Four years later, Beckham and his latest latest collection of business partners, now led by the sons of Jorge Mas Canosa, finally decided to give up on the waterfront as the site for their soccer stadium, but have actually doubled down on their other demands which is still is to get a large enough piece of public land to do what they wanted to do from the very beginning: build a massive real estate development that would make them all centi-millionaires.





Their latest plans call for:

1,000,000 square feet of office space

380,000 square feet of food, beverage and retail space

120,000 square feet for music and entertainment related uses

A 20,000 square foot conference center

A 500 room hotel

And oh yeah, a 28,000 seat soccer stadium





Contrary to the claims that the taxpayers of Miami will not pay a single penny, that's bullshit. Taxpayers always get stuck for costs that are never discussed or disclosed until the time comes to pay the bill.





And they want this massive piece of public land from a city that suffers from historic levels of income inequality, a serious lack of affordable housing, and the promise - not a threat, but an absolutely 100% promise - that well before the year 2100, large swathes of the city will be severely impacted as a result of climate change and sea level rise, and the last thing that many of the soccer fans of today will care about is worrying about the standing of their soccer team.





Now, mind you, there's nothing wrong with making money, even really serious money, but there is a lot wrong when making that money involves collusion between rich folks and elected officials who's past behavior has shown a disturbing willingness not only to bend the law in order to let these rich folks to get richer, but to actually screw the residents of the city in the process.





There are any number of legitimate reasons for why this deal should not be allowed to go forward, and hopefully some of them will be articulated at the Commission meeting, although a word of warning about how this process is handled.





If Chairman Keon Hardemon announces on Thursday morning that the only opportunity for public comments on this issue will be allowed during the morning public comments portion of the meeting, and not at the afternoon session when this item is actually going to be heard, then the fix is definitely in.





Of course the fix is already in, but this will tell you that the fix is so locked in that they don't care about the optics.





AN UNSOLICITED BID, IS AN UNSOLICITIED BID, AND THERE'S A PROCESS FOR HOW TO DEAL WITH UNSOLICITED BIDS





For me, the issue that raises the most alarm is that this proposal for Mel Reese Park is a simple and straight forward unsolicited proposal, and the process for handling unsolicited proposals, whether they come from the Baby Jesus, David Beckham or anyone else who walks into a government office with an idea on how they'd like to use a piece of public property, should be pretty straight forward for everyone.()





I believe that this ordinance is applicable on the basis that this project is being presented by the proposers first and foremost as the construction of a soccer stadium, which under any definition would qualify as a facility to be used for public purposes, and that the provision that requires that the project be in the public's interest is met by the fact that the public will be asked to approve this project via a referendum.





The government or government agency being solicited has to first determine that they do indeed want to do something with the piece of property being sought through the unsolicited proposal, and if they do, then they have to provide an opportunity for others who might have another idea on what to do with the property to submit their ideas through an RFP process.





Local governments, government agencies and politicians operating in the best interests of the citizens and taxpayers will always follow this process because it's the right and legal way to handle an unsolicited proposal.





If on the other hand, a local government or government agency attempts to ignore or wave the requirements to solicit other proposals then the odds start going up that the deal is cooked, and that the politicians are at best doing favors for their pals, or worse, that the politicians are crooks who have been bribed.





When a deal that's valued at a billion - that's BILLION - dollars or more, there are no grey areas that provide cover for politicians not following best practices to insure that the deal is not only done right, but that everyone can believe that it was done right.





At the end of the day, one thing is almost always certain, and that is that if a deal starts out crooked, you can pretty much bet that it will continue operating crookedly throughout the life of the deal.





Unfortunately, this looks like it's going to be another It's Miami, Bitches deal. and I am going to say now that I believe the final vote approving this deal will be Carollo, Reyes and Hardemon for, and Willie Gort against. Commissioner "Selfie Boy" Russell's vote is not going to affect the decision, and in fact the only unknown in his decision is whether he continues to be believe that if he sucks up to Carollo and Reyes and votes for this they'll quit bitch slapping him at Commission meetings.





They won't, but then watching Russell get slapped at Commission meetings has become a reason for some folks to tune in to watch the show.





For those opposed to this giveaway, you better plan now to hit the streets and get people to come out and Vote NO in November, because on Thursday you're going to be ignored, and screwed by the political equivalent of serial rapists.