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classrooms and housing and parking lots and what not. But 
they can’t use it for legal ramifications of paying the multi million in damages for strong arm tactics to get what they want.
Gee, what a concept.
By the way, is Gimenez suggesting FIU pay the legal fees with our tax dollars? Where does he think that money is coming from? Or maybe there will be some PAC or non-profit created to raise funds (shake down more vendors and contractors) for the cost of breaking the contract. There are a lot of people who will make a lot of money on the proposed expansion.
Read related story: FIU pumps up the pressure in fight over Youth Fair grounds
It is not too far fetched for Gimenez to do, you know? He is used to breaking his word. Breaking the county’s word taken by someone else way back when he was just a city of Miami firefighter should be no big deal.
But FIU isn’t willing to go there. It doesn’t look right. Even they know that. 
FIU has been a little bullish in the past, using subliminal messages in ads about the number of graduates and calling the vote in 2014 — in which voters simply said the school could get the same waiver to use the park land as the Fair enjoyed now — a mandate. A bleeping mandate. Very manipulative.
But they won’t go as far as to finance the breach of a legal contract and, basically, be responsible for killing the Youth Fair. No, they want Gimenez to do that.
In so doing, the mayor has repeatedly misstated (read: lied about) the referendum that voters passed with 65 percent in 2014.
“The referendum said, yeah we’d like to move the Youth Fair and give FIU the land so they can expand,” Gimenez told the editorial board.
Um, no, it did not. The ballot question only asked voters to approve the same kind of land use waiver that the Fair enjoys now if there was ever a deal with FIU and the school could expand. That is it. Oh, and that any deal to relocate the Fair would not cost county dollars. It didn’t say move the Fair.
Read related story: FIU’s predictable ‘mandate’ no fair to Fair
Youth Fair executives have said repeatedly that the locations they have considered at the 
county’s suggestion are not economically viable. Fair CEO Robert Hohenstein told Ladra the last time we talked that the South Dade property FIU is pushing would kill the event within five or six years, according to their study.
They are quite willing, however, to share the space at Tamiami Park, even though they have this “incredibly sweet deal” that doesn’t require them to do a thing. But FIU is not, apparently, even considering that. Why not? It’s a youth fair, after all. Your future students participate in the expo’s many agricultural, artistic and innovative competitions. Why not have some kind of partnership right there — as you proposed in South Dade — on this historically significant site for them? And for all of us, really.
Seems like a no brainer. A very symbiotic relationship is just waiting if they’ll give it a chance. And, maybe, if Mother Hen Miami-Dade leaves them alone.
It also seems like it’s time to let FIU and The Fair figure this out on their own. The county’s commitment is clear: We’ll do whatever we can, outside of spending public money, to help in the move and transition. Let FIU and their booster club spin its wheels finding a location that The Fair people will buy into. But this should no longer be something that the mayor and his senior advisor, Michael Spring, work on proactively.
Certainly, they have better things to do.
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