Mayor to meet with FIU and Youth Fair over standoff

Mayor to meet with FIU and Youth Fair over standoff
  • Sumo

fair2Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez is scheduled to meet Thursday with representatives from Florida International University and the Miami-Dade County Youth Fair over their standoff on the school’s expansion plans into the fairgrounds.

The Fair people don’t want to move — and they don’t have to. They have a locked-in lease through 2085. That’s 70 years of Twilt-A-Whirl at Tamiami Park.

The vote that passed with 65% approval last year was to give FIU the same variance on land use as we give the Youth Fair if the university ever got lucky enough to move onto the 63 acres of fair grounds property, which is really zoned as a park. It is not a “mandate” that the non-profit Youth Fair get their ferris wheel and corndogs and scram — no matter what the FIU honchos and their highly paid lobbyists would have you believe.

Read related story: FIU pumps up the pressure in fight over Youth Fair grounds

The FIU people want The Fair to move to an area of unincorporated Miami-Dade just outside Homestead. They are expected to give a FIUpresentation at 3 p.m. Thursday to the mayor and the Youth Fair people.

But Youth Fair President and CEO Robert Hohenstein thinks its for the same Homestead Air Reserve Base property that his executive board has unanimously rejected twice.

“We have unequivocally told anybody who will listen that we are not interested in that site,” Hohenstein told Ladra Wednesday afternoon. “But in order to be a good citizen, good neighbor and as open minded as we can be, without hurting our business, we’ll go to the meeting and listen to what they have to say.”

He has far more patience than Ladra does. We called the FIU president’s office and are still waiting to hear back.

Gimenez is expected to broker some kind of deal at a meeting at 3 p.m. Thursday. Maybe it will be one of those best ever, unprecedented deals. Maybe he can put a stadium on top, like a cherry.

Ladra can’t help but wonder what Carlos “Mr. Giveaway” Gimenez Youth Fairis going to have to throw in to make this happen. You know he wants to. He has already said he supports the FIU expansion. He needs to make the FIU honchos happy so they can fund his re-election next year. What kind of “economic incentive” is he dreaming up as we write/read this to convince the Youth Fair people to move? How many millions is he going to have to give them? Will he defer fees, rent payments?

The mayor’s spokesman wasn’t immediately available. He’s been making himself scarce since that PBA ruling came against the mayor’s veto. And he probably wouldn’t tell me if I did get him. But there’s no other reason for Gimenez to have this meeting, to be involved in this negotiation at all, except to sweeten the deal, grease the wheels, so to speak.

FIU is supposed to pay for the move, but might they be willing to dangle mo’ money in front of the Youth Fair people to offset any losses the $13 million-a-year operation may suffer in the relocation process?

That would still be taxpayer monies, since the school is getting state subsidies for the move, and Hohenstein wants none of it.

Read related story: FIU’s predictable ‘mandate’ argument — no fair to Fair

“We’re not interested in any public money of any kind,” Hohenstein said.fair “That’s one of the problems we have as a community and as a country today, too many people with their hands out wanting our tax dollars.

“That’s not what we’re about. It’s not in our DNA.

“We have said for five years, because it has literally been five years since we first started talking about this in 2010, is that we want three things,” he said.

“We want a site equal to or better than in all respects to our current location. We want reimbursement for investments made in the park, as the lease agreement calls for, and we want three years notice, as the lease agreement calls for.”

So, wait, the county can terminate the lease? Of course, if all fails, the county can simply say it is acting in the interests of the voter mandate and terminate the lease, letting a judge decided what it was worth.

Hohenstein doesn’t want to think that.

“I’m going under the assumption that the county would not simply terminate the lease,” he said.

 

6 Responses to "Mayor to meet with FIU and Youth Fair over standoff"

    • Here’s how I know that’s not true… because if that happened, the FIU folks would be singing it from the rooftops and taking out full-page ads and TV commercials about it.

  1. What the fair guy needs to go after is how Don Mafia Carlito’s henchmen have been working the fair for years. All that construction we have seen go up is directly burning dealt with carlos inner circle of friends and lobbyist. Today the axe comes down and FIU will evict the fair thru Mr Ritten Teeth, Yes the man with the best plans ever, don’t be Surprised if Beckem deal is included in the FIU expansion. As that’s been quiet in the hands of his old friend Chippy.

    Dade county corruption will never end.

    La Mafia de Miami, Fidel Castro has always been right on that!

  2. WHY do you assume that Carlos is hosting a meeting to “bribe” the fair executives? Your last point hit it on the nail. Don Carlos will be threatening the Fair of termination of the lease would be my guess! Have you ever saw a more naive player in Miami than this Fair guy?! He is going under the assumption that the County would not terminate the lease?! Why would he think that? Has he not met the mafia Don Carlos?! Trust me its going to be move or “the horse head in the bed you choose” at this meeting today! The fair thinks they are dealing with honorable people who are trying to be fair give me a break they are dealing with crooks who see a Mark and they will get that land one way or another regardless of a lease. I can not even feel bad for the Fair folks as they seem too stupid for sympathy as they bring knives to a gun fight against Don Carlos and his Mafia family.

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