Published by: THE MIAMI HERALD
Written by: CHARLES RABIN
Posted: 2/26/09
Two Miami activists filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday in a last-minute bid to stop a new baseball stadium from rising in Little Havana.
The suit comes a week before Miami commissioners are to vote on a handful of contracts that, if approved along with county votes a week later, would bring the Florida Marlins their long-sought stadium.
The suit, filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court by Elvis Cruz and Grace Solares, contends that a preliminary Baseball Stadium Agreement passed a year ago should be declared void because meetings leading up to the vote were not held publicly.
The duo has asked a judge to stop the scheduled stadium votes if the minutes of meetings held between last year's vote and now are not made public. Florida has stringent Sunshine Laws that forbid elected officials from meeting privately.
''When is the public going to be able to observe these negotiations?'' asked attorney Linda L. Carroll, representing Cruz and Solares.
Miami and Miami-Dade County are listed as defendants. The city and county could not immediately be reached for comment late Wednesday.
The ''sunshine'' issue has been raised before -- unsuccessfully. It was one of the early counts dismissed in auto dealer Norman Braman's legal attempt last summer to derail the stadium plan. The judge said there was no evidence elected officials met to discuss the plan outside the public eye.
Carroll contends the cases differ. The lawsuit argues that in the past year county administrators and commissioners, city administrators and commissioners and Miami Mayor Manny Diaz met without public notice and ``out of the Sunshine.''
The lawsuit also delves into a Commission meeting two weeks ago that turned chaotic when Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff put off a scheduled vote by demanding a host of concessions from the ballclub.
Cruz and Solares argue that any negotiations that took place as staff and commissioners scrambled to save the deal should have been aired publicly.
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