

What happened? We got stuck again, that’s what. The Lipton is costing county government plenty, and it’s about to get much worse. Having been clobbered once in court, the county charges onward heedlessly, making the same mistakes. It is certain to be sued again.

Undaunted, the commission on Tuesday accepted Avino’s tennis-tax plan, allowing him to begin negotiations. Short-term memory loss apparently afflicts some of the commissioners, who only two years ago vowed to spend no more public funds on the Lipton.

Hailed by supporters as a booming triumph, the tennis tournament nonetheless loses money year after year. Most private businesses, faced with such chronic deficits, would either reorganize or go bankrupt. Not the Lipton, which has been a special charity case from Day One.

First the county handed over a big chunk of a public park. Then it financed a $1 million clubhouse. Then it paid for the parking lots. Then it sweet-talked the state out of a cool $1 million or so. Now it wants to tax tourist motels to bankroll a new stadium.

Which brings up another mystery. For months we’ve been warned that the Lipton would abandon Dade County for greener pastures if a permanent 12,000-seat stadium weren’t constructed. Then an appellate court ruled that the tournament violates the deed, as written by the Matheson family when it donated the unspoiled property half a century ago.

Suddenly the ultimatum for a 12,000-seat stadium disappeared. Planners emerged with a new scheme for a smaller, 7,500-seat stadium with more public parking. It was put forward as a “compromise” to please worried Key Biscayne residentsbut the real effect was to dodge the South Florida Regional Planning Council, which must review and approve large projects. Supporters defend these tactics by saying the Lipton is good for Florida, good for Dade County, good for Key Biscayne. They claim a positive economic impact of $111 million annuallyan unsubstantiated puffery based on some of the wildest calculations you ever saw.

Certainly this is a fine tennis tournament, but it ought to succeed or fail on its own. To use millions in tax money to prop up a private sports enterprise is reckless. To use a public park for it is a disgrace.

There’s nothing to stop the promoters from buying their own land and developing their own tennis stadiumpeople in South Florida would cheer for its success. As it now stands, every taxpayer in Dade County should get free admission to the Lipton tournament, since they’ve paid for so much of it.

Even if the commission votes for the tennis tax, there’s an excellent chance the stadium will need a new location. If the Matheson property isn’t used exclusively for public park purposes, the deed allows the family to invoke a “reverter” clause to take the land back.

Which is exactly what they’re contemplating.

If the Matheson heirs choose to reclaim the donated property, it will be a lacerating embarrassment to the county. The family could give the Crandon tract to either the state or the federal government for preservation as a park. That means no tennis stadium, no retail shops, no tournament.

The county will fight it, of coursespending hundreds of thousands more tax dollars on what could easily be a losing cause. And a misguided one.

Parks shouldn’t be used to fill private coffers

April 19, 1992

All parks officially are up for grabs. Dade Circuit Judge Gerald Wetherington has ruled that putting a 14,000-seat tennis stadium in Crandon Park is no big deal.

The pioneer Matheson family, which donated the land, has been fighting the proposed Lipton tennis center. The Mathesons say the property wasn’t meant to be handed to a private sports promoter. The 1940 deed gave the land for “public park purposes only.”

In a decision that warmed the hearts of would-be developers, Wetherington said: “As times have changed, the concept of public purpose has changed.”

Twisted is more like it. The term “public purpose” now means taking public land for the purpose of enhancing private pocketbooks. It’s a broad concept that benefits entrepreneurs who are too cheap to buy their own property.

The Lipton technically leases part of Crandon, but the tournament remains heavily subsidized with public funds. Naturally, the new stadium will be built with tax dollars.